As hard as it is to believe, the second year gives every indication of being worse than the first.
Year One, 2025-2026 is here: http://tony-silva.com/undertrump
Happy 1-year anniversary, Trump. You broke everything.
One year after President Donald Trump took the oath of office for the second time, his fragile ego and blatant refusal to follow the laws of the United States has destroyed the safety and security Americans once held.
Rather than reflecting on how he could improve his abysmal approval rating, Trump instead spent the days leading up to his one-year anniversary in office doubling down on his least popular policies, threatening heightened tariffs against countries opposed to his imperialist desires - Daily Kos https://bit.ly/466MiDg
Trump’s First Year Could Have Lasting Economic Consequences
Much more so than in his first four years in office, Mr. Trump has begun his second term with what amounts to an all-out assault on many of the institutions and policy paradigms that have long been seen by leaders of both major political parties as the foundations of American economic strength.
He has sought to undermine the independence of the Federal Reserve, fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, an agency that collects key economic data, and cut funding to the universities that conduct much of the country’s cutting-edge scientific research. He has intervened in private business deals, taken stakes in private companies and threatened corporate executives who do not adequately embrace his policy priorities. He has sharply restricted immigration, questioned the value of America’s alliances and imposed punishing tariffs on friends as well as adversaries.
Many of those actions are being challenged in the courts, and future presidents could reverse course on at least some of the current administration’s policies. But economists from across the ideological spectrum warn that Mr. Trump is setting the country on a path that will, in the long run, leave the economy less dynamic, the financial system less stable and Americans less prosperous in the decades ahead.
“We’re weakening the special sauce that made America so great,” said Kimberly A. Clausing, an economist at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4qy3Osg
‘God Is Very Proud’: Trump Marks Anniversary With a Victory Lap
His staff had printed out a 31-page list of his accomplishments, but President Trump had other ideas for how he wanted to mark the anniversary of his return to office.
Standing at the lectern in the White House’s James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, Mr. Trump flipped quickly through the paperwork and tossed it on the floor.
Then he held court — airing old grievances, attacking perceived enemies, threatening allies — for roughly one hour 45 minutes.
“I think God is very proud of the job I’ve done,” Mr. Trump said as he neared the end of his remarks. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4qrP91O
How Trump Has Used the Presidency to Make at Least $1.4 Billion
President Trump has never been a man to ask what he can do for his country. In his second term, as in his first, he is instead testing the limits of what his country can do for him.
He has poured his energy and creativity into the exploitation of the presidency — into finding out just how much money people, corporations and other nations are willing to put into his pockets in hopes of bending the power of the government to the service of their interests.
A review by the editorial board relying on analyses from news organizations shows that Mr. Trump has used the office of the presidency to make at least $1.4 billion. We know this number to be an underestimate because some of his profits remain hidden from public view. And they continue to grow. - NYT https://nyti.ms/49zBQXj
5 big takeaways from CNN’s poll of Trump’s first year
President Donald Trump is one day away from the one-year mark of his second term. Over the past week, CNN has rolled out a series of poll findings on where Americans stand on his performance so far.
It hasn’t been encouraging for Trump. - CNN https://cnn.it/4r573Yc
Oddest moments from Trump's first year in office
(Video) - CNN https://cnn.it/4r573Yc
Trump Exhaustion Syndrome
A year into Trump’s second term, the emboldened president’s maximalist strategy—pushing every norm to its most elastic, and then a bit beyond, and from that new breaking point pushing yet again—conjures the boiling-frog theory, in which a frog placed in boiling water will immediately hop out, but a frog placed in cool water that is slowly heated will complacently boil to death. (And yes, I know that this amphibious metaphor for failing to notice incremental negative changes is apocryphal, but the lesson is still apt.)
Or, as the former Trump adviser Steve Bannon put it to me, the Overton window is moving so far, so quickly, that the more apt way to understand Trump’s strategy is: “Fuck the Overton window.” - Atlantic https://bit.ly/4b6GGwg
ONE YEAR IN: More Expensive & Less Free
During his first year in office, President Trump and his allies ruthlessly committed to turning the Project 2025 agenda from a plan into reality. The administration committed the single biggest act of union-busting in history, launched a brutal assault on immigrants and communities across the country, and attacked our most fundamental rights, including the freedom of speech. It has ripped health care from millions, made billionaires richer and corporations more powerful, moved to unleash untested artificial intelligence (AI) technology, and dismantled government agencies that provide essential services.
And every day in the Trump economy, working people are struggling to get by. President Trump promised to “make America affordable again,” but instead spent his first year driving up costs, holding down wages and letting jobs disappear.
One year into President Trump’s second term, working people’s lives are more expensive and less free. - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/3NxSLAT
Trump ties Greenland takeover bid to Nobel Prize in text to Norway leader
Trump’s push to take over Greenland and unleash a trade war with European nations has sparked the greatest transatlantic crisis in generations. - WaPo https://wapo.st/4t7xApN
Trump plans to charge $1 billion for permanent seat on ‘Board of Peace’
Details about the Trump-led board have prompted speculation that it could be a U.S.-led U.N. alternative. Trump confirmed that Russia’s Vladimir Putin has been invited. - WaPo https://wapo.st/49Lymjk
The White House wanted an ICE spectacle. It backfired.
The shooting of Renée Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis may influence public opinion. Nine days prior, a large ICE operation in the same county involved over two dozen officers escorting a single man. - WaPo https://wapo.st/4sUQFve
Trump Links His Push for Greenland to Not Winning Nobel Peace Prize
“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,” Mr. Trump wrote in the message, which was first published by PBS. - NYT https://nyti.ms/3NtHfGG
Monday Afternoon News Updates — 1/19/26
This Monday afternoon, I want to bring everyone up to speed on a series of developments that unfolded over the holiday weekend and into Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Trump’s actions, especially in the past 24 hours, have been so deranged that many assumed the stories we have reported on were satire. Unfortunately, they are deadly serious.
Late last night, news broke that Donald Trump sent a message directly to the Prime Minister of Norway threatening the country after it declined to support Trump’s push to seize control of Greenland. The message was so extreme that even renowned journalists initially questioned whether it could be real. It was quickly verified by Norwegian officials and corroborated by Finland’s prime minister.
In the message to Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, Trump explicitly tied his anger to the Nobel Peace Prize, claiming that because he did not receive it, he no longer felt bound to prioritize peace. He went on to assert that Denmark had no legitimate claim to Greenland, dismissed centuries of history, and declared that “the world is not secure unless we have complete and total control of Greenland.” I understand Trump officials get all made if you say this, but this is the language of dictators. And we will not hesitate to call it out, depsite their threats. - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/45lsj3D
Greenland?
It could be a Monty Python skit from 40 years ago: A demented U.S. president demands that Norway award him the Nobel Peace Prize (which he initially spells “Noble,” and which isn’t Norway’s to give anyway), after converting the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War, sending troops into American cities, threatening Canada, and abducting the president of a Latin American country by force.
When he doesn’t get the peace prize, he says he’s no longer interested in peace and decides to take over Greenland. When Greenland refuses him, and Denmark and the rest of Europe make a fuss, he goes into a rage, raises tariffs on Europe (which cost Americans dearly), and threatens war on NATO. The president of Russia is delighted.
Can’t you see it? Eric Idle plays the American president — full of himself and utterly off his rocker. John Cleese is the vicious and hapless Latin American president who’s abducted. Terry Gilliam is the baffled, incredulous head of Greenland. Terry Jones plays the righteous leader of Denmark, Graham Chapman a perplexed NATO dignitary, and Michael Palin the wacky but triumphant president of Russia. - Reich Substack https://bit.ly/3NmRBs1
Today in Politics, Bulletin 289. 1/19/26
… Trump sent this deranged letter to Norway PM Jonas Gahr:
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. - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/4r4UM65
Judge Allows Policy Restricting Lawmakers’ Access to ICE Facilities
A federal judge in Washington declined on Monday to immediately block the Department of Homeland Security from requiring lawmakers to provide seven days’ notice before they try to visit and inspect immigration detention facilities.
Without finding that the policy itself was legal, Judge Jia M. Cobb of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia wrote that the group of lawmakers who sued to halt it would need to revise their lawsuit in a way that directly addressed the Trump administration’s latest rationale.
Judge Cobb had blocked an essentially identical policy by the agency in December, citing a provision of the appropriations law that funds the department and requires facilities to be open to congressional oversight. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4a3wfsh
Trump Is Pushing the U.S.-Europe Alliance Onto a Precipice
What happens to an 80-year-old diplomatic alliance when its leading power threatens a military invasion of one member, wages economic war on the others and vows to cultivate political and cultural resistance to their governments?
Is the alliance doomed?
That question is being asked in capitals across Europe as leaders rush to respond to President Trump’s rapidly escalating campaign to acquire Greenland over the objections of the people who live there. At issue most urgently is whether resisting Mr. Trump’s territorial ambitions risks damaging Europe’s relationship with the United States beyond repair. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4sQlzES
What to Know About Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ for Gaza
On Friday, letters went out asking countries to join the newly minted body, among them U.S. allies like Canada, France, Britain and Saudi Arabia. But Russia and Belarus, hardly allies, were also on the list.
And a review of the body’s charter — which governments received alongside their invitations — suggested that Mr. Trump hoped the Board of Peace could get involved in all kinds of global conflicts, not just the one in the Gaza Strip.
Critics reacted furiously, saying the Trump administration appeared to be setting up the board as a potential American-dominated rival to the United Nations, which Mr. Trump has long accused of liberal bias and waste. - NYT https://nyti.ms/464NPtw
Trump Administration Asks Judge to Reject Minnesota’s Call to Block ICE Surge
The Justice Department asked a federal judge on Monday to allow a surge of immigration agents in Minnesota to continue despite a lawsuit filed by state and local officials claiming that the deployment is unconstitutional.
Lawyers for the state and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul say in the suit that the operation violates Minnesota’s sovereignty under the 10th Amendment. It says that the federal government’s “actions appear designed to provoke community outrage, sow fear and inflict emotional distress, and they are interfering with the ability of state and local officials to protect and care for their residents.” - NYT https://nyti.ms/49u8IAG
‘An Unbelievable Mess’: Artists Are Stymied by Trump Travel Bans
The travel bans — along with escalating costs and delays in the always-fraught visa application process — represent a looming crisis for the American performing arts sector, as many overseas musicians, theater companies and others face new and seemingly insurmountable obstacles to travel. Some, assessing the risks, are electing to avoid coming here altogether, according to talent agents and the American promoters and producers who are now contemplating holes in their calendars. - NYT https://nyti.ms/3Nw8MqW
One Year After Texas Measles Outbreak Began, Experts Consider Another Grim Milestone
It’s unclear whether the United States can keep its designation as a country that officially eliminated the disease. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4sQSyc3
In Minneapolis, I Glimpsed a Civil War
Late last Wednesday night, I was standing on a street corner in the Hawthorne neighborhood in North Minneapolis when I witnessed an extraordinary confrontation. A federal agent marched up a narrow residential sidewalk flanked by modest bungalows, kitted out in gear fit for the battle of Falluja: full body armor, military boots and camouflage fatigues and helmet, with a heavy machine gun slung by his side. His carriage was erect, his gaze fixed straight ahead, seemingly oblivious to the crowd of protesters who blew whistles and shouted curses as he passed, enraged that one week after Renee Good was gunned down by an ICE agent, another civilian had been shot by ICE in their city.
Suddenly, the tense scene dissolved into slapstick. The federal officer slipped on a patch of ice and tumbled to the ground. A raucous roar of laughter and jeers erupted from the protesters surrounding him. He scrambled to his feet and marched on. But a few seconds later one of the protesters shouted, “He dropped his magazine!”
And sure enough, lying on the patch of ice was a fully loaded magazine from his automatic weapon. Dan Engelhart, one of the city’s parks commissioners, was standing nearby. He grabbed the magazine and turned it over in his hands.
“Well, we’re fucking close to civil war,” he told me. - NYT https://nyti.ms/3LTvuZG
I’m the Secretary General of the Council of Europe. This Is Something I Thought I’d Never Have to Write.
When I took my post as secretary general of the Council of Europe just over a year ago, I did not think that I would ever have to write about the possibility of the United States taking military action against a member state.
Yet here we are.
President Trump has vowed to make Greenland — a semiautonomous territory of Denmark, which is a member of the Council of Europe and a founding member of NATO — part of the United States, and that he will do so “the easy way” or “the hard way.”
His statements about the territory have strained relations between states and called into question the rights, consent and democratic choices of Greenland’s people. For now, this remains talk. But recent events in Venezuela show how quickly words can harden into action. - NYT https://nyti.ms/3NG4xZX
Trump canceled or stopped enforcement against 166 corporations in his first year. Many of them were donors
A scathing new report from consumer-advocacy group Public Citizen has found that, during the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, federal agencies canceled or froze enforcement actions against 166 corporations — many of which have financial, lobbying, or personal ties to the Trump administration. - Quartz https://bit.ly/3YOCBWc
The MAGA Plan to Take Over TV Is Just Beginning
Under Trump, the F.C.C. has used obscure regulatory powers to crack down on network TV. Some conservatives are pushing back. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4qsuwCD
Epstein survivor backs bid to appoint court monitor, has 'no confidence' in Trump DOJ
One of Jeffrey Epstein’s survivors who appeared in front of Capitol Hill late last year in support of legislation to release the investigative file urged a federal judge to appoint a so-called special master as a monitor to oversee the release of the files.
Lisa Phillips told a judge that she had “no confidence” that Trump’s Justice Department would comply with federal law mandating the release of the files, “already 30 days late” on the deadline “with no end in sight.” - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/4sOpfHf
Letters from an American - January 19, 2026 - Heather Cox Richardson
Late last night, Nick Schifrin of PBS NewsHour posted on social media that the staff of the U.S. National Security Council had sent to European ambassadors in Washington a message that President Donald J. Trump had already sent to Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre of Norway. The message read:
“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”
Faisal Islam of the BBC voiced the incredulity rippling across social media in the wake of Schifrin’s post, writing: “Even by the standards of the past week, like others, I struggle to comprehend how the below letter on Greenland/Nobel might be real, although it appears to come from the account of a respected PBS journalist… this is what I meant by beyond precedent, parody and reality….” Later, Islam confirmed on live TV that the letter was real and posted on X: “Incredible… the story is actually not a parody.” - Cox Richardson https://bit.ly/4jYqcsA
Justice Department plans to subpoena Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison
The Justice Department is planning to subpoena Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison in a criminal investigation of several state and local officials, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
The planned subpoenas are related to an investigation into possible obstruction of federal officers in the state during recent protests, the sources said.
CNN has previously reported Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey are also expected to receive federal criminal subpoenas from the US Attorney’s Office in the state. - CNN https://cnn.it/3NDI3bY
Trump’s Letter to Norway Should Be the Last Straw
One could observe many things about this document. One is the childish grammar, including the strange capitalizations (“Complete and Total Control”). Another is the loose grasp of history. Donald Trump did not end eight wars. Greenland has been Danish territory for centuries. Its residents are Danish citizens who vote in Danish elections. There are many “written documents” establishing Danish sovereignty in Greenland, including some signed by the United States. In his second term, Trump has done nothing for NATO—an organization that the U.S. created and theoretically leads, and that has only ever been used in defense of American interests. If the European members of NATO have begun spending more on their own defense (budgets to which the U.S. never contributed), that’s because of the threat they feel from Russia.
Yet what matters isn’t the specific phrases, but the overall message: Donald Trump now genuinely lives in a different reality, one in which neither grammar nor history nor the normal rules of human interaction now affect him. Also, he really is maniacally, unhealthily obsessive about the Nobel Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee, not the Norwegian government and certainly not the Danish government, determines the winner of that prize. Yet Trump now not only blames Norway for failing to give it to him, but is using it as a justification for an invasion of Greenland. - Atlantic https://bit.ly/4sGDdL8
The Military Is Being Forced to Plan for an Unthinkable Betrayal
The United States is a global superpower, and its military trains for war in every domain. During my years as a military educator, I saw American officers wrestle with any number of scenarios designed to challenge their thinking and force them to adapt to surprises. One case we never considered, however, was how to betray and attack our own allies. We did not ask what to do if the president becomes a threatening megalomaniac who tells one of our oldest friends, Norway, that because the Nobel Committee in Oslo refuses to give him a trophy, he no longer feels “an obligation to think purely of Peace” and can instead turn his mind toward planning to wage war against NATO.
As my colleague Anne Applebaum wrote today, Donald Trump’s threatening message to the Norwegian prime minister should, in any responsible democracy, force the rest of the U.S. political system to act to control him. The president is talking about an invasion that would require “citizens of a treaty ally,” as she put it, “to become American against their will,” all because he “now genuinely lives in a different reality.” And yet neither Congress nor the sycophants in the White House seem willing to stop him. - Atlantic https://bit.ly/49GPt5G
Trump, sharing leaked texts and AI mock-ups, vows 'no going back' on Greenland
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday there was "no going back" on his goal to control Greenland, refusing to rule out taking the Arctic island by force and rounding on allies as European leaders struggled to respond.
Trump's ambition - spelled out in social media posts and mock-up AI images - to wrest sovereignty over Greenland from fellow NATO member Denmark has threatened to blow apart the alliance that has underpinned Western security for decades. - Reuters https://reut.rs/4sOqaaF
Volunteers in Minnesota Deliver Groceries So Immigrants Can Hide at Home
Thousands of Minneapolis residents have joined a church-run effort to deliver donated groceries to immigrant families who fear being caught in public by federal agents. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4sUwP3a
How Trump Has Used the Presidency to Make at Least $1.4 Billion
President Trump has never been a man to ask what he can do for his country. In his second term, as in his first, he is instead testing the limits of what his country can do for him.
He has poured his energy and creativity into the exploitation of the presidency — into finding out just how much money people, corporations and other nations are willing to put into his pockets in hopes of bending the power of the government to the service of their interests.
A review by the editorial board relying on analyses from news organizations shows that Mr. Trump has used the office of the presidency to make at least $1.4 billion. We know this number to be an underestimate because some of his profits remain hidden from public view. And they continue to grow. - NYT https://nyti.ms/3YSPtdU
US tariffs are paid almost entirely by Americans, a German study finds
A favorite tool of President Donald Trump has been costing Americans, according to new study.
The brunt of US tariffs — 96% — have been paid by US buyers, research from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German think tank, found, while about 4% of the tariff burden was paid by foreign exporters.
"American importers and consumers bear nearly all the cost," the researchers said of the tariffs.
The study, published Monday, said that the $200 billion increase in customs revenue that the US government raised in 2025 was a "tax paid almost entirely by Americans." - Yahoo https://yhoo.it/3LJWMBI
Tech workers ask their bosses to ‘call the White House’ over ICE raids
A public letter signed by hundreds of tech workers said CEOs must “pick up the phone” to press Trump to pull back ICE deployments. - WaPo https://wapo.st/4bDqDWY
Trump Issues Awful MLK Day Statement After Uproar Over His Silence
President Trump issued a flimsy, ill-defined proclamation on Martin Luther King Jr. Day at 8:15 p.m., after hours of silence—and criticism from the NAACP. - New Republic https://bit.ly/3LDBXIa
Fox News finally admits Trump's incompetence will impact midterms
Fox News has now admitted that President Donald Trump’s lackluster support in public opinion polls could be a drag on Republicans in this year’s pivotal midterm elections and could lead to the party losing control of Congress.
In an article published Tuesday on FoxNews.com, the conservative network cast doubt on Republican National Committee Chair Joe Gruters’ description of Trump as the GOP’s “secret weapon” ahead of the midterms.
“One year into his second tour of duty in the White House, public opinion surveys suggest many Americans are souring on the president and his agenda,” the Fox article noted, in a rare admission of reality. - Daily Kos https://bit.ly/3ZpJFbY
‘F-ck off’: Danish leader has had it with Trump’s Greenland nonsense
Anders Vistisen, a Danish member of the European Parliament, shared his opinion of President Donald Trump’s Greenland aggressions during a debate Monday, making his stance very clear.
“Let me put this in words you might understand,” he said. “Mr. President: Fuck off.” - Daily Kos https://bit.ly/4qziAzh
GOP furious after Newsom gives them taste of their own medicine
Republicans are up in arms after California Gov. Gavin Newsom set a special election to fill a GOP-held House seat for Aug. 4—the latest date he could under state law.
The move ensures that the seat—left vacant when Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa died unexpectedly on Jan. 6—will be open for eight months, thereby robbing House Speaker Mike Johnson of a critical vote in his narrow and unruly majority. - Daily Kos
Tuesday Afternoon News Updates as Trump is Isolated on World Stage — 1/20/26
I’ve been tracking the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland today. I’ll just say it up front: this has been a humiliating day for the United States. Donald Trump’s regime arrived expecting deference. It thought Trump has successfully bullied our allies into kissing the ring. Instead, it was met with open rebuke, cancelled meetings, and growing global resistance. - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/49x989r
How Trump Is Remaking America, State by State
When President Trump vowed a “tide of change” in his inaugural address last year, he was not exaggerating.
One year in, those changes are everywhere, often turbulent and polarizing, manifestations of the sharp right turn that Mr. Trump promised for the country and the world.
The president has declared that his power is constrained only by his “own morality.” That sentiment has made itself felt in the aggressive immigration enforcement in Minneapolis and other cities, which has led to one death.
The Times found evidence of change in all 50 states, no place left untouched. This is by no means a complete list.
Then again, Mr. Trump says that he is far from finished. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4bahhlt
How Many People Has Trump Deported So Far?
The monthly rate of deportations to most countries in the world has increased, even as the rate has actually fallen for some countries in Central America.
The rate of deportations of people with a violent criminal conviction or other criminal record has doubled, while the rate for people with no criminal record has gone up more than six times. - NYT https://nyti.ms/49ywj3h
The Posting Presidency Has Never Felt More Impotent
President Donald Trump has been posting to Truth Social incessantly on Tuesday morning in the lead-up to his flight to Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum. He’s sharing AI-generated images about conquering Greenland, he’s called for unnamed officials from the Biden era to be prosecuted for unspecified crimes, and he’s tried to tell the Department of Homeland Security how to post better to win the propaganda war in Minnesota. He’s even shared private Signal conversations he’s had with European leaders.
Every Trump post is a fascist threat that should be taken seriously. But sitting here on Jan. 20, 2026, a year since he was inaugurated for his second term, Trump’s steady stream of posting has never made him look more pathetic. Amid the chaos of his online presence, the desperation emanating from each tweet is perhaps reason to be optimistic that average Americans will prevail in the fight against Trumpism. - Gizmodo https://bit.ly/49IOFNG
ICE agents eat at small-town Mexican restaurant — then detain workers
An eyewitness who declined to give a name for fear of retribution, told the Minnesota Star Tribune that four ICE agents sat in a booth for a meal at El Tapatio restaurant a little before 3 p.m. Staff at the restaurant were frightened, said the eyewitness, who shared pictures from the restaurant as well as video of the arrest.
The arrest happened around 8:30 p.m. near a Lutheran church and Willmar Middle School as agents followed the workers after they closed up for the night. A handful of bystanders blew whistles and shouted at agents as they detained the people. “Would your mama be proud of you right now?” one of the bystanders asked. - Minnesota Star Tribune https://bit.ly/3YRhVgb
What Did the White House and Denmark Agree to on Greenland? It Depends Whom You Ask.
The tensions touched off by President Trump’s demand for U.S. ownership of Greenland deepened on Thursday after Denmark and the White House contradicted each other in public about what the two sides had agreed on in a meeting hosted by Vice President JD Vance the day before. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4bLqgJT
Trump unloads on allies as Davos showdown looms
U.S. President Donald Trump has made an astonishing series of attacks apparently designed to humiliate allies France, Britain and Canada as the row over Greenland threatens to engulf the Davos forum.
In a flurry of Truth Social posts and comments to reporters a day before he leaves for the elite gathering on Wednesday, Trump leaked apparently private text messages from French President Emmanuel Macron and the head of NATO.
His comments leave the transatlantic alliance in perhaps its most fragile state since World War II -- and underscore that Trump is determined to make a show of power at the meeting in the Swiss ski resort. - AFP/Japan Times https://bit.ly/3LVt1xS?
Takaichi invited to join Trump's controversial Gaza 'Board of Peace'
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has been invited by U.S. President Donald Trump to join a new international body he has proposed to oversee the reconstruction of Gaza, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.
Takaichi is considering whether to take part in Trump's "Board of Peace," a ministry official said. The board has stirred controversy as some fear its role could be expanded to include other conflicts and that it could eventually be an alternative to the United Nations. - AP/Japan Today https://bit.ly/3NvD4ds?
What Restrains Trump Now?
There are two ways to react to Donald Trump’s latest spurt of mad-king behavior, as he tries to bully and meme his way to the acquisition of Greenland under the threat of a trade war if not a real one.
The first reading is straightforward: This is malignant narcissism flavored with insane Nobel Peace Prize-related self-pity, the usual Trumpian unfitness magnified by the excitement of his Venezuelan intervention and the vicissitudes of old age, with the entire NATO alliance imperiled by the warmongering whims of its leading power’s would-be Caesar.
The second interpretation purports to be more hardheaded and sensible, wiser and world-weary after so many years of watching Trump at work. Isn’t this always how he negotiates? Stake out an absurd-sounding position, freak out all the institutionalists and keepers of consensus, rattle the markets and then use the madman’s leverage to induce other countries to accept an advantageous-for-America deal? You can’t take the wild things he says on social media as the essence of his policy; he’s a performer and a player of games, and while he doesn’t always chicken out, he’s always looking for a way to shake hands at the end.
My own conclusion, deep in the Trump era, is that you need to blend these readings to understand the situation. Trump is an unstable narcissist with a bottomless appetite for attention and a defective moral core, and if you think he’s merely playing a negotiator’s part, you misunderstand him: There is a perfect sincerity to his most absurdist whines and boasts. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4bLrUv3
Yes, you are paying most of Trump's tariffs. Here are the receipts
Who's picking up the tab for President Donald Trump's tariffs? Americans, overwhelmingly. A new study released Monday by a group of researchers at the German-based Kiel Institute for the World Economy found that U.S. consumers paid the largest chunk of the tariffs: 96%, to be specific.
"Tariffs are framed as a tool to extract concessions from trading partners while generating revenue for the U.S. government — at no cost to American households," the analysis said. "Our research shows the opposite: American importers and consumers bear nearly all the cost." - Quartz https://bit.ly/4b6FHfy
Trump’s Davos speech renews demand for Greenland, but says he ‘won’t use force’
Trump says he's reached framework deal on Greenland with NATO's chief and that tariffs are no longer needed. - CNN https://cnn.it/4jObowq
Trump Drops Tariff Threat Over Greenland After Assailing Europe
President Trump said he was dropping his threat to impose tariffs on European allies as part of a pressure campaign to gain control of Greenland. Mr. Trump wrote on social media that he had reached an unspecified “framework” of a deal involving Greenland and the broader Arctic region during a meeting with Mark Rutte, the secretary general of NATO. - NYT https://nyti.ms/3ZozkNr
Canada Flexes on Global Stage With an Eye to Its Own Survival
Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada delivered a stark speech in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, prompting global political and corporate leaders in the audience to rise from their seats for a rare standing ovation.
He described the end of the era underpinned by United States hegemony, calling the current phase “a rupture.” He never mentioned President Trump by name, but his reference was clear.
The speech came as President Trump doubled down on his threats to take Greenland away from Denmark, saying he would slap fresh tariffs on European powers as punishment for their support of Greenland’s sovereignty.
Global leaders have been scrambling to find a unified response. - NYT https://nyti.ms/465znS1
A Surprising Change in Trump’s Behavior
Donald Trump retains the ability to shock; the day he loses that, he will, like the biblical Samson—another man notable for his coiffure—lose his power entirely. When Trump started his second term as president a year ago, however, I doubted whether there was much more to learn about how his mind works. Even before he’d entered politics, Trump was overexposed. Since then, he has become the most scrutinized person in the world. His tendencies and foibles are well known to voters, politicians, and world leaders.
Yet in breaking one of his most entrenched patterns, he has provided perhaps the biggest surprise of the past year. During his first term, Trump was defined by his tendency to back down in any negotiation or fight: As I put it in a May 2018 article, he almost always folded, agreeing to concessions whether he was negotiating on trade with China or a budget resolution with Senate Democrats. More recently, though, he’s been following through, no matter how aberrant his ideas. The exact reason for this is difficult to pin down, though it likely includes the fact that he has more experience under his belt, fewer prudent voices in his ear, and a lame duck’s liberation from having to worry about reelection. In any case, his new determination is forcing countries around the world to reassess how to deal with him. - Atlantic https://bit.ly/3YUQYbw
Trump Says ‘You’ll Find Out’ How Far He’ll Go to Get Greenland
Asked how far he was willing to go to acquire Greenland, President Trump said, “You’ll find out.” His terse reply, following lengthy remarks about his first year back in office, came as his threats to take over Greenland have imperiled the stability of U.S. alliances. Mr. Trump insisted that he could strike a deal and that Greenlanders who had said they did not want to be part of the United States would be “thrilled” after he spoke to them. Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada gave a searing speech in Switzerland about a “rupture” in the world order. - Atlantic https://nyti.ms/3LXpoaE
America’s Would-Be Surgeon General Says to Trust Your ‘Heart Intelligence’
Means is a Stanford Medicine graduate who dropped out of her surgical residency and has since made a career infusing spiritual beliefs into her wellness company, social-media accounts, and best-selling book. The exact nature of her spirituality is hard to parse: Means adopts an anti-institutionalist, salad-bar approach. She might share Kabbalah or Buddhist teachings, or quote Rumi or the movie Moana. She has written about speaking to trees and participating in full-moon ceremonies, both of which drew ridicule by the conservative activist and unofficial Trump adviser Laura Loomer. Her belief in “the divine feminine” (which she doesn’t quite explain) seems to have led her to renounce hormonal birth-control pills for halting the “cyclical life-giving nature of women.” - Atlantic https://bit.ly/4kb0PUB
They ransacked the U.S. Capitol and want the government to pay them back
Yvonne St Cyr strained her body against police barricades, crawled through a broken Senate window, and yelled “push, push, push” to fellow rioters in a tunnellike hallway where police officers suffered concussions and broken bones. - WaPo https://wapo.st/4a2i1rH
Confused Trump’s Struggles Through Disastrous Davos Speech — 1/21/26 Updates
From the moment he arrived, Trump appeared unsteady and disoriented. Our researchers shared a clip of Trump walking unsteadily after landing. It reminded me of when he zig-zagged as he walked to greet Vladimir Putin in Alaska. Immediately, it was clear that Trump was not doing well physically.
That set the tone for an unsteady speech that quickly devolved into confusion, hostility toward allies, open bigotry, and slurring — all as the world watched on both in horror and secondhand embarrassment. - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/3LZjLJ3
O Canada
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney received a standing ovation after his speech yesterday at the World Economic Forum. In contrast to Trump’s bloviation today, Carney’s is well worth reading. Here it is in in full, from the official transcript: - Reich Substack https://bit.ly/4r7M6Md
Trump Gives a Stump Speech at Davos
“Without us, right now you’d all be speaking German,” Donald Trump scolded European leaders at the World Economic Forum this morning. Perhaps the Germans have a word for the experience of watching your country’s leader embarrass himself and the country on the global stage.
Where does one start in summarizing such a speech? The straightforward racism? The economic illiteracy? The determination to alienate allies? The many moments where the president said things that were blatantly, provably false? And because he rambled through more than an hour, he covered a lot of ground.
The most anticipated section was about Trump’s ongoing effort to acquire Greenland. Trump argued that only the United States could defend the island, which he perplexingly also dismissed as “a giant piece of ice” and accidentally called “Iceland” on a few occasions. He also said Greenland was essential for the “golden dome” missile-defense system he claims he will build. (He denied that the U.S. is after rare-earth minerals in Greenland.) - Atlantic https://bit.ly/4r6eUon
Trump Wants to Be the New Polk
His interest in the 11th president’s legacy has conjured up the specter of manifest destiny. - Atlantic https://bit.ly/4b9huoU
Trump Can Prosecute Anyone Now
A year into Donald Trump’s second term, the Department of Justice has become his private law firm, devoted less to the impartial administration of justice than to blackmailing, intimidating, and persecuting Trump’s foes while selectively enforcing the law to spare allies who break it. The chairman of the Federal Reserve reveals that the Justice Department has been attempting to blackmail him into lowering interest rates with the threat of a federal indictment. The governor of Minnesota, the mayor of Minneapolis, the former head of the FBI, the attorney general of New York, and a member of the Federal Reserve Board all face indictment or investigation for opposing or challenging the president.
The decision to ignore evidence that demands investigation or prosecution can be equally nefarious, as we’ve seen in Minneapolis, where federal authorities refused to investigate a masked government agent for shooting an unarmed mom in the face, and where half a dozen federal prosecutors have since resigned after being pushed to investigate the woman’s widow instead. - Atlantic https://bit.ly/4qCwj8p
Trump Administration Starts Immigration Operation in Maine
The operation comes after an enforcement surge in Minnesota, which set off protests. Thousands of D.H.S. officers and agents were deployed there, and their actions have come under scrutiny in the wake of the shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis this month by an ICE officer. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4jTfNOP
House Panel Votes to Hold Clintons in Contempt in Epstein Inquiry
Still, many Democrats also argued that given the Clintons’ efforts to cooperate with the investigation, including an offer by Mr. Clinton to be interviewed under oath by Mr. Comer and their submission of sworn statements laying out what they would say in testimony, the criminal contempt referrals were inappropriate, particularly for a former president. - NYT https://nyti.ms/3ZssiHw
The EU pushed back on Trump’s latest tariff threats. Hours later, he backed down
A key group of European Parliament members blocked a vote to ratify a US-European trade deal Wednesday after President Donald Trump threatened to take over Greenland and charge as much as an additional 35% tariff on countries opposed to his ambitions.
Then, hours later, Trump called off his threat. - CNN https://cnn.it/4r7OOBd
Takeaways: Supreme Court signals it will defy Trump to keep Lisa Cook on Federal Reserve
The Supreme Court signaled deep skepticism Wednesday that President Donald Trump had the authority to remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve, with several conservative justices joining their liberal colleagues in posing pointed questions of the lawyer defending the president.
By the end of the two-hour argument, many of the justices appeared to be more interested in how the court would side with Cook — not whether it would do so — and how quickly it would resolve her underlying litigation. - CNN https://cnn.it/4rdVmP7
Trump Caves as the World Forces His Surrender on Greenland
So do you remember the words I used to describe Trump in my afternoon news recap today? Don’t worry. I’ll repeat them here: Weak. Deranged. Senile. Slow. Pathetic.
Well, it turns out the world agreed.
Donald Trump has now backed away from his threats to invade or forcibly acquire Greenland, at least for now. And he did it the only way he knows how: by announcing a fake deal to try to save face. - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/3NznzkP
Trump repeatedly confuses Greenland for Iceland
President Donald Trump's largely incoherent speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, is unlikely to quell the growing questions about his mental fitness after he flubbed the name of the arctic territory he wants to conquer.
On multiple occasions, Trump incorrectly referred to Greenland as Iceland, a nearby country. - Daily Kos https://bit.ly/4bKA9HM
Media lauds Trump’s Davos speech as ‘very strong’ as world cringes
Mainstream media outlets on Wednesday once again reported on a strange, rambling speech by President Donald Trump as if it were a normal presentation, continuing the tradition of “sanewashing” his rhetoric and misinforming their audiences.
Trump’s presentation before the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, had him referring to Greenland mistakenly as Iceland as part of his near-constant fuming about the need for the United States to take over sovereign territory. - Daily Kos https://bit.ly/49Dx0bC
Trump's team tries to ruin toy store after owners denounce ICE
A Minnesota toy store whose owners spoke out against Immigration and Customs Enforcement abuses of power is now being targeted by the Department of Homeland Security. The incident is another instance of the Trump administration using the power of the federal government to target speech and dissent.
The Minnesota Star Tribune reported on Tuesday that Mischief Toy Store, located in St. Paul, has been ordered to turn over its employment records to DHS as part of a surprise audit. The company is being told to submit its I-9 forms, which companies use to document the citizenship status of their employees. - Daily Kos https://bit.ly/3NKNxSl
Death of Cuban Detainee in El Paso ICE Facility Is Ruled a Homicide
An autopsy from the county medical examiner said the detainee, Geraldo Lunas Campos, was asphyxiated and restrained by law enforcement. Federal officials described his death as a suicide. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4pZapLn
At Yosemite, Rangers Are Scarce and Visitors Have Gone Wild
For decades, visitors to Yosemite National Park have been greeted by green- and khaki-clad rangers, who collect fees and guard the park’s entrance.
But on a chilly morning in December, there were no rangers at the park gates. Tourists descended into the majestic wilderness for free, confused by their apparent good fortune.
In fact, ranger sightings were too rare last year, according to park regulars and advocates. Visitors were far less supervised than they normally were, which had led to the wrong kind of wildness — littering, cliff jumping, drone-flying.
This is Yosemite under President Trump. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4rdODoh
Investigations and a Billion-Dollar ‘Shakedown’: How Trump Targeted Higher Education
President Trump had barely returned to power last year when Hector F. Ruiz, a veteran civil rights lawyer for the Justice Department, shared a directive with his team that some found chilling.
He told the team that he had been instructed to open investigations into more than a dozen universities, according to two people with direct knowledge of the meeting. The orders were a sharp break from the department’s norm of collecting facts before proceeding with a formal inquiry, and some investigators viewed the demand as a politically motivated attack.
Within months, Mr. Ruiz and 17 of his team’s lawyers had quit.
Trump officials pressed forward despite the exodus, using the full force of the government to target at least 75 universities with investigations into subjects including antisemitism and student aid fraud. The schools have routinely denied wrongdoing, including those that reached settlements with the government, and federal district courts have ruled that some of the Trump administration’s methods broke the law. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4pXyHFE
Trump’s Rift With Europe Is Clear. Europe Must Decide What to Do About It.
After President Trump aired his disdain for Europe, its leaders will gather in Brussels Thursday to take stock of what comes next. - NYT https://nyti.ms/3ZxmegR
Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ Would Have Global Scope but One Man in Charge
The initiative is the latest example of the president’s dismantling the post-World War II international system and building a new one, with himself at the center. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4r2BMVK
At Davos, a Clash Between Trump’s World and the Old World
For decades, leaders have gathered in Davos to discuss a shared economic and political future. On Wednesday, President Trump turned the forum into a bracing clash between his worldview and theirs. - NYT https://nyti.ms/3ZsyRtE
Court Removes Restrictions on ICE’s Use of Pepper Spray, for Now
The order by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit was one sentence long and included no explanation. It granted the Trump administration’s request for an administrative stay of the district court’s preliminary injunction, which was issued on Friday. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4a71JxD
Trump’s E.P.A. Has Put a Value on Human Life: Zero Dollars
Government officials have long grappled with a question that seems like the purview of philosophers: What is the value of a human life?
Under both Democratic and Republican administrations, the answer has been in the millions of dollars. The higher the value, the more the government has required businesses to spend on their operations to prevent a single death.
But for the first time ever, at the Environmental Protection Agency the answer is effectively zero dollars. - NYT https://nyti.ms/3YU8PPN
The American Threat: Three Words I Never Imagined Typing
I reached out to Lord Patten, one of the European figures I most respect — a former senior figure in Britain’s Conservative Party, then governor of Hong Kong and later Europe’s foreign policy chief and chancellor of Oxford University. Patten returned my call just as a particularly erratic Trump was telling a press conference that America had never been more respected, and he could hear Trump’s voice in the background.
“You’re listening to those rambling mendacities,” he said, “of the demented leader of the free world.” Those are the words of a temperate British conservative who has been an outspoken fan of America throughout his career, yet who is today aghast at the sight of the United States destroying its soft power worldwide. Patten hopes European leaders will be willing to stand up to Trump because, “sooner or later, he has to be stopped.” - NYT https://nyti.ms/4r5E32p
I’ve Covered Police Abuse for 20 Years. What ICE Is Doing Is Different.
I have been covering policing for more than 20 years and have read and parsed a lot of these statements. The Department of Homeland Security’s response after the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis this month is something else entirely.
For all their flaws, typical communications from police officials usually include a modicum of solemnity. There are assurances that there will be a fair and impartial investigation, even if those investigations too often turn out to be neither. There’s at least the acknowledgment that to take a human life is a profound and serious thing.
The Trump administration’s response to Ms. Good’s death made no such concessions. There were no promises of an impartial investigation. There was no regret or remorse. There was little empathy for her family — for her parents, her partner or the children she left behind. From the moment the world learned about her death, the administration pronounced the shooting not only justified but an act of heroism worthy of praise and celebration. - NYT https://nyti.ms/3Nx9qoc
Trump’s Politics Are Not America First. They’re Me First.
I have never trafficked in the conspiracy theories about Donald Trump and Russia. I never thought that he was a Russian asset or that Vladimir Putin had some financial leverage on him or sex tapes to blackmail him with. I have always believed it was much worse: that Trump, in his heart and soul, simply does not share the values of every other American president since World War II when it comes to what America’s role in the world should be and must be.
I have always believed that Trump has an utterly warped value set that is not grounded in any of our founding documents, but simply favors any leader who is strong, no matter what he does with that strength; any leader who is rich and can thus enrich Trump, no matter what the leader does with that money or how he got it; and any leader who will flatter him, no matter how obviously phony that flattery is. - NYT https://nyti.ms/49zfLbg
Trump’s Norway Letter Proves This Isn’t Sustainable
The uncomfortable truth is that the president of the United States is a man with the mind of a spoiled child. His debilitating solipsism is a threat to the stability of the entire world. A functional Congress would impeach and remove him. But the Republican majority is in a codependent relationship with the president, unable to separate his identity from that of their party. And the president’s advisers are either cowed supplicants desperate to please or scheming viziers eager to use his power for their own ends. There is no one, then, to pressure Trump to resign like there was for Nixon. - NYT https://nyti.ms/49zEzjp
China wins as Trump cedes leadership of the global economy
In a long, rambling address that was by turns bombastic, aggrieved and self-congratulatory, President Donald Trump pronounced last rites on American leadership of the liberal democratic order forged by the United States and its allies after World War II. - NYT/Japan Times https://bit.ly/4qHv2wW
Few Voters Say Trump’s Second Term Has Made the Country Better, Poll Finds
Less than a third of voters think the country is better off than it was when President Trump returned to the White House a year ago, with a wide majority saying he has focused on the wrong issues, according to a new poll from The New York Times and Siena University.
A majority of voters disapprove of how Mr. Trump has handled top issues including the economy, immigration, the war between Russia and Ukraine and his actions in Venezuela. And significantly, a majority of Americans, 51 percent, said that Mr. Trump’s policies had made life less affordable for them.
All told, 49 percent of voters said the country was worse off than a year ago, compared with 32 percent who said it was better. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4pXBj6q
Immigration officers assert sweeping power to enter homes without a judge’s warrant, memo says
Federal immigration officers are asserting sweeping power to forcibly enter people’s homes without a judge’s warrant, according to an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo obtained by The Associated Press, marking a sharp reversal of longstanding guidance meant to respect constitutional limits on government searches.
The memo authorizes ICE officers to use force to enter a residence based solely on a more narrow administrative warrant to arrest someone with a final order of removal, a move that advocates say collides with Fourth Amendment protections and upends years of advice given to immigrant communities. - AP https://bit.ly/4qAfMBF
US court allows ICE to arrest and pepper-spray peaceful protesters in Minnesota
An appeals court has temporarily lifted restrictions from a federal judge in Minnesota that blocked ICE agents from pepper-spraying and arresting peaceful protesters.
In a victory for the Trump administration, the eighth US circuit court of appeals on Wednesday granted the justice department’s request for an administrative stay of a preliminary injunction issued last Friday by Judge Katherine Menendez. - Guardian https://bit.ly/4jRFBdX
Procter & Gamble earnings show that tariffs are hitting even the basics
Tide. Duracell. Pantene. Pampers. Cascade. Charmin. Pepto-Bismol. Old Spice. All are brands and properties falling under Procter & Gamble $PG’s umbrella, and they’ve helped to lift the company’s stock more than 10,000% since the 1980s.
But in more recent times, the vaunted conglomerate has struggled to attract the right kind of market attention. While the stock remains on most dividend investors’ radar, its investable star has faded slightly.
Procter & Gamble’s most recent quarterly earnings, released Thursday, are unlikely to meaningful change that status — unless the market starts pricing stability differently. Given the geopolitical picture, it would be far from shocking to see at least some retail and institutional investors seeking such a port amid the storm. But even here, in the laundry aisle and the shampoo aisle, the geopolitical picture intrudes, with tariffs and layoffs forming part of the story. - Quartz https://bit.ly/4b7SoH0
The 7 Crucial Moments in the Minneapolis ICE Shooting
FATS is a life-size video screen connected to a laser pointer firearm where you, the agent traineee (holding said firearm), are part of a two-person team going to do some kind of investigative activity. Maybe you’re looking for a suspect, maybe you’re serving a subpoena, maybe you’re going to effect an arrest. And then, something goes wrong. The suspect runs. Your partner is attacked. A kid comes around the corner during the interview holding a gun. (Seriously, that was one of the scenarios and it still gives me terrible flashbacks.) At that moment, you have to decide what to do. In a matter of seconds, you have to assess the situation, yell commands if feasible, and decide: Shoot or don’t shoot. You know if you made the wrong choice if the entire screen goes red.
One key refrain we were reminded of over and over is this: action beats reaction. That is, the time it takes for your brain to fully process whether the suspect is, say, reaching for a wallet or a weapon is going to be too long if, in fact, it is a weapon and the suspect uses it against you. So in making a decision to shoot, your brain is evaluating a number of factors to assess the threat to your and others safety in usually less than a second — which is why the repetitive training mattered. (We spent about 100 hours on firearms training and fired around 4,000 rounds at Quantico.) FATS training, and our training in Hogan’s Alley, the FBI Academy’s simulated town where we would do live exercises with hired actors, gave me an appreciation for the split-second decision making and tunnel vision that can often accompany a decision of when to use deadly force, and why sometimes a tragic shooting might nevertheless have been reasonable from the point of view of the officer in that moment.
The shooting of Renee Nicole Good was not one of those instances. - Asha Rangappa https://bit.ly/49xYoHS
Shock and awe in Devos
British Prime Minister Harold Wilson once quipped in 1964 that “a week is a long time in politics.” He never experienced Trump II. It feels like three years of events have been crammed into January — and the month isn’t over yet. - Quartz https://bit.ly/4bLL97K
ICE detains four children from Minnesota school district, including 5-year-old
Columbia Heights Public Schools district officials accused ICE officers of using the 5-year-old “as bait.” A 10-year-old and her mother were also detained. - WaPo https://wapo.st/49SduHe
Judge in Minnesota rejected federal attempt to charge journalist Don Lemon
A magistrate judge in Minnesota rejected federal prosecutors’ attempt to bring charges against journalist Don Lemon after he followed protesters into a St. Paul-area church during services, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss court proceedings that have not been made public. - WaPo https://wapo.st/3NyZs5S
Thursday Afternoon News Updates — 1/22/26
Trump’s weakness, deterioration, isolation, and dangerous detachment from reality is now playing out on the global stage. Trump remained in Switzerland after the opening of the World Economic Forum to meet with a group he is calling his “Board of Peace.” That name alone is a lie that could be ripped straight out of the pages of an Orwell novel. ”War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength”
None of America’s traditional allies were present. No NATO countries. No democratic partners. Instead, the group consisted almost entirely of authoritarian regimes, including representatives from Belarus, Kazakhstan, Egypt, Pakistan, Qatar, and others. Vladimir Putin has reportedly said Russia will be joining as well.
As Trump spoke to the group, his physical condition was impossible to ignore. His left hand appeared severely bruised, discolored, and swollen, worse than the condition previously seen on his right hand. The discoloration became so pronounced that Trump left the event mid-appearance, disappeared for roughly 15 minutes, and returned with heavy makeup applied to his hand. British outlet The Telegraph published before-and-after photos showing the dramatic change. - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/45qijWR
Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied: Jack Smith, ICE, and the Cost of Waiting
Jack Smith’s testimony today was both inspiring and painful to hear. He spoke clearly and forcefully about the rule of law and the vast body of evidence showing former President Trump’s efforts to incite an insurrection and overturn the 2020 election. Yet the fact that it took Merrick Garland nearly two years before appointing him serves as a reminder that justice delayed is justice denied.
That truth was impossible to ignore today as special counsel Jack Smith testified before Congress, defending the work he was appointed to do nearly two years after Trump incited the insurrection on January 6, 2021. His appointment came far too late to protect our democracy from Trump because the delay meant that the two indictments he secured against Trump never went to trial.
It was this delay, and not the Supreme Court that saved Trump. As awful as the immunity ruling was, the Court ruled that presidents have absolute criminal immunity only for Article II acts, as for a president’s other official conduct or private conduct that was still fair game. In fact, in a civil case brought by Capitol officers and others against Trump, the D.C. Court of Appeals had already allowed the civil lawsuit to proceed, finding that the plaintiffs had made a prima facie argument that Trump’s speech on January 6 was a private campaign speech because the rally was paid for with campaign money. Smith himself proceeded with his indictments against Trump even after the Court’s immunity decision; he just revised them accordingly. The real problem was timing. By the time the legal questions, all foreseeable, were resolved, the election was around the corner and Trump was elected. We have all suffered as a result. - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/3ZvhnwK
The Great Crime Decline Is Happening All Across the Country
What happened in Seattle is happening even more dramatically across the country, as America experiences a once-in-a-lifetime improvement in public safety despite a police-staffing crisis. In August, the FBI released its final data for 2024, which showed that America’s violent-crime rate fell to its lowest level since 1969, led by a nearly 15 percent decrease in homicide—the steepest annual drop ever recorded.
Preliminary 2025 numbers look even better. The crime analyst Jeff Asher has concluded that the national murder rate through October 2025 fell by almost 20 percent—and all other major crimes declined as well. The post-pandemic crime wave has receded, and then some. According to Asher’s analysis, Detroit, San Francisco, Chicago, Newark, and a handful of other big cities recorded their lowest murder rates since the 1950s and ’60s. “Our cities are as safe as they’ve ever been in the history of the country,” Patrick Sharkey, a sociologist at Princeton who studies urban violence, told me. - Atlantic https://bit.ly/469Roi2
What’s Behind the Staggering Drop in the Murder Rate? No One Knows for Sure.
Last year will likely register the lowest national homicide rate in 125 years and the largest single-year drop on record, according to a new analysis of 2025 crime data.
Violence has been falling for several years. But last year for the first time, all seven categories of violent crime tracked by the analysis fell below prepandemic levels. The numbers provide further evidence that the surge in violence in the early 2020s was a departure during a time of massive social upheaval, not a new normal.
The analysis of data from 40 cities, by the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan think tank, found across-the-board decreases in crime last year compared to 2019: 25 percent fewer homicides, 13 percent fewer shootings and 29 percent fewer carjackings. Between 2024 and 2025, only drug crimes went in the wrong direction, but they were still lower than in 2019. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4pWAn26
Democrat highlights ban Florida judge put on disclosing details in Smith’s classified documents report
Jack Smith defended his decision to obtain non-disclosure orders that prevented lawmakers from learning that their phone records had been subpoenaed by pointing to how election workers had been targeted by President Trump and his alleged co-conspirators.
“I was aware, during the course of our investigation, of targeting of witnesses during the course of the conspiracy itself,” Smith said. “There were election workers who had their lives turned upside down and received vile death threats because they were targeted by Donald Trump and his co-conspirators.” - CNN https://cnn.it/3NJfoSU
White House and China sign off on TikTok deal; Jack Smith defends Trump investigations
The former special counsel previously told lawmakers that his team found "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" that the president engaged in a "criminal scheme" to overturn the 2020 election results. - NBC https://nbcnews.to/4pZiyiS
This clip is one of the reasons why the White House didn’t want Gov. Gavin Newsom to speak at Davos
Video on Threads. - Vince D. Monroy https://www.threads.com/@vincedmonroy/post/DTznce9ktZN
Conversation with Gavin Newsom, Governor of California | World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2026
Video - YouTube https://bit.ly/469RKFo
The Voters Who Have Taken a U-Turn on Trump
When President Trump took office for his second term one year ago, he was — at least compared with his usual polling — relatively popular.
His approval rating was above 50 percent, and he had made enormous breakthroughs among groups that have traditionally voted Democratic, like young, nonwhite and lower-turnout voters. It had some of the markings of a potential political realignment. It even brought a much-noted vibe shift.
One year later, the vibe has shifted back. The results from today’s New York Times/Siena University poll would have looked fairly typical during his first term. Only 40 percent of registered voters say they approve of Mr. Trump’s performance, and the familiar patterns of American politics have returned. The second Trump coalition has unraveled. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4qDvqw8
Kash Patel’s FBI Is Making America Less Safe, Current and Former Employees Say
John Sullivan, former section chief in the intelligence division: I assumed Congress would see how uniquely unqualified Kash Patel was for the job. I assumed the Senate would do its due diligence and decide not to confirm him.
Michael Feinberg, former assistant special agent in charge of the field office in Norfolk, Va.: When Kash Patel was nominated, we all knew in our bones that the bureau was going to be a very different environment than any of us had experienced before. He regularly referred to us as government gangsters. He was also the author of three children’s books in which he’s a self-styled wizard who saves King Donald Trump from the evil forces of the Justice Department. - NYT https://nyti.ms/3ZuTRju
The 4th Axiom for Interpreting Trump
As Trump’s dementia worsens, several axioms are useful for interpreting his increasingly incoherent bloviation.
Axiom #1: Whatever he asserts to be a fact is either a wild exaggeration or a bald-faced lie. Always disregard.
Axiom #2: Whatever he blames on anyone else is something he’s done. He projects like mad, so his accusations are always windows onto what he’s worrying that others will discover about himself.
Axiom #3: Whatever he criticizes as being fake news is a fact he doesn’t want you to know. So pay special attention to it.
Axiom #4: Whenever he attacks some source of information — a survey, poll, or report — it’s come up with some truth he fears. So look at it and share it. - Reich Substack https://bit.ly/4rcsmqR
Letters from an American - January 21, 2026 - Heather Cox Richardson
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this morning, a visibly exhausted president of the United States of America rambled in angry free association in a speech before the world’s leaders. At one point, speaking of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) dignitaries, he told the audience: “Until the last few days when I told them about Iceland, they loved me. They called me daddy, right, last time. Very smart man said, ‘He’s our daddy. He’s running it.’”
He meant Greenland. - Cox Richardson https://bit.ly/4rcsmqR
Today in Politics, Bulletin 291. 1/22/26
TACO Trump backed down on Greenland while claiming victory again after Europe presented a united front against his threat to impose 25% tariffs on them if Denmark didn’t hand over sovereignty of the territory to the US. CNN: “Trump and NATO Secretary Gen. Mark Rutte reached a verbal understanding about Greenland during their meeting on Wed, but no document has been produced yet memorializing a future deal.” - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/4bNjVh4
What matters
Digest of the day's news. - CNN https://cnn.it/4qHoU7R
Trump Chickened Out On Greenland, But The Threat He Poses Keeps Rising
President Trump, somewhat bafflingly, had been escalating tensions with Europe for weeks over his desire to acquire Greenland.
He repeatedly refused to take the use of military force off the table when asked, instead threatening “to do something in Greenland, whether they like it or not,” and saying, in full mob boss mode,
“I would like to make a deal the easy way but if we don’t do it the easy way, we’re going to do it the hard way.”
When confronted with the fact that the United States already has a security agreement with Greenland, Trump scoffed, insisting that “ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document” and made clear that “anything less” than U.S. control of the island nation would be “unacceptable.” - The Big Picture https://bit.ly/4pZjbce
ICE goons to America: We don’t need no stinkin’ warrants
If you’re wondering why your attorney friends are just staring into space and disassociating, wonder no more: A secret memo told the secret immigration police that invading homes without a warrant is totally fine, totally cool—just keep it on the down low.
The Associated Press got its hands on an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo that—and this is not hyperbole—absolutely guts Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure.
Actually, that’s the polite, mainstream media way of putting it. What this memo really does is purport to override the Fourth Amendment with no law, just vibes. In other words, it’s unconstitutional as hell. - Daily Kos https://bit.ly/4bNk5Fc
‘I won’t be complicit’: Newsom stands against Trump’s bullying
California Gov. Gavin Newsom continued his attacks on President Donald Trump at the World Economic Conference in Davos, Switzerland, during an interview onstage, where he was asked about his aggressive—and at times coarse—resistance to Trump and other Republicans.
“Society becomes how we behave. We are our behaviors, we're not bystanders in this world,” Newsom said. “The world we're experiencing happened on our watch.”
“People need, you know, courage of their damn convictions. We're at the 250th anniversary of the United States of America this year,” he added, warning that our country’s experiment in democracy is clearly in jeopardy.
“There's no rule of law. It's the rule of Don. I hope for Europeans, it's dawning on you.”
Newsom went on to excoriate the GOP’s failure to provide the legislative check envisioned by the Constitution and detailed Trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 elections. - Daily Kos https://bit.ly/49CIHiF
In Testimony, Jack Smith Defends Decision to Prosecute Trump
Jack Smith, the special prosecutor who twice indicted Donald J. Trump, defended his investigation in a tense and long-awaited appearance before a House committee on Thursday — flatly accusing Mr. Trump of causing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
“No one should be above the law in this country, and the law required that he be held to account,” Mr. Smith said in his opening remarks. “So that is what I did.”
His testimony represented the argument he was never allowed to deliver in court: that Mr. Trump “engaged in criminal activity” that undermined democracy and the rule of law.
The hearing posed significant risks to Mr. Smith, who has said he believes Mr. Trump and his appointees will seize on the smallest misstep to investigate, prosecute and humiliate him. House Republicans had made it clear that they would make a criminal referral to the Justice Department if his testimony revealed serious inconsistencies or misstatements. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4jXtL28
Democrat highlights ban Florida judge put on disclosing details in Smith’s classified documents report
Jack Smith defended his decision to obtain non-disclosure orders that prevented lawmakers from learning that their phone records had been subpoenaed by pointing to how election workers had been targeted by President Trump and his alleged co-conspirators.
“I was aware, during the course of our investigation, of targeting of witnesses during the course of the conspiracy itself,” Smith said. “There were election workers who had their lives turned upside down and received vile death threats because they were targeted by Donald Trump and his co-conspirators.” - CNN https://cnn.it/45vw7PH
Detention of 5-Year-Old by Federal Agents Incenses Minneapolis
A 5-year-old boy wearing a Spider-Man backpack and an oversized hat was detained with his father by immigration authorities on Tuesday, one of four students recently apprehended in a suburban Minneapolis school district, school officials said.
The prekindergarten pupil, Liam Conejo Ramos, is pictured in a photo released by the school system as he stands next to a vehicle with an adult’s hand on his backpack. His father is not in sight. The image prompted outrage in the Twin Cities area, where many people have been angered since mid-December by the Trump administration’s surge in deportation operations.
“Why detain a 5-year-old?” Zena Stenvik, the superintendent of schools in Columbia Heights, Minn., asked at a news conference about the episode on Wednesday.
Liam Conejo Ramos, 5, is seen being detained in a photo released by Columbia Heights Public Schools officials that has prompted anger in the Twin Cities. Columbia Heights Public Schools
Exactly what happened during the arrest, on a snow-covered block in Columbia Heights, is in dispute. The small school district and the federal government have given conflicting accounts.
The boy and his father were taken to Dilley, Texas, outside San Antonio, where they are being held at an immigration detention center, according to Marc Prokosch, a lawyer working with the family. The boy and his father came to the United States from Ecuador in 2024, he said, and each has an active asylum claim.
“These are not illegal aliens. They came legally and are pursuing a legal pathway,” Mr. Prokosch said at a Thursday news conference. - NYT https://nyti.ms/49O6RFG
U.S. Formally Withdraws From World Health Organization
Global health experts worry that a lack of international coordination will lead to death and disaster. - NYT https://nyti.ms/45sRukR
Trump administration completes US’ split from the World Health Organization
The US has completed its withdrawal from the World Health Organization, the US Department of Health and Human Services said on Thursday, finalizing a longstanding goal of President Donald Trump.
Trump tried to leave WHO during his first term, then gave notice through an executive order on the first day of his second term that the US would leave the organization. By law, the US must give WHO a one-year notice and pay all outstanding fees before its departure.
The US still owes WHO roughly $260 million, but legal experts said the US is unlikely to pay up and WHO has little recourse.
CNN has reached out to WHO for comment. - CNN https://cnn.it/4ac13qM
Trump Sues JPMorgan, Saying the Bank Closed His Accounts for Political Reasons
President Trump filed a lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase on Thursday, contending that the nation’s biggest bank stopped doing business with him for political reasons after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
The lawsuit, which seeks $5 billion in damages, was filed in state court in Florida and also named Jamie Dimon, the bank’s chief executive, as a defendant.
In the complaint, Mr. Trump said JPMorgan notified him in February 2021 that it was planning to close his accounts and those of some of his family’s businesses. According to a copy of the lawsuit, which was posted on the CNBC website, the bank’s decision was the result of “political discrimination” against Mr. Trump, his family and their related businesses. - NYT https://nyti.ms/3NzMlkM
Takeaways From The Times’s Inside Look at the F.B.I.
Many current and former employees say Kash Patel’s first year as F.B.I. director was marred by vendettas, mismanagement and meltdowns. - NYT https://nyti.ms/45qM4qp
The Carney Doctrine
There will be more twists and turns, highs and lows, but I’m afraid it’s time to recognize a sad reality: It’s over.
This week, two things happened that, taken together, send a clear signal to the United States and the world. The American-led alliance of democracies is in the midst of a rupture; we have broken faith with our allies. And our allies are choosing resistance over submission to Trump’s aggression and greed.
Before we get to the dramatic developments in Davos, Switzerland, let’s set the stage. On Sunday night we learned that President Trump sent the Norwegian prime minister, Jonas Gahr Store, a message that can only be described as deranged and delusional. You may have read it before, but please read it again.
“Dear Jonas,” it began, “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.”
Trump, incredibly enough, was tying his desire to acquire Greenland to the Nobel Committee’s awarding someone else the Nobel Peace Prize, a decision that he wrongly attributed to the government of Norway.
Making everything worse, even as Trump is behaving in a demonstrably irrational way, America’s vaunted checks and balances are failing. Impeachment and conviction are off the table. There is no chance that Trump’s cabinet of sycophants would invoke the 25th Amendment. Congress is led by invertebrates — with many of them apparently convinced that he’ll subjugate the world in much the same way that he subjugated them, through threats, bluster and the unyielding support of millions in the MAGA mob. - NYT https://nyti.ms/49RR2Op
Man Bites Davos
Frank Bruni: Welcome, Bret, to the second year of Donald Trump’s second residency in the White House. You and he are both marking the occasion in Davos. What’s it like this time around — to be an American in a Europe that he’s doing his demented best to turn from ally to enemy? Must be a chill in the air that has nothing to do with the Alps and the altitude.
Bret Stephens: Regards from the Magic Mountain, Frank. The mother of a friend of mine used to carry around a stack of business cards that read, “I apologize for my husband’s behavior on the evening of__________.” She meant it as a gag. But I think the Americans here in Davos could seriously use something like that: “I apologize for our president’s craziness on the morning/afternoon/night of___________.” Maybe it’ll help convince our European friends that we haven’t all lost our minds.
Frank: How hopeful of you — and how quaint — to cling to the phrase “our European friends.” - NYT https://nyti.ms/3LIwLCT
We Asked 300 People About Health Care Costs. The Numbers Are Shocking.
When Congress allowed the expanded Affordable Care Act subsidies to expire at the end of December, my monthly health insurance bill went up by about $200 a month. That’s a good chunk of the $25,000 I expect to earn, after business expenses, in 2026.
I am not alone in paying more for health care. More than 300 Times Opinion readers responded to a January invitation to share their experience of rising health care costs. They included a cancer patient who shifted care mid-recovery to a new insurance plan that doesn’t cover all her doctors. A mother who began skipping birthday parties to avoid the cost of a gift. A small-business owner who closed his doors. Many readers shared accounts of relying on retirement funds to pay for insurance. More than one Republican voter said they now regretted voting for that party. I am sharing a selection of these stories below, which have been edited for length and clarity. - NYT https://nyti.ms/45piAt8
Free speech, ICE, and free elections in 2026
President Trump has told us what he sees when he sees millions of Americans rising up in our cities and towns to protest his ICE overreaches: The enemy within. Rebellion. Reasons to use Democratic-run “cities as training grounds for the U.S. military.”
In response to the protests over ICE’s killing of Renee Good, Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to stop “agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E.” Over the weekend, Trump put 1,500 soldiers on standby for deployment.
Read more: What Trump can and can’t do with the Insurrection Act.
The ease with which the Trump administration now activates federal troops signals a dangerous new reality: the normalization of state force as a first response to political dissent. Since taking office in 2025, Trump has deployed troops to 10 American cities, exaggerating and blurring concerns over crime and protests to assert control and tamp down his critics.
This is happening as heavily armed, masked federal immigration agents, in numbers that often dwarf state and local law enforcement, conduct raids with alarming levels of aggression and violence across the country. This surge in force is backed by a clear message from the top: By pardoning violent January 6 rioters, Trump has already signaled that political violence is acceptable so long as it serves his agenda. - If You Can Keep It https://bit.ly/3LzDAXo
The funding freeze could force some day care centers to close, putting the welfare of teachers, parents and children in jeopardy, providers say.
The budget at The Mary Crane Center, a Chicago-based day care, has always been tight.
But a freeze on Illinois’ access to $1 billion of federal funding for childcare and family assistance has put the center’s ability to stay open in jeopardy, according to teacher Alice Dryden
“We’re all anxious. We’re all angry. We’re all tired,” Dryden said.
Illinois is one of five states being held back this month from a total of $10 billion in federal funding over what the Trump administration painted as fraud concerns. The cuts will affect around 100,000 families and thousands of licensed child care providers across the state, according to a statement from Gov. JB Pritzker this month.
Without the federal funding, Dryden said the day care might only have a month before it “would really have to make some tough decisions.” - Block Club Chicago https://bit.ly/3LTFQIV
Congress Saves NASA From Trump's Proposed Budget Cuts, Fully Funds Agency And Its Science Missions
It wasn't all that long ago that NASA looked like it was going to be absolutely gutted by massive budget cuts. However (and here's a sentence you don't hear very often), Congress acted decisively to reject the Trump administration's ambitions. In fact, it's going the other way: in 2026, NASA will have the largest budget it's had since 1998. This basically saves the science missions of the agency, which study everything from the Earth's climate to the furthest stars. And because this is the world we live in now, the new budget also mandates that this money be spent, so the administration can't just choose to not spend what it's been allocated. That sound you're hearing is a sigh of relief from the entire space community. - Jalopnik https://bit.ly/3YSbklP
Election deniers want your data
The Trump administration is in the middle of a massive, unprecedented, and unlawful effort to accumulate your private voter data in advance of the midterms. Since last May, the Justice Department has demanded access to nearly every state’s full, unredacted voter file in an effort to create a central federal database of voter information.
Why does the DOJ want this mountain of data on virtually every voter in the country? It has all the markings of a deliberate effort to manipulate, misconstrue, and even manufacture evidence of supposed election “fraud” — the same playbook President Trump and his allies used to sow doubt about election results in 2016 and 2020.
There’s a common phrase1 in the research world: “If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything.” In short, with enough manipulation, you can make a dataset say whatever you like. - If You Can Keep It https://bit.ly/4pUeOiA
Letters from an American - January 22, 2026 - Heather Cox Richardson
Vice President J.D. Vance was in Minnesota for the administration today, trying to regain control of the narrative about the violence perpetrated there by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). A new poll out today from the New York Times and Siena University shows that nearly two thirds of Americans, 63%, disapprove of how ICE is handling its job, while only 36% approve. Even among white Americans, 57% disapprove, while only 42% approve. Sixty-one percent of Americans, including 19% of Republicans, think that ICE agents have gone too far.
Just hours after ICE agent Jonathan Ross killed 37-year-old Renee Good on January 7, and long before there was any official investigation of the shooting, Vance was out in front of the news, blaming Good for her own death and claiming that the officer was clearly justified in shooting her.
But even MAGA voters don’t buy it. Podcaster Joe Rogan has compared ICE to “the gestapo,” and Greg Sargent of The New Republic noted that a majority of both young voters and those without a college degree, those who tend to be easy for MAGA to reach, disapprove of ICE enforcement. Media Matters reported that the senior judicial analyst on right-wing channel Newsmax, Andrew Napolitano, called the newly revealed secret ICE memo claiming the right to break down doors to arrest people in their homes “a direct and profound violation of the Fourth Amendment, which expressly says people are entitled to be secure in their homes and that security can only be invaded by a search warrant signed by a judge based on probable cause of crime.” - Cox Richardson https://bit.ly/49Sy3D4
Opening boards
In a recent interview with the Columbia Spectator (from which much of this post is drawn), Michael Thaddeus, professor of mathematics and acting president of the Columbia chapter of the American Association of University Professors, called universities “a microcosm of society” and stressed the importance that governance has for Columbia. “Society is taking this authoritarian turn right now, which is very worrisome,” Thaddeus said. “Do we as a university want to be a mini autocracy, or do we want to be a mini democracy? We need to be a mini-democracy.” - Reich Substack https://bit.ly/3YWRTYX
Jamie Dimon criticizes Trump's immigration policy: 'I don't like what I'm seeing'
Jamie Dimon has been a longtime proponent of immigration reform in the U.S., but on stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the CEO of JPMorgan $JPM Chase took issue with how enforcement is being handled in the United States.
Dimon, who has largely avoided criticizing the current White House administration, criticized the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers as too extreme.
″I don’t like what I’m seeing, five grown men beating up a little old lady,” Dimon said. “So I think we should calm down a little bit on the internal anger about immigration.”
Dimon added he wanted to know more about the people being taken in ICE raids, questioning whether they were in the U.S. illegally or if they had broken some sort of law.
“We need these people,” he said. “They work in our hospitals and hotels and restaurants and agriculture, and they’re good people.… They should be treated that way.” - Quartz https://bit.ly/3YZaDqP
Minnesota’s General Strike, and America’s
Today, Minnesota is shutting down in solidarity.
It’s the nation’s first general strike in response to Trump’s thuggery.
Across the state, businesses are closed. People are not shopping. Workers have stayed home or called in sick. Labor unions are encouraging work stoppages. Residents are helping one another. It’s an economic blackout.
Organizers are calling it a “Day of Truth and Freedom.”
It could be a model for what the nation as a whole does in coming months, to repudiate the Trump dictatorship. - Reich Substack https://bit.ly/4jVKyCB
Trump withdraws Carney’s invitation to Board of Peace
President Donald Trump said late Thursday that he had rescinded his invitation to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to join his Board of Peace, an entity that the American leader has promoted as a tool to resolve global conflicts with a scope rivaling the United Nations but that has been met with skepticism from erstwhile U.S. allies. - WaPo https://wapo.st/4bhr7SG
Park Service removes slavery exhibit at Independence Park in Philadelphia
Park staff dismantled an exhibit about George Washington’s slave ownership amid a wider push to remove information on racism, sexism and climate change. - WaPo https://wapo.st/3O0aBMW
US officially out of WHO, leaving hundreds of millions of dollars unpaid
A year ago today, the US informed the WHO of its intent to exit, setting the clock for a one-year withdrawal period mandated in a 1948 joint resolution of Congress. But, in practice, the withdrawal was immediate, with the Trump administration cutting all ties with WHO upon the announcement. In explaining his reasoning for leaving the WHO, Trump referenced his long-standing complaints about the agency’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, dues payments, and alleged protection of China. Trump had attempted to extract the US from WHO during his first term, but the Biden administration rescinded the withdrawal on the first day in office, well before the one-year notice period was reached.
The joint resolution also stipulated that the US would have to pay its financial obligations in full before departing. But, that too has not been honored by the Trump administration. According to Stat, the US owed the WHO $278 million in dues, which are a percentage of each member state’s gross domestic product. That dues payment covered the country’s 2024–2025 membership, as WHO runs on a two-year budget cycle. - ArsTechnica https://bit.ly/4bNmz6u
Friday Afternoon News Updates as Americans Go on STRIKE — 1/23/26
Donald Trump is back in Washington, D.C., and he is clearly losing control. At the same time, a historic moment is taking shape across the United States. A general strike that began in Minnesota is now spreading to other parts of the country, with workers, nurses, and pro-democracy activists coordinating actions that we have not seen at this scale in roughly seventy years. The goal, shared openly by organizers, is to make this the largest general strike in modern U.S. history. - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/4jUC2nz
Rejecting Decades of Science, Vaccine Panel Chair Says Polio and Other Shots Should Be Optional
Offering a startlingly candid view into the philosophy guiding vaccine recommendations under the Trump administration, the leader of the federal panel that recommends vaccines for Americans said shots against polio and measles — and perhaps all diseases — should be optional, offered only in consultation with a clinician.
Dr. Kirk Milhoan, a pediatric cardiologist who is chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, said that he did have “concerns” that some children might die of measles or become paralyzed with polio as a result of a choice not to vaccinate. But, he said, “I also am saddened when people die of alcoholic diseases,” adding, “Freedom of choice and bad health outcomes.” - NYT https://nyti.ms/3O1TMkL
TikTok deal is done; Trump wants praise while users fear MAGA tweaks
“I am so happy to have helped in saving TikTok!” Trump said on Truth Social after the deal was finalized. “It will now be owned by a group of Great American Patriots and Investors, the Biggest in the World, and will be an important Voice.”
However, it’s unclear to TikTokers how the app might change as Trump allies take control of the addictive algorithm that drew millions to the app. Lawmakers had feared the Chinese Communist Party could influence the algorithm to target US users with propaganda, and Trump’s deal was supposed to mitigate that.
Not only do critics worry that if ByteDance maintains ownership of the algorithm, it could allow the company to continue to influence content, but there is now concern that the app’s recommendations could take a right-leaning slant under US control.
Trump has already said that he’d like to see TikTok go “100 percent MAGA,” and his allies will now be in charge of “deciding which posts to leave up and which to take down,” the NYT noted. Anupam Chander, a law and technology professor at Georgetown University, told the NYT that the TikTok deal offered Trump and his allies “more theoretical room for one side’s views to get a greater airing.”
“My worry all along is that we may have traded fears of foreign propaganda for the reality of domestic propaganda,” Chander said. - ArsTechnica https://bit.ly/4pPsZ8x
White House shares an altered photo of arrested Minnesota protester Nekima Levy Armstrong
The White House altered and posted to social media an image of an arrested Minnesota protester on Thursday to make it appear as if she were crying, a senior White House official confirmed to NBC News.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had posted the original image on X of civil rights activist Nekima Levy Armstrong looking ahead calmly as she was taken into custody Thursday. She was one of three people arrested in connection with a demonstration that interrupted a service last Sunday at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota, whose pastor they said works for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. - NBC https://nbcnews.to/4bNsbxx
Demonstrators Flood Minneapolis Streets as Hundreds of Businesses Close to Protest ICE
Thousands of protesters shut down parts of Minneapolis and St. Paul on Friday as hundreds of businesses closed their doors, and workers and students stayed home to demand an end to the sweeping immigration crackdown that has roiled the Twin Cities for weeks.
The action on Friday, which unfolded in subzero temperatures, was the most widespread and organized demonstration since federal agents arrived in Minneapolis more than six weeks ago. It was aimed at pressuring the federal government to pull thousands of its agents from the streets.
Businesses, many of them locally owned, closed their doors to halt economic activity, saying that losing a day’s revenue was worth the cost to be part of the effort to end the immigration enforcement.
The day of protests followed weeks of clashes between Minnesotans and federal agents, mostly in the Minneapolis and St. Paul areas. The immigration operation, which started late last year, has led to some 3,000 arrests, at least two shootings in Minneapolis and chaotic scenes on the streets.
Calls for the ouster of federal agents have grown from residents and local officials, especially after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot Renee Good, an American citizen, in Minneapolis on Jan. 7. Protesters and state officials have also filed lawsuits to restrict the agents’ conduct and to block the surge. - NYT https://nyti.ms/3M4ZRwh
What Is the Scale of the Resistance in Minnesota?
I came to Minneapolis to report on what’s going on, and one of the main questions I showed up with is “just what is the scale of the resistance?” After all, we’re all used to the news calling Portland a “war zone” or whatever when it’s just some protests in one part of town.
I got in late last night. First thing this morning, I saw cars following an ice vehicle down the street, honking at it.
Later, we didn’t drive more than three blocks before we found people defending a childcare facility. (The idea that people have to defend a childcare facility… let that sink in)
Half the street corners around here have people — from every walk of life, including republicans — standing guard to watch for suspicious vehicles, which are reported to a robust and entirely decentralized network that tracks ICE vehicles and mobilizes responders.
I have been actively involved in protest movements for 24 years. I have never seen anything approaching this scale. Minneapolis is not accepting what’s happening here. ICE fucking murdered a woman for participating in this, and all that did is bring out more people, from more walks of life. - Kottke https://bit.ly/4a9LIXL
ICE detains family seeking emergency care for child at Portland hospital
Federal immigration agents arrested and detained a Gresham family, including a 7-year-old child, outside a Portland hospital last week as the girl’s parents sought emergency medical care for her.
The arrest at Adventist Health hospital Jan. 16 took place less than 1,000 feet from the medical office parking lot where a Border Patrol agent shot and wounded a couple from Venezuela two weeks ago.
It appears to be the first time in Oregon that Trump administration immigration authorities have detained an entire family unit, and is one of a few rare cases of immigrants being detained while seeking medical care. Until last year, when President Donald Trump rescinded Obama-era protections for immigrants, hospitals, schools and churches were deemed off limits for immigration enforcement. - Oregonian https://bit.ly/4pUoR7m
Trump's new $1 billion gang
“Most cases very popular leaders, some cases not so popular.”
This is how President Donald Trump described the motley crew of heads of state and government who signed up Thursday in Davos for his new venture — the “Board of Peace” — an apparent bid to run the world for long after his presidential term ends.
Let’s stipulate that it’s a good thing when presidents seek peace. And if Trump’s big projects in Gaza and Ukraine deliver it, he’ll save thousands of lives.
Still, since he spent the week almost destroying the post-World War II order with his absurd bid to claim ownership of Greenland, his qualifications for serving as a kind of global supremo for life seem rather questionable. - CNN https://cnn.it/4sRk21f
The Trump Administration’s Affordability Messaging Is Confusing Americans
At a rally in Detroit earlier this month, Donald Trump told the crowd that his upcoming speech at the World Economic Forum would tackle one of his core issues: affordability. But the address he delivered in Davos yesterday was not quite what he’d telegraphed.
In what my colleague David A. Graham described as a “stump speech,” the president strayed from that focus, roaming from Arctic defense to the Minnesota fraud scandal to the policies of “Sleepy” Joe Biden. When he returned to the topic of affordability, he claimed that grocery prices are “going down” (they’re not) and that drug prices have declined by “2,000 percent” (they haven’t). Although Trump campaigned on the economy, weak polling has recently spurred new plans to make life in America more affordable.
At one point, Trump plugged a plan to curb predatory lending practices by capping credit-card interest rates at 10 percent—but the deadline (proposed on Truth Social) for the policy to go into effect had passed the day before. Trump also used his speech to promote his plan to lower housing costs, which he recently unveiled in an executive order. The policy is aimed at preventing corporations from buying up single-family homes, and has bipartisan support. These proposals were a blip in his 80-minute speech before he quickly pivoted. - Atlantic https://bit.ly/4bM4qWH
Trump Is Screwing with the Midterms. Will He Succeed?
With ICE terrorizing Minneapolis, the Justice Department giving murderers a pass while investigating the Fed Chair, and Trump now threatening to attack our allies over Greenland, only one question matters: How do we stop him?
The GOP could, of course. Along with the Democrats, they could vote to impeach him in the House, convict him in the Senate and remove him from office. His cabinet could remove him under the 25th Amendment; his bonkers letter to Norway, in which he justifies going to war with NATO for not receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, would suffice to find him unfit to hold the office of president.
There is no indication Republicans will find their spine and do any of this. Democrats can throw sand in the gears by withholding funding or attaching conditions to it, but so long as they are out of power, they can’t do much to rein in the President himself.
That leaves it to the people, namely, the voters. The November midterm elections seem an eternity from now, but 2025 is now behind us, and we made it this far, albeit not without significant trauma. As we look ahead to our chance to remove the GOP from power and put real checks on this rogue White House, a few nagging questions persist: Will Trump screw with the midterms? Will they be free and fair? Will we even have them? - The Big Picture https://bit.ly/3ZuYHNG
F__k yourself: Ex-officer beaten in Jan 6. riot shouts to GOP lawmaker
Former special counsel Jack Smith, who brought two now-defunct criminal cases against President Donald Trump, defended the integrity of his investigation during a combative hearing Thursday on Capitol Hill. Former police officers who defended the Capitol on January 6 were in the room to watch the hearing, as well as the former leader of the right-wing militia group known as the Oath Keepers. - CNN https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/22/politics/video/fanone-nehls-smith-hearing-digvid
Today in Politics, Bulletin 292. 1/23/26
Trump created another international incident with his mouth as he claimed that the US has never needed to call on our NATO allies. Cadet Bone Spurs: “We have never needed them. They’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan. And they did but they stayed a little back behind the front lines.”
The UK is in an absolute uproar with every media outlet and politician fuming at Trump and, by extension, US citizens for putting him in power again despite what they saw in term one. PM Keir Starmer, who worked hard to try and establish a cozy relationship with Trump, got burned again: “457 of our Armed Services lost their lives in Afghanistan, there were many also who were injured. So I consider Trump’s remarks to be insulting and frankly appalling.“
UK Armed Forces Undersecretary and highly decorated veteran Alistair Carns: “This is utterly ridiculous. Many courageous and honorable service personnel from many nations fought on the front line. Many fought way beyond it. I served 5 tours in Afghanistan - many alongside Americans. We shed blood, sweat and tears together. Not everybody came home. I’d suggest whoever believes these comments come have a whisky with me. There’s only one worse thing than working with allies, and that is working without them.”
Before long we won’t have anymore allies. Other than maybe Hungary, Israel, Qatar and Argentina. - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/3ZvsMwx
UK's Starmer calls Trump's remarks on allies in Afghanistan 'frankly appalling'
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called U.S. President Donald Trump's comments about European troops staying off the front lines in Afghanistan insulting and appalling, joining a chorus of criticism from other European officials and veterans.
"I consider President Trump's remarks to be insulting and frankly appalling, and I'm not surprised they've caused such hurt for the loved ones of those who were killed or injured," Starmer told reporters. - Reuters/Japan Today https://bit.ly/4acG2ML?
Trump Wrecked Climate Policy in a Year. Can We Ever Go Back?
Trump’s attacks on bedrock environmental and climate laws are inherently fragile—and could reflect the president’s preference for political dominance over lasting change. - Gizmodo https://bit.ly/4sPdKzc
New ICE policy allows officers to enter homes without a judge’s warrant. Here’s what experts say.
With an Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo that allows officers to enter homes without a judicial warrant, the Trump administration is seeking to usurp guardrails that are enshrined in the Fourth Amendment and have protected Americans’ civil liberties for centuries, experts in constitutional law and immigration policy told CNN.
Even in an administration that has always pushed an expansive vision of its law enforcement authority, the directive is notable for the way it tosses aside longstanding prohibitions against warrantless searches on private property — a legal concept that predates the creation of the United States and is among the country’s most foundational principles.
“The Bill of Rights, we thought, were the first 10 amendments,” said Mark Graber, a constitutional law scholar and University of Maryland professor.
With the newly discovered memo, he said: “I guess now we’re down to nine.” - CNN https://cnn.it/3ZwEoPU
Republicans are sadists
Nearly two-thirds of registered voters (61%) think Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have gone too far in their tactics as they seek to fulfill President Donald Trump's deportation agenda, a New York Times/Siena University
The same poll found that more than half of Republican voters (56%) think ICE's tactics have been "about right," while another 24% say that ICE has "not gone far enough.”
That means more than three-quarters of Republicans are fine with ICE’s violence in Minnesota and now in Maine, where Trump has sent his goons to carry out his reign of terror.
Let's take a look at the tactics Republican voters think are "about right" or are not forceful enough. - Daily Kos https://bit.ly/4sVFLVM
Philadelphia fights back against Trump's racism
The city of Philadelphia is suing the Trump administration over the decision to remove an exhibit at Independence National Historical Park depicting the factual history of slavery in the United States.
The suit was filed on Thursday in response to agents from the National Park Service removing the display, which has been in place for 16 years. Video recorded by The Philadelphia Inquirer shows the exhibit, titled “The Dirty Business of Slavery,” being pried off the wall at the park. - Daily Kos https://bit.ly/45Xcoso
Kash Patel can’t stop screwing up
You’d think that a dude who was just the centerpiece of a massive New York Times story about how his first year on the job has been “marred by vendettas, mismanagement, and meltdowns” might be engaging in the tiniest bit of self-reflection.
But since that dude is FBI Director Kash Patel, you would be so, so wrong.
Instead, Patel decided to do yet another purge of senior FBI employees for having the gall to investigate President Donald Trump and his supporters for their open, obvious, and well-documented crimes. - Daily Kos https://bit.ly/49Z1Ryc
Has Trump Crossed a Line with Brits?
Donald Trump’s latest unhinged verbal attack, this time against NATO allies, was not just another bout of rhetorical carelessness. It was a deliberate insult aimed at countries that bled alongside the United States for two decades—and it landed with particular force in the UK, where memories of Afghanistan are not abstract talking points but graves, amputations, and lifelong trauma—and where the US ‘Special Relationship’ still means something.
When Trump told Fox News that the US had “never needed” NATO and suggested that European forces stayed “a little off the front lines” in Afghanistan, he crossed a line that even normally cautious allies could not ignore. British prime minister Keir Starmer, who has spent months carefully avoiding public confrontation with Trump, called the remarks “insulting and frankly appalling.” That choice of words was unusually blunt—and telling.
Britain lost 457 service personnel in Afghanistan, its deadliest overseas conflict since the Korean War. For years, British troops led the allied campaign in Helmand province, one of the most violent and unforgiving theatres of the war. They did not hover on the sidelines. They fought house to house, patrolled some of the most dangerous terrain on earth, and paid for the alliance in blood.
So did many others. Canada lost more than 150 troops. France lost around 90. Germany, Italy, Denmark, Poland, and dozens of other NATO partners suffered casualties that, per capita, often rivaled or exceeded those of the United States. Denmark alone lost 44 soldiers—one of the highest per-capita death rates in the war. Poland, whose forces operated under constant threat, considers its sacrifice a matter of national honor. These are facts. Trump’s comments erase them. - Daily Kos https://bit.ly/4q3i0sl
Defund Science, Distort Culture, Mock Education
Joan Brugge has worked for nearly 50 years as a cancer scientist, studying the earliest signs that someone might become sick. Then the Trump administration canceled her lab’s funding. The administration’s attacks on medicine, culture, and education—which include verbal threats and funding cuts—are about more than just budgeting and bravado. Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University and the author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present. She argues that this effort is part of a larger autocratic project to maintain power. - Atlantic https://bit.ly/4biuKHQ
The Rumbles Within Trump’s GOP
The president’s fixation on Greenland has posed yet another test for Republican leaders. - Atlantic https://bit.ly/45Zzbnm
Demonstrators Flood Minneapolis Streets as Hundreds of Businesses Close to Protest ICE
Thousands of protesters shut down streets throughout Minneapolis-St. Paul to demand that federal immigration agents end their weekslong crackdown. Businesses closed in solidarity. - NYT https://nyti.ms/3NEfT0z
Trump’s Turnabout on Greenland Shows the Limits of His Coercive Powers
Even by President Trump’s own mercurial standards, his whipsawing over the past few weeks on Greenland — insisting on the largest land acquisition in American history and then dropping it without explanation, threatening allies and then reversing himself — was a remarkable and revealing exercise in a new era of American coercive diplomacy. - NYT https://nyti.ms/3Z1Jbsu
F.B.I. Agent Who Tried to Investigate ICE Officer in Shooting Resigns
An F.B.I. agent who sought to investigate the federal immigration officer who fatally shot a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis this month has resigned from the bureau, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The agent, Tracee Mergen, left her job as a supervisor in the F.B.I.’s Minneapolis field office after bureau leadership in Washington pressured her to discontinue a civil rights inquiry into the immigration officer, Jonathan Ross, according to one of the people. Such inquiries are a common investigative step in similar shootings.
Ms. Mergen’s resignation was only the latest shock wave to have emerged from the Justice Department’s handling of the shooting of Renee Good, an unarmed mother who was killed on Jan. 7 as she was behind the wheel of her Honda Pilot. - NYT https://nyti.ms/3NDrWvd
Anti-Abortion March Brings Thousands to D.C., and a Sense of Frustration
At the March for Life, Vice President JD Vance acknowledged “a fear that some of you have that not enough progress has been made.” - NYT https://nyti.ms/3NMChou
Thousands March Through Manhattan to Protest ICE Crackdowns Across U.S.
Thousands of people withstood freezing temperatures and high winds in New York City on Friday to protest the ongoing crackdowns by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents around the country, including the detention of a 5-year-old boy near Minneapolis this week. The gathering, which began with a demonstration in Union Square in Manhattan, continued with an evening march through the streets. - NYT https://nyti.ms/49PoYuU
Renée Fleming Won’t Perform at Kennedy Center Concerts
The soprano Renée Fleming will not be part of two scheduled performances at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, according to the center’s website.
Fleming, one of the world’s great opera singers, resigned as an artistic adviser to the Kennedy Center nearly one year ago.
Since the center’s board of directors decided last month to add President Trump’s name to the building, several artists have cut ties. The banjoist Béla Fleck withdrew from performances with the National Symphony Orchestra, saying that playing at the center had “become charged and political,” and the “Wicked” composer Stephen Schwartz said he would not host a gala there. - NYT https://nyti.ms/3M4dTOI
The Coming Trump Crackup
Last week Minneapolis’s police chief, Brian O’Hara, said the thing he fears most is the “moment where it all explodes.” I share his worry. If you follow the trajectory of events, it’s pretty clear that we’re headed toward some kind of crackup.
We are in the middle of at least four unravelings: The unraveling of the postwar international order. The unraveling of domestic tranquillity wherever Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents bring down their jackboots. The further unraveling of the democratic order, with attacks on Fed independence and — excuse the pun — trumped-up prosecutions of political opponents. Finally, the unraveling of President Trump’s mind. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4biQ2Fh
Letters from an American - January 23, 2026 - Heather Cox Richardson
Tens of thousands of Minnesotans took to the streets today in bitter cold temperatures with wind chills of -20°F (–28°C) to protest the occupation of Minneapolis and St. Paul by federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Status Coup News interviewed a protester walking down the street holding a sign that said: “CLASSIC NAZI BLUNDER: INVADING IN WINTER.” - Cox Richardson https://nyti.ms/4biQ2Fh
Trump threatens new 100% tariffs on Canada over possible trade deal with China
President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened to slap 100% tariffs on Canadian imports if America’s second-biggest trading partner makes a trade deal with China.
The comments threaten to deepen the divide between Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, after back-and-forth threats to impose tariffs on Canadian goods, including 10% duties, after Ontario’s ad featuring former President Ronald Reagan’s speech about tariffs.
Trump mockingly referred to Carney as “governor,” a term he has also used for former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, playing off his call for Canada to become the 51st US state. - CNN https://cnn.it/4sTTsEV
Minneapolis Mayor Frey defiant after another fatal shooting by immigration officers
In the moments after Renee Good was killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey issued a combative message. “To ICE, get the fuck out of Minneapolis,” he said.
A little more than two weeks later, as Frey responded to another killing of a Minneapolis resident by federal agents, he was similarly defiant.
This time, even as he pleaded with President Donald Trump to “act like a leader,” Frey also aimed his message at the American public.
“To everyone listening: Stand with Minneapolis. Stand up for America,” Frey said at a news conference today.
“Recognize that your children will ask you what side you were on. Your grandchildren will ask what you did to act to prevent this from happening again.” - CNN https://cnn.it/49FP5Wu
Minneapolis Live Updates: Federal Agents Shoot and Kill a 37-Year Old Man
Federal agents shot and killed a 37-year-old Minneapolis resident on Saturday morning, the city’s police chief said. The shooting prompted clashes between law enforcement and hundreds of protesters, as Minnesota officials renewed demands that the Trump administration end its immigration crackdown, which has now resulted in two deaths.
Videos analyzed by The New York Times contradict the accounts of Homeland Security officials, who said that the man approached Border Patrol agents with a handgun and the intent to “massacre” them. Footage of the encounter shows the man was holding a phone in his hand, not a gun, when federal agents took him to the ground and shot him. - NYT https://nyti.ms/49T9CFT
Videos Showing Aggressive ICE Tactics in Minnesota Fuel a Backlash
Federal immigration agents have broken windows and dragged occupants out of their vehicles. They have forcefully tackled people to the ground. They have pushed and shoved protesters, and deployed pepper spray directly in their faces.
For weeks, residents have documented the scenes unfolding as federal agents pursue President Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota. The videos have circulated widely and intensified outrage and fear among many Minnesotans. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4pVyPW0
Demonstrators Flood Minneapolis Streets as Hundreds of Businesses Close to Protest ICE
Thousands of protesters shut down parts of Minneapolis-St. Paul on Friday as hundreds of businesses closed their doors, and workers and students stayed home to demand an end to the sweeping immigration crackdown that has roiled the Twin Cities for weeks.
The action on Friday, which unfolded in subzero temperatures, was the most widespread and organized demonstration since federal agents arrived in Minneapolis more than six weeks ago. It was aimed at pressuring the federal government to pull thousands of its agents from the streets.
Businesses, many of them locally owned, closed their doors to halt economic activity, saying that losing a day’s revenue was worth the cost to be part of the effort to end the immigration enforcement. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4jVZpx3
Saturday Updates: Trump Regime Murders Another Citizen in Minneapolis — 1/24/26
The Trump regime has murdered another citizen. And now they’re lying about it. The cover-up is in full swing. But we have the footage. From multiple angles. We’ve heard from multiple witnesses. And we have cameras on the ground, thanks to our partners at Status Coup.
Early this morning, federal agents shot and killed a man near Glam Doll Donuts on Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis. Multiple witnesses were on scene. One described it to us as “an execution.” Within minutes, Minneapolis police moved to secure the area. They were blocked by federal agents. According to the Star Tribune, federal officers attempted to order local police away from the scene. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara refused and instructed his officers to preserve the site.
That refusal mattered, because video evidence from multiple angles began circulating almost immediately. The footage shows at least ten shots fired. It shows the victim’s hands appearing empty. It does not show him using a weapon, reaching for one, or threatening anyone. It shows a man shot to the ground and then shot again. - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/3Z0ESO7
SHAME ON CNN, CBS, AND ALL OF THEM!!
My heart goes out to the family of Alex Pretti and to the entire Minnesota community who are under attack by Trump’s ICE and Border Patrol terrorist thugs. Pretti was murdered in cold blood by Border Patrol gestapo. He didn’t incite anything or threaten anyone. He was helping female protesters who were getting brutalized by the Border Patrol sickos when he was pepper sprayed and gang-tackled to the ground. He was bludgeoned on the ground before being shot repeatedly and killed.
This isn’t my opinion. This is what happened. This isn’t my perspective. These are the facts.
It does not surprise me that the Trump regime is calling Alex a domestic terrorist who had an agenda to massacre Border Patrol and ICE. This regime is made up of despicable and vile humans who lie about everything. They are terrorists and horrible humans.
What makes me livid, and what should also come as no surprise, however, is the coverage from CNN and CBS and Politico and of course Fox and frankly all corporate news. They have all parroted regime talking points that Alex Pretti was resisting and that somehow having a concealed handgun with a lawful permit made it justifiable to kill him. Alex did not brandish his weapon. He was holding a cell phone. Alex was not resisting; he was attacked and bludgeoned and murdered. - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/49GMZ8O
Pete Hegseth Should Stay Out of Minneapolis
By inserting himself into the situation in Minnesota, the secretary of defense is only making things worse. - Atlantic https://bit.ly/49GbuD5
Police and ICE Agents Are on a Collision Course
After another fatal ICE shooting in Minneapolis, the rift between local police and federal agents is becoming a rupture. - Atlantic https://bit.ly/4rgPtAI
A Citizen Murdered for Caring
Today, in Minneapolis, Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old man, was murdered on the street for trying to help a woman stand up after she was pushed by ICE agents and slipped on an icy sidewalk. A precious life was treated with shocking carelessness by federal agents who seemed to believe they were acting out a role in a mafia-style movie, continuing to fire bullets into his body even after he was lifeless on the ground.
The entire interaction, from the moment Alex Pretti was seen calmly and quietly filming ICE to the moment he was dead, was about sixty seconds. - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/3LSF0Mw
Letters from an American - January 24, 2026 - Heather Cox Richardson
This morning, on a street in Minneapolis, at least seven federal agents tackled and then shot and killed Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse for the local VA hospital.
Video from the scene shows Pretti directing traffic on a street out of an area with agents around, then trying to help another person get up after she had been pushed to the ground by the agents. The agents then surround Pretti and shoot pepper spray into his face, then pull him to the ground from behind and hit him as he appears to be trying to keep his head off the ground. An agent appears to take a gun out of Pretti’s waistband during the struggle, then turns and leaves with it. A shot then stops Pretti’s movements, appearing to kill him, before nine more shots ring out, apparently as agents continued to fire into his body.
It looked like an execution. - Cox Richardson https://bit.ly/4rcnIsK
Sunday thought: Enough
I believe the shots that killed Alex Pretti and Renee Good are the shots heard ‘round the world that will topple the Trump regime.
From Minneapolis to Davos, people are joining together against Trump’s tyranny.
In Minnesota, they are joining across ethnicity, race, and class against Trump’s gestapo tactics, repression, and murders. Solidarity is spreading to other cities.
In Europe, they are joining across national boundaries against Trump’s threats to their sovereignty, the European Community, and NATO.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, in a speech that drew a standing ovation from world leaders at Davos, called on “middle powers” like Canada and Europe to form a new alliance against economic coercion from the world’s great powers (by which he clearly meant Trump’s United States and Putin’s Russia).
Across America and across the world, people are realizing it’s not possible to appease America’s dictator. The only way to deal with him is to stand up to him — and the only way to stand up to him is by joining together against him. - Reich Substack https://bit.ly/45verUx
Man Killed by Federal Agents in Minneapolis Was Holding a Phone, Not a Gun
Federal officials sought to portray a 37-year-old Minneapolis resident killed by Border Patrol agents on Saturday as a domestic terrorist, saying he wanted to “massacre” law enforcement, even as videos emerged that appeared to directly contradict their account.
The man, Alex Jeffrey Pretti, was an intensive-care nurse described by the Minneapolis police chief as a U.S. citizen with no criminal record. Federal officials said he was armed, but there is no sign in videos analyzed by The New York Times that he pulled his weapon, or that agents even knew he had one until he was already pinned on the sidewalk. - NYT https://nyti.ms/49P1Yxz
Timeline: A Moment by Moment Look at the Shooting of Alex Pretti
Federal agents shot and killed a 37-year-old Minneapolis resident, Alex Jeffrey Pretti, at about 9 a.m. Central time on Saturday morning. A video shared with The New York Times by an eyewitness and her lawyer, as well as other video footage posted on social media, documents the violent scene, where agents appear to fire at least 10 shots in a span of only five seconds.
The footage seems to contradict the Department of Homeland Security’s account of the event, which the agency said began after the victim approached the federal agents with a handgun and the intent to “massacre” them. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4jVOt2i
Trump Threatens Canada With Tariffs as Post-Davos Fallout Continues
President Trump said he would impose tariffs if Canada made “a deal with China,” though there is no sign that those countries are discussing a broad trade agreement. - NYT https://nyti.ms/3LNoWfe
Pepper-Sprayed While Pinned Down: A Searing Scene Provokes Outrage
The deployment of thousands of federal agents to Minnesota to round up undocumented immigrants has yielded no shortage of indelible images in recent weeks.
There was the American citizen dragged out of his home in subzero weather in his underwear. And the detention of a 5-year-old boy wearing a Spider-Man backpack and a hat with floppy ears drew outrage from school officials.
But photos of a Border Patrol agent squirting pepper spray in the face of a man who was being pinned down by fellow officers on Wednesday searingly captured why the ongoing immigration operation has been met with furious resistance on the streets of Minneapolis.
Images of the episode drew millions of views online, made the front page of The Minnesota Star Tribune and elicited blistering condemnation from local officials. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4rgQ2uk
Democrats Vow Not to Fund ICE After Shooting, Imperiling Spending Deal
Bipartisan legislation to fund a broad swath of the government and avert a shutdown at the end of the week appeared to be in grave danger on Saturday, as key Senate Democrats vowed to oppose it after federal agents shot and killed a Minneapolis resident.
The rapidly escalating opposition to the measure, which includes $64.4 billion for the Department of Homeland Security, including $10 billion for ICE, amplified the likelihood of a partial government shutdown at the end of the month. The legislation requires the support of Democrats to muster the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster and advance in the Senate.
“Senate Democrats will not provide the votes to proceed to the appropriations bill if the D.H.S. funding bill is included,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said in a statement, calling what is unfolding in Minnesota “appalling” and “unacceptable in any American city.” - NYT https://nyti.ms/4jZiJcF
Appeals Court Rejects Justice Dept. Push for Arrest Warrant for Don Lemon
A federal appeals court on Friday turned down an extraordinary request from the Justice Department to force a judge to issue arrest warrants for Don Lemon, the journalist, and four other people in connection with a church protest in Minneapolis last week.
The department’s unusual petition, which was unsealed on Saturday along with other documents arising from the case, was a remarkably aggressive attempt by the Trump administration to strong-arm judges into doing its bidding. It prompted an equally remarkable pushback from the conservative chief federal judge in Minnesota, who called the petition “frivolous” and categorically rejected the administration’s efforts to depict its need for the warrants as what he described as a “national security emergency.”
The dispute also shows the boundary-pushing lengths to which Trump administration officials are willing to go in their efforts to crack down on what they see as criticism of the president’s aggressive immigration measures. - NYT https://nyti.ms/3NC6kzi
State Terror Has Arrived
After the past three weeks of brutality in Minneapolis, it should no longer be possible to say that the Trump administration seeks merely to govern this nation. It seeks to reduce us all to a state of constant fear — a fear of violence from which some people may at a given moment be spared, but from which no one will ever be truly safe. That is our new national reality. State terror has arrived.
Please look at this list with me. Since early January, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement expanded its operation in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., federal officers have: killed Renee Good, a white middle-class mother; menaced a pregnant immigration lawyer in her firm’s parking lot; detained numerous U.S. citizens, including one who was dragged out of his house in his underwear; smashed in the windows of cars and detained their occupants, including a U.S. citizen who was on her way to a medical appointment at a traumatic brain injury center; set off crowd-control grenades and a tear gas container next to a car that contained six children, including a 6-month-old; swept an airport, demanding to see people’s papers and arresting more than a dozen people who were working there; detained a 5-year-old. And now they have killed another U.S. citizen, Alex Jeffrey Pretti, an I.C.U. nurse with no criminal record. It seems he was white. The agents had him down on the ground, subdued, before they apparently fired at least 10 shots at point-blank range. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4bPPaYP
The World Will Remember Trump’s Greenland Outburst
The free world exhaled on Wednesday when President Trump retreated from his administration’s threat to invade Greenland. That relief, however, masks the damage that Mr. Trump has done to America this week. Mr. Trump’s apologists once dismissed his bullying of Greenland as an attempt at humor. Instead, it has been something far darker. His immoral threats against a loyal NATO ally have escalated a crisis in U.S.-European relations, weakened one of history’s most successful alliances and hurt American interests in tangible ways. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4rfC77D
The Cruelty Is the Point for ICE
The public face of Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a brutal, paramilitary force of masked men who hunt immigrants and terrorize American cities on behalf of the president of the United States.
The not-so-public face is somehow even worse.
ICE operates detention facilities across the country, holding tens of thousands of people arrested on immigration charges. President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill included $45 billion for the construction of new detention space, including facilities with tent-like structures meant to house a growing influx of people seized by ICE and Customs and Border Protection agents.
These facilities, human rights researchers and former detainees report, are cramped, squalid and dangerous. “The food they gave us was not edible,” according to one woman initially detained at a Chicago airport along with her 5-year-old daughter. “We didn’t eat anything for days. They didn’t even give us water to drink.” Eventually, the woman and her daughter were transferred to the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Dilley, Texas, which the woman “described as a living hell.” - NYT https://nyti.ms/4ribfnI
The Un-American President
Jack Smith’s testimony before Congress on Thursday was a stinging reminder that Trump tried to overthrow the government and wickedly put lawmakers and his own vice president in harm’s way.
“Our investigation revealed that Donald Trump is the person who caused Jan. 6, that it was foreseeable to him and that he sought to exploit the violence,” Smith said.
It is heartbreaking that on the cusp of our 250th anniversary, we have a president who is perverting all the values our country was founded on — looking out for one another, respecting one another’s rights. - NYT Jack Smith’s testimony before Congress on Thursday was a stinging reminder that Trump tried to overthrow the government and wickedly put lawmakers and his own vice president in harm’s way.
“Our investigation revealed that Donald Trump is the person who caused Jan. 6, that it was foreseeable to him and that he sought to exploit the violence,” Smith said.
It is heartbreaking that on the cusp of our 250th anniversary, we have a president who is perverting all the values our country was founded on — looking out for one another, respecting one another’s rights.
Watching America Unravel in Minneapolis
What I saw, as federal agents stormed the city and residents banded together to protect themselves, was a dark, dystopian future becoming reality. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4t0zcBi
Alex Jeffrey Pretti Knew He Wanted to Help Others
The man fatally shot by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis was Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a U.S. citizen with no criminal record, officials said.
Mr. Pretti, who was 37, was a registered nurse who worked in the intensive-care unit at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Minneapolis, according to interviews and public records, and lived in an apartment in Minneapolis a short drive away from where he was killed.
He had a firearms permit, required by state law in Minnesota to carry a handgun, officials said.
Colleagues and acquaintances of Mr. Pretti were stunned by his death, recalling a friendly neighbor and hardworking professional who was devoted to his patients. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4rhflfK
IMPORTANT SUNDAY MESSAGE from Meidas Founder
It’s a grim Sunday. There’s no way around that. Sure, Trump’s approval is plummeting to new lows and the regime has never been more detested. But it’s at the cost of a lot of pain, a lot of tears, and a lot of mourning.
Alex Pretti was murdered in cold blood by Trump’s Border Patrol. Pretti was an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA. Pretti did nothing wrong at the protest yesterday morning in Minneapolis. He went to offer aid to a female protester who was getting pepper sprayed by Border Patrol agents. The Border Patrol gestapo started pepper spraying Pretti. A group of six to seven Border Patrol thugs threw Pretti to the ground, bludgeoned him on the floor, and shot him 11 times.
Just as it did with Renée Nicole Goode, the Trump regime labeled Pretti a domestic terrorist. It’s the same playbook. It’s the playbook for terror. The Trump regime defamed Pretti and completely lied about what we all saw on video. They repeat the lie over and over and use their state regime news networks like Fox and CBS to repeat the regime propaganda. - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/3M3i25y
The global rule of law is not collapsing – Trump is the lone problem and he can be defeated
Donald Trump is a monster, and a stupid one at that – as his foul slander of British soldiers who served in Afghanistan shows. His bid to seize loyal ally Denmark’s sovereign territory; his norm-shattering, profoundly ignorant speech in Davos last week; and his contemptuous bullying of UK and EU leaders have definitively demonstrated what an existential, unappeasable, unspeakable menace the 47th US president truly is.
All the post-Davos talk is about what the UK, the EU and Nato must do in future to resist and constrain Trump, and how to counter his attempts to demolish the global rules-based order. Yet a sense of proportion is required. If his policies and posturing are removed from the equation, it’s clear that the unedifying but familiar postwar world of great power rivalries and de-facto spheres of influence remains largely unchanged. Continuities outnumber ruptures. It’s also clear this crisis is not ultimately one Europe can solve.
Trump and Trump alone is the principal, pressing problem. And Trump is a made-in-America monster. It’s up to Americans to un-make him and set things straight – which they surely will, sooner or later. - Guardian https://bit.ly/4abmHvo
The End of Rule of Law in America
The 47th president seems to wish he were king—and he is willing to destroy what is precious about this country to get what he wants. - Google https://bit.ly/4adgqPP
They Keep Lying To Us
Two dead Americans, federal agents running amok, and an impending constitutional crisis. - Persuasion https://bit.ly/3ZsU8U6
Federal agent secured gun from Minn. man before fatal shooting, videos show
Federal agents who were wrestling a man to the ground in Minneapolis early Saturday secured a handgun he was carrying moments before shooting him multiple times, according to a Washington Post analysis of videos that captured the incident from several angles.
As many as eight agents were attempting to detain Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, videos show. One emerged from the scrum holding Pretti’s gun, having removed it from his waistband area. Less than a second later, the first of what appear to be 10 shots was fired. It is not clear from the video whether the other agents realized Pretti — who local authorities believe had a permit to carry the weapon — had been disarmed. - WaPo https://wapo.st/49X5W64
Sunday Afternoon News Updates: The Cover-Up is in Full Swing — 1/25/26
This morning brought another public meltdown from Donald Trump, and another failed attempt by his regime to bury the truth. As the fallout grows from the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, the Trump regime’s effort to defame him has not just failed. It has exposed something even darker: a coordinated assault on basic constitutional rights in service of a cover-up. The regime is now spending all their energy slandering Pretti. Every time you think these people hit a new low, they find the basement. - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/4qFTU80
‘This is what fascism looks like’: terror in Minneapolis reminiscent of civil war
Wearing helmets, gas masks and camouflage fatigues, the federal agents took aim and prepared to open fire. “It’s like Call of Duty,” one could be heard saying via a TV mic, referring to a first-person shooter military video game. “So cool, huh?”
This was the scene on the streets of Minneapolis on Saturday after armed agents, wearing masks and tactical vests, wrestled 37-year-old Alex Pretti to the ground and shot him dead. The killing took place just over a mile from where Renee Good was fatally shot on 7 January, a scene that itself was less than a mile from where police murdered George Floyd in May 2020.
“How many more residents, how many more Americans need to die or get badly hurt for this operation to end?” the Minneapolis mayor, Jacob Frey, demanded at a press conference on Saturday, referring to the Trump administration’s ongoing immigration crackdown in Minneapolis. An angry crowd gathered and swore profanities at federal officers, calling them “cowards” and telling them to go home. - Guardian https://bit.ly/4r4UqMA
The Trump Administration Is Lying to Our Faces. Congress Must Act.
The federal government owes Americans a thorough investigation and a truthful accounting of the Saturday morning shooting of Alex Jeffrey Pretti on a Minneapolis street. When the government kills, it has an obligation to demonstrate that it has acted in the public interest. Instead, the Trump administration is once again engaged in a perversion of justice.
Mere hours after Mr. Pretti died, Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, declared without offering evidence that Mr. Pretti had “committed an act of domestic terrorism.” Gregory Bovino, a Border Patrol official, offered his own assessment: “This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”
These unfounded and inflammatory judgments pre-empt the outcome of an investigation, which the Department of Homeland Security has promised. They also appear wholly inconsistent with several videos recorded at the scene.
Those videos showed that Mr. Pretti had nothing but a phone in his hands when he was tackled by Border Patrol agents, and that he never drew the gun he was carrying (and reportedly had a license to carry). Indeed, the videos seem to show that one federal agent took the gun from Mr. Pretti moments before a different agent shot him from behind. Separate analyses by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Associated Press, CBS News and other organizations all concluded that the videos contradict the Trump administration’s description of the killing. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4k6PiWk
This Weekend in Politics, Bulletin 293
Before we break down the details, first some general points that are very important. These are facts on video:
Europe's leaders find a way to speak with one voice against Trump
No more fawning praise. No more polite workarounds and old-style diplomacy. And no one is calling Donald Trump “daddy” now.
European leaders who scrambled for a year to figure out how to deal with an emboldened American president in his second term edged closer to saying “no,” or something diplomatically like it, to his disregard for international law and his demands for their territory. Trump's vow to take over Greenland and punish any country that resists, seems to have been the crucible. - AP/Japan Today https://bit.ly/4q3C25Y?
How the Trump Administration Rushed to Judgment in Minneapolis Shooting
Not long after federal agents shot and killed a 37-year-old Minneapolis resident on Saturday, senior members of the Trump administration were ready with their conclusions about what had happened and who was to blame.
Stephen Miller, President Trump’s homeland security adviser, called the victim, Alex Pretti, who was filming Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis, a “domestic terrorist.” Gregory Bovino, the official in charge of Border Patrol operations, said Mr. Pretti was out to “massacre law enforcement.” The Department of Homeland Security said an agent had fired “defensive shots” because he was “fearing for his life and the lives and safety of fellow officers.”
Even as videos emerged that contradicted the government’s account, the Trump administration was in a race to control the narrative around the killing of Mr. Pretti, a registered nurse with no criminal record who was pinned down when immigration agents opened fire and killed him. The rush to blame Mr. Pretti and exonerate the immigration agents — even while officials were still gathering the facts — deviates entirely from the way law enforcement investigations are normally carried out. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4jYnP8V
Killing Prompts Only a Defiant Response From Trump
In the hours after a man was brought to his knees and fatally shot by Border Patrol officers in Minneapolis on Saturday, President Trump was in the Oval Office, where an aide, Natalie Harp, sat close by with a laptop.
Along with input from aides who called throughout the day by phone, the two pumped out several presidential social media posts that blamed local law enforcement officials and the victim for the killing and accused Minnesota officials of covering up an unrelated fraud scandal.
Mr. Trump also spoke with Stephen Miller, his deputy chief of staff, who called the victim — Alex Pretti, a U.S. citizen and I.C.U. nurse who had been using his cellphone to record immigration agents on the street and was carrying a licensed handgun — a “would-be assassin.” - NYT https://nyti.ms/4rePJ32
Trump Blames Democrats for ‘Tragic’ Deaths as Agents Clash With Protesters
President Trump said in a series of social media posts on Sunday that two American citizens had “tragically” lost their lives amid his administration’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, but he blamed Democratic leaders for the deaths.
“Democrat run Sanctuary Cities and States are REFUSING to cooperate with ICE, and they are actually encouraging Leftwing Agitators to unlawfully obstruct their operations to arrest the Worst of the Worst People!” he wrote. “By doing this, Democrats are putting Illegal Alien Criminals over Taxpaying, Law-Abiding Citizens, and they have created dangerous circumstances for EVERYONE involved.”
The posts apparently referred to the deaths this month of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two U.S. citizens and Minneapolis residents who were shot and killed by federal immigration agents. - NYT https://nyti.ms/3ZykJ21
Trump Just Proved Carney’s Point
“Dear Prime Minister Carney,” President Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday. “Please let this Letter serve to represent that the Board of Peace is withdrawing its invitation to you regarding Canada’s joining, what will be, the most prestigious Board of Leaders ever assembled, at any time. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Everything Trump has done over the last week has made him look tawdry, addled and small. He began his latest play for Greenland by complaining about being passed over for the Nobel Peace Prize and ended it by disinviting Mark Carney from his “Board of Peace.” For Trump, nothing — not even peace — transcends his brutish transactionalism. - NYT https://nyti.ms/45vJrDI
U.S. officials dig in on Minneapolis shooting narrative, contradicting video evidence
Senior Trump administration officials on Sunday defended the fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen by immigration agents in Minneapolis even as video evidence contradicted their version of events and tensions grew between local law enforcement and federal officers.
As residents visited a makeshift shrine of flowers and candles in frigid temperatures and snow to mark Saturday's fatal shooting of Alex Pretti — the second shooting death involving federal officers in Minneapolis this month — Trump administration officials stated that Pretti assaulted officers, compelling them to fire in self-defense.
"The victims are border patrol agents," Gregory Bovino, Border Patrol commander-at-large, told CNN's "State of the Union" program. - Reuters/Japan Times https://bit.ly/4tj2cVp
Letters from an American - January 25, 2026 - Heather Cox Richardson
As the nation mourned the killing of VA ICU nurse Alex Pretti yesterday at the hands of federal officials in Minneapolis, President Donald J. Trump spent last night at the White House at a black-tie private screening of a documentary about First Lady Melania Trump. Amazon paid $40 million for the rights to the film just weeks after executive chair Jeff Bezos dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago following the former president’s reelection and is spending another $35 million to promote the film.
Then, this morning, Trump’s social media account posted a 450-word social media screed complaining about the lawsuit against his addition of a massive ballroom to the White House. Calling the National Trust for Historic Preservation a “Radical Left” organization, the account claimed that the addition “is being done with the design, consent, and approval of the highest levels of the United States Military and Secret Service. The mere bringing of this ridiculous lawsuit has already, unfortunately, exposed this heretofore Top Secret fact. Stoppage of construction, at this late date, when so much has already been ordered and done, would be devastating to the White House, our Country, and all concerned.”
This morning, administration officials doubled down on their insistence that the killing had been justified. - Cox Richardson https://bit.ly/4qAIQcm
The Trump Administration Is Lying to Our Faces. Congress Must Act.
The federal government owes Americans a thorough investigation and a truthful accounting of the Saturday morning shooting of Alex Jeffrey Pretti on a Minneapolis street. When the government kills, it has an obligation to demonstrate that it has acted in the public interest. Instead, the Trump administration is once again engaged in a perversion of justice.
Mere hours after Mr. Pretti died, Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, declared without offering evidence that Mr. Pretti had “committed an act of domestic terrorism.” Gregory Bovino, a Border Patrol official, offered his own assessment: “This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”
These unfounded and inflammatory judgments pre-empt the outcome of an investigation, which the Department of Homeland Security has promised. They also appear wholly inconsistent with several videos recorded at the scene.
Those videos showed that Mr. Pretti had nothing but a phone in his hands when he was tackled by Border Patrol agents, and that he never drew the gun he was carrying (and reportedly had a license to carry). Indeed, the videos seem to show that one federal agent took the gun from Mr. Pretti moments before a different agent shot him from behind. Separate analyses by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Associated Press, CBS News and other organizations all concluded that the videos contradict the Trump administration’s description of the killing. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4ahbtWa
Once Again, Federal Officials Exclude Minnesota From Investigation of a Fatal Shooting
For the second time in three weeks, local and state authorities in Minnesota say they have been impeded from investigating how federal agents shot and killed someone, cutting off access to crucial evidence and basic facts.
In both cases, Minnesota officials said they sought to have their Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which typically takes the lead in police shootings, work in partnership with the federal government.
Yet the Department of Homeland Security has blocked local investigators from reviewing evidence gathered following the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti, both Minneapolis residents and U.S. citizens.
Federal authorities shut down an early effort to collaboratively investigate the agent who killed Ms. Good and said that they would handle any investigation into the killing of Mr. Pretti. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4bnVXca
For Trump, the Truth in Minneapolis Is What He Says It Is
Twice since the start of the year, federal officers have gunned down protesters in Minneapolis with cellphone cameras rolling, and twice President Trump and his lieutenants have rushed forward with a message to the American people: Don’t believe what you see with your own eyes.
Without waiting for facts, the Trump team has advanced one-sided narratives to justify each of the killings and demonize the victims. Renee Good, a mother of three, was engaged in “domestic terrorism” and “viciously ran over the ICE Officer,” they declared. Alex Pretti, an I.C.U. nurse at a veterans’ hospital, was an “assassin” aiming to “massacre law enforcement.”
The trick is that the Trump versions of reality have collided with bystander videos watched by millions who did not see what they were told. Ms. Good did not run over the ICE agent who killed her; a video analysis suggested she was trying to turn away from him and he continued to shoot her even as she passed him. Mr. Pretti approached officers with a phone in his hand, not a gun; he moved to help a woman who was pepper sprayed and he was under a pileup of agents when one suddenly shot him in the back. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4pYV1yr
Republicans Struggle to Respond to Shooting, Reflecting Political Peril
The fatal shooting of a 37-year-old man by a federal agent in Minneapolis has set off alarm bells among Republicans, fueling worries within the party about a potential backlash to violent tactics by the Trump administration in its immigration crackdown.
Some Republicans came forward on Sunday to vigorously defend the administration and place blame for the death of the man, Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a U.S. citizen, on forces on the left who oppose President Trump’s immigration policies. But many party leaders stayed silent, and some G.O.P. lawmakers both in the center and on the hard right raised grave concerns, suggesting a rare moment of dissent over a killing carried out in broad daylight and recorded by bystanders. - NYT https://nyti.ms/46jQ6kH
New Video Analysis Reveals Flawed and Fatal Decisions in Shooting of Pretti
A frame-by-frame assessment of actions by Alex Pretti and the two officers who fired 10 times shows how lethal force came to be used against a man who didn’t pose a threat. (video) - NYT https://nyti.ms/46h1jlY
DHS says it has body-cam footage related to Pretti shooting in Minneapolis
President Donald Trump said Monday that he spoke by phone with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D), describing it as a “very good” conversation and adding that Frey would be meeting with border czar Tom Homan on Tuesday. “Lots of progress is being made!” Trump wrote on social media.
In the call — which came hours after Trump spoke with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) — Frey said he continued to press Trump to end Operation Metro Surge. “The president agreed the present situation can’t continue,” Frey wrote on X.
Frey said some federal agents would begin leaving Minneapolis on Tuesday and that he would continue pushing for a full withdrawal. He added that the city would cooperate with state and federal authorities on criminal investigations, but not “in unconstitutional arrests of our neighbors or enforce federal immigration law.” - NYT https://wapo.st/4sZn4Rn
Monday Afternoon News Updates as Fallout Grows over Trump Regime's Latest Murder — 1/26/26
Things have gotten very ugly for Donald Trump over the past 24 hours. This weekend was a breaking point for so many Americans after yet another American was murdered by the Trump regime. His name was Alex Pretti. They killed him in cold blood. Then they lied about it. Over. And over. And over again. - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/4k9pXuS
The unjust killing of Alex Pretti marks a turning point in Trump’s second term
The unjust killing of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse in Minneapolis, marks a turning point in President Donald Trump’s second term. His mass deportation campaign has been a moral and political failure, leaving American citizens feeling outraged and unsafe. - WaPo https://wapo.st/3ZGbb52
Witnessing Another Public Killing in Minneapolis
“They killed another guy,” someone announced, in my group chat. That message was followed quickly by a link to a video, shot from behind a pane of glass, level with the street. Sadly, you’ve probably seen that video by now: ICE and Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis surround a slim young man squirming helplessly on the ground. Then, suddenly, the indifferent crack of a gunshot. The man’s body goes limp and falls to the ground. Someone near the camera starts to shout. “What the fuck,” the voice says. “They killed—did they fucking kill that guy? Are you fucking kidding me, dude? Not again! Are you fucking kidding me? That guy’s dead.” - New Yorker https://bit.ly/3LY21xN
Watching America Unravel in Minneapolis
What I saw, as federal agents stormed the city and residents banded together to protect themselves, was a dark, dystopian future becoming reality. - NYT https://nyti.ms/3NUKLdj
Border Patrol commander and some agents expected to leave Minneapolis, AP source says
A senior Border Patrol commander and some agents are expected to leave Minneapolis as early as Tuesday, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.
The departure of Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino, who has been at the center of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement surge in cities nationwide, comes as President Donald Trump dispatched border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota to take charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations. - Yahoo https://yhoo.it/4rlyoWj
Minneapolis mayor says some federal agents will begin to leave amid growing anger over Alex Pretti death – as it happened
Donald Trump’s efforts to deploy militarized immigration agents in US cities may finally be reaching a reckoning as he faces widespread opposition across the US, dissenting lawmakers in his own party, and impending court rulings after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by federal officers in Minneapolis. While there is no sign the aggressive tactics used by immigration enforcement are coming to an end, the mayor of Minneapolis said the administration will begin to scale back the number of federal agents in Minneapolis starting on Tuesday, as the president and his team soften their harsh rhetoric about the incident. - Guardian https://bit.ly/45ADRQv
Bovino set to leave Minneapolis, and Border Patrol plans to reduce its presence, officials say
The fatal shooting of Pretti has Trump “concerned” about the sustainability of his administration’s ongoing Minneapolis operations, according to Trump administration officials and allies.
These people acknowledged to NBC News that they needed a strategic shift amid a public uproar over Pretti’s killing, though the White House is still very much focused on its original agenda of cracking down on immigration and fraud. - NBC https://nbcnews.to/4sUQ10y
ICE Is Failing the Legitimacy Test
Carrying a concealed handgun in public is now commonplace in much of the country. For many, this is not only a prudent act of personal safety, but an expression of liberty and a bulwark against government overreach. At the same time, America's law-enforcement officers insist they must exercise vigilance while patrolling dangerous streets. When officers make a split-second decision to shoot someone who is carrying a gun, many political leaders, especially on the right, believe they need to be given deference because their lives were at risk.
The tension between these two ideas is acute, putting law enforcement and citizens on a potentially catastrophic collision course. One such collision took place in Minnesota on Saturday. It was fatal for the citizen. And it was potentially delegitimizing for law enforcement. A broader crisis of government legitimacy is imminent in the absence of a change in direction by the Trump administration. - Atlantic https://bit.ly/3M37KCi
Welcome to the American Winter
The six-car ICE convoy came to a stop and instantly dozens of people swarmed it, cellphones in hand, while others ran out of nearby houses—I saw a woman in gym shorts in the 20-degree weather—and began surrounding the masked and heavily armed agents who had spilled out of their black SUVs. The fury in the crowd felt almost like a physical force, as real as the cacophony of whistles and honking cars and angry chants: “ICE out! Fuck you! Go home!”
The officers threw a protester to the slushy asphalt and piled on top of them, then cuffed them and dragged them away. The screaming only got louder. With their escape route blocked by protesters and their cars, the agents tossed out tear-gas canisters, the white clouds billowing up into the winter air. An injured man stumbled past me and vomited repeatedly into the snow. - Atlantic https://bit.ly/4ri3vls
What the Administration Is Signaling to Federal Agents After Minnesota
Perhaps the most disturbing part of the Trump administration’s immigration operation in Minnesota is not just that agents of the state are killing peacefully protesting citizens on the streets. It’s that they’re doing it with the expectation of impunity, backed by top government officials who are brazenly lying about what happened. - Atlantic https://bit.ly/4aikgqX
Believe Your Eyes
The work of observers and photographers in Minneapolis right now is as dangerous as it is crucial, because ICE’s presence in Minneapolis is provoking not only physical conflict but an informational conflict. Agents themselves are pulling out their phones during altercations with protesters. According to The Washington Post, the White House has urged ICE to “produce videos for social media of immigrant arrests and confrontations to portray its push for mass deportation as critical to protecting the American way of life.” Last week, President Trump posted on Truth Social that ICE must “start talking about” the people they’re arresting in Minnesota, writing: “Show the Numbers, Names, and Faces of the violent criminals, and show them NOW.” When the footage doesn’t suit the administration, it seems to have no issue doctoring images to suit its alternate reality, as it did on Thursday. Agents had arrested an attorney who was protesting at a local church, and the White House posted a photo of this woman that was altered, presumably by AI, to make it look like she was crying. - Atlantic https://bit.ly/4qefXlu
Yes, It’s Fascism
Until recently, I resisted using the F-word to describe President Trump. For one thing, there were too many elements of classical fascism that didn’t seem to fit. For another, the term has been overused to the point of meaninglessness, especially by left-leaning types who call you a fascist if you oppose abortion or affirmative action. For yet another, the term is hazily defined, even by its adherents. From the beginning, fascism has been an incoherent doctrine, and even today scholars can’t agree on its definition. Italy’s original version differed from Germany’s, which differed from Spain’s, which differed from Japan’s. - Atlantic https://bit.ly/4rcJ8WF
Donald Trump Wants You to Forget This Happened
January 6, five years later. - Atlantic https://bit.ly/45A8hlU
Chicagoans, Local Leaders Say ICE ‘Must Be Abolished’ After Killing Of Minneapolis Nurse Alex Pretti
Neighbors and city leaders are again taking to the streets to protest federal immigration enforcement after another protester was killed by federal officers Saturday in Minneapolis.
Three emergency protests were called across Chicago Saturday after immigration agents shot and killed Minneapolis nurse Alex Pretti that morning. Pretti’s death follows the Jan. 7 killing of Renee Nicole Good, which has since sparked widespread protests and further federal escalation. - Block Club Chicago https://bit.ly/4koSqwV
Today in Politics, Bulletin 294. 1/26/26
The theme of the day was Trump trying to do damage control after federal agents murdered VA nurse Alex Pretti while Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, Greg Bovino and others continued to make it worse for him politically by making false claims about the victim and lying about what was clearly depicted on the videos. - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/4q3xpJ0
Chris Madel, a Republican running for Minnesota governor, ends his bid and criticizes ICE
Chris Madel, a Minneapolis lawyer who represented the immigration agent who fatally shot Renee Good, said Monday that he was ending his Republican campaign for governor of Minnesota after a second protester was killed by federal authorities.
“I cannot support the national Republicans’ stated retribution on the citizens of our state,” Madel said in a video message he posted on social media, “nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so.” - CNN https://cnn.it/4q2XEPS
Videos and witness statements shed new light on moments leading up to Alex Pretti shooting
Just minutes before his fatal encounter with federal immigration agents on Saturday, Alex Pretti was confronted on a Minneapolis street by an officer who was later on the scene of his shooting, video analyzed by CNN shows.
That video, combined with court declarations filed by eyewitnesses, sheds new light on the moments that led up to the deadly incident.
Those moments are facing heightened scrutiny amid escalating rhetoric by Trump administration officials who sought to cast Pretti as a violent agitator involved in a “riot” as federal agents carried out an immigration operation. - CNN https://cnn.it/3LZPKZI
What Trump officials claimed about Alex Pretti — and what the evidence actually shows
Top officials in President Donald Trump’s administration have responded to the killing of Alex Pretti by the Border Patrol in Minneapolis on Saturday with a torrent of claims that are either contradicted by video footage or unsupported by any evidence presented so far. - CNN https://cnn.it/4akw244
‘Thank God we have video’: Minnesota’s escalating fights over eyewitness footage
When the Trump administration immediately blamed the victim in Saturday’s shooting in Minneapolis, Gov. Tim Walz reacted by saying, “Thank God, thank God we have video.”
The unrest in Minnesota is further evidence that we live in an era of ubiquitous video, both for better and for worse.
Almost every recent altercation involving federal agents has been captured by multiple cameras, providing angles that sometimes contradict President Donald Trump’s incendiary claims. - CNN https://cnn.it/3ZDxyIs
CNN poll finds majority of Americans say Trump is focused on the wrong priorities
Public opinion on nearly every aspect of President Donald Trump’s first year back in the White House is negative, a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS finds, with a majority of Americans saying Trump is focused on the wrong priorities and doing too little to address cost of living.
A majority, 58%, calls the first year of Trump’s term a failure.
There’s hardly any good news in the poll for Trump or the Republican Party entering a critical midterm year, with the president’s handling of the economy looming as the defining issue in key House and Senate races. - CNN https://cnn.it/49KbRfQ
Crackdown Chief to Leave Minneapolis as White House Distances Trump From Uproar
Faced with broad outcry over the killing of a protester on Saturday in Minneapolis, the White House on Monday pulled a top border official from the city and tried to distance President Trump from the response of his most senior officials, who had immediately characterized the man fatally shot by federal agents as a “domestic terrorist” who was “brandishing” a gun, before video evidence undercut their charges.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, notably did not defend the rhetoric of White House officials, including Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff, and Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, who were the most vocal in spreading false accusations against the victim, Alex Pretti. Mr. Pretti was shot at roughly 10 times by immigration agents after he was apparently filming them with his camera. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4buSCZ3
Why Is the Trump Administration Demanding Minnesota’s Voter Rolls?
After federal immigration agents shot and killed an American citizen in Minneapolis for the second time this month, Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter to Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota that outlined what she described as three “simple steps” to “bring back law and order.”
Her final step, however, seemed to have little to do with immigration or the state’s fraud scandal, the stated reasons for the federal government’s presence in Minnesota.
“Third, allow the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice to access voter rolls to confirm that Minnesota’s voter registration practices comply with federal law,” she wrote. Minnesota’s secretary of state, Steve Simon, a Democrat, swiftly rejected the demand, calling it an “outrageous attempt to coerce Minnesota into giving the federal government private data on millions of U.S. citizens in violation of state and federal law.” - NYT https://nyti.ms/4a2AcfE
Democrats Embrace a Shutdown Fight They Wanted to Avoid
Even after federal agents carrying out President Trump’s immigration crackdown shot and killed an unarmed woman in her car and handcuffed a preschooler this month, a solid bloc of Democrats in the Senate had appeared ready to swallow their outrage and vote to fund the Homeland Security Department.
But following the shocking fatal shooting in Minneapolis over the weekend, Democrats have pivoted sharply, and are confident they are now on solid political ground as they draw a hard line against approving any money for the agency that has executed chaotic and violent operations across the country.
Despite the imminent prospect of a second crippling government shutdown in less than three months and the potential for a backlash, Democrats say they believe they have public opinion on their side as many Americans have recoiled from videos of the shooting of Alex Pretti and the earlier death of Renee Good. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4tcXoRl
In Trump’s Shadow, India and the European Union Expand Trade Ties
The leaders of the European Union and India announced a trade agreement on Tuesday after nearly two decades of negotiations, striking a deal that has become more urgent for both sides as President Trump continues to upend the global order and test longstanding alliances.
While the final free-trade agreement must still clear legal scrutiny in Brussels and New Delhi, the deal brings together the world’s largest economic bloc and India, the fastest-growing major economy, at a time when the United States is seen as a less-reliable economic partner and China is flooding the world with inexpensive goods. - NYT https://nyti.ms/45AaSMG
As Tech Chiefs Woo Trump, Silicon Valley Seethes Over Minneapolis Shootings
On Saturday evening, top technology executives gathered in Washington to attend a screening of “Melania,” a documentary produced by Amazon about the first lady, Melania Trump. Among them was Andy Jassy, the chief executive of Amazon; Tim Cook, the chief executive of Apple; and Lisa Su, the chief executive of chip maker AMD.
Back in Silicon Valley, the scene was very different.
Hours after immigration agents in Minneapolis shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse, a growing chorus of tech executives, investors and engineers started speaking out against the Trump administration’s deployment of federal officers across American cities. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4c47nSy
‘Kristi Noem Needs to Go.’ Three Columnists on ICE in Minneapolis.
Lydia Polgreen: I have never been a fan of the conceit of American journalists covering the United States as if it were a backwater foreign nation, but in Minneapolis last week I could not shake the impulse to compare my experiences in a city I know so well (I spent a chunk of my childhood in the Twin Cities, and my father is from Minneapolis) with my experiences covering civil wars in places like Congo, Sudan, Sri Lanka and more. Watching the video of Pretti’s killing, I thought: If this was happening on the streets of any of those places, I would not hesitate to call it an extrajudicial execution by security forces. This is where we are: armed agents of the state killing civilians with an apparent belief in their total impunity. - NYT https://nyti.ms/49Ndp8U
This May Be the Only Path to Accountability for the Minneapolis Shootings
n the wake of another fatal shooting by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis, many people are wondering what can be done. The answer has been right in front of us all along.
Despite the incredulity with which some legal observers meet the idea, state and local prosecutors can prosecute federal officials for violating state criminal laws. Prosecutors should be gathering and securing evidence and seriously considering filing charges — sooner rather than later.
Not every prosecution will succeed, and all will face obstacles that are built into our legal system. But critically, bringing these state and local prosecutions could produce deterrent effects that are so desperately needed now. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4rjyvRV
The Trump Administration Now Thinks Clean Air Is Worthless
The Environmental Protection Agency has established a new way to address the country’s pollution problems: Ignore them.
For several decades, the agency has used the best available science to quantify the benefits from regulations that reduce air pollution: averted deaths, hospitalizations, asthma symptoms, heart attacks and strokes, among them. The E.P.A. assigned those health benefits dollar values based on economic models and compared them with the costs imposed on businesses for cutting their pollution. The figures allowed you to see clearly whether a particular regulation was worth it or not. Most were very much worth it.
This evenhanded approach came to a halt two weeks ago, when the agency weakened a proposal to regulate emissions from certain power plants and other industrial facilities. The new, nihilistic E.P.A. position is that environmental safeguards have essentially no benefits. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4alagNG
Impeach Kristi Noem
On Sunday, U.S. Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino told CNN’s Dana Bash that no one can say for sure that Alex Pretti was murdered in cold blood by a Border Patrol agent because there must be an investigation first. It would be irresponsible, he said, to speculate before the facts are known.
The problem for Bovino and the rest of mad king Donald Trump’s fascist henchmen is that we have seen the video. We know what happened.
The footage shows Pretti holding his phone, not a gun. It shows him trying to help a woman pepper-sprayed by Trump’s immigration goons. We see him pepper-sprayed as he backs away, not attacking.
It shows Border Patrol agents tackling him, pinning him to the ground, and shooting him multiple times while he was restrained. There is no moment in the video where Pretti threatens an officer, brandishes a weapon, or poses an imminent danger. - Daily Kos https://bit.ly/4q3KbqY
GOP happy to defend federal agents' latest execution
If you thought Republican lawmakers would finally rein in President Donald Trump's immigration goons after one of them executed an innocent man in broad daylight, you'd be wrong. - Daily Kos https://bit.ly/4alvScM
Trump 'Defied The Will Of Congress' In Cutting EV Charger Funding: Judge
For the duration of his presidency, Donald Trump has tried to slash EV funding anywhere and everywhere. This includes funds approved by Congress, which the Executive Branch doesn't have the power to cut — a fact that the courts keep having to remind the President. Now, a District Judge in Seattle has done the same. - Jalopnik
Outrage over ICE has spilled into typically apolitical online spaces
The moderator of r/catbongos, an 800,000-member subreddit devoted to videos of people playing their cats like drums, never posted about politics before Saturday. But after watching clips showing Border Patrol agents killing intensive care nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, the 30-something former professional poker player from Washington state decided to take a stand. - WaPo https://wapo.st/4a3vluT
Philip Glass pulls world premiere from Kennedy Center
The pioneering composer said “the values of the Kennedy Center today are in direct conflict with the message” of his Symphony No. 15: “Lincoln” slated to be performed in June by the National Symphony Orchestra. - WaPo https://wapo.st/4bveG5P
U.S. judge orders ICE chief to appear in court, threatens contempt ruling
Minnesota’s chief federal judge has demanded the acting head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personally appear in court Friday, threatening to hold him in contempt for what the judge described as repeated defiance of court orders amid the agency’s enforcement efforts in the state. - WaPo https://wapo.st/4a6FVkM
New Video Analysis Reveals Flawed and Fatal Decisions in Shooting of Pretti
A frame-by-frame assessment of actions by Alex Pretti and the two officers who fired 10 times shows how lethal force came to be used against a man who didn’t pose a threat. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4q8uG14
Ilhan Omar Is Attacked During Minneapolis Town Hall on Immigration Crackdown
A man attacked Representative Ilhan Omar during a town hall in Minneapolis on Tuesday evening, hours after President Trump suggested that he might “de-escalate” the aggressive immigration crackdown in Minnesota that has rattled the community and left two protesters dead.
The man sprayed Ms. Omar with a strong-smelling liquid from a syringe before being tackled by security. He was arrested and booked into jail on suspicion of assault, said Trevor Folke, a spokesman for the Minneapolis police. - NYT https://nyti.ms/45C0aW9
Trump Throws Greg Bovino Under the Bus: ‘He’s an Out There Kind of Guy’ — ‘Maybe It Wasn’t Good Here’
President Donald Trump called Border Patrol commander-at-large Greg Bovino an “out there kind of a guy” on Tuesday, one day after pulling Bovino out of Minnesota.
Trump spoke to Fox News’ Will Cain on Tuesday from Iowa, where he discussed reports of Bovino being reassigned away from Minneapolis following the shooting of Alex Pretti. Federal officials have defended the shooting of Pretti, as they also have with the shooting and killing of Renee Good earlier this month, but Trump said on Tuesday a “shake up” was needed after the “very unfortunate” shooting of Pretti. - Yahoo https://yhoo.it/3ZCuQTt
A Shocked Nation Watches Minneapolis Killings: ‘Something Needs to Change’
Scenes from the violent unrest in Minneapolis played on a loop in many American households over the weekend, prompting reflection about where the nation is heading.
The wintry whiteout that swept across half the United States over the weekend could not erase what the country had just seen unfold in Minneapolis. No amount of snow could block out the images: furious protesters clashing with masked officers, clouds of tear gas wafting through neighborhoods — and for the second time in three weeks, video of an American citizen being shot dead by a federal agent.
And for the second time in three weeks, the Trump administration’s account of a deadly shooting contradicted what many in the country believe they saw. Federal officials described both victims as “domestic terrorists” intent on harming federal agents; critics of the administration, and many others, said such a description was belied by the video evidence. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4qKzoDc
'The Court’s Patience Is At An End': Judge Takes 'Extraordinary Step' Against Acting ICE Chief
Patrick Schiltz, Minnesota’s chief federal judge, on Monday ordered Todd Lyons, the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to appear personally before the court Friday, acknowledging that the order marked an “extraordinary step.”
The order stems from the case of a man who has been in immigration detention since he was arrested earlier this month. Schiltz noted that on Jan. 14 the court told the Trump administration to provide the man with a bond hearing within seven days, noting that if they didn’t meet that deadline, the man would have to be immediately released. The judge said the administration did neither of those things and the man remains in custody as of Monday evening. - Huffinton Post https://bit.ly/3LESdbZ
Federal judge blocks the possible deportation of a 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father for now
A Minnesota preschooler detained in Texas with his father cannot be imminently deported, a federal judge ruled Monday.
Liam Conejo Ramos, 5, was taken away from his family’s suburban Minneapolis driveway last week after federal agents apprehended his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias.
The detention of the child — and a widely-circulated photo of an agent holding a fearful Liam in place by his Spider-Man backpack — has added to the fury of those who are resisting the Trump administration’s massive immigration crackdown in Minnesota, where federal agents have swept up several children and teens. - CNN https://cnn.it/4kfMVQT
Believe Your Eyes
Chances are, you’ve seen Richard Tsong-Taatarii’s photo. Taken Wednesday in Minneapolis, it shows an unidentifiable protester face down on the ground; two Border Patrol agents are on top of him, holding him there, while a third unloads pepper spray into his face from just inches away. - Atlantic https://bit.ly/4bqhAc2
Trump Casually Denigrates NATO’s War Dead
The president has revised history when it comes to the sacrifices of America’s allies.
Benni Schmidt Pedersen lives on a small farm in Denmark, where it’s quiet and he can hear if anyone is coming down the gravel road to his home. He’s stricken with PTSD from his time as a soldier in Afghanistan, where five members of his 130-person company died in the American-led war against the Taliban.
I called him today to read him a quote from President Trump about America’s NATO allies: “We’ve never needed them,” Trump said in a Fox Business interview at the World Economic Forum, in Davos. “We have never really asked anything of them. You know, they’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan or this or that. And they did. They stayed a little back, little off the front lines."
First Pedersen laughed. Then he tried to brush it off—classic Trump bluster. “Why doesn’t it surprise me that he’s saying that?”
Finally, his voice dropped an octave. “That’s bullshit,” he said.
It is, indeed, bullshit. The United States invoked Article 5, the mutual-defense clause of NATO’s founding charter, the day after the September 11 attacks. It remains the only time in NATO’s nearly 80-year history that the obligation of common defense has been activated. All 28 members of the alliance at the time sent soldiers to Afghanistan. Many never returned. - Atlantic https://bit.ly/4qMvKcb
America’s Real ‘Secretary of War’
Three days into 2026, the United States military seized a foreign leader: Nicolás Maduro. Four days after that, the U.S. health department freed a longtime prisoner of war: saturated fats.
At a recent press conference announcing the publication of the government’s new dietary guidelines, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. declared two different military operations in the span of less than a minute: The nation would be retreating from its war on fatty steaks and whole milk, he said, and redeploying for another war, this one on added sugars. News about a third campaign arrived a few days later, when the White House shared a dark and menacing photo of Kennedy with the caption “WE ARE ENDING THE WAR ON PROTEIN.” - Atlantic https://bit.ly/4qGnDOc
Witnessing Another Public Killing in Minneapolis
“They killed another guy,” someone announced, in my group chat. That message was followed quickly by a link to a video, shot from behind a pane of glass, level with the street. Sadly, you’ve probably seen that video by now: ICE and Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis surround a slim young man squirming helplessly on the ground. Then, suddenly, the indifferent crack of a gunshot. The man’s body goes limp and falls to the ground. Someone near the camera starts to shout. “What the fuck,” the voice says. “They killed—did they fucking kill that guy? Are you fucking kidding me, dude? Not again! Are you fucking kidding me? That guy’s dead.” - New Yorker https://bit.ly/3LY21xN
Inside the White House Screening for Amazon’s ‘Melania’ Doc (Exclusive Photos)
On Saturday night, as a major snowstorm hit much of the United States, and Minneapolis erupted in violence after the ICE shooting of a protestor, First Lady Melania Trump and director Brett Ratner held a private screening of their upcoming doc, Melania, at the White House.
The black-tie event, which was not promoted or advertised, took place in the East Room of the White House and attracted about 70 VIP guests, including Queen Rania of Jordan; Zoom CEO Eric Yuan; Apple CEO Tim Cook; New York Stock Exchange CEO Lynn Martin; AMD CEO Lisa Su; Mike Tyson; socialite and Fiat heiress Azzi Agnelli; self-help guru Tony Robbins; fashion designer Adam Lippes; and photographer Ellen von Unwerth, who shot the poster for the film. - Hollywood Reporter https://bit.ly/46lvA38
Doctors face-palm as RFK Jr.’s top vaccine advisor questions need for polio shot
Early into the discussion, Milhoan, a pediatric cardiologist, declared, “I don’t like established science,” and that “science is what I observe.” He lambasted the evidence-based methodology that previous ACIP panels used to carefully and transparently craft vaccine policy.
While arguing that he was not anti-vaccine, he said he was merely focused on safety and made false claims about vaccine risks, a common trope among anti-vaccine activists. He falsely linked vaccines to allergies, asthma, and eczema and repeated a claim, without evidence, that COVID-19 vaccines killed children. When pressed by the podcast hosts, he revealed that he put the risk of vaccine side effects on the same footing as the risks from the diseases the shots prevent—despite the fact that disease risks are often orders of magnitude larger than the tiny risks from vaccines.
In response to pushback from the hosts, Milhoan objected to the idea that the measles and polio vaccines reduced the spread of those diseases. He went further, questioning the need for those vaccines as well as routine vaccinations, generally. - ArsTechnica https://bit.ly/49LdObR
Greg Bovino Loses His Job
Gregory Bovino has been removed from his role as Border Patrol “commander at large” and will return to his former job in El Centro, California, where he is expected to retire soon, according to a DHS official and two people with knowledge of the change.
Bovino’s sudden demotion is the clearest sign yet that the Trump administration is reconsidering its most aggressive tactics after the killing Saturday of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents under Bovino’s command. - Atlantic Gregory Bovino has been removed from his role as Border Patrol “commander at large” and will return to his former job in El Centro, California, where he is expected to retire soon, according to a DHS official and two people with knowledge of the change. - Atlantic https://bit.ly/3LU7k1i
The rise and fall of Gregory Bovino, US border patrol’s menacing provoker-in-chief
Critics have called him a would-be Napoleon and mocked his “Nazi” aesthetic, but with Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant surge into Minneapolis, Gregory Bovino seemed to have found the political moment he had long been seeking.
Bovino, 55, a senior US border patrol official, initially rose to prominence as the figurehead of immigration crackdowns in Los Angeles, Chicago and other cities.
But his provocatively unapologetic utterances in Minneapolis after the shooting of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old American citizen, by border patrol officers propelled him to a new level of notoriety that finally exceeded the tolerance even of the Trump administration. - Guardian https://bit.ly/4q8AQOK
Minnesota Proved MAGA Wrong
It took only a few minutes before everyone in the church knew that another person had been shot. I was sitting with Trygve Olsen, a big man in a wool hat and puffy vest, who lifted his phone to show me a text with the news. It was his 50th birthday, and one of the coldest days of the year. I asked him whether he was doing anything special to celebrate. “What should I be doing?” he replied. “Should I sit at home and open presents? This is where I’m supposed to be.”
He had come to Iglesia Cristiana La Viña Burnsville, about 15 miles south of the Twin Cities, to pick up food for families who are too afraid to go out—some have barely left home since federal immigration agents deployed to Minnesota two months ago. The church was filled with pallets of frozen meat and vegetables, diapers, fruit, and toilet paper. Outside, a man wearing a leather biker vest bearing the insignia of the Latin American Motorcycle Association, his blond beard flecked with ice crystals, directed a line of cars through the snow. - Atlantic https://bit.ly/4a6Jbww
The 48 Hours That Convinced Trump to Change Course in Minnesota
President’s pivot comes after lawmakers and allies raised concerns about what was unfolding in Minneapolis. - WSJ https://on.wsj.com/4qKoMUR
Homan met with Walz and agreed to 'ongoing dialogue' as Trump reshuffles immigration operation
Trump administration officials and allies told NBC News the president is "concerned" about the sustainability of the operations in Minnesota following Alex Pretti's shooting Saturday. - NBC https://nbcnews.to/4k9Laon
The Best Weapon You Have in the Fight Against ICE
We are in a phone war. Ever since cameras became embedded in cellphones, people have been using their devices to bear witness to state violence. But now, the state is striking back.
I don’t think it is any coincidence that Alex Pretti was holding his phone when he was shot to death by federal agents in Minneapolis. Or that Renee Good’s partner was filming a federal agent seconds before he killed Ms. Good. Agents have repeatedly knocked phones out of the hands of observers. They have beaten people filming them and followed them to their homes and threatened them. Of the 19 shootings by federal agents in the past year identified by The Trace, a news outlet that investigates gun violence, at least four involved people who were observing or documenting federal agents’ actions.
Courts have long granted citizens a First Amendment right to film in public. But this right on paper is now being increasingly contested on the streets as federal agents try to stop citizens from recording their activities. - NYT https://nyti.ms/3ZpI5XT
Voters See a Middle-Class Lifestyle as Drifting Out of Reach, Poll Finds
Concerns about the affordability of education, housing, health care, having a family and retirement are driving economic anxieties, a New York Times/Siena poll found. - NYT https://nyti.ms/3M0XTwP
After Donations, Trump Administration Revoked Rule Requiring More Nursing Home Staff
The nursing home industry was on a roll last summer.
It had just won a 10-year moratorium on a rule initiated during President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s administration to require increased staffing levels in an effort to reduce neglect among residents, which had led to injuries and deadly infections.
Nonetheless, some in the industry, warning that the rule would have substantially increased costs, wanted to make it go away permanently.
So nursing home executives turned to a tool that has proved successful in getting President Trump’s attention: money. - NYT https://nyti.ms/3NMqmqO
First wrongful death lawsuit filed against Trump administration over drug boat strikes
The families of two Trinidadian men who were killed in an Oct. 14 strike on an alleged drug boat accused the U.S. in a lawsuit Tuesday of wrongful death and extrajudicial killings. - NBC https://nbcnews.to/3LRA8rd
Personnel shuffles, not policy shifts in Minnesota
President Trump’s decision to distance himself from Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino regarding their roles overseeing ICE operations in Minnesota is a positive development, but we must be clear-eyed about the ongoing threat.
Trump is making a tactical retreat amid mounting public pressure.
Responding to the backlash over the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and smearing of both victims as “domestic terrorists,” Trump touted phone calls with Governor Tim Walz and Mayor Jacob Frey, claiming they were on a “similar wavelength” and agreeing to “look into” reducing the number of agents on the ground in Minnesota. Bovino has reportedly been demoted and sent back to his post in California. - If You Can Keep It https://bit.ly/3Z9BAbo
Tuesday Afternoon News Updates — 1/27/26
The fallout continues to grow following the Trump regime’s murder of Alex Pretti, and that fallout only intensified today. Today’s developments cut across human rights, international relations, culture, and domestic repression, all pointing to the same reality: this regime has lost legitimacy at home and credibility abroad. - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/4tlDCmK
Bondi’s Shakedown Gives Away The Game
Over the weekend, Attorney General Pam Bondi sent Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota an extortion letter. In it, she demanded that he “must restore rule of law, support ICE officers, and bring an end to the chaos in Minnesota.”
Never mind who created and continues to sow that chaos.
Bondi demanded that Minnesota turn over its records on SNAP and Medicaid, that it abandon its sanctuary city policies, and (here’s the kicker) provide the DOJ access to the state’s voter rolls. Failure to comply, she implied, would mean the “chaos” would continue.
That last request for voter data caused immediate and widespread alarm among democracy activists and voting rights lawyers. As Democracy Docket’s Marc Elias explained, with such data the Trump regime could cause real mayhem in the midterm elections, undermine confidence in the results and even use it to stay in power. - The Big Picture https://bit.ly/4a6F1ot
I Just Spoke with Gov. Walz about Trump's Attacks on Minnesota
I spoke with the governor at a moment when the truth is finally breaking through the fog of lies coming out of the Trump White House. Over the past several days, the American people have watched federal agents invade communities, trample constitutional rights, kill Americans — and then lie about it all. The killing of Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse at a VA hospital, has become a flashpoint because it lays bare what this regime is doing and why it cannot be allowed to continue. It also shows that their gaslighting is no longer working. - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/4a151S1
Consumer confidence collapses to lowest level since 2014
America’s economic mood deteriorated in January to its lowest level in more than a decade as consumers fretted about geopolitical tensions, affordability and President Donald Trump’s unrelenting trade war.
The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index for January, released Tuesday, declined 9.7 points to a reading of 84.5, the lowest since 2014, surpassing the lows of last year when Trump unveiled stiff tariffs and the depths of the pandemic recession in 2020.
January’s reading came in much lower than the 91.1 reading economists projected in a poll by data firm FactSet. - CNN https://cnn.it/3MefIZv
Minnesota judge orders acting ICE director to appear in court
Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons has been ordered to appear in federal court this Friday to explain why he should not be held in contempt for violating a judge’s order in the case of a man who is challenging his detention.
Judge Patrick Schiltz, the chief district judge in Minnesota, said in a court filing on Monday that the “Court’s patience is at an end,” with the Trump administration, which sent thousands of federal agents to the Minneapolis area for an immigration crackdown. - CNN https://cnn.it/3ZpJXQp
How Trump Has Used the Presidency to Make at Least $1.4 Billion
President Trump has never been a man to ask what he can do for his country. In his second term, as in his first, he is instead testing the limits of what his country can do for him.
He has poured his energy and creativity into the exploitation of the presidency — into finding out just how much money people, corporations and other nations are willing to put into his pockets in hopes of bending the power of the government to the service of their interests.
A review by the editorial board relying on analyses from news organizations shows that Mr. Trump has used the office of the presidency to make at least $1.4 billion. We know this number to be an underestimate because some of his profits remain hidden from public view. And they continue to grow. - NYT https://nyti.ms/3NKEYqU
Falsehoods Fueled Trump’s First Year Back in Office
The president has justified many significant moves of his second term with inaccurate claims and overstated boasts.
In the first year of his second term, President Trump has cited an arsenal of falsehoods, baseless claims and distortions to justify significant policy changes on the economy, immigration and deployments of the military.
His case for ushering in a turnaround rests on inaccurate superlatives (the “worst inflation” ever under his predecessor and the “best numbers” now under his presidency), mathematically impossible figures (a “600 percent” decline in drug prices) and evidence-free assertions (the decimation of maritime drug smuggling).
Here’s a fact-check of some of the falsehoods that fueled Mr. Trump’s first year back. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4bjYjsB
Today in Politics, Bulletin 295. 1/27/26
Trump said today that the killing of Renee Good was worse to him than the Alex Pretti killing because her parents were Trump supporters: “I’m not sure about his parents, but I know her parents were big Trump fans. It makes me feel bad anyway, but you could say even worse because they were tremendous Trump fans. I guess you could say their daughter was radicalized.”
Palace intrigue inside the Trump admin with knives out between people who want Stephen Miller to take the fall for labeling murder victim Pretti as a domestic terrorist rather than Kristi Noem. Axios citing 4 sources in the admin: “Kristi Noem's language that Alex Pretti wanted to "massacre" federal agents was dictated to Noem and her department by the man most responsible for the controversial operation: Stephen Miller.”
The Atlantic: “Gregory Bovino has been removed from his role as Border Patrol ‘commander at large’ and will return to his former job in El Centro, CA, where he is expected to retire soon.” - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/4qgqMn6
The president’s retreat in Minneapolis is a stinging defeat for the national conservatives.
Of the many lessons to be drawn from the administration’s retreat in Minneapolis, the most important is that Donald Trump can be stopped.
He spent his first year acting as though the 2024 election were the last time he would ever have to give a thought to public opinion. Now the myth that Trump is invincible has been exploded. - Atlantic https://bit.ly/3Z58ryc
It Wasn’t Democrats Who Persuaded Trump to Change Course
A flood of GOP statements sent an unmistakable message to Trump: Enough.
The statements from congressional Republicans after Saturday’s shooting of Alex Pretti were relatively mild. Lawmakers said that they were “deeply troubled” or “disturbed” by the second killing of an American citizen by federal immigration officers this month; most called for an investigation into Pretti’s death. But the statements kept coming, one after another, all through the weekend and into yesterday.
The reactions from across the GOP sent an unmistakable message in their volume, if not in their rhetoric, to Donald Trump: Enough. The defining characteristics of the Republican-controlled Congress during the president’s second term have been silence and acquiescence. That so many in his party felt compelled to speak up after Pretti’s killing was a sign that Republicans had finally lost patience with federal agents occupying a major American city—a deportation operation that has soured the public on one of Trump’s signature policies and sunk the GOP’s standing at the outset of a crucial midterm-election year. - Atlantic https://bit.ly/4qKrp9b
Top deportation goon gets ejected from Minnesota
On Monday, the mad king Donald Trump cried uncle in Minneapolis, uncharacteristically making nice with Democratic Gov. Tim Walz and, for the first time since taking office, appearing to de-escalate his war on Democratic-run cities.
By Monday evening, The Atlantic’s Mick Miroff reported that Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino wasn’t merely being sent out of Minnesota, he was being fully demoted, with his entire social media operation dismantled.
“Bovino became a MAGA social-media star as he traveled the country with his own film crew and used social media to hit back at Democratic politicians and random critics online,” reported Miroff. “Veteran ICE and CBP officials grew more and more uneasy as Bovino worked outside his agency’s chain of command and appeared to relish his role as a political actor.” - Daily Kos https://bit.ly/3NIOcDW
Despite 'concerns,' Susan Collins won't stop ICE from killing citizens
Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine claimed on Monday to have "concerns" about federal immigration agents fatally shooting intensive-care nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis—but she said she has no plans to alter legislation that funds those agents', in order to prevent more senseless killings. - Daily Kos https://bit.ly/4rkvvVF
Hakeem Jeffries Tells Me: We Are Ready to Impeach Kristi Noem
Rep. Jeffries has now formally announced that Democrats are prepared to initiate impeachment proceedings against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem if she is not immediately fired.
Finally. Game. On. - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/46c9L67
Representative Ilhan Omar Is Attacked at Town Hall in Minneapolis
A man who had been sitting in the front row rushed at the Democratic representative and sprayed her with a strong-smelling liquid. He was removed by security and later booked into jail. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4bZK38x
D.H.S. Review Does Not Say Pretti Brandished Gun, As Noem Claimed
An initial report from an internal agency watchdog says the Minneapolis man was shot by law enforcement after resisting arrest, but makes no mention of the allegations leveled by a Trump administration official. - NYT https://nyti.ms/49WEyFa
Board of Peace Set to Hand Trump Sweeping Powers Over Gaza
President Trump would have sweeping powers over the future governance of the war-ravaged Gaza Strip and the well-being of its people, under a plan drafted by the new international group he leads, laying out how it would operate. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4rcg1my
As Trump Promotes Economy in Iowa, Many Residents Feel Pain
Farmers are critical to Iowa’s economy. They have been battered by President Trump’s tariffs and are not experiencing the “golden age” that the president promised. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4rmtCYt
Philip Glass Withdraws From Kennedy Center, as Its Symphony Vows to Play On
On Tuesday, Glass informed the Kennedy Center that he did not want his symphony, based on Lincoln’s 1838 Lyceum Address, performed on its stage. “Symphony No. 15 is a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, and the values of Kennedy Center today are in direct conflict with the message of the symphony,” he wrote in a letter asking that the orchestra not play his work. A copy of the letter was shared with The New York Times. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4aia3L8
How the Trump Administration Hobbled Federal Labor Unions
‘The Biggest Act of Union-Busting in U.S. History’: Trump’s War on Federal Workers
With 300,000 employees gone and collective-bargaining rights eliminated, the administration has hobbled organized labor. Did it also start a movement? - NYT https://nyti.ms/4t6rtlo
Trump’s Fantasies Are Killing Us
Fantasies have long defined Trump’s approach to politics: the birther lies about Barack Obama, the size of the crowd at his 2017 inauguration, the invocation of “alternative facts,” the suggestion that something must be true if “many people” are saying it, the reimagining of Jan. 6 as a “day of love.” JD Vance let the veil slip briefly during the 2024 campaign, when he said he was willing to “create stories” to harness media attention around his preferred issues (then, it was the notion that Haitian immigrants were eating their neighbors’ pets).
Fantasies are alluring because they are not just about belief; they are about allegiance. The interpretation that suits your side is the one you’ll accept or embrace, no matter video footage that indicates otherwise. When fantasies involve life and death, as in Minneapolis, the stakes only rise, and the cost of abandoning your side seems impossibly high. - NYT https://nyti.ms/46jdIG2
Shaheen and Murkowski: Congress Must Defend NATO From Trump
We just returned from a bipartisan visit to Denmark, and what we saw should concern every American.
As large public protests took place outside the U.S. Embassy in Copenhagen, our conversations with Danish and Greenlandic leaders made clear that President Trump’s threats to take Greenland have shaken public confidence in the United States and undermined the foundation of the trans-Atlantic alliance. Mr. Trump’s recent comments that downplayed NATO allies’ contributions in Afghanistan have deepened the crisis of confidence within the alliance and caused understandable public outrage across Europe. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4t6NpwE
G.O.P. Congressman: We Need to Wake Up After Minneapolis
The deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis this month were tragic and preventable. No matter where you stand on immigration enforcement, the shootings show that what the country has been doing is not working. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4a15MdT
Thomas L. Friedman: America Is at a Boiling Point
Watching the response to ICE in his hometown has the columnist Thomas L. Friedman navigating “a mixture of pride and anguish.” - NYT https://nyti.ms/3NDhqnP
Letters from an American - January 27, 2026 - Heather Cox Richardson
The murder of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday morning at the hands of federal agents has put wind in the sails of those trying to rein in the Trump administration at the same time it has sent the administration scrambling to regain its course. Popular outcry over the killing of a beloved ICU nurse for the VA and popular organization over the general violence of federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol have unleashed pent up fury over the actions of the Trump administration. The outpouring has reached as far as spaces like a subreddit devoted to videos of people playing cats like bongos, as Drew Harwell and Scott Nover of the Washington Post noted. The anger has been so overwhelming that it has changed the course of national politics. - Cox Richardson https://bit.ly/3Mdqu26
Evidence repeatedly contradicts Trump immigration officials’ accounts of violent encounters
U.S. President Donald Trump’s top immigration officials have repeatedly made statements after violent encounters involving federal agents — including two fatal shootings of U.S. citizens in Minneapolis this month — that were later contradicted by evidence, a Reuters review found. Trump officials quickly painted the two recently shot dead — Renee Good and Alex Pretti — as aggressors and said the shootings were justified.
But video and other evidence soon emerged that contrasted sharply with these accounts, fueling questions about the credibility of federal officials and doubts about their willingness to fully investigate these and other incidents. - Reuters/Japan Times https://bit.ly/3NIWtru
Trump is flirting with a massive inflation shock
Tariffs on raw inputs are far more inflationary than tariffs on finished luxury goods — they can ripple through the entire supply chain, raising costs at every stage. Meanwhile, a 100% tariff is massive rather than marginal, doubling the price of the tariffed good at the border before any downstream effects. Finally, there’s broad consensus among economists that tariffs raise domestic prices.
All of which makes what happened this past Saturday extra notable — with President Donald Trump threatening to impose 100% tariffs on Canadian good if Prime Minister Mark Carney follows through on Canada's recently negotiated trade agreement with China. - Quartz https://bit.ly/4q9sczn
Tim Cook Wants ‘Deescalation’ in Minneapolis
Last year, Apple CEO Tim Cook gifted President Donald Trump a plaque with a base made of 24-karat gold, and attended a White House dinner at which he addressed the room for two minutes, and in that time he repeated the words “thank you” to Trump nine times.
This past Saturday night, he again met with Trump, this time at a screening of a flattering documentary about First Lady Melania Trump. No, Apple didn’t make or even license the movie. Its competitor did, but Cook attended the screening anyway. - Gizmodo https://bit.ly/4k3pbPL
Release Their Names
In Minneapolis, we watched a man die in front of the world, and yet we still do not know who pulled the trigger. Not by name. Not by badge. Not by face. Not by the accountability that is supposed to define a democratic society.
On January 24, 2026, Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse and U.S. citizen, was shot and killed by federal immigration agents during a law enforcement operation in the streets of Minneapolis. He had done nothing more than record agents with his phone and was shoved and sprayed with bear spray when he tried to help a woman who had been shoved to the sidewalk. Witness footage shows him disarmed before he was shot multiple times. Yet even now, days later, the identities of the agents involved remain unnamed and unaccountable. That should alarm every person who believes our democracy still functions as a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/4a0QcPb
Officers involved in Pretti shooting placed on administrative leave, according to DHS
A Border Patrol agent and a Customs and Border Protection officer have been on leave since Saturday, according to a Department of Homeland Security official. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4rdAUh4
Frey says local police won’t implement federal immigration enforcement, cites Giuliani’s NYC policy as precedent
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey reiterated that local police will do their jobs but will not carry out federal immigration enforcement, responding to criticism from President Donald Trump this morning.
“The job of our police is to keep people safe, not enforce fed immigration laws. I want them preventing homicides, not hunting down a working dad who contributes to MPLS & is from Ecuador. It’s similar to the policy your guy Rudy had in NYC. Everyone should feel safe calling 911,” Frey said, referring to Trump ally Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City. - CNN https://cnn.it/4k3pFW5
The American People Fact-Checked Their Government
The official account was clearly at odds with the best available evidence. Four days after the shooting, the Trump administration is already scrambling to save face, cast blame, and “de-escalate” the ICE presence in Minnesota. - Persuasion https://bit.ly/4rlwrck
South Carolina Measles Outbreak Becomes America’s Largest in 25 Years
The South Carolina Department of Public Health reported Tuesday that there have been 89 new cases of measles identified since Friday, bringing the total number of cases in South Carolina’s Upstate outbreak to 789. It’s the largest outbreak in the U.S. since measles was declared eliminated in the U.S. in the year 2000, surpassing an outbreak in Texas last year that reached 762 cases before ending in August 2025.
Nationwide, the U.S. has identified 478 cases of measles so far this year, far surpassing the number of cases for the entirety of 2024 (283 cases) and 2023 (63 cases). Last year saw 2,253 cases in the United States. - Gizmodo https://bit.ly/45xNtM0
Trump Floats Conspiracy Theory After Man Shoots Liquid at Ilhan Omar: ‘She Probably Had Herself Sprayed’
President Donald Trump suggested that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) orchestrated the incident in which a man sprayed her with liquid on Tuesday night.
Omar held a town hall in Minneapolis, where she called for the resignation of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose agency has overseen a brutal crackdown by federal immigration agents in the city. As she spoke, a man approached the lectern and aimed a plastic-looking syringe at the congresswoman and squirted an unidentified substance at Omar.
The man was immediately tackled by security and taken into custody. - Yahoo https://yhoo.it/4qi0tgk
Bruce Springsteen Releases ICE Protest Song ‘Streets of Minneapolis,’ Slamming ‘King Trump’s Private Army’ and ‘State Terror’
In a statement, Springsteen said: “I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Stay free, Bruce Springsteen.” - Variety https://bit.ly/4t513jQ
Where is the Supreme Court’s decision on Trump’s tariffs?
As global markets churn and American consumers anticipate even pricier goods, the question persists: Does the president have this tariff authority or not? And when will the Supreme Court tell everyone? - CNN https://cnn.it/3LEDGwY
Donald Trump, Demolition Man
Destruction followed by stagnation seems to be something of an MO, the likely outcome for some of Trump’s less tangible and visible changes to the federal government. Consider last week’s clash over Greenland. Trump threatened European and Canadian leaders with tariffs and unspecified future consequences, culminating in Trump settling for a tentative deal that appears to closely resemble the existing arrangement, but not before creating bad blood and encouraging Europe to think of the U.S. as not much of a friend. Trump has the capacity to tear down the global international order, but he has neither the plans nor the wherewithal to rebuild anything in its place. - Atlantic https://bit.ly/4brDhbw
Deluded Trump declares inflation is 'solved'
President Donald Trump on Tuesday ridiculously declared that inflation is "solved" and that he, our wonderful Dear Leader, has fixed our affordability problems! Hooray!
"Inflation, we’ve solved. It’s done," Trump said in an interview with Fox News ahead of a speech in Iowa meant to gin up support for the Republican Party in the 2026 midterm election. "We have it good where prices are coming way down. ... You notice they don’t mention affordability anymore. That’s like an old-fashioned word." - Daily Kos https://bit.ly/4qLVEfX
This ICE has no business at the Winter Olympics
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is going to provide security at the Olympics.
No, silly, not at the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles—at the Winter Olympics next month in Milano Cortina, Italy.
As you can imagine, Italians aren’t exactly thrilled to find out that an agency that has transformed itself into a murderous band of masked secret police will now be acting as “security” in their country. - Daily Kos https://bit.ly/4a2s2Ed
Trump pushes sick conspiracy right after attack on Ilhan Omar
Immediately following a Tuesday night attack on Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, President Donald Trump responded with a conspiracy theory about the event. Trump’s coldhearted response was the latest manifestation of his multiyear racist obsession with the congresswoman.
At a town hall event in Minneapolis, a man ran up to Omar and sprayed her with an unknown substance. The man was tackled as Omar prepared to defend herself against the would-be assailant.
“I don't think about her. I think she's a fraud,” Trump said, adding, “She probably had herself sprayed, knowing her.” - Daily Kos https://bit.ly/4a3ek3Y
Letters from an American - January 28, 2026 - Heather Cox Richardson
Federal agents continue to rain terror on Minneapolis, Minnesota, and other U.S. cities including Portland and Lewiston, Maine. That violence has made it crystal clear that the goal of attacking immigrants is not simply to create a white nation; it is also to terrorize Americans into accepting the domination of MAGA Republicans.
Attorney General Pam Bondi has delivered the Department of Justice into the service of this project. The Department of Justice is not investigating the killings of Renee Good or Alex Pretti and so evidently intended to cover up information about the shooting of Pretti that a judge ordered its officers not to destroy evidence. - Cox Richardson https://bit.ly/4q5kwhK
The One Promise Trump Has Kept
Are you feeling the “New Golden Age?” Are you enjoying those home and energy prices cut “in half?” How about the satisfaction of having peace throughout the world? And what of his promise to release ALL the Epstein files?
There are so many promises to talk about, you’ll never guess the one promise he actually kept. - Reich Substack https://bit.ly/4bV6mMI
Trump and Schumer Move Toward Possible Deal to Avert a Shutdown
The president and the top Senate Democrat were discussing an agreement to split off homeland security funding from a broader spending package and negotiate new limits on immigration agents. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4td5fhQ
Judge in Minnesota Says ICE Has Violated Nearly 100 Court Orders
The chief federal judge in Minnesota excoriated Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Wednesday, saying it had violated nearly 100 court orders stemming from its aggressive crackdown in the state and had disobeyed more judicial directives in January alone than “some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.” - NYT https://nyti.ms/4rrMVQl
As Minneapolis Rages, Legislators Move to Restrict ICE in Their States
After the deaths of two American citizens in Minneapolis at the hands of federal agents, Democratic legislators across the country, aided by libertarian groups, are redoubling their efforts to restrict and challenge federal immigration tactics in their states. - NYT https://nyti.ms/46nvYy7
America at a Boiling Point: Deaths, Threats, Protests and a Town Hall Attack
The battle for Minneapolis and the killings of two American citizens by federal agents have freshly exposed the dangerous degree to which the nation’s social fabric has frayed, the latest smudging of an already thin line between politics and violence in America.
Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, became the latest target of violence directed at lawmakers on Tuesday evening, when a man charged her at a town hall and used a syringe to spray her with a liquid that smelled like vinegar before he was tackled by security.
That same night the United States Capitol Police released a disturbing report showing a surge in threat cases against lawmakers, their families and staff members: They spiked to a staggering 14,938 last year, up from 9,474 in 2024. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4c1eSK1
Minnesota CEOs issue joint letter urging de-escalation in Minnesota after shooting
More than 60 CEOs of Minnesota-based companies including Target, Best Buy and UnitedHealth signed an open letter posted on the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce website on Sunday calling for state, local and federal officials to work together, as businesses grapple with how to address tensions in the state and across the country following two fatal shootings by federal agents amid a massive immigration enforcement operation that has spurred protests.
“With yesterday’s tragic news, we are calling for an immediate deescalation of tensions and for state, local and federal officials to work together to find real solutions,” the open letter reads. - AP https://bit.ly/4qcVcGF
Tim Walz Fears a Fort Sumter Moment in Minneapolis
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz worries that the violence in his state could produce a national rupture. “I mean, is this a Fort Sumter?” he mused today in an interview in his office at the state capitol. The island fortification near Charleston, South Carolina, is where Confederate forces fired the first shots of the Civil War in 1861. Now it’s federal forces that are risking a breach. “It’s a physical assault,” Walz told me. “It’s an armed force that’s assaulting, that’s killing my constituents, my citizens.” - Atlantic https://bit.ly/3NLFZyO
Minnesota Proved MAGA Wrong
If the Minnesota resistance has an overarching ideology, you could call it “neighborism”—a commitment to protecting the people around you, no matter who they are or where they came from. The contrast with the philosophy guiding the Trump administration couldn’t be more extreme. Vice President Vance has said that “it is totally reasonable and acceptable for American citizens to look at their next-door neighbors and say, ‘I want to live next to people who I have something in common with. I don’t want to live next to four families of strangers.’” Minnesotans are insisting that their neighbors are their neighbors whether they were born in Minneapolis or Mogadishu. That is, arguably, a deeply Christian philosophy, one apparently loathed by some of the most powerful Christians in America. - Atlantic https://bit.ly/46nwOuL
The Accidental Winners of the War on Higher Ed
The relative obscurity of even the best small liberal-arts colleges may be helping them to avoid the Trump administration’s war on higher ed. But that doesn’t mean that they’re immune from any risk of being targeted. Haverford College, in Pennsylvania, for example, has been made the subject of a civil-rights investigation for allegedly failing to address anti-Semitic harassment against Jewish students. (This is the same charge, and the same government action, that has been directed or threatened against Columbia, UCLA, Stanford, Cornell, Rutgers, and many other big universities.) Haverford may not rely on the federal government for giant research grants, but even just defending itself against investigation would be costly, as would, say, losing federal Pell Grants that subsidize low-income students. - Atlantic https://bit.ly/4qIm5Dr
White House is planning to reduce immigration agents’ presence in Minnesota
President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, said Thursday that his team is working on a plan to draw down the number of federal immigration enforcement agents they have in Minneapolis, pending cooperation with state and local officials. Homan’s announcement came hours after Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) confirmed that large-scale Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations had ended in her state, as the White House seeks to quiet a growing backlash against immigration crackdowns following Saturday’s fatal shooting of ICU nurse Alex Pretti by federal immigration enforcement. - WaPo https://wapo.st/4a5CmLE
Kennedy Center's new programming head resigns days after hire was announced
In a Jan. 16 news release, the Kennedy Center announced that Kevin Couch would be its new senior vice president of artistic programming.
On Jan. 22, the center posted the announcement on X.
Not a week later, Couch resigned.
Couch confirmed his resignation Wednesday but declined to comment further. - Yahoo https://yhoo.it/4rgqSvz
Trump Administration Live Updates: Senate Blocks Spending Bill Amid D.H.S. Funding Fight
A spending package that would avert a government shutdown over the weekend failed a test vote in the Senate on Thursday. A handful of Republicans joined Democrats in opposing the legislation amid talks with the White House to rein in federal immigration agents. President Trump said at a cabinet meeting that he was hopeful a shutdown could be avoided. - NYT https://nyti.ms/49Pfr8w
Thursday News Updates as Trump Kicks Press Out of Cabinet Meeting — 1/29/26
Earlier, Donald Trump convened what was supposed to be an open cabinet meeting with members of the press present. Reporters were told he would take questions. Instead, after a few awkward moments, the entire thing was abruptly shut down. The press was ordered out without explanation.
Video from the room shows reporters attempting to ask a question before being told to leave. This all shows how rattled Trump appears to be. Another notable observation to flag: Trump called on various cabinet secretaries throughout the meeting, but at no point did he allow DHS secretary Krsti Noem to speak.
This all came amid a meltdown from Trump on social media that began late last night and continued into the morning. He spent hours posting erratic messages attacking people he sees as enemies, including Alex Pretti, who was murdered by his federal immigration agents in Minneapolis. There’s no bottom to his depravity.
Trump also lashed out at Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, blaming him for refusing to cut interest rates and accusing him of harming national security. - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/4a7iyYn
Shut it down! The US is better off with no government than with the one it has
It took not one but two killings of unarmed white American citizens by immigration enforcement agents for the Democrats to commit to withholding funds from the Department of Homeland Security, the agency of which Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the border patrol – the killers – are part.
After the first killing, seven House Democrats nevertheless voted with Republicans to allocate $64.4bn to the DHS, including $10bn for ICE. The bill they approved contained none of their party’s “commonsense” reforms, such as prohibition of masks and the requirement that agents obtain a judicial warrant before busting down a person’s door – not just an administrative warrant signed by the same agency invading the home. This last “reform”, which the Republican party rejected, is the soul of the fourth amendment, without which no one is safe anywhere from the state’s intrusion.
After the second killing, these Congress members hustled to cover their butts. “I failed to view the DHS funding vote as a referendum on the illegal and immoral conduct of ICE in Minneapolis,” the New York representative Tom Suozzi said in a statement. He promised to do better next time. The Texas representative Vicente Gonzalez explained, with equal credibility, that his yes vote “was not to fund ICE”, but “to ensure that our agencies here in south Texas were funded”. Would those agencies include the border patrol? He didn’t say. - Guardian https://bit.ly/3LYlyOE
Battles Are Raging Inside the Department of Homeland Security
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem appeared before a bank of television cameras in Washington, D.C., on Saturday night to blame the man who had been shot to death by federal agents in Minneapolis that morning for his own death, claiming without evidence that he had intended “to kill law enforcement” and had been “brandishing” a weapon. Behind her stood the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, Rodney Scott, sending a silent message of unity.
But behind the scenes, the senior ranks of the Department of Homeland Security were divided. Until minutes before they walked in front of the cameras, Noem and Scott had not spoken to each other that day, even as Noem took charge of her department’s response to the shooting and coordinated with the White House and other officials in Scott’s agency, two people familiar with their interactions told us. - Atlantic https://bit.ly/4qajtwW
Haitians Are Vital to U.S. Health Care. Many Are About to Lose Their Right to Work.
Haitians are a vital source of employees for health care providers in many communities. The Trump administration is removing legal status next month for 330,000 of them. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4r1qD7S
The Trump administration has a new mascot: A literal hunk of coal
Mascots are currently enjoying a renaissance. From McDonald’s Grimace to the WNBA’s Ellie the Elephant and Pop-Tarts’ Pop-Tart guy, companies everywhere are leaning on characters to represent their brand values and attract eyes on social media. Now the Trump administration is joining in with its own mascot. It’s a literal lump of coal. - Fast Company https://bit.ly/4qOooES
FBI’s Search of Georgia Election Center Is “Dangerous,” Experts Warn
When the FBI executed a warrant on Wednesday to seize records from the 2020 presidential vote in Fulton County, Georgia, it marked both an extraordinary event in the history of American elections and a significant escalation in President Donald Trump’s breaking of democratic norms, several legal experts said.
Trump has long claimed, without evidence, that the 2020 election was stolen from him and blamed Georgia, in particular, for his loss to Joe Biden. After the election, he famously made a call pressuring the secretary of state to “find” him enough votes to win. About a week ago, in a speech at the World Economic Forum, Trump once again called the 2020 election “rigged” and promised, “People will soon be prosecuted for what they did.”
The warrant served on the Fulton County election center sought ballots, tabulator tapes, digital data and voter rolls, which it alleged might constitute “evidence of the commission of a criminal offense.” It cited stiff criminal penalties related to “the procurement, casting, or tabulation” of fraudulent ballots.
“I’m not aware of something like this happening ever before,” said Rick Hasen, a professor at the law school of the University of California, Los Angeles. “The idea that federal officials would seize ballots in an attempt to prove fraud is especially dangerous in this context when we know there is no fraud because the Georgia 2020 election has been extensively counted, recounted and investigated.” - ProPublica https://bit.ly/3Z9VMda
'Batman' blasts Bay Area city council over ICE's involvement in Super Bowl
An unidentified man dressed in a Batman costume angrily confronted Santa Clara city officials during a joint meeting of the City Council, city authorities and the Santa Clara Stadium Authority on Tuesday, using his public comment to condemn the city’s stance on cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. - SF Gate https://bit.ly/4tawwRS
Trump Shrugs Off the Ilhan Omar Attack
The attack on Representative Ilhan Omar on Tuesday was horrifying but depressingly predictable. Not only has the country seen a recent spree of political violence, but Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota, has also been a frequent target of death threats.
The suspect, whom police have identified as Anthony Kazmierczak, was arrested after he squirted a combination of apple-cider vinegar and water at Omar during a town hall in Minneapolis, according to court documents. She was apparently not injured in the attack and continued to speak for 25 minutes before being medically screened. Kazmierczak has a long rap sheet, and he also has a long record of social-media posts that support right-wing causes and President Trump. His brother told The Independent that Kazmierczak frequently complained about Somali immigrants and about Omar in particular, who was born in Somalia before immigrating and becoming an American citizen. Court documents allege that he once said someone “should kill that bitch.”
Kazmierczak’s alleged animosity toward Omar didn’t come out of nowhere. A chorus on the right, led by Trump, has worked for years to villainize her. When ABC News reached Trump on Tuesday night, he said that he hadn’t seen the footage of the attack but then baselessly claimed that Omar had staged the incident. “I don’t think about her. I think she’s a fraud,” he said. “She probably had herself sprayed, knowing her.” - Atlantic https://bit.ly/45EbUr2
Noem ending protected status for Venezuelans in U.S. was illegal, federal appeals court rules
A federal appeals court ruled late Wednesday that the Trump administration acted illegally when it ended legal protections that gave hundreds of thousands of people from Venezuela permission to live and work in the United States.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that found Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem exceeded her authority when she ended temporary protected status for Venezuelans. - CBS https://cbsn.ws/46o1egp
Minneapolis' Community-Driven Anti-ICE Organizing Is Showing The Way
All eyes are on Minnesota.
The terror that ICE has wrought on the streets of Minneapolis is violent and tragic, and it has rightfully caught the attention of the entire country.
But it’s not just out of anger. Or the horror of it all. The American people also see a ray of hope in Minneapolis.
As Chris Hayes put it in his conversation Thursday night with Elliott Payne, President of Minneapolis’ City Council,
“There’s something that you are doing here that feels like the antidote to everything that they are doing.”
In a very real way, through organizing and by centering community, everyday Minneapolis residents have discovered the antidote to ICE’s poison. - The Big Picture https://bit.ly/4qcuZbc
Today in Politics, Bulletin 296. 1/29/26
Tom Homan held his first press conference in MN today after taking over for Greg Bovino and Krist Noem: “This is common sense cooperation that allows us to draw down the number of people we have here. Yes, I said it. Draw down the number of people here.”
Homan took a swipe at his predecessor: “I’m not here because the federal govt has carried out its mission perfectly. I do not want to hear that everything that has been done here has been perfect.”
Q: “Can you be specific about how many ICE and Border Patrol agents are currently operating in the state? Homan: 3,000. They’ve been in theater a long time. Day after day, can’t eat in restaurants, people spin on you, blowing whistles at you. But my main focus now is draw down.”
“In theater” is a military term used to describe a war zone. - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/3ZGrn6n
Senate Democrats and White House Reach Deal to Avoid Shutdown
Senate Democrats have struck a deal with Republicans and the White House to pass five spending bills to fund a large portion of the government for the remainder of the fiscal year, as well as a stopgap measure to fund the Department of Homeland Security for two weeks while they continue negotiating guardrails to rein in immigration agents. It is unclear how quickly the House can and will process those funding bills after the Senate passes them. - NYT https://nyti.ms/49Pfr8w
The Trump Administration Has Been Sued 600 Times. Track These Cases.
The Trump administration’s sweeping policy changes face a number of lawsuits — more than 600.
In more than 350 cases, the courts have let the administration’s policies stay in effect even as they remain in active litigation. In more than 150 cases, however, the courts have at least partially halted the administration’s policies either through temporary restraining orders or preliminary injunctions. - NYT https://nyti.ms/45GEb07
Justice Department bracing for more resignations in Minnesota
The Justice Department is bracing for a new wave of resignations in the Minnesota federal prosecutors’ office over recent immigration enforcement efforts in the state, sources familiar with the matter said.
Prosecutors threatened to resign during a recent meeting in which US Attorney Daniel Rosen had tried to convince his office to get on board with the Trump administration’s efforts in Minnesota, the sources said. His plea so far hasn’t assuaged concerns within the office that the administration is taking potentially unlawful steps.
One of the sources said that if the resignations came to fruition, they could decimate the US Attorney’s office as they are pursuing cases against immigrants and protesters, and pile onto an already thin staff after an earlier wave of resignations over how the Justice Department responded to a federal officer’s shooting of Renee Good. - CNN https://cnn.it/4aasccN
Liam Ramos, detained 5-year-old immigrant, is depressed and lethargic, Texas congressman says | CNN
The 5-year-old boy who with his father was taken last week by immigration agents from their suburban Minneapolis driveway has appeared depressed and lethargic at the South Texas detention facility where the pair is being held, said a congressman concerned for Liam Conejo Ramos’ mental state.
“Just visited with Liam and his father at Dilley detention center,” Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Democrat, said in an X post Wednesday. “I demanded his release and told him how much his family, his school, and our country loves him and is praying for him.” - CNN https://cnn.it/3LYmItu
How Stephen Miller micromanages Trump’s immigration policies
Stephen Miller has sought this week to distance himself from the recent fatal shootings in Minneapolis and the administration’s miscalculated response. But more than anyone, Miller has been the overall architect of Trump’s aggressive deportation push, encouraging heavy-handed operations in blue cities and urging agencies to cast a wide net to meet hefty arrest quotas. - CNN https://cnn.it/4a1Knkz
FBI searches Fulton County elections office as it investigates alleged voter fraud
The FBI served a warrant Wednesday at an elections office in Fulton County, Georgia, as it probes alleged voter fraud in the 2020 election.
A source familiar with the matter told CNN the search is related to an effort by the Justice Department to seize election records and search for alleged voter fraud in the county, including Atlanta, which has long been a centerpiece of President Donald Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him. - CNN https://cnn.it/4bpwbV3
An American Street
In south Minneapolis, snow and ice still blanketed Nicollet Avenue when federal agents fanned out and started tackling heckling protesters on Saturday, about a block away from where Alex Pretti was shot and killed.
“Shame!” the protesters yelled. “Why did you murder another one of our neighbors?” they said. The agents charged, launching gas canisters, yelling at the protesters. “Get back!” “Get out of the street!”
The agents grabbed a protester who had only a painter’s mask covering his mouth and little else to protect himself from the gas. He gasped, choking for air as he was cuffed.
Standing in front of him was a federal agent armed with a grenade launcher, used here for launching tear gas or smoke. The agent also carried a Glock handgun with two spare magazines, a stun gun and a spare magazine for an AR-15-style rifle.
The detritus left behind tells the story of deep-winter protests in subzero weather: a warm hat, a shirt, Kirkland chewy bars and hand warmers. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4q5rELb
Nervous Allies and Fox News: How Trump Realized He Had a Big Problem in Minneapolis
The crisis in Minneapolis was not dying down.
The government’s account of the killing on Saturday of Alex Pretti, a U.S. citizen with no criminal record, was unraveling. Stephen Miller, the mastermind of President Trump’s hard-line immigration policy, had called Mr. Pretti a “terrorist” and told other administration officials, including Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, to call him an “assassin.”
But videos clearly contradicted that story. Mr. Pretti was pinned down when immigration agents opened fire and killed him. Protests and a palpable sense of outrage were growing across the country. Even the president’s allies were alarmed. Many of them wanted to see changes on the ground, and several made a recommendation directly in calls to the president: Send Tom Homan, the White House border czar, to Minneapolis.
Early Monday, Brian Kilmeade, the co-host of “Fox & Friends,” of which Mr. Trump is a loyal viewer, repeated the message three times in two hours.
Twenty minutes later, the president announced on social media that he was sending Mr. Homan to Minneapolis, a tacit acknowledgment that he was losing control of a situation that posed one of the most serious political threats of his second administration. - NYT https://nyti.ms/49NxtYI
At the Center of the ICE Uproar, a Familiar Figure: Corey Lewandowski
Nick Corasaniti covered Corey Lewandowski during the 2016 presidential campaign. Hamed Aleaziz covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy.
From Day 1, he was Donald Trump’s pit bull.
Corey Lewandowski was a hard-charging political operative who worked for a group backed by the Koch brothers when Mr. Trump put him in charge of a nascent White House campaign with only a handful of staff members in 2015. Untested at the presidential level, he led with a simple mantra: “Let Trump be Trump.”
With an attack-and-never-apologize style that mirrored his boss’s, Mr. Lewandowski could almost always count on Mr. Trump’s eventual support over the next decade, as he ping-ponged from government to lobbying and back again with several scandals in his wake. - NYT https://nyti.ms/3M4WWUf
Putin photo gets place of honor in Trump's White House
Trump is leaving no part of the White House unmolested by his terrible taste. This time, it’s not just his fondness for tacky gold-plated decorations or his penchant for slapping his name on everything. Instead, what’s on display is his fondness for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Yes, visitors who walk through the Palm Room, which connects the West Wing to the White House residence, will be greeted by a large picture of Trump and Putin, taken when the two met in Alaska last August for what was supposed to be a peace summit to end the Ukraine conflict.
An aspiring authoritarian like Trump needs an inspo picture of his good buddy to remind him to keep grinding so that someday he can be just as much of a fascist. - Daily Kos https://bit.ly/3LJpP8F
Fox News slams its own Trump polling, says Americans are just dumb
Don’t worry, Fox News is still keeping busy pretending that President Donald Trump isn’t royally screwing up everything he touches.
On Thursday, the right-wing propaganda network minimized a recent poll showing widespread dissatisfaction with Trump’s handling of the economy, with contributor Charles Payne arguing that the public simply doesn’t understand Trump’s brilliant work thus far. - Daily Kos https://bit.ly/49PglSp
Trump nominates inflation hawk Kevin Warsh to replace Jerome Powell as Fed chair
Warsh is a somewhat conventional candidate for Fed chair: a former Fed governor who was previously under consideration to be Treasury secretary in Trump’s second term and was a candidate for the top job at the Fed during Trump’s first term. Warsh was appointed to the Fed in 2006 at the age of 35, making him the youngest person to have ever served on the Fed’s powerful board.
Warsh, now 55, has recently shifted his stance on monetary policy. A former inflation hawk, Warsh now favors lower interest rates, according to numerous public statements he’s made in recent months as Trump launched a reality-show-like spectacle for his Fed chair decision. He’s also called for overhauling the central bank’s workforce. - CNN https://cnn.it/45CeuOq
U.S. Trade Deficit Widens Despite Trump’s Tariffs
The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services rebounded to $56.8 billion in November, rising 95 percent from the previous month as President Trump’s tariffs continued to cause huge fluctuations in trade, according to data from the Commerce Department released on Thursday.
Exports fell 3.6 percent in the month, to $292.1 billion, led by declining outbound shipments of gold, pharmaceuticals, consumer goods and crude oil. Imports rose 5 percent in November, to $348.9 billion, as Americans bought foreign pharmaceuticals as well as equipment to fill new data centers. The combination pushed up the monthly trade deficit, the gap between what the United States imports and what it exports. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4rn9i9g
War Threats and Ambiguous Evidence: Trump Again Confronts Iran
When President Trump announced last June that the U.S. military had carried out airstrikes in Iran, he declared that the goal of the operation was nothing short of halting the threat that Iran would ever obtain a nuclear weapon. If Tehran’s leaders did not “make peace,” he said, “future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier.”
Mr. Trump reiterated that threat this week, and is now considering another pre-emptive act of war in Iran, a country whose nuclear program poses almost no immediate threat to the Middle East or to the United States. Little has happened in the past six months to indicate that Iran has made significant strides toward rebuilding its capacity to enrich nuclear fuel and fashion a nuclear warhead, according to interviews with U.S. and European officials and independent groups that monitor Iran’s program.
As a result, there are questions about the timing and motives behind Mr. Trump’s saber rattling. Are his threats simply intended to bring Iran back into nuclear negotiations? Would a military strike against the nuclear program be a pretext to weaken or oust Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran? Why have Mr. Trump’s stated reasons for targeting Iran shifted back to the nuclear program, after he initially said he was seeking to defend the protesters who mounted a brief but powerful challenge to the government?
Moreover, if Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was, as Mr. Trump said last June, “completely and totally obliterated,” what might be the targets of a new strike?
A second U.S. military campaign in Iran, depending on its scope or targets, could be far more destabilizing than the first, for a number of reasons. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4aksOh3
Kennedy Overhauls Federal Autism Panel in His Own Image
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has overhauled a panel that helps the federal government set priorities for autism research and social services, installing several members who have said that vaccines can cause autism despite decades of research that has failed to establish such a link. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4t8hVGD
The Polls Are Clear. Americans Don’t Want This.
When Donald Trump won re-election in 2024, there was one campaign pledge that voters across the political spectrum felt the most confident he’d make good on: controlling illegal immigration and making the country safer. About 55 percent of Americans approved of Mr. Trump’s approach to immigration upon his return to the White House, my polling found.
One year later, however, the public’s assessment has turned negative, having flipped to 55 percent disapproval in my own most recent polling, whose dates included last Saturday, the day Alex Pretti was killed by federal agents in Minneapolis. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4qMIEH1
The Border Patrol Is the Problem. It Always Has Been.
The violence, racial profiling and disregard for the Constitution that have burst into public view in Minneapolis are not new or unusual for the Border Patrol. This is how the agency has operated since it was created, though for decades those activities have been hidden in the remote borderlands. If you are uncomfortable with what the Border Patrol is doing in Minneapolis, you are uncomfortable with the Border Patrol, full stop.
While Immigration and Customs Enforcement has become the umbrella term for all immigration agents, the Border Patrol is the larger force with a longer history. ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations agents have the job of finding, detaining and deporting people. Border Patrol agents police areas in between ports of entry. Alex Pretti was shot by the Border Patrol; Renee Good was shot by ICE. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4q8dmsY
To Their Shock, Cubans in Florida Are Being Deported in Record Numbers
Cubans had long benefited from legal privileges unavailable to immigrants from other countries. President Trump has changed that.
Heidy Sánchez took her 17-month-old daughter to a routine check-in last April with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Tampa, Fla. During the appointment, federal authorities told her that she was being detained and that her husband should pick up their daughter, who was still breastfeeding.
Two days later, Ms. Sánchez, 44, who worked as a home health aide, was deported.
Ms. Sánchez’s story quickly spread across social media, in part because she is Cuban, a group that had long been treated differently than other immigrants, even when they entered the country illegally.
That has changed under President Trump.
He has repatriated more than 1,600 Cubans in 2025, according to the Cuban government. That is about double the number of Cubans who were repatriated in 2024. And in the years that Mr. Trump has been president, he has sent more Cubans back than his three predecessors. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4c1gZNW
Federal Agents Arrest Don Lemon Over Minnesota Church Protest
The former CNN anchor Don Lemon and three other people have been arrested on charges that they violated federal law during a protest at a church in St. Paul, Minn., this month, the Justice Department said on Friday, reviving a case that was rejected last week by a magistrate judge.
The arrests of Mr. Lemon, a second journalist and two protesters came on the heels of their indictment by a grand jury in Federal District Court in Minnesota charging them with a conspiracy to deprive the congregants of the church of their rights and to interfere with religious freedom in a house of worship. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4t8i6Sj
Journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort arrested after Minnesota church protest
Two independent journalists, Don Lemon and Georgia Fort, have been arrested in connection with a protest at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota.
First Amendment advocates and civil-rights organizations condemned the arrests and argued that President Donald Trump is trying to chill press freedom in the US.
Lemon and Fort were live-streaming as dozens of anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protesters rushed into Cities Church on January 18, interrupting a church service and leading to tense confrontations.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said four people were arrested early Friday “in connection with the coordinated attack” at the church. The other two individuals Bondi named were Trahern Jeen Crew and Jamael Lydell Lundy. - CNN https://cnn.it/45FZ8Zf
Federal Agents Arrest Don Lemon Over Minnesota Church Protest
The former CNN anchor Don Lemon and three other people have been arrested on charges that they violated federal law during a protest at a church in St. Paul, Minn., this month, the Justice Department said on Friday, reviving a case that was rejected last week by a magistrate judge.
The arrests of Mr. Lemon, a second journalist and two protesters came on the heels of their indictment by a grand jury in Federal District Court in Minnesota charging them with a conspiracy to deprive the congregants of the church of their rights and to interfere with religious freedom in a house of worship. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4rm3E7p
Two reporters taken into custody
Don Lemon was right. "They're going to try again," he said last week after a judge blocked the DOJ's first attempt to charge him in connection with the Cities Church protest back on Jan. 18. "Keep trying," he said, vowing to continue his work.
This week, Lemon flew to L.A. for a live event he was thrilled to cover: This Sunday night's Grammy Awards. But the DOJ did try again, and federal agents took Lemon into custody at a Beverly Hills hotel late last night.
Lemon's attorney, Abbe Lowell, announced the disturbing news in a statement around 8 a.m. ET, around the same time we found out a second independent journalist, Georgia Fort, was also taken into custody at her home in Minnesota. Fort calmly reported on her own arrest by live-streaming it on Facebook. "Federal agents are at my door, arresting me for filming the church protest," she said. - CNN https://cnn.it/4qQlXBV
Operation Trump Rehab
Chuck Schumer, the Senate Minority Leader, says that what’s happening in Minneapolis today—with thousands of armed, masked federal agents terrorizing the community in the name of cracking down on illegal immigrants—is both a “moral abomination” and a “moment of truth for the United States of America.” In the wake of the tragic killings, earlier this month, of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, the Maryland Democrat and constitutional scholar Jamie Raskin praises Minnesotans’ “heroic resistance” and “non-stop creative organizing” as not only the right response to the Trump Administration’s excesses but “a template for national popular victory against the autocrats and authoritarians.”
Speaking out on Thursday, the two members of Congress reflected a national Democratic leadership that—finally, belatedly—seems to have found its collective voice in responding to what Donald Trump has unleashed on America since returning to office a year ago. Some of the President’s most fervent opponents now believe, as the never-Trump conservative Charlie Sykes wrote on Thursday morning, that the recent news out of Minnesota marked a breaking point for “patriotic, non-political normies.” Reflecting a political environment that simply did not exist a week ago in Washington, on Thursday a united Senate Democratic caucus refused to vote for a government funding bill before a Friday deadline, because it includes money for the out-of-control immigration agencies that operate within the Department of Homeland Security. On the ground in Minnesota, meanwhile, Trump’s border czar, Thomas Homan, announced that he had arrived to dial down the temperature. “President Trump wants this fixed, and I’m going to fix it,” he said.
Is this, then, the inflection point—or whatever you want to call it—that so much of sane America has been waiting for? The beginning of the end of the madness that has gripped our nation?
Would that it were so. - New Yorker https://bit.ly/4alQDFc
ICE Begins Buying ‘Mega’ Warehouse Detention Centers Across US
Despite protests in small towns and cities across the US, the Trump administration is pushing ahead with the purchase of warehouses it plans to convert into immigration jails in what could be the largest expansion of such detention capacity in US history.
The cost for acquiring two warehouses alone was $172 million. A third in El Paso, Texas, could be among the largest jails of any kind in the country if completed as envisioned, with 8,500 beds. The deals mark the latest turn in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s plan to use as many as 23 warehouses for detaining thousands of immigrants arrested by federal agents in Minneapolis and other cities. Those aggressive enforcement actions have ignited clashes with protesters and led to agents killing two US citizens.
On Jan. 16, the administration paid $102 million for a site near Hagerstown, Maryland, according to a local court filing. A week later, the government paid $70 million in cash for a warehouse in Surprise, Arizona. The price tags — roughly in line with the industry average for the warehouse market — cover just the acquisition of the sites, which are currently empty shells. ICE still has to pay companies to outfit the buildings with toilets, showers, beds, dining and recreation areas and then run them as detention centers. - Bloomberg https://bloom.bg/4rpQu9z
**Trump sues IRS and Treasury for $10 billion over leaked tax records
The case means Trump has again filed a claim for a large amount of money against the government he oversees, putting him on both sides of the potential negotiating table. - WaPo https://wapo.st/4tfsAPY
RFK Jr. Stacks Key Autism Panel With Vaccine Skeptics
Several new members of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee have pushed unproven therapies for autism or misrepresented the safety of vaccines. - Gizmodo https://bit.ly/46pUkav
Journalists arrested as Trump team sets fire to First Amendment
Independent journalist Don Lemon, formerly of CNN, was arrested by federal agents Thursday night for reporting on an anti-ICE protest at a church in Minnesota, making him a target in President Donald Trump’s latest attempt to shut down free speech. - Daily Kos https://bit.ly/4a96DZZ
Why Trump’s new Fed chair nominee should terrify us all
President Donald Trump continued to flood the zone with horrific news Friday, this time by nominating a hack who got literally everything wrong during the 2008 financial crisis to serve as Federal Reserve chair.
Trump chose Kevin Warsh, a member of the Federal Reserve Board from 2006 through 2011 when the U.S. economy nearly collapsed, to replace Jerome Powell, whose term expires in May. - Daily Kos https://bit.ly/49SJ9JN
FCC pushes to punish talk shows as Trump-friendly media gets a pass
After FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced an update to a longstanding rule excluding late-night and daytime talk shows from having to interview both opponents of a political party, late-night clapped back.
“I might need your help again,” Kimmel told his audience this week, referencing his previous battle with the FCC and broadcasters last year.
Kimmel went on to explain how more conservative outlets aren’t being forced by the White House to abide by the revised rules, but the ABC host is because his show uses public airwaves. - Daily Kos https://bit.ly/4tdkQhb
Nationwide protests begin over ICE in Minneapolis amid mixed messages from Trump
Student organizers called for walkouts and protests across the United States on Friday to demand that federal immigration agents withdraw from Minnesota, where the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens have sparked public outrage.
The planned national day of protest, which saw students and teachers walking out of schools from Arizona to Georgia, came amid mixed messages from the Trump administration on the future of Operation Metro Surge, which has sent some 3,000 federal agents to the Minneapolis area in an immigration crackdown.
The fatal shootings by federal agents of citizens Alex Pretti on Saturday and Renee Good on January 7 in Minneapolis during the Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation have stoked public outrage and fueled calls for more protests. - Reuters / Japan Today https://bit.ly/49PUsSY?
Meet the New Proud Boys
The far-right group’s views and tactics are now emulated by federal agents.
“We’ve kind of gotten what we want, right? There’s no reason to fucking protest,” Enrique Tarrio, a longtime leader of the Proud Boys, told me earlier this week over the phone while he was taking a minute to charge his Tesla. We were speaking about why his group had receded from the streets. His answer: He no longer felt compelled to show up with other Proud Boys to fight left-wing protesters, because the federal government was doing the job itself. - Atlantic https://bit.ly/4rufIDS
Updates: Millions of Pages of Epstein Documents Released
The Department of Justice on Friday released the largest batch of Jeffrey Epstein files to date, a giant tranche including three million more pages of documents and thousands of videos and images.
The documents shed new light on the disgraced financier’s relationships with several prominent figures, including Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. They also contain a significant number of uncorroborated tips to law enforcement. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4arfbN2
DOJ has opened civil rights probe into Alex Pretti shooting, Deputy AG says
The Justice Department has opened a civil rights investigation into the shooting of Alex Pretti in Minnesota, US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Friday.
“All that that means is that (the Department of Homeland Security), as they’ve, as the Secretary has said, is conducting an investigation, as they should,” Blanche said. “And as they do every time there’s a tragic event like this, and the FBI, in their role which is a separate role from DHS, is also take looking into it and conducting investigation.”
CNN previously reported that the FBI is taking the lead on the investigation into Pretti, which was initially handled by DHS’s investigative agency.
The announcement means that the Justice Department is looking into whether the DHS officers who shot Pretti violated the law, and marks an expansion of the federal government’s investigation into the matter. - CNN https://cnn.it/3Mf1Q18
The Melania Trump Documentary Is a Disgrace
The exorbitant film captures the rotten state of the entertainment industry.
Recently, I watched a new documentary about an enigmatic woman of notable charm and courage preparing for one of the most momentous events in her life. That woman is E. Jean Carroll, and the movie is Ask E. Jean, a feature about Carroll’s life and her decision to sue President Trump in civil court for defamation and sexual battery.
In 2019, Carroll alleged that Trump had sexually assaulted her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s; Trump promptly denied the allegation while deriding Carroll at rallies and in TV interviews as “totally lying” and “not my type.” Ask E. Jean follows Carroll as she prepares for the trial, revealing why she buried what had happened for so long; it captures, too, her profound discomfort while she’s badgered during depositions by Trump’s legal team, and her eventual victory. (The jury found Trump liable for the sexual abuse and defamation of Carroll and ordered him to pay $5 million in compensation; Trump’s appeal is currently awaiting review by the Supreme Court.)
But very few people have seen Ask E. Jean or even heard of it. Streaming platforms and distributors have steered absolutely clear of a movie that so plainly impugns the president, regardless of its obvious relevance and engaging portrait of Carroll, whose decision to come forward was resolutely in spite of everything she knew she’d face as a result. “We all have a lot at stake here. This lawsuit is not just for me; it almost has nothing to do with me,” she explains in one scene to the director, Ivy Meeropol. “It’s for, really, women across the country.” In court, Carroll faced lawyers for a former (now reelected) president, making the case, as she puts it, that Trump was protected by “his scope of employment as president when he called me too hideous to rape.” - Atlantic https://bit.ly/45GCBve
Thousands demonstrate in Minnesota and across U.S. to protest ICE
Thousands of protesters took to the streets in Minneapolis and students across the United States staged walkouts on Friday to demand the withdrawal of federal immigration agents from Minnesota following the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens.
Students and teachers abandoned classes from California to New York on a national day of protest, which came amid mixed messages from the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump about whether it would de-escalate Operation Metro Surge. - Reuters / Japan Times https://bit.ly/3NOWOcd
U.N. Says It’s in Danger of Financial Collapse Because of Unpaid Dues
The world body warned it would run out of money by July and have to close its New York headquarters if countries, namely the United States, did not pay annual dues that amount to billions of dollars. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4tb7zFX
Release of Three Million Epstein Pages Falls Short, Survivors Say
The Justice Department on Friday finished its belated release of investigative files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex trafficker, though officials conceded that the disclosure of more than three million pages was unlikely to put to rest the suspicions that surround the case.
That was quickly reinforced by Democratic lawmakers and some of Mr. Epstein’s victims, who had forced the Trump administration to disclose the documents related to the case. They asserted that the massive tranche still fell short of a full accounting, and that the documents revealed personal information about people Mr. Epstein abused.
Hundreds of prosecutors have spent the last two months reviewing more than six million pages potentially related to the case. As of Friday, around 3.5 million pages had been published in response to a law passed by Congress last November. The latest files also included 2,000 videos and 180,000 images.
**The files appeared to contain at least 4,500 documents that mention Mr. Trump, according to an initial review by The New York Times.One was a summary F.B.I. officials assembled last summer of more than a dozen tips from members of the public involving Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein. Mr. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in connection with the disgraced financier. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4qQUhN4
Protesters Denounce Trump Immigration Tactics in ‘National Shutdown’
They ditched school in Atlanta. Left work in Philadelphia. Blocked traffic in Los Angeles. And closed businesses in New York. Across the country on Friday, protesters marched, rallied and disrupted their everyday routines in solidarity with Minneapolis residents to demand an end to the Trump administration’s immigration tactics.
The actions, including gatherings in cities and towns from Boise, Idaho, to Gainesville, Fla., were part of what groups of organizers called a national shutdown, encouraging Americans to abstain from work, school and shopping “to stop ICE’s reign of terror” and denounce the recent killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
The protests reflected widespread fury at the killings, which have endangered President Trump’s political agenda and threatened a government shutdown. The specter of masked men killing American citizens during protests has raised fears of authoritarianism and talk of resistance, with many residents saying America’s 250-year experiment in democracy is imperiled. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4rl3Rru
Spending Deal Leaves Government in Shutdown Limbo for the Weekend
The Senate passed a bipartisan spending package on Friday to fund most of the government and keep the Department of Homeland Security running for two weeks while Democrats and President Trump negotiate restrictions on the administration’s immigration crackdown.
The agreement, the culmination of an intense round of haggling between the White House and Democrats, did not come together in time to avert a brief lapse in federal funding over the weekend, starting on Saturday morning. The House still must clear it for Mr. Trump’s signature, but is not expected to return to Washington to do so before Monday. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4brhlNK
Trump Officials Bypass Congress to Push Billions in Weapons Aid to Israel
The move was the third time the Trump administration has tried to expedite arms shipments to Israel by going around the review process for weapons sales. - NYT https://nyti.ms/46b4ziU
Trump Called for ‘De-Escalation’ in Minneapolis. It Didn’t Last Long.
Under fire for the deadly, chaotic federal crackdown in Minneapolis, President Trump this week signaled that he might be open to changing course.
“We’re going to de-escalate a little bit,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Tuesday, trying to calm a mounting crisis after federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in less than a month.
And while Mr. Trump has taken some steps to rein in the tactics of federal agents, he reverted almost immediately to saying he would not pull back the operation, “not at all.” Even amid calls for calming tensions, Mr. Trump issued a social media post at 1:26 a.m. on Friday calling one of the victims, Alex Pretti — a 37-year-old U.S. citizen whom federal agents shot repeatedly — an “agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist.” - NYT https://nyti.ms/4ro98ym
President Trump Wants Lower Rates. Warsh Could Have a Hard Time Delivering.
Kevin M. Warsh, whom Mr. Trump tapped to become the next chair of the Federal Reserve, could face fierce resistance if he tries to pursue substantially lower borrowing costs. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4k9ogxf
Trump’s Lawsuit Against I.R.S. Creates ‘Enormous Conflict of Interest’
Federal law fiercely protects the confidentiality of Americans’ tax returns. Not only can improper disclosure of tax information carry criminal penalties, but people can also sue the government if the Internal Revenue Service mishandles their data.
Not until Thursday, though, had a sitting president filed such a suit. President Trump’s complaint, filed in federal court in Miami against the I.R.S. and the Treasury Department, created what legal experts said was the unparalleled situation of federal agencies facing a lawsuit from the head of the executive branch. Mr. Trump has demanded at least $10 billion in damages.
“It’s an enormous conflict of interest,” said Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration. “His own appointees could turn around and say: ‘Let’s give the Trump family a couple of billion. That’s a fair sell.’” - NYT https://nyti.ms/4br8Dz5
How ICE Already Knows Who Minneapolis Protesters Are
Agents use facial recognition, social media monitoring and other tech tools not only to identify undocumented immigrants but also to track protesters, current and former officials said. - NYT https://nyti.ms/3ZKo4v2
A Secret Panel to Question Climate Science Was Unlawful, Judge Rules
A federal judge on Friday ruled the Energy Department violated the law when Secretary Chris Wright handpicked five researchers who reject the scientific consensus on climate change to work in secret on a sweeping government report on global warming. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4a3mpWc
The Rot Goes Deeper Than ICE
The renewed calls to abolish ICE are an understandable reaction to an intolerable reality. ICE has become dangerous and unaccountable by design under the second Trump administration, with its deportation quotas, dehumanizing rhetoric about immigrants and extrajudicial pronouncements that agents have “absolute immunity.” The assault on Minneapolis has demonstrated what can happen when that toxic mix of incentives is unleashed on a community. ICE has operated more like an invading army than a force for public safety.
But the rot goes deeper at the Department of Homeland Security, the behemoth that controls ICE, Customs and Border Protection (C.B.P.) and myriad other federal agencies, from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the Secret Service. Since its founding in 2002, a combination of organizational flaws and mission creep has allowed D.H.S. to evolve into the out-of-control domestic security apparatus we have today, one that views the very people it is supposed to protect as threats, not humans. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4aneXqh
Outcry in Italy as U.S. Says ICE Agents Will Join Olympics Delegation
ICE will accompany the U.S. delegation to the Winter Olympics in Italy next month, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed on Tuesday, stoking a backlash among Italians angered by the conduct of ICE agents in Minneapolis.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will join a security team from the State Department at the Olympics “to vet and mitigate risks from transnational criminal organizations,” D.H.S. said in a statement attributed to Tricia McLaughlin, the department’s assistant secretary for public affairs. - NYT https://nyti.ms/49VT9lC
Administration Social Media Posts Echo White Supremacist Messaging
The posts have referred to neo-Nazi literature, ethnic cleansing and QAnon conspiracies, mused about deporting nearly a third of the U.S. population, and promoted lyrics from an anthem bellowed by the far-right militants of the Proud Boys.
Their authors are not on society’s fringe. They are in the offices of the White House and the departments of Homeland Security and Labor, using official government accounts.
To some people, the administration’s posts sound patriotic. Others might sense at most a faint dog whistle to extremists. Some posts may just look odd. But those well-versed in the abstruse codes of right-wing extremism hear klaxons.
This month, the White House and the Department of Homeland Security jointly posted a recruitment ad for Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Instagram, Facebook and X, overlaid with the words “WE’LL HAVE OUR HOME AGAIN.”
That’s also the name of a song, written by members of a self-described “pro-White fraternal order,” that has been embraced by the Proud Boys and other white-nationalist groups. Hundreds of explicitly neo-Nazi and white-supremacist accounts have shared the song on Telegram, an encrypted messaging app, since 2020. The white supremacist who killed three Black people at a Jacksonville, Fla., dollar store in 2023 included lyrics from the song in his writing. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4bqw1wB
Saturday Afternoon News Updates – 1/31/26
December producer price inflation came in at 3 percent, well above expectations of 2.7 percent. Core PPI inflation jumped to 3.3 percent, also higher than forecast, and now sits at its hottest level since July 2025. These are not abstract figures. Americans feel them every time they buy groceries, fill their gas tanks, or try to pay rent. Prices are up, wages are not keeping pace, and the stress is real.
Trump’s response was to publish an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, claiming his economy is “fantastic.” The White House and official government accounts then promoted the piece as if it were an editorial endorsement written by the paper itself. But guess who the author was? If you guessed Donald Trump, you’d be correct. The Trump-authored op-ed (well, likely written by his handlers), filled with lies, was laundered through official channels to mislead the public.
In that op-ed, Trump insisted that his tariffs have “brought America back” and claimed the burden of those tariffs fell on foreign producers rather than American consumers. That assertion is flatly false. Tariffs function as a tax, and that tax is passed along to consumers. Americans know this because they are living it. Trump also claimed he inherited an economy “ravaged” by Joe Biden and that only twelve months into his second term inflation is “extremely low” and growth is “extraordinarily high.” None of that aligns with reality or with the data released just one day earlier. - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/4a69Aui
5-year-old Liam Ramos and father are back in Minneapolis after being released from federal custody in Texas
Ecuadorian preschooler Liam Conejo Ramos and his father are back in Minneapolis after being released from a Texas detention facility where they had been held for more than a week, according to Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro.
The 5-year-old and his father, Adrian, were taken by immigration agents from his snowy suburban Minneapolis driveway and sent 1,300 miles to a Texas detention facility designed to detain families.
“Yesterday, five-year-old Liam and his dad Adrian were released from Dilley detention center. I picked them up last night and escorted them back to Minnesota this morning. Liam is now home. With his hat and his backpack. Thank you to everyone who demanded freedom for Liam. We won’t stop until all children and families are home,” Castro posted on X Sunday. - NYT https://cnn.it/4qb2MBu
Letters from an American - January 30, 2026 - Heather Cox Richardson
Lemon filmed protesters who disrupted a church service in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Sunday, January 18. Kiera Butler of Mother Jones reports the ultra-conservative white nationalist church has ties to the Trump administration. One of the church pastors, David Easterwood, is an official from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Jarrett Ley and Samuel Oakford of the Washington Post reviewed the video Lemon filmed at the church protest. They wrote that the video shows that Lemon identified himself as a journalist and followed protesters into the church. Inside for about 45 minutes, he interviewed four parishioners and five protesters. Eight of those nine exchanges appeared calm. The video does not show Lemon participating in the chants with which the protesters disrupted the service. A pastor asked Lemon to leave, and seven minutes later he exited the church. - Cox Richardson https://bit.ly/3MkW6Tz
Today in Politics, Bulletin 297. 1/30/26
DOJ released a massive amount of Epstein files documents today. One section that had numerous specific criminal allegations against Trump was posted and then hours later after people began to post screen shots it was taken down. We have a link to the section about Trump that was deleted, which is here. Later in the day they put it back up but who knows for how long this time.
DOJ disclosed that there are over 6 million documents total, but they are only releasing half of them because they determined the other half were either “irrelevant” or fell under one of the exceptions in the statute. - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/45Jq1LJ
Our Free Press Under Attack
In a healthy democracy, journalists are not handcuffed for doing their jobs.
They are not dragged into courtrooms for showing up, asking questions, and bearing witness. They are not treated as threats simply because they point a camera toward power and refuse to look away.
Yet here we are. - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/4qUoWtd
In Minnesota, America’s Federal System Is Coming Apart
Since the 1960s, a familiar pattern has unfolded when law-enforcement officers kill or brutalize American civilians. State or local police are accused of excessive force; local residents protest, demanding accountability; the federal government steps in to provide a measure of justice and restore calm. Think of George Floyd’s murder in 2020; Rodney King’s beating in 1991; the disappearance of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner in Mississippi in 1964.
The killings this month of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration-enforcement officials turned this dynamic upside down. And the fight over who will investigate these killings — and if anyone will be held accountable — are part of a growing confrontation between federal and state governments. The balance of power between Washington and the states has been one of America’s central political dramas from the nation’s founding. Now, as it has before at certain dim moments in the country’s history, that delicate system is cracking. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4qUP3jD
‘We’ve Fought Side by Side’: Danish Veterans March Against Trump’s Comments
A Danish soldier who fought alongside American troops in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq marched in subzero temperatures through the streets of Copenhagen on Saturday, driven by outrage against President Trump.
The soldier, Lance Cpl. Soren Teigen, was at the front of a group of veterans who had been bused in from all corners of Denmark for the latest demonstration of anti-American anger, after Mr. Trump’s recent comments belittling the support that NATO allies had given the United States in recent wars.
“I don’t blame American soldiers in any way — we’ve fought side by side, and we still do,” Lance Corporal Teigen said. “But when the president says something like this, of course it hurts.” - NYT https://nyti.ms/4t3pPkq
Federal Judge Denies Request to Temporarily Block ICE Surge in Minnesota
A federal judge in Minnesota denied a request by the state government and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul on Saturday to temporarily block a surge of federal immigration agents that has led to three shootings, thousands of arrests and weeks of protests.
The judge, Kate M. Menendez, who was nominated to the bench by President Joseph R. Biden Jr., had resisted requests by state lawyers for an immediate ruling on halting the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement campaign, known as Operation Metro Surge, which began late last year. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4tbIfQ3
5-year-old Liam Ramos and father are back in Minneapolis after being released from federal custody in Texas
Ecuadorian preschooler Liam Conejo Ramos and his father are back in Minneapolis after being released from a Texas detention facility where they had been held for more than a week, according to Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro.
The 5-year-old and his father, Adrian, were taken by immigration agents from his snowy suburban Minneapolis driveway and sent 1,300 miles to a Texas detention facility designed to detain families. - CNN https://cnn.it/3NJtvI7
Justice Department Complaint Against DC Judge Boasberg Tossed
A federal appeals court threw out the Justice Department’s misconduct complaint that accused the Washington chief federal trial judge of making “improper” remarks about President Donald Trump at a closed-door judiciary meeting last year.
Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit dismissed the complaint against Chief Judge James “Jeb” Boasberg, who is overseeing high-profile litigation over the administration’s decision to send alleged gang members to a Salvadoran prison under a wartime deportation authority. - Bloomberg https://bit.ly/4kbxhpN
This Weekend in Politics, Bulletin 298.
ProPublica: “The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti are identified in govt records as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and CBP officer Raymundo Gutierrez. The records viewed by ProPublica list Ochoa, 43, and Gutierrez, 35, as the shooters during the deadly encounter last weekend that left Pretti dead and ignited massive protests and calls for criminal investigations.”
“Ochoa is a Border Patrol agent who joined CBP in 2018. Gutierrez joined in 2014 and works for CBP’s Office of Field Operations. He is assigned to a special response team, which conducts high-risk operations like those of police SWAT units. Records show both men are from South Texas.” - Meidas+ https://bit.ly/4aa5aT6
Rage in the U.S.A.
Bruce Springsteen has never sounded angrier than on his new song, “Streets of Minneapolis.”
The first few strums of Bruce Springsteen’s new song make you feel like you’re in for, well, a Bruce Springsteen song—a rollicking sing-along about rough-and-tumble but ultimately hopeful times in some troubled American town. And this song, “Streets of Minneapolis,” is exactly that.
It’s also a response to ICE’s bloody record in Minneapolis. It excoriates, by name, Kristi Noem, Stephen Miller, and “Trump’s federal thugs.” It memorializes Alex Pretti and Renee Good—the Americans killed by federal agents—and the “whistles and phones” still in use by demonstrators. The song’s considerable power lies in the way it transposes a classic, even hoary, mode of protest rock into the present. Springsteen conveys that we’re living through a time that will be sung about for years to come, and that the future depends a lot on what we do in this moment. - Atlantic https://bit.ly/4qX4R5t
European Tech Giant Cuts Off U.S. Subsidiary After Multimillion Dollar ICE Contract
French tech giant Capgemini announced on Sunday that it will immediately divest from its American subsidiary Capgemini Government Solutions, following mounting scrutiny over the company’s ties with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Capgemini was designated as the lead contractor of a new ICE surveillance program for “skip-tracing” immigrants. Skip-tracing is a method often used by debt collectors to locate people who are difficult to find, and it has not been used by ICE before.
As part of the new program, ICE enlisted a handful of nongovernment entities to track down 50,000 immigrants a month, first by identifying where they live and work through “all technology systems available,” and then confirming through “physical, in-person surveillance,” including photographing, according to the Washington Post. The agency awarded contracts to ten companies in December. As part of the contract, the companies could earn more than $1 billion by the end of next year, according to The Intercept. - Gizmodo https://bit.ly/3LWZhRj
Two CBP Agents Identified in Alex Pretti Shooting
The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti are identified in government records as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez.
The records viewed by ProPublica list Ochoa, 43, and Gutierrez, 35, as the shooters during the deadly encounter last weekend that left Pretti dead and ignited massive protests and calls for criminal investigations.
Both men were assigned to Operation Metro Surge, an immigration enforcement dragnet launched in December that sent scores of armed and masked agents across the city. - ProPublica https://bit.ly/3NPSv0i
Trump Says Kennedy Center Will Close for 2-Year Reconstruction Project
The president’s announcement came after the center has been rocked by cancellations and boycotts by performers, contributors and audience members. - NYT https://nyti.ms/3O2TFFE
How Trump Appears in the Epstein Files
The files are peppered with references to Mr. Trump, who had been a close friend of Mr. Epstein’s until the early 2000s. While Mr. Trump has repeatedly downplayed the relationship, the two men bonded over their pursuit of young women. Mr. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in connection to Mr. Epstein.
Using a proprietary search tool, The New York Times identified more than 5,300 files containing more than 38,000 references to Mr. Trump, his wife, his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, and other related words and phrases in the latest batch of emails, government files, videos and other records released by the Justice Department. Previous installments of the Epstein files, which the department released late last year, included another 130 files with Trump-related references.
Many of the documents released on Friday that mention Mr. Trump are news articles and other publicly available materials that had landed in Mr. Epstein’s email inbox. None of those files include any direct communication between Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein. (Few of the files date back as far as the early 2000s, when the two men were friends.)
Here is what our review of the files has found so far. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4aceqX0
U.A.E. Firm Quietly Took Stake in the Trump Family’s Crypto Company
An investment firm tied to the United Arab Emirates purchased nearly half of the Trump family’s cryptocurrency company last year, making the family business partners with the U.A.E. even as President Trump negotiated foreign policy matters with the Middle Eastern nation.
The investment, reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal, was confirmed on Sunday by a spokesman for the Trumps’ crypto company, World Liberty Financial.
Days before his father’s inauguration in January 2025, Eric Trump, the president’s middle son, signed the agreement with the investment firm for a $500 million investment in World Liberty, The Journal reported. David Wachsman, a World Liberty spokesman, confirmed the transaction in a statement to The New York Times.
That agreement gave the Emirati-backed firm a 49 percent stake in World Liberty. Two top lieutenants to the U.A.E.’s national security adviser, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, joined the board of World Liberty. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4qbXZja
Trump Has Overwhelmed Himself
Last February I wrote an essay about the Trump administration’s strategy of “muzzle velocity.” Muzzle velocity, in its literal sense, describes the ferocious speed of a bullet at the moment it exits the front end of a gun. The term came from an interview that Steve Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist, gave in 2019. “All we have to do is flood the zone,” Bannon said. “Every day we hit them with three things. They’ll bite on one, and we’ll get all of our stuff done. Bang, bang, bang. These guys will never — will never be able to recover. But we’ve got to start with muzzle velocity.”
Trump world has an affection for analogies that glorify the combination of violence and speed. After Trump’s second Inaugural Address, Taylor Budowich, then one of the White House’s deputy chiefs of staff, tweeted, “Now, comes SHOCK AND AWE.” “Shock and awe” refers to the bombing campaign that launched America’s invasion of Iraq in 2003. It was an awesome demonstration of initial force that belied a catastrophic absence of information, planning and wisdom. It was the belief that an immediate show of dominance would lead to a society’s submission rather than its revolt. Both Bannon’s and Budowich’s metaphors have proved more grimly apt than they intended. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4aqdC1U
This Is Not a Drill
It’s only February, and the November elections are already in peril.
When I think back to the days and weeks before Jan. 6, 2021, one thing that’s clear is that many of us suffered from a failure of imagination. We knew President Trump’s lies and conspiracymongering were dangerous, but it’s hard to think of a single person who predicted that a MAGA mob would storm the Capitol.
Very few people anticipated the sheer scale and scope of the effort to overturn the election or that an incredible 147 Republicans would vote not to certify Joe Biden’s clear and unambiguous presidential victory. We did not realize that they would go along with something that plainly corrupt and dangerous.
We must not make that mistake again. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4qU9NI9
Liam Ramos Was Just One of Hundreds of Children at This Detention Center. Release Them All.
The arrest and detention of Liam Conejo Ramos, the Minnesota 5-year-old in a blue bunny hat and a Spider-Man backpack, has drawn the attention — and the ire — of the nation. As an immigration lawyer who has worked with dozens of families at the immigration detention facility in Dilley, Texas, where Liam and his father were detained but were released Saturday following a judge’s order, I know he is far from exceptional. In March 2025, the Trump administration resumed the long-term detention of families, holding them for weeks or months, a practice that the Biden administration had halted in December 2021. I’ve spent the past seven months trying to restore freedom to these families and to give them a fair opportunity to stay in the United States.
Children all across the country are being arrested and detained. They are being arrested at airports, at the border, at immigration courts, at immigration check-in appointments, on their way to and from schools, at parks, on the street and anywhere else they can be found. From January to October 2025, at least 3,800 children under the age of 18, including 20 infants, were arrested and detained by U.S. immigration authorities. Since March 2025, many hundreds of families with children who are minors have been detained in federal immigration custody, with more than 1,700 children in custody since family detention centers reopened. Many have been detained for long periods of time, some for nearly half a year. - NYT https://nyti.ms/4qQPTO9
Year One, 2025-2026 is here: http://tony-silva.com/undertrump