Editor's Choice: Scroll below for our monthly blend of mainstream and February 2026 news and views, with clips beginning at Feb. 15 and extending to Feb. 28 in reverse chronological order. See Part 1 for clips Feb. 1 to 14 during an unusually heavy news period.
Note: Excerpts are from the authors' words except for subheads and occasional "Editor's notes" such as this. Nearly all excerpts are drawn from news sources for which the Justice Integrity Project pays a subscription. Readers here are encouraged also to subscribe to these outlets also to receive their full coverage and to support their work.
Feb. 28
Top Headlines
U.S. AND ISRAEL ATTACK IRAN
Trump Calls for Overthrow of Government
Trump Says Iran’s Supreme Leader Killed in Strikes
Iran hits back across the Mideast, targeting U.S. bases and allies
President Says Bombing Will Continue
Annie Karni, Feb. 28, 2026 (print ed.).The former president, right, sat for hours of questioning by members of both parties, in an appearance that Democrats signaled they would use as a precedent to force President Trump to do the same. News Roundups
Feb. 28, 2026. Donald Trump has confirmed that the United States will continue bombing Iran without interruption for as long as he says is necessary, following reports of the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader. This marks a dramatic escalation with potentially far-reaching consequences.More On Iran War
Trump emissary Steve Witkoff, left, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center, and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Feb. 28, 2026. Yesterday’s news coverage included reports on statements leaked by Iranians close to the negotiations expressing optimism that there would be an agreement.More Global News
New York Times, The Bloody Rise and Fall of Mexico’s Top Crime Boss, Jack Nicas, Paulina Villegas and Maria Abi-Habib, Feb. 28, 2026. El Mencho’s brutality and business acumen put him atop the cartel world, until he made a fatal mistake.More On Epstein Files
Feb. 28, 2026. On Monday, February 23, Daniel Ruetenik, Pat Milton, and Cara Tabachnick of CBS News reported a newly uncovered document in the Epstein files shows that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) was running an investigation of Jeffrey Epstein and fourteen other people for drug trafficking, prostitution, and money laundering.
Rep Luna reads names of new alleged co-conspirators from unredacted Epstein files, Staff and wire reports, Feb. 28, 2026.U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Florida), right: "Epstein was running a Intelligence gathering operation, in my professional opinion, a honeypot operation (capturing powerful men in sex crimes to use as leverage against them). And I do believe that there's a list of individuals who did engage in trafficking. I'm gonna name those individuals right now. More On U.S. Governance, Elections, Politics
Top Stories
U.S. AND ISRAEL ATTACK IRAN
Trump Calls for Overthrow of Government
Trump Says Iran’s Supreme Leader Killed in Strikes
Iran hits back across the Mideast, targeting U.S. bases and allies
New York Times, Israel joined the major U.S.-led assault as President Trump pledged to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program and devastate its military, Aaron Boxerman, Tyler Pager, Farnaz Fassihi and Ronen Bergman, Feb. 28, 2026. Iran vowed retaliation and several Arab states that host U.S. military bases said they had been attacked,
The United States and Israel attacked Iran on Saturday in a major assault that threatened a broader regional conflict, with President Trump vowing to devastate the country’s military, eliminate its nuclear program and bring about a change in its government.
Large explosions shook the Iranian capital, Tehran, where people reported seeing smoke rising from the district that includes the presidential palace. Witnesses described chaos in the streets as Iranians rushed to seek shelter, find loved ones or flee the city.
Mr. Trump, who had threatened a strike for weeks, vowed that the “massive and ongoing” campaign would target not just Iran’s nuclear program, which was the focus of a U.S. attack last June. Instead, Mr. Trump said in a video posted to Truth Social, the United States would “raze their missile industry to the ground” and “annihilate their navy,” arguing Iran had refused to reach a deal with the United States that would have averted war.
Dozens of U.S. strikes were carried out by attack planes from bases and aircraft carriers around the Middle East, with officials saying the initial focus was military assets. The attack also targeted the Iranian leadership, according to three Israeli security officials briefed on the campaign. Satellite imagery showed a plume of smoke and extensive damage at the compound of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, in Tehran, though his whereabouts were unclear.
The campaign has the potential to ignite an even broader regional crisis, as Iran vowed “crushing retaliation.”
Iran fired waves of ballistic missiles at Israel, prompting booms as Israeli air defenses sought to repel them. The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait — all of which host U.S. military bases — said they had come under attack, as did Jordan. Falling debris from an Iranian ballistic missile attack killed at least one person in the Emirates, according to its government.
As the United States and Israel began a coordinated military offensive against Iran early Saturday, Tehran acted swiftly on its promise to hit back, targeting U.S. interests across the Middle East in a wide-ranging retaliation that risks a broader regional conflict.
Iran’s semiofficial news agency Fars reported that Iranian missile attacks had targeted U.S. military facilities including the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates and the U.S. Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain.
Analysts warned that the fighting could easily devolve into a protracted war with no clear exit.
Mr. Trump suggested that the conflict might end with Iranians overthrowing their own authoritarian government after the American assault. “It will be yours to take,” Mr. Trump said, speaking to the Iranian public. “This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
Here’s what else to know:
Post-bombing scene in Tehran (Satellite image published by the New York Times on Feb. 28, 2026).
New York Times, U.S. Ability to Determine What Comes Next in Iran Might Be Limited, Julian E. Barnes and Tyler Pager, Feb. 28, 2026. Questions remain about how much effort the Trump administration will put into changing the Iranian government.
U.S. intelligence agencies produced multiple scenarios in recent weeks of what could happen in Iran after a joint U.S. and Israeli strike designed to kill senior leaders and weaken the current government.
But one of those scenarios suggested that a complete change in government was unlikely. Instead, it said, members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps were likely to assert a larger degree of control but might be willing to curb the country’s nuclear program or take a more conciliatory stance to the United States.
In striking Iran on Saturday and urging its citizens to rise up and replace its government, President Trump was judging that he could engineer an outcome that would be beneficial in the long run to the security of the United States and Israel. But in doing so, he set in motion events that could be hard to control and that could leave Iran in chaos for some time.
In a video released after the U.S.-Israeli strike, Mr. Trump said the current attack was the best chance for the Iranian people to take over their government.
Many questions remain about how much effort the United States will put into changing the Iranian government. Without any troops in Iran — which the Trump administration has said it wants to avoid — the U.S. ability to influence what comes next is limited, according to people briefed on the intelligence and planning for the strikes.
The intelligence assessments ahead of the strike considered the likelihood of multiple scenarios playing out after a strike designed to weaken the current leadership. And U.S. officials stressed that the joint strike on leadership targets and military sites in Iran had created a high degree of uncertainty around all of the potential scenarios.
New York Times, Bill Clinton Testifies He ‘Saw Nothing’ of Epstein’s Misdeeds, Annie Karni, Feb. 28, 2026 (print ed.).The former president sat for hours of questioning by members of both parties, in an appearance that Democrats signaled they would use as a precedent to force President Trump to do the same.
Former President Bill Clinton, right, said he “saw nothing” and did nothing wrong when he associated with Jeffrey Epstein decades ago, as he sat for nearly six hours of closed-door questioning on Friday by the House Oversight Committee.
Mr. Clinton’s sworn deposition made him the first president in history to be forced to testify before Congress against his will. His appearance reflected how Republicans in Congress have shifted the focus of their investigation into Mr. Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender, away from President Trump and prominent Republicans who associated with him and toward Democrats.
The former president was by far the most prominent figure in American politics so far to be questioned in the House inquiry, which began last year when Democrats and a small group of Republicans effectively forced the G.O.P. to look into a matter that Mr. Trump had made clear he would rather move past.
But as he settled in for questioning at the Center for Performing Arts in Chappaqua, N.Y., near his home, Mr. Clinton struck a far more compliant tone than his wife, Hillary Clinton, had a day earlier, when she was defiant about being compelled to testify about a man she said repeatedly she had never met.
In an opening statement that he posted on social media, Mr. Clinton acknowledged that he had a relationship with Mr. Epstein and that he was willing to answer questions about it. But he insisted that he never knew about Mr. Epstein’s crimes and cut off his association with him long before his first guilty plea on sex crimes charges.
“I saw nothing, and I did nothing wrong,” he said. “Even with 20/20 hindsight, I saw nothing that ever gave me pause. We are only here because he hid it from everyone so well for so long.”
The one note of pique in Mr. Clinton’s comments related to how the committee had treated his wife.
“You made Hillary come in,” he said. “She had nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. Nothing.”
Representative James R. Comer of Kentucky, the committee’s chairman, began the day by crowing about having finally wrestled the Clintons into cooperation after months of resistance.
He said that his panel was bringing “some of the most powerful people in the world” to testify in the Epstein investigation. He also said that he intended to grill the former president about visits that Mr. Epstein made to the White House while Mr. Clinton was president, as well as photographs of the two men together that were released by the Justice Department.Editors’ PicksA Prada Show So Good, It Overshadowed Mark Zuckerberg‘Scream 7’ Controversies: What You Need to KnowJeff Galloway Made Me a Marathoner
“There are a lot of photos,” Mr. Comer said.
At the White House, Mr. Trump — who also had a yearslong relationship with Mr. Epstein and appears in many photographs with him — was less than enthused to see Mr. Clinton hauled in.
“I don’t like seeing him deposed,” he told reporters. “I like him, and I don’t like seeing him deposed.”
House Democrats who participated in the deposition said that when the transcript and video of the session were released, their tough questions would prove to the public that they were treating the investigation in a nonpartisan fashion. But many of them said they felt they were questioning the wrong president, and sought to use Mr. Clinton’s appearance to ratchet up pressure on Mr. Trump to testify.
Representative James Walkinshaw, a Virginia Democrat, told reporters that the investigation would not be complete until the current president appeared before the committee, too.
“A new precedent has been set in America today,” said Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California. “Now we have the ‘Clinton Rule,’ which is that presidents and their families have to testify when Congress issues a subpoena.”
News Round ups
The Parnas Perspective, Saturday Night News Update: Trump Confirms Iran War Set to Last Indefinitely While New Epstein Developments Emerge, Aaron Parnas, right, Feb. 28, 2026. Donald Trump has confirmed that the United States will continue bombing Iran without interruption for as long as he says is necessary, following reports of the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader. This marks a dramatic escalation with potentially far-reaching consequences.
At the same time, I will not stop pressing for transparency on the Epstein files. It has now been 48 hours since Hillary Clinton’s deposition and 24 hours since Bill Clinton’s, and the transcripts have still not been released. The public deserves answers. Silence only fuels distrust.
I also want to address what we’ve seen in today’s news cycle. This is another example of the overwhelming flood of information we’ve experienced over the past year. The pace is relentless. The volume is staggering. And whether intentional or not, the effect is the same: exhaustion, confusion, and a growing sense that the truth is impossible to pin down.
After a year of chaos, many Americans are tired, and skeptical of everything coming out of Washington. That erosion of trust is serious. It matters.
My job as a journalist is to help you cut through that noise, to slow it down, verify what we can, question what we must, and separate signal from distraction. I did my best to do that today, and I will continue through the night and into tomorrow.
As a reminder, tomorrow morning’s update will focus on good news, unless something significant breaks overnight. We are likely entering a prolonged and complex conflict in the Middle East, and there will be many developments ahead. We will take them one at a time.
To everyone who subscribed today, sent encouragement, or supported this work in any way, thank you. Truly. This work is only possible because of you.Subscribed
Here’s the news:
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in a joint U.S.-Israeli airstrike, according to President Trump, creating a major power vacuum in Tehran and uncertainty over succession as Iran retaliated with regional missile strikes and Trump vowed continued bombing, framing the moment as an opportunity for regime change. The Iranian government has yet to confirm the death of the Supreme Leader.
Trump said “heavy and pinpoint” U.S. bombing in Iran will continue uninterrupted “as long as necessary” to achieve “peace,” claiming Iranian security forces and IRGC members are seeking immunity and urging them to defect or face death.
Rep. Yassamin Ansari said that while Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death is “nothing to be mourned,” removing him alone would not dismantle the regime, warning that military force without a clear strategy risks further danger and calling for a serious, accountable plan to support Iranians in achieving democracy.
A joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran poses significant risks to global energy markets, as Tehran sits along the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for about 20% of the world’s oil and gas, raising fears of shipping disruptions, higher crude prices, and broader regional conflict that could send oil toward $80 a barrel and increase costs for consumers.
U.S. Gulf allies that had urged Washington to avoid striking Iran are now bracing for escalation after Tehran retaliated against targets in Bahrain, the UAE, Qatar and elsewhere, forcing Gulf Cooperation Council states to weigh difficult choices including allowing expanded U.S. operations from their territory or taking their own defensive action, even as they fear a wider regional war and economic fallout.
A concourse at Dubai International Airport sustained minor damage in an early Sunday incident that injured four staff members, prompting evacuations and earlier flight suspensions; social media videos showed smoke inside the terminal and witnesses reported ambulances rushing to the scene, as the major global aviation hub advised passengers to contact airlines for updates.
The FBI raised its terrorism alert level after U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, with Director Kash Patel ordering counterterrorism teams on high alert amid fears of retaliation, monitoring pro-Iran rhetoric and groups like Hezbollah, though officials said no specific threats to U.S. targets had been identified.
Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene sharply criticized President Trump’s strikes on Iran, accusing him of betraying his anti-war supporters and arguing that Americans were promised no more foreign wars, while other Republicans defended the operation as putting America first:
U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz told the U.N. Security Council that American strikes on Iran were “lawful actions,” describing “Operation Epic Fury” as narrowly targeted at missile, naval and proxy capabilities to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and arguing diplomacy cannot succeed without a genuine partner willing to cease aggression.
Videos and social media posts show people in Karaj and other Iranian cities celebrating in the streets—dancing, cheering and lighting fireworks—after reports that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in U.S.-Israeli strikes, with celebrations marking a public display of joy amid deep discontent with the regime.
Protesters gathered in Times Square to denounce U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, chanting “Shame!” and holding signs like “Solidarity with Iran” and “Stop U.S. and Israeli war,” with some waving Palestinian flags in support of Gaza.
Rep. Ro Khanna says roughly half of the Epstein investigative files — including millions of pages and key FBI 302 summaries — remain unreleased or heavily redacted, warns that the “worst stuff” may still be hidden, and signals possible lawsuits and congressional action to force the DOJ to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
According to the New York Times, newly released Epstein files show a network of elite doctors provided VIP care to Jeffrey Epstein and women in his orbit, with some allegedly bending ethical rules by sharing patients’ medical information with him, arranging discreet STD treatment to avoid reporting links to Epstein, performing procedures outside hospital settings, and accepting donations, gifts or financial support, raising questions about consent, conflicts of interest and professional misconduct.
President Trump privately rebuked FBI Director Kash Patel after video showed Patel chugging beer and celebrating in the Team USA locker room following the Olympic hockey gold medal win, with Trump reportedly upset over the optics and Patel’s use of a government aircraft for the trip to Milan, which drew scrutiny over taxpayer costs, even as the White House publicly expressed confidence in Patel and he defended the visit as official business.
After the administration’s move against Anthropic, OpenAI announced a new deal with the Defense Department to deploy its AI models on classified networks, with CEO Sam Altman saying the agreement includes safeguards against domestic mass surveillance and autonomous lethal weapons and keeps humans responsible for use of force decisions.
Los Angeles schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho was placed on paid leave after the FBI executed search warrants at his home and district headquarters as part of a federal investigation, with no charges announced; the probe comes after the district’s failed $3 million AI chatbot deal with ed-tech firm AllHere, whose founder was later indicted for fraud.
The Parnas Perspective, News and Commentary: The United States is at War in the Middle East Again, Aaron Parnas, right, Feb. 28, 2026. The world is waking up to the outbreak of another major war in the Middle East after the United States and Israel launched strikes across Iran without Congressional approval. This is not a limited exchange. It marks the start of what is likely to become a prolonged and large scale regional conflict.
I have spent several hours reviewing all available reporting, official statements, and on the ground developments to compile a comprehensive update for you right now. The situation is evolving rapidly, and I will be providing continuous updates throughout the day and all weekend.
I will be working around the clock to track every major development. If you value real time analysis and clear breakdowns of what is happening, please consider subscribing to support my work and keep me fueled for the coverage ahead.Subscribed
Here’s the news:
The United States and Israel launched large-scale coordinated military strikes on Iran overnight. President Donald Trump described the operation as the beginning of “major combat operations in Iran,” signaling a significant escalation beyond limited or symbolic strikes. U.S. officials indicated the campaign could last several days rather than being a one-night operation.
The Department of Defense has labeled the operation:
The U.S. military targeted Iran’s ballistic missile infrastructure and nuclear facilities. American forces launched Tomahawk missiles from Navy ships and deployed fighter aircraft in the operation. Israeli forces simultaneously targeted Iranian political and military leadership along with additional strategic military sites.
President Trump justified the strikes by stating the objective was to eliminate “imminent threats” posed by Iran and to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons. He claimed Iran had rejected repeated opportunities to curb its nuclear ambitions during negotiations. Trump also warned that future American casualties were possible, emphasizing that military conflict carries inherent risks.
In a direct appeal to the Iranian public, Trump urged citizens to “take over your government” after the strikes conclude. He framed the operation as an opportunity for regime change and described it as potentially a once-in-a-generation chance for freedom. His remarks marked a notable shift from deterrence language to overt political messaging aimed at Iran’s internal governance.
Here are the initial reactions of United States lawmakers captured from statements posted online and given to Axios:
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) demanded that the Senate immediately return to session to vote on his War Powers Resolution, arguing Congress must formally decide on U.S. involvement in hostilities against Iran.
“The Senate should immediately return to session and vote on my War Powers Resolution to block the use of U.S. forces in hostilities against Iran.”
“Every single Senator needs to go on the record about this dangerous, unnecessary, and idiotic action.”
Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) called for Congress to reconvene at once to hold a war powers vote, saying lawmakers must reflect the will of Americans who do not want another war.
“We should have Congress immediately go back into session for the War Powers vote to reassert the American people’s will, which, again, they don’t want to be at war.”
“So I’m ready to go right back to the Senate today.”
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, criticized the administration for acting without congressional authorization and warned of repeating past mistakes.
“The American people have seen this playbook before – claims of urgency, misrepresented intelligence, and military action that pulls the United States into regime change and prolonged, costly nation-building.”
Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, argued that the administration was ignoring historical lessons and the risks of escalation.
“It does not appear that Donald Trump has learned the lessons of history.”
“Military action in this region almost never ends well for the United States, and conflict with Iran can easily spiral and escalate in ways we cannot anticipate.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) strongly supported the strikes, describing them as strategically sound and justified in confronting Iran’s leadership.
He called the operation “well-planned.”
“It will be violent, extensive and I believe, at the end of the day, successful. Again the demise of the ayatollah’s regime with American blood on its hands is necessary and more than justified.”
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, defended the operation as necessary for national security.
He described it as a “pivotal and necessary operation to protect Americans and American interests.”
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), right, opposed the strikes on constitutional grounds, arguing Congress had not authorized them.
He called the strikes “acts of war unauthorized by Congress.”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) joined Massie in pushing for a bipartisan House vote to halt further escalation.
“Congress must reconvene on Monday to vote on my and Thomas Massie’s war powers resolution to stop this war.”
According to NBC News, Iran responded by launching missile attacks against multiple U.S. military bases across the Middle East. Targets included installations in Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan. Iranian missiles were also fired toward Israel, prompting air defense systems such as the Iron Dome to activate over major cities.
The New York Times has obtained the first known satellite image of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s compound in Tehran shows multiple buildings destroyed within the complex. While the current whereabouts of Iran’s supreme leader remain unknown, the compound is generally used as his official residence and a key center of authority.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said in an interview with NBC that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is still alive “as far as I know,” following the joint U.S.–Israeli strikes. He stated that two commanders had been killed but that senior regime officials survived, though NBC News has not independently verified those claims. Araghchi also criticized the U.S. and Israel for carrying out the attack despite ongoing nuclear negotiations.
U.S. officials reported to Reuters no American casualties in the immediate aftermath of the retaliatory strikes. However, they acknowledged infrastructure damage at some regional bases, particularly in Bahrain where the U.S. Fifth Fleet is headquartered. Officials cautioned that the situation remains fluid and that further retaliation is expected. This is a video of an Iranian missile striking a United States military instillation in Bahrain:
Based on preliminary reports, at least one civilian was killed in Abu Dhabi when debris from intercepted missiles fell onto a residential area. Several Gulf states reported successfully intercepting Iranian missiles before impact. Regional governments condemned the attacks as violations of sovereignty and warned of serious consequences if escalation continues.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Iranian state media reported that an Israeli strike hit a girls’ primary school in the southern county of Minab. Iranian officials claimed dozens of children were killed and many more injured, though those casualty figures have not yet been independently verified. The Israeli military told NBC News that it was reviewing the reports but had not confirmed the details.
Explosions were reported across central Tehran and in multiple other Iranian cities. Thick smoke was seen rising over parts of the capital, and air defenses were activated. Communication disruptions followed, with internet monitoring groups reporting connectivity dropping to approximately 4% nationwide, indicating a near-total blackout. This is a video provided of the strikes from inside Iran to Iran International, despite the blackout:
Iran closed its airspace and shut down schools and universities in response to the strikes. Government offices were ordered to operate at reduced capacity, while banks remained open. Authorities urged citizens to remain calm, avoid unnecessary travel, and refrain from gathering in crowded areas. This is an image from the strike from the AFP:
Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi told NBC News he was “dismayed” that active U.S.–Iran negotiations brokered by Oman had been undermined by the strikes, warning that further escalation would not serve U.S. interests or global peace and contrasting the setback with his recent optimism that progress in indirect talks meant “peace is within our reach.”
The Basij militia began patrols across all districts of Tehran, suggesting concerns about potential internal unrest. Iran’s Interior Ministry stated it would “preserve order and peace,” language often associated with crackdowns on protests. The moves came after recent nationwide protests that had already led to thousands of deaths in a prior crackdown.
Reza Pahlavi, the U.S.-based son of Iran’s deposed shah, urged Iranians to prepare to reclaim the country. While encouraging resistance, he advised citizens to stay home and wait for the right moment. Analysts noted, however, that there is no clearly organized opposition structure currently positioned to take control.
French President Emmanuel Macron warned that the outbreak of war between the United States, Israel, and Iran would have “grave consequences for international peace and security.” He called for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council. Macron also urged Iran to return to good-faith negotiations over its nuclear and ballistic programs.
Russia condemned the U.S. and Israeli strikes as an unprovoked act of aggression against a sovereign state. Moscow characterized the attacks as violations of international law and accused the West of escalating tensions. The statement underscored widening geopolitical divisions over the conflict.
The International Committee of the Red Cross warned that the escalation risks triggering a “dangerous chain reaction” across the Middle East. It emphasized that civilian infrastructure such as schools, hospitals, and homes must be protected under the laws of war. Humanitarian officials cautioned that aid organizations would struggle to keep pace with expanding conflict.
Within the United States, political reaction was divided and did not fall strictly along party lines. Some lawmakers praised the strikes as necessary to counter Iran’s nuclear ambitions and regional aggression. Others criticized the operation as unauthorized military action conducted without explicit Congressional approval.
The escalation follows prior hostilities between Israel, the United States, and Iran, including a 12-day conflict the previous year and earlier U.S. airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. Nuclear negotiations had been ongoing before this latest round of strikes. Analysts warned that calls for regime change evoke comparisons to past U.S. interventions in Iraq, raising concerns about long-term instability.
More On Iran War
Robert Reich's Substack, Trump's War: The costs could be catastrophic, Robert Reich, right, Feb. 28, 2026. A single person — Donald J. Trump — has released the dogs of war on one of the most dangerous countries in the world, and done it without the consent of Congress or our allies, or even a clear explanation to the American people.
Anyone who has doubted Trump’s intention to replace American democracy with a dictatorship should now be fully disabused.
I share your despair, sadness, and fear. Even if our president was a wise and judicious man, surrounded by thoughtful advisers with impeccable integrity and wisdom, this would be a highly dangerous move.
Trump is facing the consequences of his decision in his first term to abandon the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action negotiated with Iran by Obama and backed by France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Russia, and China.
Trump walked away from that treaty because it was Obama’s — and he hates Obama because Obama negotiated safeguards against Iran enriching uranium to weapons grade. Obama also got Obamacare through Congress, addressed climate change and nuclear proliferation, and was rewarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Obama was a winner. Trump is a loser. Trump cannot stomach this.
But why should America and thousands if not millions of innocent people pay the price of Trump’s egomaniacal stupidity?
Trump claimed in June to have disarmed Iran. He claimed again in his State of the Union last Tuesday to have “obliterated” the Iranian nuclear weapons program (an assertion rejected by the International Atomic Energy Agency).
Since then, Iran has taken steps to dig out the nuclear facilities hit during those strikes and it has resumed work at some sites long known to American spy agencies.
But those same spy agencies say there’s no evidence that Iran has made active efforts to resume enriching uranium or trying to build a mechanism to detonate a bomb.
Iran’s stockpiles of enriched uranium remain buried after June’s strikes, making it nearly impossible for Iran to build a bomb “within days,” as Trump and his lapdogs claim.
Trump says he wants “regime change.” But unlike Venezuela, the Islamic Republic has nearly a million men under arms. Any attempt to overthrow that regime will require American troops on the ground, and almost surely inflict mass casualties on Americans and on Iranians.
Trump also said in his State of the Union that Iran has refused to foreswear any nuclear weapons ambitions. Yet just hours before his address, Iran’s foreign minister reaffirmed on X that his country would "under no circumstances ever develop a nuclear weapon."
Trump noted the Iran regime’s killing of thousands of protesters, but this hardly justifies a war that may cause the deaths of thousands more innocent Iranians. (This morning, Iran’s Red Crescent said more than 60 children were killed in the strike on Shajarah Tayyebeh school in the southern town of Minab (a toll that has since been raised to 85.)
Make no mistake. The costs of this war — mayhem and deaths in the Middle East, higher oil prices (as Iran closes the Straight of Hormuz), increased risk of terrorism in Europe and the United States — could be catastrophic.
The Contrarian, Publisher's Opinion: Trump Can’t Use War or Other Excuses to Take over American Elections, Norman Eisen, right, Feb. 28, 2026. 
The Contrarians won't let you.
Donald Trump’s determination to make voting more difficult for those who do not support him is no laughing matter. That was highlighted by his push in the Senate this week for the SAVE America Act, which would erect many new and needless voting hurdles for no good reason. And it was followed by shocking talk of a possible new executive order declaring a state of emergency to take over election administration. Now he is claiming Iranian election interference as part of the pretext for his illegal war with that nation, commingling his two most toxic policies of the week.
Those are serious matters. Still, I could not help some bemusement at coverage of such threats to “nationalize” elections as if they were something new. Trump has been actively trying to tamper with our elections for the past year. 
The good news is that he has met ferocious opposition at every turn and has so far failed — and that record suggests that his latest stratagems and whatever else he tries will fail as well. (White House photo)
Contrarians stopped the last elections executive order
One of the most consequential of Trump’s election takeover efforts of 2025 was the March 25 executive order on voting. Framed as an “election integrity” measure, the order sought to unlawfully impose new voter registration requirements, direct an independent bipartisan agency to alter election procedures, and introduce barriers that risked disenfranchising millions of eligible voters.
The order blatantly exceeded the president’s constitutional authority. Our system is clear: Congress legislates. States administer. And presidents cannot unilaterally rewrite election rules.
My litigation colleagues and I met this threat in the courts, and we won an injunction. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia struck down key portions of the order.
That success was thanks in no small part to you Contrarians. My pro-democracy litigation is supported by your paid subscriptions. Because we are owned by no one, all profits go to help with cases like this one.Subscribed
That experience offers an important perspective for the present moment. It signals that if our elections are attacked again, the democracy movement — including those who go to court and the courts themselves — stand ready to defend our democracy.
That’s why I’m so confident that Trump will fail if he tries another executive order, this one to declare a state of emergency to take over elections. The press reported that this possibility has been discussed in the White House and that Trump’s allies have been circulating a draft EO. As I explained when I testified at a shadow hearing in the U.S. Senate this week, there is absolutely no constitutional or other legal basis for such an order, and the courts will sweep it aside as they did with the last one.
War is no excuse to tamper with Elections
In the context of a possible emergency EO, Trump’s Truth Social reference to Iran interfering in the 2020 and 2024 elections was ominous. It came early Saturday morning as he launched a war on that country without congressional authorization. One cannot help but wonder if he could use this or similar pretexts to declare a nonexistent emergency and take control of elections.
On Friday, Trump denied that he is considering an election takeover order. But it came in a terse exchange with a reporter who did not have time to probe the issue. Besides, we can hardly take his word as gospel. If Trump does try it, my democracy litigation colleagues and I stand ready to go to court in the blink of an eye and defeat his illegal use of presidential power, as we did with his last elections executive order.
Trump’s legislative gambits will keep failing, too
Of course, executive action is not the only trick Trump has up his sleeve. He and his cronies are also attempting to push legislation to give him control of elections. The main vehicle is the so-called SAVE America Act, which passed the House and may or may not get a vote in the Senate. It doesn’t protect elections. Instead it disqualifies voters over trivial paperwork and overly burdensome requirements. Voters who have faced generations of barriers to obtaining birth certificates or passports — along with students, married women, seniors, and disaster-displaced families — could be denied the right to vote.
The central rationale for this campaign — that existing safeguards are inadequate and non-citizens are voting in significant numbers — is a myth. As we wrote in our report with LULAC on The Big Lie of 2024–La Gran Mentira, there are so few incidents of this kind that they approach zero statistically. Even the Heritage Foundation’s own data revealed this reality.
The good news is that at least so far the Senate doesn’t seem to be falling for it. On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) poured cold water on right-wing fever dreams that this voter suppression bill could get around the filibuster.
We will need to keep a sharp eye on the SAVE America Act in the Senate until it is good and dead. But the experience of 2025 suggests that Trump’s legislative end-arounds are doomed to fail.
For example, Trump thought he could deal with the likely coming blue landslide flipping the House by legislative redistricting. That is, creating more red House seats through friendly state legislatures redrawing maps in places like Texas. There, he connived with state GOP leaders to take away five Democratic congressional seats and give them to Republicans.
With your support, we helped stop him — first by representing brave Texas legislators who fled the state to help sound the alarm. And then by going to court to defend California’s Prop 50, which added five Democratic seats to cancel out the five stolen ones in Texas.
That’s why I’m confident that Trump’s legislative games, like the SAVE America Act, will also fail. And if he tries other crazy measures like sending immigration agents to polling places, we are ready to fight those as well and win in the courts of law and public opinion. Your paid subscriptions support both.Subscribed
We are so grateful to you for making possible both our pro-democracy litigation and our pro-democracy Contrarian coverage. See for yourself in this week’s round up of our top content, put together as always by my wonderful Contrarian colleagues:Tariffs + unaffordability.
New York Times, News Analysis: For Trump, the Iran Attack Is the Ultimate War of Choice, David E. Sanger,right, 
Feb. 28, 2026. There was no immediate threat from Iran. But the president saw a chance to push a weakened government over the edge, and is betting he can spark a popular uprising.
With his broad attack on Iran early Saturday morning and his call to the Iranian people to overthrow their government, President Trump has embarked on the ultimate war of choice.
He was not driven by an immediate threat. There was no race for a bomb. Iran is further from the capability to build a nuclear weapon today than it has been in several years, thanks largely to the success of the president’s previous strike on Iranian nuclear enrichment sites, in June.
While Mr. Trump claimed Tehran was ultimately aiming to reach to the United States with its array of missiles, even his own Defense Intelligence Agency concluded last year that it would be a decade before Iran could get past the technological and production hurdles to produce a significant arsenal.
And there were no indications of a coming Iranian attack on the United States, its allies or its bases in the region. Instead, Mr. Trump struck the Islamic Republic largely because he apparently sensed a remarkable moment of weakness for the government — and an opportunity for the United States to topple Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps after 47 years of episodic confrontations, which he described at length in an eight-minute video.
But unlike past presidents putting American forces at risk — and, in an age of terrorism and cyberattacks, perhaps civilians as well — Mr. Trump did not spend months building a case for war. He never presented evidence of an imminent threat, or answered the question of why a nuclear program he claimed he had “obliterated” eight months ago was now on the brink of revival.
His pretaped video, released in the middle of the night as the missiles started exploding in Tehran, recited a list of long-running grievances with Iran, including its brutal use of terror. But he never explained why in the pantheon of threats facing the United States, including an already-nuclear-armed North Korea and the expanding nuclear arsenals and territorial ambitions of Russia and China, a weakened Iran ranks first.
Thinking About....Pro-Democracy Commentary: Why Attack Iran? Timothy Snyder, right, 
Feb. 28, 2026. Our Authoritarianism and Our Corruption.
How do understand the war with Iran? We must get away from the propaganda and ask why this might be happening, in light of the facts that we do know.
These facts suggest two interpretive frameworks: a foreign war as a mechanism to destroy democracy at home; and a foreign war as an element of personal corruption by the president of the United States.
From the United States, the most plausible angle of view is domestic politics, not foreign policy. Wars are a tool of undermining and undoing democracies. Given that we have multiple examples of this from both modern and ancient democracy, and given the behavior of Trump and his allies in general, this must be an interpretive method for these attacks.
The relationship between foreign war and domestic authoritarianism can take two basic forms: 1) we must all rally because there is a war and everyone who oppose the war is a traitor; 2) we must hold elections under specific conditions favorable to the party in power. This is utterly predictable and should be easy to halt and indeed to reverse.
The American propaganda about our foreign policy motivations is impossible to believe as such. But it does lead us, indirectly, to the second possible interpretive framework: personal corruption. a black and white photo of a ceiling Subscribed
The claim that Iran was about to build a nuclear weapon has not been established. It is all the odder as a justification for war given that this administration has already claimed many times to have destroyed the Iranian nuclear weapons program.
The second American propaganda point is that the regime must be changed. This too is very strange, since opposition to regime change wars was supposed to be a core tenet of MAGA.
But who might be directly interested in Iranian regime change? Who has given it more thought than Washington? Insofar as there was any sort of foreign policy involved here, I suspect that it was that of countries that the Trump administration considers to be its allies in the region.
The basic structural feature of regional politics is a rivalry between Iran on the one side and Gulf Arab states plus Israel on the other. Given that this structural feature is a far more durable element of politics than the wavering and contradictory statements of the Trump administration, it is a good place to start. And where does it lead?
It leads to personal politics or rather personal gain. Given the stupefyingly overt corruption of the Trump administration, one must ask whether the United States armed forces are now being used on a per-hire basis.
Gulf Arab states who oppose Iranian power have generated extremely generous packages of compensation for companies associated with Trump personally and with members of his family. The United Arab Emirates invested in a family firm. The Saudis have provided numerous de facto gifts. And sometimes the gifts have been simply gifts. The Qataris gave Trump a jet. The list is very long.
And now — we are using military force to take the side of precisely the countries who have enriched Trump and his family. This backdrop must at the very least be stated in the reporting of the war. Along with the subversion of democracy, personal corruption provides a second interpretive framework.Subscribed
None of this is a defense of the murderous regime in Teheran. The Iranian government has been engaged in the mass murder of peaceful protestors. The scale of that slaughter has not really sunk in. One can certainly imagine ways of addressing Iranian authoritarianism and corruption. We could combine a patient campaign of pressure and sanctions with support for the opposition and proposals to help address growing ecological problems such as the horrifying lack of water that stands behind much of political opposition in the country. Unfortunately, nothing like this is on offer, or could be on offer, from the Trump administration. All that it has to offer is its own authoritarianism and corruption.
A war is a time when we will be told not to ask questions. But a war is actually when questions must be asked. And they must be asked in light of what we already know. The presumption created by the surrounding evidence is that this war could very well be about (1) subverting US democracy, (2) enriching the president, or both. These are presumptions, not proof — but they provide the solid lines of inquiry as we learn more about the war.
War does not create a clean slate where suddenly we have to believe the absurd just because a leader says it. On the contrary, war provides the opportunity to see the core of the absurdity and the destruction that is being offered to us.
More Global News
After Mexican forces killed a notorious cartel kingpin on Sunday, his followers set fire to hundreds of vehicles, like this one beside a highway in Jalisco state (New York Times photo by Cesar Rodriguez).
New York Times, The Bloody Rise and Fall of Mexico’s Top Crime Boss, Jack Nicas, Paulina Villegas and Maria Abi-Habib, Feb. 28, 2026. El Mencho’s brutality and business acumen put him atop the cartel world, until he made a fatal mistake.
El Mencho, arguably the world’s most powerful criminal, did not have a cellphone.
Worried the devices would expose his location, he relied on human messengers to manage a sprawling criminal organization that stretched across Mexico and into 40 countries, senior Mexican officials said. He issued his orders from shifting encampments in the wooded hills of western Mexico, surrounded by what the authorities say were at least 60 men and an arsenal of military-grade weapons.
His life hiding in the forest belied the fact that he was one of Mexico’s richest men. Such discipline kept El Mencho — a former police officer turned hit man whose legal name was Rubén Oseguera Cervantes — at large for two decades.
That was until last weekend, officials said, when the Mexican authorities took advantage of a weakness: the women in his life.
Mr. Oseguera, 59, wanted to see his adult daughters, they said. So he recently moved into a home in a gated community outside Tapalpa, a touristy Mexican ranch town, bringing a much smaller set of bodyguards.
Then he invited over one of his lovers, officials said — unaware that Mexican intelligence had been tracking her.
On Thursday, Feb. 20, Mexican and U.S. intelligence agents watched the woman and two young children travel to a house in that community.
The next day, a U.S. surveillance drone hovering overhead recorded the woman and children leaving the house, according to two senior Mexican officials and another person briefed on the operation, some details of which are reported here for the first time.
It remained unclear who was inside, until the drone’s infrared camera detected another figure emerging. The person hugged the woman and two children goodbye.
The authorities made a calculation: The only person who would dare to hug the cartel boss’s lover was the cartel boss himself.
El Mencho was home. Mexican authorities immediately began planning an operation.
Less than 48 hours later, Mexico’s most wanted man was dead.
Since his escape in 2015, Mr. Oseguera (shown in 1980s mugshots) remained mostly a ghost to the Mexican authorities. Only a few public images of him exist.
Yet in the rural hills of Jalisco, local residents said he was sometimes spotted among the blaring music and flowing beer of cockfights, a sport he loved so much that he was nicknamed “lord of the roosters.”
Mexican officials believe he was largely estranged from his wife and had several lovers, including the woman who unwittingly led the authorities to him, whom officials did not identify.
Early Sunday morning, Mexican Special Forces — who had been trained by their U.S. counterparts — stormed Mr. Oseguera’s hide-out. They were backed by six helicopters.
As Mr. Oseguera’s men fired on the soldiers, he and his inner circle slipped out the back, officials said. “Special Forces personnel pursued them,” Gen. Ricardo Trevilla Trejo, Mexico’s defense secretary, told reporters. “They located them hiding in the brush.”
Mr. Oseguera was shot. Officials said that he and two body guards died during a helicopter ride to a hospital.
The authorities had not seen Mr. Oseguera for years. His corpse revealed an aging man who had taken steps to look younger. His hair and mustache were dyed, an official said, and his teeth were capped with veneers.
The operation was violent, with 13 people killed, but better than officials had expected. Because of the setup of his encampments, Mexican authorities had long worried that killing Mr. Oseguera could leave maybe 80 dead.
But the backlash by his cartel after his death was worse than officials had feared. Across Mexico, Jalisco cartel members created more than 250 roadblocks and burned more than 500 cars, targeting supermarkets and state-owned banks. More than 70 people died in the operation and its aftermath, including 47 cartel members, 25 Mexican soldiers and one pregnant civilian caught in a shootout.
Now, Mexico is bracing for what may come next.
According to an internal Mexican government document viewed by The Times, at least seven men currently sit atop the Jalisco cartel, many of them hardened hit men with nicknames like The Gardener and The Toad.
Perhaps the most likely successor is Juan Carlos González, known as El 03. His mug shot shows a young man with a buzz cut and a smirk.
He has at least one advantage over the others: El Mencho was his stepfather.
More On U.S. Governance, Elections, Politics
New York Times, Pentagon Watchdog Stalls Proposal to Review Targeting in Trump’s Boat Strikes, Charlie Savage, Feb. 28, 2026. A new inspector general delayed a decision on whether to approve the project and is said to have raised its potential political ramifications, in a test of the watchdog system in President Trump’s second term.
The Pentagon’s new inspector general has frozen a proposal to evaluate military targeting in the Trump administration’s strikes on boats suspected of smuggling cocaine from South America, telling his staff he wanted to consult department leadership before deciding whether the review should go forward, The New York Times has learned.
The inspector general, Platte B. Moring III, also said to staff members at a Feb. 11 meeting that the proposed project sounded as if it could become highly political, according to a person briefed on the exchange. Since then, the project has remained in limbo, with Mr. Moring neither approving nor rejecting it.
The proposal, developed by a unit of the office that assesses compliance, would examine whether the U.S. Southern Command has established and followed targeting practices and procedures in attacking boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean. Since September, the military has carried out 44 strikes on boats it says were suspected of smuggling drugs, killing 150 people.
The project’s fate has emerged as an early test of Mr. Moring’s tenure and of the independence of the watchdog system. Congress created the inspectors general in the post-Watergate era, charging them with hunting for waste, fraud, abuse and illegality inside the executive branch, even at the risk of embarrassing or irritating agency leaders.
Days after taking office last year, President Trump fired at least 17 inspectors general, including the Pentagon’s watchdog, Robert Storch. The mass purge raised a pointed question: whether the replacement inspectors general would act independently or see themselves as part of his administration’s political team.
Mr. Trump later nominated Mr. Moring, who had worked as a Pentagon lawyer for the first Trump administration and has no previous inspector general experience, for the Defense Department role. The Senate confirmed him in a party-line vote on a large slate of Trump nominees in late December, putting him in charge of the 1,600-employee watchdog operation for the nation’s largest employer.
Mark Greenblatt, the former chairman of the inspectors general council and the Interior Department watchdog who was among those Mr. Trump fired, said that under normal circumstances it could be appropriate to give department leaders a heads-up about a planned evaluation and seek their perspective while deciding its scope. But seeking approval or considering the political ramifications, he said, would not be.
“It depends on the inspector general’s mind-set — whether he is an independent watchdog or a lap dog for the agency leadership,” he said. “We won’t know until he either kills the idea or, if he does decide to move forward, how strong the work is.”
Mr. Greenblatt said the report from any evaluation of the boat strikes was likely to be classified, but congressional oversight committees would normally have access to it.
In written answers to questions, Mr. Moring’s office acknowledged that he had sought additional information before deciding whether to approve the project, while insisting that he “has no intention of asking for permission.” It also said he believed in “the conduct of impartial, objective and independent investigations and audit consistent with the law.”
The proposal remains open, Mr. Moring’s office added, and he “will make an independent decision on whether to proceed with the project in accordance with the I.G. Act.”
Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement, “No one in the department is interfering with the independence of the I.G.”
There appear to be substantive precedents for the type of study the unit of the office, known as the evaluations component, has proposed, although they did not raise the same political ramifications.
In 2021, the office completed a report about targeting decisions in the U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility, which includes Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. It examined, among other questions, whether the military followed established procedures on matters like pre-strike vetting and validation and post-strike assessments, including of any civilian casualties.
Similarly, in 2020, the inspector general indicated it would evaluate targeting in the U.S. Africa Command, which includes Somalia, where there has been a yearslong campaign of drone strikes. That study appears to remain classified.
Mr. Moring’s office said those studies were “not equivalent to this project, which may involve ongoing, sensitive operational plans.” Central Command and Africa Command continued to carry out strikes that involved sensitive operational plans during those evaluations. The office did not respond to a follow-up question seeking more explanation of its basis for distinguishing them.
The office disputed one aspect of a description initially submitted by The Times, which stated that Mr. Moring had indicated that he would consult Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and asked whether anything about the account was inaccurate. The office said Mr. Moring never stated he wanted to discuss the matter with Mr. Hegseth and had no intention of doing so.
New York Times, Kash Patel’s Girlfriend Seeks Fame and Fortune, Escorted by an F.B.I. SWAT Team, Elizabeth Williamson,.Feb. 28, 2026. Former F.B.I. officials say Mr. Patel beefed up field office staffing near his girlfriend in Nashville and ordered a team to ferry her on errands and to events.
You may never have heard of Alexis Wilkins, but she is one of the best-protected country music singers in the United States. F.B.I. tactical agents have ferried her to a resort in Britain before a dinner at Windsor Castle and to an appointment at a hair salon in Nashville. Last April, agents in two SUVs stood guard outside a senior center in Ronald Reagan’s boyhood home of Dixon, Ill., while she sang for a few dozen young conservatives.
Ms. Wilkins, 27, is the girlfriend of Kash Patel, President Trump’s 46-year-old F.B.I. director, whose personal use of government jets and F.B.I. agents for himself and Ms. Wilkins has led to growing questions even inside the Trump administration.
“When Kash got confirmed, life changed for her,” said Dianna Muller, the founder of the group Women for Gun Rights, which briefly employed Ms. Wilkins as a spokeswoman.
To an extent not previously reported, Ms. Wilkins is escorted in her travels by Special Weapons and Tactics team members drawn from F.B.I. field offices around the country. SWAT teams are chiefly trained to arrest violent criminals, free hostages and thwart terrorists. But Mr. Patel’s demand that rotating SWAT teams provide his girlfriend with security for singing appearances, personal engagements and errands is unprecedented in the F.B.I., former agents said.
Ben Williamson, an F.B.I. spokesman, said in a statement that Ms. Wilkins needed full-time SWAT protection because “as a direct result of her relationship with Director Patel, she is facing more than a dozen active death threats,” including some of a graphically violent nature. Last November, he told The Times that the death threats numbered in the “hundreds.”
Cabinet and congressional spouses do not routinely receive full-time government security details. After Paul Pelosi, the husband of then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a position second in line to the presidency, was attacked in the couple’s California home, it emerged that the Capitol Police had placed security cameras at the house, but no personnel.
Soon after becoming F.B.I. director last February, Mr. Patel beefed up staffing in Nashville, where Ms. Wilkins lives, then assigned a SWAT team composed of four agents and two vehicles to protect her full-time, said an F.B.I. official briefed on the plans. Mr. Patel overrode F.B.I. advice that such an unprecedented arrangement first undergo a legal review, the official said.
Past directors’ spouses were protected while traveling with them, but did not get a personal government detail.
Christopher O’Leary, a former senior executive in the F.B.I.’s counterterrorism division, said that while threats could temporarily change that posture, it was unheard-of for the F.B.I. to provide open-ended, around-the-clock SWAT coverage for a girlfriend living in another city. “If you want to be a celebrity or a social media star, get your own security,” he said in an interview. “The inappropriateness of this cannot be overstated.”
Mr. O’Leary said Ms. Wilkins’s detail was emblematic of what he characterized as Mr. Patel’s abuse of government resources intended to keep agency officials safe: his use of F.B.I. jets for vacations, dates and hybrid business and leisure trips, like his visit to Italy last week, where he partied with the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team.
Last month, a three-man SWAT team fanned out at a fund-raiser at the Chaparral Country Club in Palm Desert, Calif., where Ms. Wilkins sang the national anthem and posed for red carpet photos with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife, Cheryl Hines. Afterward, agents drove Ms. Wilkins 135 miles to Los Angeles International Airport, according to a person briefed on the arrangements.
Last May, Mr. Patel attended a secret national security conference at an exclusive resort outside London, and invited Ms. Wilkins to join him at a group dinner with King Charles III at Windsor Castle. The Royalty and Specialist Protection service balked at fetching her from the airport, so the F.B.I. scrambled tactical agents and an embassy vehicle, according to a person with knowledge of the plan.
Ms. Wilkins declined to be interviewed on the record for this article and criticized reporting for it on her X account. But Mr. Patel has defended their travel arrangements.
“If I was actually abusing it, I would go see every one of her shows,” Mr. Patel said on a podcast with Katie Miller, the wife of Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s deportation mastermind, as Ms. Wilkins smiled alongside him.
Last fall, he defended Ms. Wilkins after critics highlighted his use of a government jet on a trip to a wrestling event at Penn State University, where she sang the national anthem, and then to Nashville. “She is a rock-solid conservative and a country music sensation who has done more for this nation than most will in ten lifetimes,” Mr. Patel wrote on X.
New York Times, OpenAI Reaches A.I. Agreement With Defense Dept. After Anthropic Clash, Cade Metz, Updated Feb. 28, 2026. The deal came hours after President Trump had ordered federal agencies to stop using artificial intelligence technology made by Anthropic, an OpenAI rival.
OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, said on Friday that it had reached an agreement with the Pentagon to provide its artificial intelligence technologies for classified systems, just hours after President Trump ordered federal agencies to stop using A.I. technology made by rival Anthropic.
Under the deal, OpenAI agreed to let the Pentagon use its A.I. systems for any lawful purpose. The San Francisco company also said it had found a way to ensure that its technologies would not be applied for domestic surveillance in the United States or with autonomous weapons by installing specific technical guardrails on its systems.
“In all of our interactions, the DoW displayed a deep respect for safety and a desire to partner to achieve the best possible outcome,” Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, said in a social media post, using the initials for the Department of War, the administration’s preferred name for the Department of Defense.
The Department of Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The deal appeared to be a business and political coup for OpenAI, taking advantage of a rival’s troubles. Anthropic, which competes with OpenAI, had battled the Pentagon in recent weeks over how its A.I. could be used. In negotiations over a $200 million contract, the Pentagon had demanded that it be able to use Anthropic’s A.I. system for all lawful purposes, or it would cut the company off from government business.
But Anthropic said it needed terms that would ensure that its A.I. technology would not be used for domestic surveillance of Americans or for autonomous lethal weapons. The Pentagon, in turn, said a private contractor could not decide how its tools would be used for national security. Their disagreement erupted into public view this month and escalated as both dug in their heels.
Anthropic and the Pentagon failed to agree on terms by a 5:01 p.m. deadline on Friday. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth then designated Anthropic a “supply-chain risk to national security,” a label that cuts the A.I. company off from business with the U.S. government. Mr. Trump also weighed in, calling the start-up a “radical Left AI company.”
Amid the maelstrom, OpenAI stepped in. This week, Mr. Altman publicly backed Anthropic’s position that A.I. should not be used for domestic surveillance or autonomous weapons. On CNBC on Friday, he said he mostly trusted Anthropic and that “they really do care about safety.”
At the same time, Mr. Altman engaged in talks with the Pentagon, starting on Wednesday, over a deal for its technology, said two people familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Mr. Altman negotiated with the Department of Defense in a different way from Anthropic, agreeing to the use of OpenAI’s technology for all lawful purposes. Along the way, he also negotiated the right to put safeguards into OpenAI’s technologies that would prevent its systems from being used in ways that it did not want them to be.Editors’ PicksA Prada Show So Good, It Overshadowed Mark ZuckerbergHow a Parks Worker Lives on $37,500 in Tompkinsville, Staten IslandWhat It’s Like to Grow Up With A.I.: The Winners of Our Multimedia Challenge
OpenAI “will build technical safeguards to ensure our models behave as they should, which the DoW also wanted,” Mr. Altman said.
These moves allowed Mr. Altman to uphold safety principles around A.I. while still landing the Pentagon contract. He added that the Pentagon had agreed to have some OpenAI employees work alongside government personnel on classified projects to “to help with our models and to ensure their safety.”
More On Epstein Files
Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: February 27, 2026 [DEA's Suppressed Epstein Probe], Heather Cox Richardson, right, Feb. 28, 2026. On Monday, February 23, Daniel Ruetenik, Pat Milton, and Cara Tabachnick of CBS News reported a newly uncovered document in the Epstein files shows that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) was running an investigation of Jeffrey Epstein and fourteen other people for drug trafficking, prostitution, and money laundering.
This investigation—which is different from the sex trafficking case under way when he died—began on December 17, 2010, under the Obama administration and was still operating in 2015. A heavily redacted document in the Epstein files from the director of the DEA’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) said “DEA reporting indicates the above individuals are involved in illegitimate wire transfers which are tied to illicit drug and/or prostitution activities occurring in the U.S. Virgin Islands and New York City.” The investigation was named “Chain Reaction.”
Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, described OCDETF as “a premier task force set up to identify, disrupt and dismantle major organized crime and drug trafficking operations.” It “worked with partners across federal agencies to conduct sophisticated investigations into transnational organized crime and money laundering. OCDETF frequently targeted dangerous drug cartels , the Russian mafia and violent gangs moving fentanyl and weapons.” The Trump administration dismantled OCDETF.
The document is 69 pages long and is heavily redacted. It comes from a request by the DEA to an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces Fusion Center in Virginia for information from other agencies related to Epstein and the other targets. A law enforcement source told the reporters that a request to the Fusion Center is not routine, which suggests the investigation was a “significant” one.
Wyden has been investigating the finances behind Epstein’s criminal sex trafficking organization. His investigation has turned up the information that JPMorgan Chase neglected to report more than $4 billion in suspicious financial transactions linked to Epstein. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has refused to produce the records to the Senate Finance Committee, and in September, Wyden introduced the Produce Epstein Treasury Records Act (PETRA) to get access to them. In November, Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, but it did not cover Treasury financial records.
“The basic question here is whether a bunch of rich pedophiles and Epstein accomplices are going to face any consequences for their crimes,” Wyden said, “and Scott Bessent is doing his best to make sure they won’t. My head just about exploded when I heard Bessent say it wasn’t his department’s job to investigate these Epstein bank records…. From the beginning, my view has been that following the money is the key to identifying Epstein’s clients as well as the henchmen and banks that enabled his sex trafficking network. It’s past time for Bessent to quit running interference for pedophiles and give us the Epstein files he’s sitting on.”
When the CBS News reporters broke the story about the DEA investigation, Wyden said: “It appears Epstein was involved in criminal activity that went way beyond pedophilia and sex trafficking, which makes it even more outrageous that [Attorney General] Pam Bondi is sitting on several million unreleased files.”
On Wednesday, February 23, Wyden wrote to Terrance C. Cole, administrator of the DEA, noting that “[t]he fact that Epstein was under investigation by the DOJ’s OCDETF task force suggests that there was ample evidence indicating that Epstein was engaged in heavy drug trafficking and prostitution as part of cross-border criminal conspiracy. This is incredibly disturbing and raises serious questions as to how this investigation by the DEA was handled.”
He noted that Epstein and the fourteen co-conspirators were never charged for drug trafficking or financial crimes, and wrote: “I am concerned that the DEA and DOJ during the first Trump Administration moved to terminate this investigation in order to protect pedophiles.” He also noted that the heavy redactions in the document appear to go far beyond anything authorized by the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and since the document was not classified, “there is no reason to withhold an unredacted version of this document from the U.S. Congress.
Wyden asked Cole to produce a number of documents by March 13, 2026, two weeks away. Wyden asked for an unredacted copy of the memo in the files, information about what triggered the investigation, what types of drugs Epstein and his fourteen associates were buying or selling, when operation “Chain Reaction” concluded and what was its result, why no one was charged, and why the names of the fourteen co-conspirators were redacted.
Asked by a reporter about Epstein today, Trump said: “I don’t know anything about the Epstein files. I’ve been fully exonerated.”
Trump’s name is, in fact, all through the Epstein files, and the DOJ’s clumsy attempt to hide files that discuss him has only called attention to them. The recent news that the DOJ withheld files about allegations that Trump raped a 13-year-old girl has raised suggestions of an illegal coverup, whether the allegations are true or not. Representative Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, says he will open an investigation.
Now the DOJ says it will review whether the files about Trump were improperly withheld, although the fact that the administration has hung a giant image of Trump’s face on the outside of its building undermines confidence that the DOJ is, in fact, following the law impartially.
Led by chair James Comer (R-KY), the Republican majority on the House Oversight Committee required former first lady Hillary Clinton to testify before it yesterday, despite her testimony under oath that she had never met Epstein and knew Maxwell only as an acquaintance and despite the fact that she is not mentioned in the Epstein files.
As Kaivan Shroff noted in the Daily Beast, the Republicans are working to “revive as much Hillary hate as they can,” but they are likely going to regret dragging Clinton back into the spotlight. She is embracing her role as a public figure who can stand up to Trump, appearing both in the U.S. and internationally to engage on a range of issues. As Shroff notes, Clinton has been “one of the Democratic Party’s most battle-tested figures, and she is speaking up once again—not for a campaign, not for validation, but with the clarity that comes from having nothing left to lose.”
By going after Clinton, Republicans have also opened the way for the Democrats to demand that the Trumps testify. On MS NOW’s “Morning Joe,” panelists noted that while Clinton didn’t know Epstein, there are many photos of First Lady Melania Trump with him, along with her husband and Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Host Joe Scarborough said “Comer got the wrong first lady.” And, he added, “today he’s got the wrong president.”
Today former president Bill Clinton testified for more than six hours under oath before the committee at the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center in Chappaqua, New York. He is the first president to be compelled to testify before Congress under threat of criminal contempt charges. In his opening statement, Clinton appeared to be referencing Trump when he said: “I’m here today for two reasons. The first is that I love my country. And America was built upon the idea that no person is above the law, even Presidents—especially Presidents.” In contrast to Trump and Bondi, both of whom have refused to acknowledge Epstein’s victims—now survivors—Clinton highlighted them: “The second reason I’m here is that the girls and women whose lives Jeffrey Epstein destroyed deserve not only justice, but healing. They’ve been waiting too long for both.”
In calling out the committee for forcing his wife to testify, Clinton alluded to the Republicans’ attempt to spin the testimony for political points. Clinton noted that even though he was the only one sworn in that morning, “everyone has a responsibility to be honest with those they represent. Whether you raised your right hand or not, each and every one of us owes nothing less than truth and accuracy to the American people.”
Clinton told the committee he “had no idea of the crimes Epstein was committing…. I saw nothing, and I did nothing wrong. As someone who grew up in a home with domestic abuse, not only would I not have flown on his plane if I had any inkling of what he was doing—I would have turned him in myself and led the call for justice for his crimes, not sweetheart deals.”
Clinton also told the committee he would often tell it he didn’t recall. “This was all a long time ago. And I am bound by my oath not to speculate, or to guess.”
Like Trump, Clinton is named in the Epstein files; unlike Trump, he is not accused of crimes in any public files. But Clinton had a relationship with both Epstein and Maxwell, and as part of his work with the Clinton Global Initiative after he left office, he traveled on Epstein’s plane about two dozen times, to Europe, Africa, Asia, Russia, Miami, and New York. Clinton reiterated today that he never traveled to Epstein’s island in the Caribbean, where much of the sexual abuse of children took place. Although Trump has repeatedly accused Clinton of visiting the island, Trump’s own White House chief of staff Susie Wiles says Trump is wrong about that, and has confirmed that Clinton was never there.
Kayla Epstein of the BBC recalled that in his memoir, Clinton wrote: “The bottom line is, even though it allowed me to visit the work of my foundation, traveling on Epstein’s plane was not worth the years of questioning afterward. I wish I had never met him.”
Tonight, former president Clinton posted a video message reiterating the main points of his opening statement and concluding: “When the video of my testimony today is released, I hope it will motivate everyone to go in front of Congress to say what they know. I hope it will motivate the Justice Department to finally release all the files and to ensure that this never happens again. The survivors deserve that.”
During a break in Clinton’s deposition, Comer told reporters that “the president went on to say that [Trump] has never said anything to me to make me think he was involved. And he meant with Epstein.” Comer has used closed-door hearings to salt the media with unfounded stories for years now, and as he undoubtedly intended, the media has run with this characterization as an accurate description of what Clinton said.
But Garcia, the top Democrat on the committee, later told reporters that Comer’s comment didn’t accurately reflect Clinton’s answer. “I think the best response to that would be to view the complete record of what actually he said,” Garcia suggested. “We’re not going to disclose what was said because that’s not in the rules. The Republicans keep breaking the rules…. Let’s release the full transcript, so you can all get a full record of what was actually said.”
U.S. Democratic Socialists, BOMBSHELL: Rep Luna reads names of new alleged co-conspirators from unredacted Epstein files, Staff and wire reports, Feb. 28, 2026. U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Florida), right: "Epstein was running a Intelligence gathering operation, in my professional opinion, a honeypot operation (capturing powerful men in sex crimes to use as leverage against them). And I do believe that there's a list of individuals who did engage in trafficking. I'm gonna name those individuals right now.
Leslie Groff, Sarah Kellen, Nadia Marcinkova, Adriana Ross ...And in my opinion, they are not to be given victim status because they did partake in harming....young girls.
"So, who are these women who allegedly helped Epstein?
1) Leslie Groff. American, born in Texas (c. 1966–67). She served for years as Jeffrey Epstein’s executive assistant and office manager, primarily in New York. She handled scheduling, travel, and property logistics. She was identified as a “potential co-conspirator” in Epstein’s 2007–08 federal non-prosecution agreement but was never criminally charged.
2) Sarah Kellen (born Sarah Lyn Kensington). American, born in 1979 in North Carolina. She worked as Epstein’s personal assistant in the early 2000s, coordinating schedules and arranging appointments at his Palm Beach and New York residences. She was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the federal non-prosecution agreement and has been described in court proceedings as a participant in his operations. She has not been prosecuted.
3) Nadia Marcinkova (also Nadia Marcinko / Nada Marcinko). Born in Košice, then Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia). She became a pilot and aviation entrepreneur and flew aircraft for Epstein. She was part of Epstein’s inner circle and was named in the 2007–08 non-prosecution agreement as a potential co-conspirator. She has not been criminally charged.
4) Adriana Ross (Adriana Mucinska). Polish-born former model who moved to the United States in the early 2000s. She worked as an assistant and household staff member for Epstein, including at his Palm Beach property, and appeared in flight logs and related records. She was listed as a potential co-conspirator in the federal non-prosecution agreement. She has not been criminally charged.
As Rep Luna says, "We have a lot of work to do." Time to bring them to justice.
Feb. 27
Top Stories
Nearly a decade ago during the fall of 2016, the New York Daily News was among the news outlets featuring front-page treatment of then-candidate Donald Trump's boast of how he operated among those he lusted after.
Feb. 27, 2026. Republican senators are breaking with Attorney General Pam Bondi on Capitol Hill, demanding the release of all withheld Epstein files related to allegations involving Donald Trump and not ruling out an investigation into the Justice Department itself. Meanwhile, Bill Clinton is set to testify today in a historic and unprecedented appearance by a former president before Congress. At the same time, the Pentagon is escalating its clash with Anthropic after the company refused to lift guardrails that would allow its AI model to be used for domestic mass surveillance.
New York Times, Investigation: Elon Musk’s Secret Web of Companies in Texas, Kirsten Grind, Susanne Craig and Alex Klavens, Produced by Leo Dominguez, Feb. 27, 2026. The megabillionaire was tied to about 90 companies in the state, which he uses for everything from paying nannies to buying land to supporting Donald Trump’s re-election, according to a Times examination.New York Times, Trump Administration Live Updates: Deposition of Bill Clinton Begins in Epstein Inquiry, Annie Karni, Feb. 27, 2026. What We’re Covering Today. More On U.S. Governance, Politics, Elections
Newly-elected Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger delivering the Democratic Party response to President Trump's State of the Union Address, which included homage to the U.S. men's Olympic Gold Medal hockey team following his insult to the U.S. women's Gold Medal hockey team.
Feb. 27, 2026. How to be presidential...plus how to be a gold medalist.
will follow. And on November 3, 2026, we the people will choose a new House of Representatives, 35 newly elected senators, and a fresh slate of governors and state legislators.More On Immigration, Law, Justice, Civil Rights
Global News
New York Times, How a Call From Trump Ignited a Bitter Feud Between Two U.S. Allies, Vivian Nereim, Feb. 27, 2026. A request made to President Trump about the war in Sudan is at the heart of a diplomatic dispute between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
New York Times, U.S. Says Staff Can Leave Israel, Urging Speed, as Possible Iran Strike Looms, Natan Odenheimer and David M. Halbfinger, Feb. 27, 2026. In an email to embassy workers Friday morning, Ambassador Mike Huckabee warned them that if they wanted to leave Israel, they “should do so TODAY.”
New York Times, Amid Rhetoric About Rupture With U.S., Finland Urges Calm, Steven Erlanger, Feb. 27, 2026. “We don’t need a bulldozer,” says Alexander Stubb, Finland’s president and a golf partner of President Trump. “Reform doesn’t mean destruction.”U.S. Media, Power Concentrations, Antitrust Policy
Media mogul Larry Ellison (New York Times photo).
U.S. Jobs, Markets, Economy, Inflation
More On Epstein Files, Cover-up
New York Times, World Economic Forum Chief Resigns Over Epstein Ties, Amelia Nierenberg, Feb. 27, 2026 (print ed.). Borge Brende, a former foreign minister of Norway (shown above in a file photo), had maintained contact with the convicted sex offender.Top Stories
Nearly a decade ago during the fall of 2016, the New York Daily News was among the news outlets featuring front-page treatment of then-candidate Donald Trump's boast of how he operated among those he lusted after. The Daily News, like is rival tabloid, the New York Post, was well aware of the Trump reputation, as were most of their readers.
The Parnas Perspective, News and Commentary, Republican Senators Break and Demand Release of Accusations Against Trump as Anthropic Rejects Pentagon's Demands over Mass Surveillance, Aaron Parnas, right, Feb. 27, 2026. Republican senators are breaking with Attorney General Pam Bondi on Capitol Hill, demanding the release of all withheld Epstein files related to allegations involving Donald Trump and not ruling out an investigation into the Justice Department itself.
Meanwhile, Bill Clinton is set to testify today in a historic and unprecedented appearance by a former president before Congress. At the same time, the Pentagon is escalating its clash with Anthropic after the company refused to lift guardrails that would allow its AI model to be used for domestic mass surveillance.
Overnight, Netflix officially dropped its bid for Warner Bros., clearing the path for the Ellisons and Paramount to move forward with their takeover, with Trump’s apparent blessing. If approved, the deal would further consolidate power in a massive media conglomerate whose leadership is closely aligned with this White House. Newsroom staff are deeply concerned, and if this merger goes through, the media landscape could be fundamentally and permanently reshaped.
Independent media has never mattered more than it does right now. We cannot afford outlets that bend under political pressure or billionaire influence. I do not have the Ellisons’ billions and I never will, and I will never take them. If you believe in truly independent journalism that holds power accountable, subscribe and help me continue to build it.Subscribed
Here’s the news:
Republican senators are urging the Justice Department to release all Jeffrey Epstein-related files that mention President Trump, warning that withholding FBI interview memos about a woman’s past allegations against Trump would contradict the Epstein Files Transparency Act and fuel suspicions of a coverup.
Lawmakers including Senators John Kennedy, Chuck Grassley, Susan Collins and Thom Tillis called for maximum transparency, while Senate Democrats led by Chuck Schumer accused the department of protecting Trump and vowed aggressive oversight, as the DOJ said it is reviewing whether any responsive documents were improperly withheld.
Pressure continues to build to have Donald Trump and Melania Trump testify on Capitol Hill as well:
Former President Bill Clinton is set to testify in a closed-door deposition before the Republican-led House Oversight Committee about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, marking the first time in more than 40 years that a sitting or former president has testified before Congress, as lawmakers intensify scrutiny over the Epstein files; Clinton has denied any knowledge of criminal activity, acknowledged flying on Epstein’s plane for foundation travel but denied visiting Epstein’s island, and Democrats argue the probe should also compel President Trump to testify under oath.
A public feud erupted between the Pentagon and AI firm Anthropic after the Defense Department demanded by a Friday deadline that the company allow its Claude AI model to be used for “all lawful purposes” or risk losing a $200 million contract; Anthropic refused without explicit bans on mass surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous weapons, while Pentagon CTO Emil Michael accused CEO Dario Amodei of lying and argued existing laws already prohibit such uses, highlighting broader tensions over AI safety, military autonomy and national security competition with China.
According to the Washington Post, Defense officials claimed Amodei hesitated when asked if the system could assist in intercepting an incoming ICBM, an account Anthropic disputes. The Pentagon has demanded access to Claude for “all lawful purposes,” including potential roles involving autonomous weapons and surveillance, and has threatened to terminate contracts, blacklist the company, or invoke the Defense Production Act if Anthropic refuses.
Amodei has held firm that current AI systems are not reliable enough for lethal autonomous decision-making and warned that AI-enabled surveillance could undermine democratic values, turning the dispute into a broader political and philosophical battle over who controls the military use of advanced AI and how far its wartime authority should extend.
Netflix has withdrawn from its planned $82.7bn takeover of Warner Bros Discovery, saying the price needed to match Paramount Skydance’s sweetened $31-a-share offer made the deal “no longer financially attractive,” clearing the way for the Ellison family–backed Paramount to acquire the entire company, including CNN, pending shareholder and regulatory approval, with the merger expected to face antitrust scrutiny and likely trigger significant cost-cutting and job reductions.
With apparent backing from President Trump, Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison is poised to build a media empire after winning the bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery, a deal that would combine major film studios, streaming platforms and CNN under one umbrella, pending shareholder and regulatory approval; while the merger could provide needed scale in a struggling industry, it is expected to trigger billions in cost cuts and thousands of layoffs, and raises concerns about political influence and antitrust scrutiny.
According to The Guardian, staff at CBS News and CNN are expressing alarm after Paramount Skydance emerged as the winning bidder for Warner Bros. Discovery following Netflix’s withdrawal, fearing potential layoffs, newsroom consolidation and ideological shifts under Trump-friendly ownership; employees worry about possible leadership changes at CNN and broader impacts on editorial independence, though the merger still faces shareholder approval and regulatory scrutiny.
According to the Associated Press, lawmakers said the U.S. military used a laser to shoot down a Customs and Border Protection drone near Fort Hancock, Texas, marking the second laser deployment in two weeks in the El Paso area; the FAA expanded local airspace closures (though commercial flights were not affected this time), and members of Congress criticized the Trump administration and federal agencies for poor coordination and sidestepping drone safety legislation, citing broader concerns about communication failures between the Pentagon and FAA.
When asked whether President Trump’s claim that the women’s team is coming to the White House was true, Caroline Harvey said she had not heard anything confirming it and, when asked if she would attend, responded that she is currently busy with school.
U.S. hockey player Brady Tkachuk criticized the White House for sharing a doctored TikTok video that made it appear he was disparaging Canadians, saying he would never make such remarks, and he also denied being the person who shouted “close the northern border” during Team USA’s celebratory phone call with President Trump.
U.S. producer prices increased by 0.5% in January, surpassing economists’ expectations of a 0.3% rise, as businesses passed higher import tariff costs on to customers, signaling potential inflationary pressure ahead. The gain follows a downwardly revised 0.4% increase in December, and the stronger-than-anticipated Producer Price Index reading suggests that inflation could pick up in the coming months as companies adjust to elevated input costs, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
FedEx said it will refund customers and shippers any money it recovers after suing in the U.S. Court of International Trade to reclaim tariffs imposed by President Trump under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, following a Supreme Court ruling that deemed the tariffs illegal, though the process and timeline for issuing refunds remain unclear as courts and the government determine next steps.
The U.S. Embassy in Israel has authorized non-essential personnel and family members to leave the country due to safety risks amid the possibility of a strike on Iran, advising Americans to consider departing while commercial flights remain available, as the USS Gerald Ford carrier strike group is set to arrive in the region as part of a broader U.S. military buildup.
In an email to embassy staff, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee urged anyone who still wishes to leave the country to “do so TODAY,” underscoring heightened security concerns as the U.S. authorizes non-essential personnel to depart amid fears of a potential strike on Iran.
The U.S. State Department has ordered the evacuation of non-essential personnel and their family members from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, citing heightened security risks as regional tensions intensify, a move that typically reflects concerns about potential attacks, instability, or broader military escalation that could threaten American diplomatic staff in Iraq.
Pakistan launched widespread airstrikes on major Afghan cities including Kabul and Kandahar, with its defense minister declaring an “open war” after Afghan Taliban forces carried out cross-border attacks on Pakistani troops, escalating months of rising tensions; both sides reported dozens of casualties, accused each other of harboring militants, and continued fighting along the disputed Durand Line border, raising fears of a broader regional conflict.
Emergency records and 911 audio reveal that ambulances were dispatched at least 11 times since September to the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas for children suffering medical crises including respiratory distress, seizures and dangerously low oxygen levels, with several transferred to hospitals and some to a pediatric facility in San Antonio.
The Trump administration is moving to roll back key protections under the EPA’s Risk Management Program, which requires more than 12,500 high-risk facilities to implement safety measures to prevent chemical disasters, by undoing strengthened 2024 rules, removing a public database of hazardous sites and scaling back worker protections, prompting critics to warn the changes prioritize industry cost concerns over public safety in a country that averages a chemical accident every other day.
Rapper Flavor Flav announced he will host a Las Vegas “She Got Game” weekend in July to honor the U.S. women’s Olympic ice hockey team’s gold medal and celebrate other female Olympians and Paralympians, offering the team a celebratory trip after they declined to attend President Trump’s State of the Union address, and launching a GoFundMe campaign to support women athletes.
A Columbia University student from Azerbaijan was detained by ICE agents who allegedly misrepresented themselves as police searching for a missing child to gain access to her off-campus residence without a judicial warrant, according to the university’s acting president, prompting outrage from state and local officials; DHS said agents identified themselves and that her student visa had been terminated in 2016 for failing to attend classes, and she was later released after public backlash and intervention from elected officials.
According to The Guardian, family of UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese has sued the Trump administration in federal court, arguing that U.S. sanctions imposed on her over her criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza violate the First Amendment, with the lawsuit claiming the penalties have severely disrupted the family’s life and were retaliatory in nature, while the U.S. and Israel have rejected her genocide accusations and defended the sanctions.
Morning Shots via The Bulwark, Political Opinion: Same Brutal ICE. Now Stealthier, Bill Kristol, Andrew Egger and Jim Swift, Feb. 27, 2026. ICE has learned how to be cruel and lawless without drawing so much attention to itself.
What approach should Donald Trump take to rigging this year’s midterms?
A coalition of hardcore MAGA activists has a few ideas. The Washington Post reports that activists “who say they are in coordination with the White House” are circulating “a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting.”
We’re sure it’s fine. Happy Friday.
President Trump delivering his 2026 State of the Union address, flanked by Vice President JD Vance at left and House Speaker Mike Johnson.
New York Times, News Analysis: Trump’s Foreign Policy: Resurrecting Empire, Edward Wong, Feb. 27, 2026. President Trump’s approach is a revival of the mission of empire — acquiring the territories and resources of sovereign peoples.
President Trump’s foreign policy has veered wildly across the globe, but has remained consistent in its aggressive nature and reliance on the use of force.
He has seized the leader of Venezuela while claiming the country’s oil and attacking nearby civilian boats. He has pushed Cuba into a humanitarian crisis through a blockade, and asserted a right to control Canada and Greenland. And he has amassed the largest U.S. military force in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, threatening a new war against Iran after attacks last June.
Mr. Trump calls his policy “America First” — a stated focus on U.S. interests as he defines them. But it is not isolationism or a retreat from the world, as some analysts have argued. Nor has it manifested yet in a push to create “spheres of influence,” where the administration would be content to dominate only the Western Hemisphere and leave other regions to rival powers.
From one perspective, it is a resurrection of the mission of empire — acquiring the territories and resources of sovereign peoples — that animated European and other well-armed powers up to the 20th century. It is also an embrace, and even a celebration, of Western imperial histories.
In his inauguration speech last year, Mr. Trump praised President William McKinley, who transformed the United States into an overseas empire during the Spanish-American War by acquiring the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico.
Mr. Trump’s form of American primacy was most clearly articulated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this month in a speech at the Munich Security Conference.
“For five centuries, before the end of the second World War, the West had been expanding — its missionaries, its pilgrims, its soldiers, its explorers pouring out from its shores to cross oceans, settle new continents, build vast empires extending out across the globe,” Mr. Rubio told an audience of mostly European officials.
Then, after 1945, when World War II ended and Europe was in ruins, “the West” was “contracting,” Mr. Rubio said.
He condemned anticolonial independence movements, linking them to Communist ideology and blaming them for eroding Western power. “The great Western empires had entered into terminal decline, accelerated by godless communist revolutions and by anticolonial uprisings that would transform the world and drape the red hammer and sickle across vast swaths of the map,” he said.
New York Times, In Trump’s Case for War, a Series of False or Unproven Claims, Mark Mazzetti, Edward Wong, David E. Sanger and Julian E. Barnes, Feb. 27, 2026 (print ed.). Key elements of the Trump administration’s arguments this week for another military campaign against Iran do not hold up.
As they made their public case this week for another American military campaign against Iran, President Trump and his aides asserted that Iran has restarted its nuclear program, has enough available nuclear material to build a bomb within days, and is developing long-range missiles that will soon be capable of hitting the United States.
All three of these claims are either false or unproven.
American and European government officials, international weapons monitoring groups and reports from American intelligence agencies give a far different picture of the urgency of the Iran threat than the one the White House has presented in recent days.
Iran has taken steps to dig out the nuclear facilities hit during strikes last June by Israel and the United States, and it has resumed work at some sites long known to American spy agencies. But the officials said that there isn’t evidence that Iran has made active efforts to resume enriching uranium or trying to build a mechanism to detonate a bomb.
The stockpiles of uranium that Iran has already enriched remain buried after last year’s strikes, making it nearly impossible for Iran to build a bomb “within days.”
Iran has a large arsenal of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles capable of hitting Israel and American military bases in the Middle East, but American intelligence agencies believe Iran is probably years away from having missiles that can hit the United States.
The Pentagon for weeks has been moving ships, planes and air defense units to the Middle East as part of the largest American military buildup in the region in more than two decades. This escalation, along with Mr. Trump’s threats, has brought criticism that the White House has made no public case to justify a second American military conflict in Iran in less than a year.
Now, top Trump administration officials have begun to make the case, and key elements of their arguments do not hold up under close scrutiny. They have even contradicted each other in their public statements.
Mr. Trump’s statements about the urgency of the threat posed by Iran’s missile and nuclear capabilities in his State of the Union address this week had echoes of 2003, when President George W. Bush used the State of the Union to build a case for war in Iraq. During that speech, he asserted that Iraq had sought uranium in Africa to fuel a nascent nuclear weapons program. That claim, like so many other Bush administration assertions about Iraq’s weapons programs, was later proved to be false.
“I’m very concerned,” Representative Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said on Tuesday after a closed-door meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “Wars in the Middle East don’t go well for presidents, for the country, and we have not heard articulated a single good reason for why now is the moment to launch yet another war in the Middle East.”
New York Times, Pentagon Standoff Is a Decisive Moment for How A.I. Will Be Used in War, Adam Satariano, Julian Barnes and Sheera Frenkel, Feb. 27, 2026. The Pentagon’s contract dispute with Anthropic is part of a wider clash about the use of artificial intelligence for national security and who decides on any safeguards.
The fight between the Department of Defense and the artificial intelligence company Anthropic has ostensibly been about a $200 million contract over the use of A.I. in classified systems.
But as the two sides careen toward a 5:01 p.m. Friday deadline over terms of the contract, far more is at stake.
Amid the legalese and heated rhetoric are questions being asked globally about how to use A.I., what the technology’s risks are and who gets to decide on setting any limits — the makers of A.I. or national governments.
Underlying it all is fear and awe over the dizzying pace of A.I. progress and the technology’s uncertain impact on society.
“Something like this dispute was inevitable,” said Michael C. Horowitz, who worked on A.I. weapons issues in the Defense Department during the Biden administration. “Because the technology is advancing so quickly, we’re having these debates now. A.I. has moved from being in a niche conversation to something really at the center of global power.”
The clash centers on the Pentagon’s use of a classified version of Anthropic’s A.I. model, Claude. The company wants to embed safeguards in its technology to prevent its use for mass domestic surveillance of Americans or in fully autonomous weapons with no humans in the loop.
New York Times, Investigation: Elon Musk’s Secret Web of Companies in Texas, Kirsten Grind, Susanne Craig and Alex Klavens, Produced by Leo Dominguez, Feb. 27, 2026. The megabillionaire was tied to about 90 companies in the state, which he uses for everything from paying nannies to buying land to supporting Donald Trump’s re-election, according to a Times examination.
In 2020, Elon Musk announced he was moving to Texas from California and embarking on a personal austerity campaign to strip his life of belongings.
“I am selling almost all physical possessions,” he posted on social media. “Will own no house.”
But in the years since, Mr. Musk, 54, has quietly built an empire of more than 90 companies and other legal entities in Texas, which have amassed a vast collection of assets, according to an examination by The New York Times.
The secretive network offers a glimpse into just how central one of the world’s richest men, who has a net worth of more than $650 billion, has made Texas to his operations and ambitions. More than 50 of his at least 90 companies there are subsidiaries or other entities affiliated with his business empire, such as the rocket company SpaceX and the electric vehicle maker Tesla, as well as his nonprofit Musk Foundation.
But The Times identified at least 37 companies that appeared to be largely for Mr. Musk’s personal use. Among them was one that owns two multimillion-dollar condominiums totaling more than 7,000 square feet in the Austin Proper Hotel, with sweeping views of downtown. Other companies managed planes that Mr. Musk uses for private travel and a portfolio of more than 1,000 acres of land, which when combined is bigger than Central Park in New York. The lines between Mr. Musk’s business and personal interests are often blurry, and some of the companies most likely served both purposes.
The Times’s examination also offers a window into how Mr. Musk used private companies to support Donald J. Trump during the 2024 election. Tapping these companies to cover the expenses of a super PAC is highly unusual, campaign finance experts said, and ended up obscuring how money was being spent because they are not subject to the disclosure requirements of super PACs.
The vehicle that Mr. Musk frequently turned to is one that many of the ultrarich use: limited liability companies, which are designed to shield owners from legal and financial risks, as well as public scrutiny. Whatever Mr. Musk’s intent, the effect of using these companies has been to disguise how he is spending his money.
Former President Bill Clinton
New York Times, Trump Administration Live Updates: Deposition of Bill Clinton Begins in Epstein Inquiry, Annie Karni, Feb. 27, 2026. What We’re Covering Today.
In his opening statement, former President Bill Clinton struck a less defiant tone than Hillary Clinton did on Thursday, an acknowledgment that he did have a connection with Epstein and that he was wiling to answer questions about it. But he insisted that he never knew about Epstein’s crimes and cut off his association with him long before his first guilty plea. “I saw nothing, and I did nothing wrong,” he said. “Even with 20/20 hindsight, I saw nothing that ever gave me pause. We are only here because he hid it from everyone so well for so long.”
Clinton expressed one note of frustration with the committee: for hauling in his wife for her own deposition. “You made Hillary come in,” he said. “She had nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. Nothing.”Annie KarniFeb. 27, 2026, 12:04 p.m. ET26 minutes ago
Annie KarniReporting from Chappaqua, N.Y.Bill Clinton begins his deposition in the House’s Epstein investigationImageRep. James Comer of Kentucky, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, with other Republicans on the panel.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times
Former President Bill Clinton arrived at the Chappaqua Performing Arts center near his home on Friday to participate in what was expected to be hours of testimony as part of the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
His deposition marked the first time in history a former president was forced to testify before Congress against his will, and the Democratic members of the panel have immediately signaled their intention to use it as a precedent to try to force President Trump to also answer questions about his relationship with Mr. Epstein.
Mr. Clinton’s session with House lawmakers was expected to follow the same format that Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, sat through on Thursday. Her deposition, which lasted over six hours, appeared to yield no information about Mr. Epstein.
“I don’t know how many times I had to say I did not know Jeffrey Epstein,” she told reporters after the session ended. “It’s on the record numerous times.”
But Mr. Clinton did have a relationship with Epstein during the years he was building the Clinton Global Initiative, his post-presidential foundation, and Republicans said that they were eager to press him about their contacts. They also said that Mrs. Clinton had referred many of their questions to her husband and that lawmakers planned to follow up with him.
Representative James R. Comer of Kentucky, the committee’s chairman, declared the committee was bringing “some of the most powerful people in the world” to testify in the Epstein investigation.
He said he intended to ask about Mr. Epstein’s 17 visits to the White House while Mr. Clinton was in office, as well as photographs of the men together. “There are a lot of photos,” Mr. Comer said.
The Clintons fought for months to block the subpoenas they called invalid, unenforceable and politically motivated. They ultimately capitulated to Mr. Comer’s demands after some Democrats on the House Oversight Committee voted with Republicans to hold them in contempt of Congress if they failed to testify. Mr. Comer said on Friday that he would release the full transcript and video of Mrs. Clinton’s deposition, which she had requested to be made public, in the coming days.
House Democrats, for their part, said that while they had serious questions for Mr. Clinton, ultimately they felt they were questioning the wrong president. Representative James Walkinshaw, a Virginia Democrat, told reporters that the investigation wouldn’t be complete until Mr. Trump appears before the committee, too.
More On U.S. Governance, Politics, Elections
Newly-elected Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger delivering the Democratic Party response to President Trump's State of the Union Address, which included homage to the U.S. men's Olympic Gold Medal hockey team following his insult to the U.S. women's Gold Medal hockey team.
The Contrarian, Opinion: Undaunted Democratic Governor, Jennifer Rubin, right, Feb. 27, 2026. How to be presidential...plus how to be a gold medalist.
Raging narcissist Donald Trump insisted on monopolizing the legacy media for over 1 ¾ hours Tuesday night, pushing the official Democratic response into the 11 ET pm hour. That may have been the saving grace for Republicans (who will have to live down their non-stop cheering for his venomous blather). Had Trump bloviated less, more Americans would have been awake to see Virginia’s Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger deliver the most presidential speech uttered since Trump took office. Trump’s endless monologue surely suffered by comparison.
In under 13 minutes, Spanberger demonstrated that she is among the most skillful of a new generation of Democrats. In contrast to Trump and other MAGA Republicans, she was impassioned but not manic, sober but not scowling — and entirely normal. Ah yes, this is what a grown-up politician sounds like.
Spanberger set the table at the beginning of her remarks with three questions:
Is the president working to make life more affordable for you and your family?
Is the president working to keep Americans safe — both at home and abroad?
Is the President working for YOU?
Simple, direct language conveyed that she wanted to talk about voters’ concerns without histrionics or absurd lies. In each section, she ticked off the evidence that Trump was not serving Americans.
On affordability, she explained that Trump’s “reckless trade policies have forced American families to pay more than $1,700 each in tariff costs.” She continued that even after his illegal scheme was struck down, “the President is planning for new tariffs, another massive tax hike on you and your family.” Speaking earnestly to red America, she noted:
Rural health clinics in Virginia are already closing their doors thanks to the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill,” championed by the President and Republicans in Congress.
And tonight, the President celebrated this law — the one threatening rural hospitals, stripping healthcare from millions of Americans, and driving up costs in energy and housing. All while cutting food programs for hungry kids.
Citing her own national security credentials, she turned to dissect Trump’s vicious anti-immigrant campaign:
Spanberger also made the case that Trump has made us weaker internationally because “he continues to cede economic power and technological strength to China, bow down to a Russian dictator, and make plans for war with Iran.” She slammed him for destroying America’s reputation as a force for good in the world “through DOGE, mass firings, and the appointment of deeply unserious people to our nation’s most serious positions.”Subscribed
In her third category, Spanberger made the compelling case that Trump, with MAGA Republicans’ consent, has been the most corrupt president in memory. Gaining momentum with skillful parallel phrasing (“he lied, he scapegoated, and he distracted”; he tries to “enrage us, divide us … pit us against one another”), she drew in the audience:
She bookended the speech with a call to rise up in defense of democracy:
Democrats should study the speech. Spanberger — undaunted, succinct, steely, sensible, and decent — demonstrates that if they embrace good policy and good politics, their victories can spell the beginning of the end of the Trump era.
I did not want to close the week without recognizing Americans’ championship hockey team, one that has demonstrated its excellence over 8 Olympics and managed to avoid paying homage to a virulently misogynistic, cruel, racist, and deceitful president. I speak, of course, about the women’s gold medal hockey team.
In contrast to the 46-year gold medal drought for the men, the women’s hockey team previously took home gold in 1998 and 2018. (In fact, they took home medals in eight straight games with a bronze in 2006 and silver medals in 2002, 2010, 2014, and 2022.)
Incidentally, Team USA women in all sports have out-medaled Team USA men at three consecutive Winter Olympics and four consecutive Summer Olympics. This year’s Olympics winners included two mothers in their forties.
After the men’s team yucked it up when Trump demeaned their female counterparts (he “probably would be impeached” if he did not invite them, Trump sneered), 20 of the 25 male players accepted the invitation to be props in the Oval Office and at the president’s hate-filled speech on Tuesday night.
By contrast, the women’s team politely decline to attend, demonstrating more dignity and respect for fellow Americans than the entire MAGA Republican Party. (To his credit, Jeremy Swayman later apologized for the men’s reaction to Trump’s insult.) At a press conference on Wednesday team captain Hillary Knight called Trump’s remarks “distasteful” and “unfortunate.”
The women’s team represents the best of America. No wonder Trump felt compelled to denigrate them.
President Trump punching a Candidan hockey player in his AI video post
Morning Shots via The Bulwark, Political Opinion:The Midterms Can’t Come Soon Enough, William Kristol, right, Feb. 27, 2026. The 2026 midterm election season kicks off this coming Tuesday, March 3, with primaries in Arkansas, North Carolina, and Texas. Nine months of political labor—sometimes painful, more often, one trusts, promising—will follow. And on November 3, 2026, we the people will choose a new House of Representatives, 35 newly elected senators, and a fresh slate of governors and state legislators.
Midterms are generally the neglected stepchildren of American politics. Everyone knows about presidential elections. You mention dates like 1932 and 1980—and 2016—and people know what you’re talking about. As for years like 1974 or 1994 or 2010, well . . . those of us whose hearts go pitty-pat at their mention tend to be at best political junkies, at worst oddballs.
But the midterms get a bad rap. They can affect public policy. They can produce political stars. And they can foreshadow bigger things to come. The grand presidential contests stand out in American history like handsome swans gliding gracefully along a pond. But the ugly duckling midterms paddling away energetically underneath the surface are worth our attention as well.
A year ago, the American people decided to take a gamble on a second term for a man who had left office four years before after trying to overturn the results of the free and fair election he’d lost. They decided to overlook—or to embrace?—the demagoguery and the dishonesty, and the bigotry and the cruelty that were already so evident in his campaign. And they decided to give majorities in Congress to a political party that would submit to his authority, go along with his policies, and enable his accumulation of power.
And so here we are, with federal agents assaulting our citizens, with the federal government threatening our elections, and with our highest officials lying, bullying, and grifting without shame or remorse. The midterm elections can’t change the character of the executive branch the American people chose in 2024. But the midterms can mitigate and in some cases stop the damage. They can point to a different path ahead. They could be a repudiation of the Trumpist project. Or they could signify acquiescence to it.
The public seems to grasp the importance of the midterms. In all three states with primaries Tuesday—Texas, North Carolina, and Arkansas—turnout, especially Democratic turnout, looks to be surging.
Perhaps the most famous midterm election in American history is the 1858 senate race in Illinois, with its great series of debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Doulgas. In their fifth encounter, on October 7 in Galesburg, Illinois, Lincoln said Douglas, in adopting a position of political and moral neutrality on the future of slavery in the United States, was “blowing out the moral lights around us.” I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that a triumphant Trumpism would go a long way to blowing out the moral lights around us. The 2026 midterms will be a key moment in our accepting, or rejecting, such an outcome.
AROUND THE BULWARK
cronyism won.Quick Hits
ANTHROPIC STAYS THE COURSE: Anthropic isn’t backing down. Yesterday, we covered the Defense Department’s remarkable and head-scratchingly contradictory threats against the makers of AI platform Claude, which is currently the only AI platform used by the military in classified settings. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wanted Anthropic to drop its objections to Claude being deployed for purposes of mass surveillance or autonomous weapons systems; if it refused, Hegseth warned, the Pentagon would either make Anthropic cooperate by invoking the Defense Production Act or do the exact opposite: cancel its Anthropic contracts and ban all DoD contractors from working with them, too.
In a statement last night, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei announced that the company would not abandon its red lines. “Some uses are simply outside the bounds of what today’s technology can safely and reliably do,” he wrote in a statement. “It is the Department’s prerogative to select contractors most aligned with their vision. But given the substantial value that Anthropic’s technology provides to our armed forces, we hope they reconsider.”
The letter, which is worth reading in full, was a reminder of just how few AI capabilities Anthropic is trying to keep off the table. Amodei doesn’t even object to fully automated weapons systems in principle; he just argues that the models aren’t yet reliable enough to entrust them with so heavy a responsibility.
How the Defense Department will respond remains to be seen. So far, they’re taking it with all the tact and grace you’d expect. “It’s a shame that @DarioAmodei is a liar and has a God-complex,” Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael said. “He wants nothing more than to try to personally control the US Military and is ok putting our nation’s safety at risk.”Subscribed
NETFLIX BOWS OUT: All of a sudden, the great Paramount/Netflix battle over acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery is over. Netflix announced yesterday it would not try to compete with Paramount’s latest, splashiest bid of $31 a share, way up from their opening salvo of $19 a share last September. “We’ve always been disciplined,” Netflix CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters said in a statement. “At the price required to match Paramount Skydance’s latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive, so we are declining to match the Paramount Skydance bid.”
For months, it’s seemed as though the crucial factor in this bidding war could turn out to be which side the Trump White House decided to bless. On the Paramount side, billionaire Trump allies David and Larry Ellison heavily implied in their pitches to Warner Bros. stockholders that Netflix’s offer would not survive regulatory scrutiny. As recently as this week, Trump publicly threatened Netflix to fire an alumna of the Obama White House from their board “or pay the consequences.” In the end, though, the fight came down to dollars and cents: Paramount was more willing to overpay than Netflix was.
THE WORLD’S STRANGEST BROMANCE CONTINUES: Let no one say Zohran Mamdani doesn’t understand Donald Trump. When the New York mayor made an unexpected trip to the Oval Office yesterday to pitch the president on a housing proposal (shown above), he came bearing two things the president loves: an audacious policy pitch and a shameless appeal to his ego. The AP reports:
Anna Bahr, Mamdani’s communications director, said the mayor’s team created a mock front page and headlines for Trump to look at and demonstrate what kind of reaction new federal housing investments could bring. The mock New York Daily News front page says “Trump to City: Let’s Build”—a riff on the famous 1975 cover that read “Ford to City: Drop Dead,” referring to Gerald Ford’s vow to veto financial assistance to the city. . . .
Bahr said Trump was “very enthusiastic” about Mamdani’s proposal, which would allow 12,000 new affordable homes to be built at Sunnyside Yard in Queens by securing more than $21 billion in federal grants to build a deck over the rail yard site. The mayor’s office estimates that the project could create 30,000 jobs and would be the biggest housing and infrastructure investment in more than 50 years.
“Very enthusiastic” seemed about right, going by the picture:
Even more remarkable was the policy concession Mamdani managed to get immediately. Yesterday morning, ICE officers arrested a student at Columbia University, Elmina Aghayeva, after repeatedly lying that they were searching for a missing child to gain access to her building. Mamdani brought the matter up to Trump, who promised to look into it. Within hours, Aghayeva was released.
More On Immigration, Law, Justice, Civil Rights
Morning Shots via The Bulwark, Political Opinion: Quieter Cruelty, Andrew Egger, Feb. 27, 2026. This week, Senate Democrats remained united in their insistence they would not vote to fund the Department of Homeland Security until Donald Trump and Republicans agreed to real reforms of the department. As they should—since the unbelievable scope of DHS’s lawlessness and brutality are becoming more painfully obvious every day.
Last week, in Buffalo, Border Patrol agents scooped up a refugee named Nurul Amin Shah Alam. They quickly learned he was in the country legally and not deportable. So they released him—in the parking lot of a closed Tim Horton’s, miles from both his home and the county jail where they’d picked him up. (Before security-camera footage confirmed that the coffee shop’s lobby was closed, DHS spent yesterday insisting agents had taken Shah Alam to a “safe, warm location.” When I asked DHS this morning how they reconciled that with the new footage, they declined to elaborate further.) They never contacted his lawyer or his family. Shah Alam, 56, who spoke no English and was mostly blind, wandered off into the cold night. He never made it home. On Tuesday, he was found dead. Nurul Amin Shah Alam (Screenshot via Missing Persons poster)
The mistreatment of Shah Alam was the most outrageous recent story of DHS mishandling custodial releases, but it was far from the first. This week, Mother Jones reported that federal agents operating in Minneapolis had routinely detained migrants with documents showing them to be in the middle of active immigration cases, visa proceedings, or even pending U.S. citizenship. These documents proved they weren’t deportable—but when ICE released them, they didn’t give them back.
“I can’t think of a client I’ve had detained that did not have their documents taken,” one immigration lawyer told Mother Jones. Another added: “As far as I can tell, it’s the practice of ICE to throw everybody’s documents into a black box and then lose it.”
Meanwhile, the evidence keeps piling up that ICE is broadly ignoring, neglecting, or mishandling judicial orders to release individual migrants in its custody. In an astonishing filing yesterday, Minnesota’s top federal judge, Patrick Schiltz, released a list of more than 200 regional judicial orders ICE had violated in recent weeks.
“The Court is not aware of another occasion in the history of the United States in which a federal court has had to threaten contempt—again and again and again—to force the United States government to comply with court orders,” Schlitz wrote (emphasis in original).
The fault, the judge added, was not with the government’s line attorneys, who had “been put in an impossible position.” It was with their administration superiors, who had surged 3,000 ICE agents to Minnesota “without making any provision for handling the lawsuits that were sure to follow.”
“One way or another,” he wrote, “ICE will comply with this Court’s orders.”
You might remember that DHS has been trying to rebrand a bit lately, having belatedly realized that its maximum-friction strategy of surging into a city, swaggering around in shock-and-awe patrols, dragging migrants indiscriminately from their homes, and roughing up and gunning down protesters was extremely exciting for their base’s biggest sickos but totally alienating for the rest of the country. For the time being, at least, our government has stopped going out of its way to flaunt its lawlessness, its unaccountability, and its brutality. They didn’t want to stop. Americans made them. There’s no denying it’s a kind of progress.
But we must not lose sight of the fact that the new status quo is hardly less outrageous. The machinery of attempted mass deportation grinds on, and the people who operate it are no less careless, callous, stupid, and unscrupulous than before. The fevered bloodlust of Dan Bovino’s Minneapolis operation has been replaced not by any humane and responsible impulse but by a cold and brutal nonchalance. Assaulting protesters and then gunning them down in the street is out; carelessly dropping a blind, helpless man in a coffee-shop parking lot to freeze to death is still very much in.
New York Times, Trump Orders Government to Stop Using Anthropic After Pentagon Standoff, Julian E. Barnes and Sheera Frenkel, Feb. 27, 2026. The company had clashed with the military over how officials wanted to use its A.I. model. The order could vastly complicate intelligence analysis and defense work.
President Trump on Friday ordered all federal agencies to stop using artificial intelligence technology made by Anthropic, an order that could vastly complicate intelligence analysis and defense work.
Writing on Truth Social, Mr. Trump used harsh words for Anthropic calling it a “radical Left AI company run by people who have no idea what the real World is all about.”
Still, Mr. Trump announced a “Six Month phase out” for the Pentagon and some other agencies, a period of time that could allow for more extended negotiations between Anthropic and the Defense Department. Calling the company “Leftwing nut jobs,” he said they had made a mistake trying to strong-arm the Pentagon.
Mr. Trump’s statement came as the Pentagon and Anthropic were, despite an escalating war of words, continuing to negotiate a compromise. While some current and former American officials had expressed hope of some sort of deal before the Pentagon’s 5:01 p.m. deadline, Mr. Trump’s comments will undoubtedly complicate matters.
PoliticusUSA, News and Comment: Democrats Say They Will Break Up Trump's Media Monopoly When They Return To Power, Sarah Jones, Feb. 27, 2026. With the Trump-aligned Ellisons now buying Warner Brothers/Discovery, Trump allies will control CNN and CBS, but Democrats say they will break up Paramount when they return to power.
Donald Trump allies or those who wish to remain in his good graces now control ABC, CBS, Fox News, Newsmax, and will soon control CNN.
During his first term, Trump tried to force the sale of CNN to Rupert Murdoch. The president has long dreamed of ending any criticism of him on CNN and converting the network into a platform that mirrors.
CNN isn’t important for its domestic reach as much as its unmatched in the US television international news platform. With CNN in his back pocket, Trump can broadcast his MAGA propaganda globally.
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The Paramount acquisition of WBD will go down as another watershed moment in the death of mainstream media, which became a center to generate corporate profits decades ago, but is now more overt in its willingness to put people and democracy last to make money first.
States can’t block the Paramount/WBD merger, but they can sue to block it, and that is the direction that California appears to be moving toward.
California Attorney General AG Rob Bonta said, “Paramount/Warner Bros. is not a done deal. These two Hollywood titans have not cleared regulatory scrutiny — the California Department of Justice has an open investigation, and we intend to be vigorous in our review.”
The merger will be rubber-stamped by Trump, and CNN, which was already watered down, is expected to get the CBS News treatment from Ellison.
However, if Democrats have their way, these MAGA media monopolies will be short-lived, as you will see below.
House and Senate Democrats are already planning to investigate the companies that have been giving money to and making deals with Trump.
Sen. Rueben Gallego (D-AZ) told Semafor:
Once we take power, whoever the president is, we’re going to break up your companies.
So all the investment you did to create these mergers are going to be for naught. Your investors are going to be pissed at you, and you’re likely going to end up getting fired as the CEO because you wasted so much money and corrupted yourself in the process.
Any person who understands that the United States is decades overdue for reform legislation in areas like politics and business knows that reform is growing in public popularity, because the American people are living with the impact of the concentration of wealth and resources and the corruption that is coming with it.
Sen. Gallego wasn’t alone in his comments.
Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) warned Paramount that its media monopoly is going to be short-lived.
Murphy posted on X:
Paramount should enjoy its growing news monopoly while they have it because when Democrats win back power we are going to break up these anti-democratic information conglomerates. All of them.
The airwaves are a public good. They are not owned by the corporations that are dominating and consolidating the US media landscape.
News monopolies are all the rage today, but they are going to be shattered when Democrats return to power.
Chief Justice John Roberts with other members of the Supreme Court (Pool photo by Chip Somodevilla).
Emptywheel, Analysis: The Bullshit about John Roberts’ Tolerance for Bullshitt, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler), Feb. 27, 2026. In the wake of last week’s SCOTUS ruling on tariffs, a number of people have rushed to opine on how momentous a decision it was.
Former DOJ spox Sarah Isgur wrote a deservedly mocked piece claiming this was proof SCOTUS “is no partisan instrument of Republican power.” Steve Vladeck responded by demonstrating why, “just about every part of” Isgur’s argument “is specious,” noting how Isgur has to ignore the Shadow Docket to concoct data to support her argument. Ilya Somin — one of the lawyers behind the successful challenge — argued that it’s too soon to measure the legal import (a sentiment with which I agree), but noted it does show, “the potential effectiveness of combining litigation and political action as a strategy for resisting abuses of government power,” because the unpopularity of the tariffs made it easier to rule against them.
I’m more interested in Linda Greenhouse’s take (John Roberts Sent Trump a Message), published the morning before Trump attacked the tariff decision and the Justices at the State of the Union, though I think her take is premature at best, wildly optimistic at worst. Greenhouse, left, reads exasperation in a paragraph of John Roberts’ opinion that maps out how arbitrary Trump’s tariffs have been.
There was, however, one exception to the opinion’s conciseness: a meaty paragraph describing the roller-coaster course of Mr. Trump’s tariff regime. Here, with citations to seven separate executive orders omitted for the sake of readability, is the chief justice’s account:
Since imposing each set of tariffs, the president has issued several increases, reductions and other modifications. One month after imposing the 10 percent drug trafficking tariffs on Chinese goods, he increased the rate to 20 percent. One month later, he removed a statutory exemption for Chinese goods under $800. Less than a week after imposing the reciprocal tariffs, the president increased the rate on Chinese goods from 34 percent to 84 percent. The very next day, he increased the rate further still, to 125 percent. This brought the total effective tariff rate on most Chinese goods to 145 percent. The president has also shifted sets of goods into and out of the reciprocal tariff framework ([e.g.,] exempting from reciprocal tariffs beef, fruits, coffee, tea, spices and some fertilizers). And he has issued a variety of other adjustments ([e.g.,] extending “the suspension of heightened reciprocal tariffs” on Chinese imports).
For all the attention the decision in this case, Learning Resources v. Trump, has received, this paragraph has gone largely unremarked. I understand why; it’s unnecessary to the opinion’s argument. If, as a matter of law, the tariffs are invalid, it doesn’t matter whether they were imposed sensibly or capriciously. The paragraph is, in a word, gratuitous, something that can rarely be said about a passage in a Roberts opinion. So what is it doing there?
The answer, I think, is that the chief justice is sending a message not necessarily or not only to Mr. Trump but also to the waiting world. Something along the lines of, “People, this is what we’re dealing with.” The point being not that “some fertilizers” are now exempt from reciprocal tariffs but that a reckless president is sowing chaos in America and around the globe.
Greenhouse didn’t stop there in her search for signs of exasperation from the Chief Justice.
After noting how often Roberts sided with Trump in those Shadow Docket rulings that Vladeck raised, Greenhouse suggests that the Christmas Eve decision ruling that Trump could not deploy the National Guard before first exhausting efforts to use the regular military marked a turning point for Roberts in his patience with Trump.
Something different happened in late December when the justices denied the administration’s request for a stay of a district-court decision barring its use of the National Guard in Illinois. The order was unsigned, with Justices Samuel Alito, Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas dissenting. The three-page order essentially made new law by narrowly defining the circumstances under which a president could federalize a state’s National Guard.
This was a very big deal. The president promptly acceded to the order, removing the federalized Guard from Los Angeles and Portland, Ore., as well as Chicago. Yet the court’s action, coming on the day before Christmas Eve, received far less attention than the tariff case. In discussions about the court today, few people even seem to remember it. It is as if the view of the court as the administration’s lackey was so entrenched that evidence to the contrary was too discordant to be fully absorbed.
See, I think that ruling is the opposite of what Greenhouse claims is happening. Before Marty Lederman submitted an amicus brief noting that everyone was reading the law wrong, SCOTUS was facing a very difficult decision: what to do about the fact that Trump’s claimed need to invade Chicago was based on a pack of lies designed to cover up for overt animus towards Chicago and JB Pritzker, what to do about the fact that the conditions Trump claimed existed in Oregon that justified that invasion (as Trump-appointed judge Karin Immergut ruled) required “ignoring the facts on the ground.” While the SCOTUS ruling was primarily focused on Chicago, the latter is of particular import given that Trump’s invasion of Portland relied on propaganda aired on Fox News, a cognitive weakness all six GOP justices are prone to sharing.
So instead of ruling that in Los Angeles and Oregon and Chicago and Minnesota — to increasing degrees with each iteration — Trump was just making shit up to excuse the armed invasion of blue cities (which is effectively what the District findings were in Oregon and Chicago), SCOTUS instead took the easy way out, agreeing with Lederman that everyone had been reading the law wrong.
We have no way of knowing what the result would have been if Lederman hadn’t offered that easy out, but I’m pretty doubtful there would have been six votes against Trump.
Moreover, I think Greenhouse is wrong that Roberts just inserted this gratuitous paragraph about what a nutball Trump is. The paragraph Greenhouse cites is invoked later, five paragraphs into Roberts’ reliance on Major Questions Doctrine, in a section the Democratic Justices did not join.
What common sense suggests, congressional practice confirms. When Congress has delegated its tariff powers, it has done so in explicit terms, and subject to strict limits. Congress has consistently used words like “duty” in statutes delegating authority to impose tariffs. (A customs “duty” is simply “the federal tax levied on goods shipped into the United States.” Black’s Law Dictionary 638 (12th ed. 2024).) See, e.g., 19 U. S. C. §1338(d) (“rates of duty”); §2132(a) (“temporary import surcharge . . . in the form of duties”); §2253(a)(3)(A) (“duty on the imported article”); §2411(c)(1)(B) (“duties or other import restrictions”). It has capped the amount and duration of tariffs. See, e.g., §1338(d) (50% cap); §2132(a) (15% cap, 150-day time limit); §2253(e) (50% cap, phasedown requirement after one year). And it has conditioned exercise of the tariff power on demanding procedural prerequisites. See, e.g., §2252 (investigation by the United States International Trade Commission, public hearings, report of findings and recommendation); §§2411–2414 (investigation by the United States Trade Representative, consultation with relevant country and interested parties, publication of findings).2
Against this backdrop of clear and limited delegations, the Government reads IEEPA to give the President power to unilaterally impose unbounded tariffs. On this reading, moreover, the President is unconstrained by the significant procedural limitations in other tariff statutes and free to issue a dizzying array of modifications at will. See supra, at 3. All it takes to unlock that extraordinary power is a Presidential declaration of emergency, which the Government asserts is unreviewable. Brief for Federal Parties 42. And the only way of restraining the exercise of that power is a veto-proof majority in Congress. See 50 U. S. C. §1622(a)(1) (requiring a “joint resolution” “enacted into law” to terminate a national emergency). That view, if credited, would “represent[] a ‘transformative expansion’” of the President’s authority over tariff policy, West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 724 (quoting Utility Air, 573 U. S., at 324), and indeed—as demonstrated by the exercise of that authority in this case—over the broader economy as well. See Congressional Budget Office, CBO’s Current View of the Economy From 2025 to 2028, p. 5 (Sept. 2025); Brief for Federal Parties 2–3. It would replace the longstanding executive-legislative collaboration over trade policy with unchecked Presidential policymaking. See CRS, Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) and the Role of Congress in Trade Policy (2015). Congress seldom effects such sea changes through “vague language.” West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 724.
2The same is true of Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, 76 Stat. 877, which we have held authorizes sector-specific import “license fee[s].” Federal Energy Administration v. Algonquin SNG, Inc., 426 U. S. 548, 571 (1976). Section 232(a) expressly references “duties.” 19 U. S. C. §1862(a); see infra, at 19. And Section 232(c) authorizes the President to “adjust the imports” of an “article,” §1862(c), but only after the Secretary of Commerce, in consultation with the Secretary of Defense, conducts an investigation and prepares a report finding that the “article is being imported into the United States in such quantities or under such circumstances as to threaten to impair the national security,” §1862(b).
Rather than a throwaway comment, as Greenhouse portrays it, Roberts does rely on the paragraph, not to argue that Trump’s decisions about US trade deficits are bullshit and therefore invalid, but that Trump can’t rely on bullshit arguments if Congress or the Constitution hasn’t told him he could. The binding ruling says the tariffs are unlawful because Congress didn’t give Trump this power; Roberts says the tariffs are unlawful because Congress didn’t give Trump the power to act capriciously with tariffs.
But under Roberts’ ruling, the transparently false claims Trump made to justify tariffs — that America’s trade deficit in goods is an emergency or that tariffs will fix that trade deficit, both arguments made by plaintiffs along the way — seemingly would have been totally cool if they came in service of some inherent Executive authority or something this court has rashly decided is inherent, like the power to prosecute Trump’s enemies.
So I don’t so much agree with Greenhouse. Roberts may be observing that the President is an unhinged nut, but he’s not ruling based on that. More troubling, to get to the Shadow Docket decisions he is joining in, Roberts is, more often than not, ignoring the factual findings of the District Judges whose job it is to assess not just the law, but the bullshit paraded in front of them, and by ignoring those District Judges, the right wing majority is often ignoring that Trump is making shit up to excuse his policies.
In interpreting Roberts’ description of Trump’s chaos as exasperation, Greenhouse imagines it is his way of representing the whole of the judiciary, including those District Judges working hard to wade through Trump’s bullshit.
It’s worth remembering that Chief Justice Roberts is the head of the entire judicial branch. It is in that capacity that his vexation with Mr. Trump verges on acute concern. The president has denounced judges who have ruled against him, including by calling for a Federal District Court judge’s impeachment. Mr. Trump has helped create an atmosphere in which judges appropriately fear for their personal safety and that of their families. Many people expected the chief justice to address this issue directly in his year-end report in December, but he did not. In two decades as the nation’s top jurist, he has at times spoken directly in defense of the judiciary, as in his 2024 report. But these occasions have been infrequent, as if the only messages this notably self-possessed and buttoned-down man cares to send are those his opinions deliver.
Noted.
It’s a charitable interpretation.
But we’ll know John Roberts is exasperated with Trump’s bullshit when he starts affirming the judgment of District Judges who call out the bullshit as such.
As Georgia Fort and Don Lemon’s attorneys catalogued two weeks ago, all over the country, Magistrate and District Judges are ruling that Trump’s DOJ has squandered any presumption of regularity.
A page reviewing the treatment of Chief Judge Schiltz and the misconduct of Trump, Bondi, Blanche, and Harmeet The ruling that MN had rebutted the FBI’s presumption of regularity in the wake of the Alex Pretti murder and Schiltz’s ruling cataloging all the rulings ICE ignored Four more MN judges’ rulings that the government has ignored rules A 2-page footnote replicating the list of orders identified in this Paul Friedman opinion An Oregon opinion rejecting one of Harmeet’s efforts to obtain state voting records William Fitzpatrick’s order granting Jim Comey access to his grand jury transcripts A Zia Faruqui order complaining about Jeanine Pirro’s gaming of Federal and Superior grand juries in DC
That flood of judgements has not stopped. Yesterday, Zahid Quraishi observed that “The government knows” that “its detentions are illegal,” citing the US Attorney’s confession to blowing off 72 orders earlier this month.
Also yesterday, MN Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz reiterated his count of the orders that MN AUSAs (and the Special AUSAs they’ve brought in to backstop the ethical lawyers who’ve left) have defied, cataloging the 97 past orders defied as well as 113 new ones before threatening criminal contempt to enforce court orders.
The Court is not aware of another occasion in the history of the United States in which a federal court has had to threaten contempt—again and again and again—to force the United States government to comply with court orders.
This Court will continue to do whatever is required to protect the rule of law, including, if necessary, moving to the use of criminal contempt.
Roberts assuredly has not yet exhibited the exasperation expressed by all those District Judges shoveling Trump’s bullshit. But perhaps Trump’s reimposition of tariffs, within hours after SCOTUS ruled will tip the balance. Perhaps Trump’s open disdain for the ruling at the SOTU will do so.
Whatever the tariff ruling did, on a topic on which Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett are ideologically inclined to rule against the President, it stopped well short of treating this exasperating President as the bullshit-peddler he has increasingly become.
But Chief Justice Roberts may one day before forced to adopt the exasperation of the lower court judges.
Global News
Meidas Defense Podcast, What will happen if Trump directs our military to strike Iran? Joe Plenzler, co-host of Meidas Defense, Feb 27, 2026. Meidas Defense recently sat down with one of our nation’s leading experts on Iran - the Washington Post’s former Tehran bureau chief, Jason Rezaian, shown below at right. Jason literally knows the Iranian government inside and out, as he was held prisoner there by the regime for 544 days. Here, he provides his deep insight into the brewing conflict and its potential impacts on the region, Europe, and the US. This is what I learned.
The waters off Iran are once again churning with the wake of American carrier strike groups. As the “war clouds” gather, the United States finds itself teetering on the edge of a familiar, bloody precipice. But as Jason Rezaian
—who spent 18 months in the bowels of Evin Prison—rightly points out, the greatest threat to American interests and Iranian lives isn’t a lack of firepower; it’s a profound, persistent deficit of strategy.
The current crisis is a two-track tragedy. On one hand, the Islamic Republic remains the “granddaddy of state-sponsored terror,” a regime that has refined the art of asymmetrical warfare and hostage-taking since 1979. On the other hand, the regime is currently overseeing a domestic massacre, having recently slaughtered thousands of its own citizens who rose up against economic ruin and systemic repression. President Trump urged Iranian civilians to protest and then did nothing as they were massacred by the thousands.
We are at a crossroads where “kinetic action”—the military’s preferred euphemism for a bombing campaign—feels like an easy answer to a complex question. However, we must resist the urge to believe we can shoot our way to a stable outcome. As we learned at the cost of 7,091 American dead and more than 53,000 wounded servicemembers in Iraq and Afghanistan (and $6 trillion blown), it is remarkably easy to break a government and exceptionally difficult to rebuild a country.The Intelligence Gap
Despite Iran being a “top three” national security challenge for decades, our understanding of its internal power structures remains dangerously thin. We lack diplomatic relations, and more importantly, we lack “touch points” with the Iranian people. The State Department and the Pentagon have chronically under-resourced their Iran desks - lacking the very expertise required to navigate a post-Islamic Republic transition.
We have a massive, educated, and wealthy Iranian diaspora—many of whom travel back and forth frequently—yet the U.S. government has failed to create a space where this human capital can be harnessed without the fear of being “pigeonholed” by political optics.The Cost of Insufficient Diplomacy
Perhaps the most damaging aspect of our current approach is the erosion of trust. For decades, the Iranian public has been perhaps the most reliably pro-American population in the Middle East, harboring a deep fascination with American culture and ideals. Yet, time and again, Washington has played the role of Lucy with the football—urging Iranians to rise up, promising support, and then standing by as they are mowed down by the Revolutionary Guard.
If we ask the Iranian people to risk everything for a “rules-based system,” we must be prepared to offer more than just rhetoric. Supporting civil society means:
Ensuring Internet Connectivity: In 2026, there is no excuse for allowing the regime to conduct massacres under the cover of a digital blackout.
Easing Visas for Dissidents: We must provide a legitimate path for those fighting for democracy to find refuge and contribute to the dialogue.
Planning for Succession: With the Supreme Leader now 86, the system faces an inevitable succession crisis. We need “game theory” and modeling for those outcomes now, not after the fact.
Conclusion
The Islamic Republic is a sinking ship, but a sinking ship can still cause a massive undertow. If the regime feels an existential threat, we can expect “mass havoc”—from swarmed drones in the Straits of Hormuz to cyber-attacks on our power grids.
The best outcome is an Iran freed from theocratic ideologues and allowed to flourish as a center of civilization. But we will not reach that end state through military action alone. We need a combination of pressure and sophisticated engagement that forces Iran to play by “big boy rules” while authentically backing the people who will actually have to live there when the smoke clears.
What can you do?
Democracy isn’t a spectator sport, and Congress is supposed to work for you, not the wealthy donors, corporations, and special interest groups who line their pockets. Let your members of Congress know your thoughts. Find your elected officials here.
Joe Plenzler is a combat-decorated U.S. Marine Corps veteran, communication expert, entrepreneur, and co-host of the Meidas Defense Podcast.
New York Times, How a Call From Trump Ignited a Bitter Feud Between Two U.S. Allies, Vivian Nereim, Feb. 27, 2026. A request made to President Trump about the war in Sudan (shown above) is at the heart of a diplomatic dispute between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Behind the scenes, tensions had simmered for years between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two powerful U.S. allies. It took a call from President Trump to bring those tensions crashing into the open.
In November, Mr. Trump called the Emirati president, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, to discuss a private conversation he had with Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, according to four people briefed on the call by Emirati officials.
The American president relayed that the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, had asked him to impose sanctions on the Emirates during a visit to the White House that month, the four people said. They said the sanctions were over the Emirati government’s support for an armed group fighting in Sudan’s civil war.
A Saudi official offered a different account, saying that Prince Mohammed had asked Mr. Trump to place additional sanctions on the Sudanese armed group to prevent it from getting external support, not to impose measures on the Emirates directly. The Saudi leadership made the request because it believed that if the Emirati government backed down, the war in Sudan would end, according to the official.
A U.S. official said that Prince Mohammed never asked President Trump to impose sanctions on the Emirates, but did not comment on the call.
While the details are in dispute, the fallout is not. Soon after Mr. Trump’s call, latent tensions between the Saudi and Emirati governments erupted into a public feud.
The information relayed by Mr. Trump infuriated senior Emirati officials, who felt betrayed by Saudi Arabia, once one of their closest allies, the four people briefed on the conversation said. Relations rapidly deteriorated, hitting a nadir in December when Saudi Arabia bombed an Emirati shipment to Yemen.
The discord between the two neighbors, both oil-rich countries that have cultivated vast global influence, has far-reaching consequences, with the potential to move markets and exacerbate wars. Their competition for dominance in the region has already reshaped the future of Yemen and threatens to worsen conflicts in the Horn of Africa, where the two powers have situated themselves on opposing sides in multiple countries.
New York Times, U.S. Says Staff Can Leave Israel, Urging Speed, as Possible Iran Strike Looms, Natan Odenheimer and David M. Halbfinger, Feb. 27, 2026. In an email to embassy workers Friday morning, Ambassador Mike Huckabee warned them that if they wanted to leave Israel, they “should do so TODAY.”
With the threat of a U.S. strike on Iran looming, the United States embassy in Jerusalem has told its workers that they may leave Israel and warned them that if they want to, it is vital that they do so immediately.
The directive came from Ambassador Mike Huckabee in an email to embassy workers at the U.S. mission on Friday, a copy of which was reviewed by The New York Times.
The move followed meetings and phone calls through the night, Mr. Huckabee wrote in the email, which made no explicit mention of Iran. He said it resulted from “an abundance of caution” and conversations with the State Department in which officials agreed that the safety of embassy staff was a priority.
Those wishing to leave “should do so TODAY,” Mr. Huckabee continued, urging them to find a flight out of Ben-Gurion Airport to any destination for which they could book passage.
The embassy’s move “will likely result in high demand for airline seats today,” he said in the email. “Focus on getting a seat to anyplace from which you can then continue travel to DC, but the first priority will be getting expeditiously out of country.”Want to stay updated on what’s happening in Iran and Israel? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update, and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.
He added that while there might be more outbound flights in the coming days, there also might not be.
Already, KLM, the Dutch airline, has suspended service to Israel, citing “commercial and operational considerations.”
The email was verified by three people with knowledge of the matter.
Israel is a likely target for retaliation by Iran or its allies if it is attacked by the United States.
In the email, Mr. Huckabee told embassy employees that the mission had shifted to an “authorized departure” footing as of 10 a.m. Friday. That allows nonessential personnel and their dependents to evacuate at the government’s expense when “U.S. national interests or imminent threat to life requires it,” according to State Department regulationsMr. Huckabee told embassy workers that he would hold a town-hall meeting to provide additional information at 12:30 p.m.
“There is no need to panic,” Mr. Huckabee wrote, “but for those desiring to leave, it’s important to make plans to depart sooner rather than later.”
Iran and the United States concluded a six-hour round of talks in Geneva on Thursday with neither a diplomatic breakthrough nor an impasse on American demands that Tehran completely dismantle its nuclear program.
Iranian officials and Omani mediators said the two sides had agreed to continue talking next week in an effort to avert war. But it was notable that the two American negotiators, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, remained silent about the current status of negotiations, with the White House declining to comment.
New York Times, Amid Rhetoric About Rupture With U.S., Finland Urges Calm, Steven Erlanger, Feb. 27, 2026. “We don’t need a bulldozer,” says Alexander Stubb, Finland’s president and a golf partner of President Trump. “Reform doesn’t mean destruction.”
Alexander Stubb, fitness buff and decent golfer, looks younger than his 57 years. President of Finland since March 2024, he has tried to be an interlocutor between President Trump and Europe. As a new member of NATO, Finland is still figuring out its place in the alliance. But as a golfer, Mr. Stubb has built an odd but important relationship with a president who spends an enormous amount of time on his own links.
Mr. Stubb urges calm even as rhetoric has grown high among European and NATO leaders about the failings of the trans-Atlantic relationship under Mr. Trump.
The mood became even more fraught after Mr. Trump’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, which again pressed his intention to seize Greenland whether Denmark, a NATO ally, liked it or not.
After that speech, Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada won plaudits when he spoke of “a rupture” in traditional Western relations. For Mr. Stubb, rupture means complete disorder, he said in an interview in February at the Munich Security Conference — and that is a dangerous prospect as the West faces a militarized Russia, a war in Europe and a rising China.
“We don’t need to use the bulldozer here,” Mr. Stubb said. “The difference between Mark and me is he talks about a rupture and I talk about a transition, because I don’t think we should throw the baby out with the bath water.”
New York Times, Pakistan Strikes Afghanistan in ‘Open War’ Against Taliban Government, Elian Peltier, Safiullah Padshah and Zia ur-Rehman, Updated Feb. 27, 2026. The airstrikes came hours after Afghan troops had attacked Pakistani border positions and follow months of worsening relations between the neighboring countries.
Pakistan and Afghanistan engaged in their fiercest clashes in years on Friday, according to officials from both nations, escalating months of tension and border skirmishes into an open conflict. Afghan troops stormed dozens of Pakistani border positions and Pakistan responded with a wave of airstrikes targeting major cities and military hubs.
Beyond Kabul, home to six million people, the strikes hit the southern city of Kandahar — where the Taliban’s supreme leader, Sheikh Haibatullah Akhundzada, lives — and four border provinces, according to Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the Pakistani military spokesman.
“That’s what has been done so far,” General Sharif said at a news briefing on Friday. “This is continuing.”
Pakistan launched strikes on more than 20 locations, General Sharif said, hours after Afghan troops had attacked more than 50 Pakistani border positions. Afghan officials described that assault as retaliation for Pakistani strikes earlier in the week.
“Our operation last night was a retaliatory operation and a response to Pakistan’s operation, not an attack to start a war against Pakistan,” Zabiullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, said at a news conference in Kandahar on Friday.Where Pakistan struck in Afghanistan’s two largest cities
Pakistani officials said Pakistan also struck four border provinces in Afghanistan.
But Pakistani officials showed no willingness to stop the most expansive fighting in years.
“Our cup of patience has overflowed,” Pakistan’s defense minister, Khawaja Asif, said on social media. “Now it is open war between us and you.”
The fighting comes as both countries have been bracing for the fallout on trade and the movement of people from potential U.S. military strikes in neighboring Iran, adding yet another layer of uncertainty in an area already on edge.
U.S. Jobs, Markets, Economy, Inflation
Block Co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey (Joe Raedel photo via Getty Images).
CNBC, TechOpinion: Block’s layoffs might just be the biggest story of a tumultuous week. Here’s why, Steve Sedgwick, Feb. 27 2026. Block, Jack Dorsey’s payments company, will cut 4,000 of its 10,000 workers as it embraces AI. CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick says it’s “time we got better answers” to questions about what jobs the technology is going to create. “The news from a medium-sized tech payments company might have longer term tremors and be a warning of societal upheaval far greater than other stories of the week.”
Block shares pop more than 20%, announces plan to reduce workforce by almost halfwatch nowVIDEO01:00Block shares pop more than 20%, announces plan to reduce workforce by almost half
In a week where the News Gods have given us a cornucopia of stories, it’s a fool’s game to pick out the biggest one.
Was it Trump’s extraordinary State of The Union? The phenomenal Nvidia results that failed to answer questions over whether the enormous hyperscaler splurge will result in significant profits further down the line? The rising tensions between Iran and the U.S.?
Let me play the fool for a moment, because I think the news from a medium-sized tech payments company might have longer term tremors and be a warning of societal upheaval far greater than other stories of the week.
Block, a $33 billion company, surged in extended trading on Thursday after cofounder and CEO Jack Dorsey, best known for cofounding Twitter, told the market he is laying off nearly half his workforce.
He wrote to shareholders that 4,000 of the 10,000 were “being asked to leave or entering into consultation” to leave. Again: That is nearly half his workforce!
Block CFO Amrita Ahuja said the job cuts would position the company “for our next phase of long term growth.”
“We are choosing to shift how we operate at a time when our business is accelerating and we see an opportunity to move faster with smaller, highly talented teams using AI to automate more work,” Ahuja wrote.
Job cuts happen all the time, but what Dorsey had to say should be a wake-up call for everyone.
He said he expects other companies to similarly overhaul their workforces as they see more efficiency gains from “intelligence tools.”
Let that sink in: Dorsey expects other companies to similarly overhaul their workforces as they see more efficiency gains from “intelligence tools.”
“Within the next year, I believe the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion and make similar structural changes,” he wrote.
Do the math: 10,000 jobs to just under 6,000 replicated across industries across the nation, across the world.
So a new, growth company, not an old economy business, has just said companies will cut huge swathes of their workforces as new intelligence tools become diffuse.
I keep getting told on CNBC that AI will create new jobs to replace those being lost. I’ve been asking the same question for years now. “What are those jobs? Where are the mass of jobs for the millions whose roles are set to be made redundant?”
And I hear the same old trope every time – “oh those jobs haven’t been created yet.”
U.S. Media, Power Concentrations, Antitrust Policy
Media mogul Larry Ellison (New York Times photo).
New York Times, Tech, TV, Movies and News: Ellisons on Brink of Colossal Empire, John Koblin and Brooks Barnes, Feb. 27, 2026. If Paramount can close its deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, Larry and David Ellison will influence nearly every corner of news, entertainment and tech.
As little as a year ago, Larry Ellison, at 80 years old, appeared to be winding down his long career as a tech mogul. And his son David Ellison owned a lone Hollywood company, and a rather minuscule one at that: Skydance Media.
But now the two are on the brink of overseeing an empire that touches nearly every corner of news, entertainment and tech.
If the Ellisons close their deal to fold Warner Bros. Discovery into what is now Paramount Skydance, as they are poised to do after Netflix abandoned its bid on Thursday night, the family will control companies as powerful and varied as CBS, Oracle, CNN, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures and HBO.
Add in Oracle’s recent 15 percent stake in the venture that controls the American arm of TikTok, and their holdings would rival those of the Murdoch family at the height of its powers. In the 2000s and 2010s, the patriarch, Rupert, oversaw a major Hollywood studio, the Fox broadcast network, Fox News, the FX cable network, The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal and the Sky satellite television service in Europe.
Even without TikTok and Oracle, the Ellisons will have assembled a collection of Hollywood properties that, while smaller, puts them in the orbit of superpowers like Disney.
Here is a look at what the Ellisons could control if Paramount Skydance — formed when Skydance merged with Paramount in August 2025 — ultimately closes on its deal for Warner Bros. Discovery:
Oracle
The $430 billion database software giant is main source of Larry Ellison’s fortune of about $175 billion. The company, which he founded, works closely with major companies, including OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, on data centers that can run and deliver its technology to consumers. Mr. Ellison serves as Oracle’s executive chairman and chief technology officer. The company had $58 billion in revenue last year, a 9 percent increase from 2024.
TikTok
As of last month, Oracle controls 15 percent of the joint venture that operates TikTok, the enormously popular video app, in the United States. Oracle’s stake is as high as that of any of the other investors, which include Silver Lake, an investment company, and MGX, an Emirati investment firm. The venture has licensed the app’s powerful recommendation algorithm from ByteDance, and it will also have the ability to moderate content in America.
CBS
Even in the diminished state of broadcast television, CBS, which the Ellisons took over with the Paramount deal last year, remains a powerful 
weapon. The network owns marquee sports rights to the N.F.L., the N.C.A.A. basketball tournament and the Masters golf tournament. With prime-time hits like “Tracker,” “Survivor” and “Matlock,” the so-called Tiffany Network has ranked No. 1 among the broadcast networks for years. David Ellison has publicly called it “a remarkable asset.”
CBS News
The Ellisons promised major changes to CBS News, one of the country’s most decorated news organizations, after they purchased Paramount last 
year. “60 Minutes” and “CBS Sunday Morning” remain among the most popular TV series in broadcast news. In October, David Ellison hired Bari Weiss, a critic of traditional news companies, as its top editor. She has since appointed a new “CBS Evening News” anchor, Tony Dokoupil, who has gotten off to a bumpy start, and she postponed a “60 Minutes” report that was critical of the Trump administration, drawing accusations of political interference.MoviesImageA white water tower bearing the WB logo of Warner Bros. rises at the far end of a street between studio buildings.Warner Bros. Discovery had initially agreed to sell most of its business to Netflix.Credit...Philip Cheung for The New York Times
HBO Max
Simply: HBO remains the crown jewel of premium television. The network, owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, has won the best 
drama award at the Emmys eight times in the last decade, dominating well-heeled rivals like Netflix, Apple and Amazon. The network has been on a roll lately, with a surprise hit medical drama, “The Pitt,” as well as its latest “Game of Thrones” spinoff, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.” HBO is led by long-tenured executives, including its chairman Casey Bloys. Add in one of the most enviable premium libraries in TV — “The Sopranos,” “Sex and the City,” “Veep,” “The Wire” — and another surprise in “Heated Rivalry,” a show HBO Max licensed from Canada for very little money, and it will be a boon for the Ellisons.Cable Networks
Cable viewership and revenues have plummeted, but the Ellisons are betting they can wring some life out of them. Paramount Skydance already owns MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and BET. Coming with the Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition: HGTV, the Food Network, Discovery, TLC, Adult Swim, Turner Classic Movies, Cartoon Network, TBS and TNT.
Paramount Pictures
Hollywood’s fourth-place movie studio in 2025, with roughly $565 million in domestic ticket sales, according to Comscore, which compiles box office data. Paramount has struggled to compete in a franchise-focused movie business; most of its big properties, including “Mission: Impossible,” “Star Trek” and “Transformers,” have been overworked and need reinvigorating. Paramount’s library includes more than 4,000 films, including “Top Gun,” “The Godfather” and “Grease.” The 65-acre Paramount lot has some of Hollywood’s biggest soundstages and production facilities, including a 900,000-gallon water tank for aquatic scenes.
Paramount+
After taking over Paramount, Mr. Ellison promptly enlisted Cindy Holland, one of the key architects of Netflix’s original programming strategy, as the head of Paramount+, which has 79 million subscribers. Paramount+ is home to Taylor Sheridan’s “Landman,” “Tulsa King,” “1923” and “Lioness” dramas, as well as the U.F.C. and the “Star Trek” universe. Paramount has rights to Mr. Sheridan’s future TV output through the end of 2028.
CNN
The self-branded “worldwide leader in news” may have diminished ratings and declining revenue, but it remains a hugely influential news source with a very big newsroom. The network, owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, has more than 3,000 employees worldwide, and a strong bench of talent that includes Anderson Cooper, Jake Tapper, Kaitlan Collins and John King.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. is Hollywood’s second-biggest trove of movie properties after Disney. Its franchises include “Harry Potter,” “Batman,” “The Conjuring” and “The Lord of the Rings.” Warner Bros. also owns cartoon characters like Scooby-Doo, the Flintstones and Bugs Bunny. The studio’s library contains more than 10,000 movies, including “Casablanca.” (Through an acquisition in the 1990s, Warner’s library also includes other classic films like “The Wizard of Oz” and “Gone With the Wind.”) The 110-acre Warner lot in Burbank, Calif., has more than 30 soundstages.
More On Epstein Files, Cover-up
Vicky Ward Investigates, A Question Congress Must Put To Bill Clinton: Why Did His Aide Work To Discredit The Farmer Sisters? Vicky Ward, Feb 27, 2026 Jim Kennedy, A Clinton Aide, Worked With Epstein And Maxwell To Remove The Sisters And Their Allegations From My 2003 Vanity Fair Article. Why?
Today Bill Clinton is answering questions about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, Unlike yesterday’s farcical hearing with Hillary Clinton, which she rightly turned into an own goal for the Republicans, given that she’d never met Epstein, this hearing matters.
Clinton has insight into how both Epstein and Maxwell wormed their way into the lives of the global elite, which wound up protecting him (consciously or not) from facing justice for decades. He needs to be pressed on all aspects of his relationship with both Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell - because, based on my reporting, he was closer to the latter than the former.
However, there’s one new aspect of their relationship that is bothering me: the role of a Clinton aide, Jim Kennedy, in discrediting the Farmer sisters (and me).
I had never heard of Kennedy until a few weeks ago.
But I have discovered that in 2002, when Epstein went behind my back to my then boss Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, the person advising him and Maxwell on strategy, and even composing “letters’ to me and the magazine was Jim Kennedy, a former aide to Clinton’s White House Counsel, who went on to work for the Clinton Foundation. I had never heard of Kennedy until a few weeks ago.
But I have discovered that in 2002, when Epstein went behind my back to my then boss Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, the person advising him and Maxwell on strategy, and even composing “letters’ to me and the magazine was Jim Kennedy, a former aide to Clinton’s White House Counsel, who went on to work for the Clinton Foundation.
WTF? It appears from the above email it was Kennedy who drafted the letter below, then sent to me and to Vanity Fair. I don’t know if I ever received the “revision” mentioned in Maxwell’s email to him. But I do know that it was after the magazine received all these and after Epstein visited Graydon Carter in his office, that the Farmer sisters were dropped. (And, incidentally, I found this note from Epstein to Carter in the files alluding to that meeting and the photographs he provided for the article).
AllenEuropa Press/Rick Friedman/Rick Friedman Photography/Corbis/
The Daily Beast, CelebrityHollywood Legend’s Key Role in Epstein’s Sick Scheme Exposed, Eboni Boykin-Patterson, Feb. 27, 2026. “Anything for you,” the filmmaker’s wife wrote in response to one of Epstein’s many requests.
Jeffrey Epstein regularly touted his relationship with Woody Allen with young women, and leveraged the connection to secure them spots in his films, according to emails included in the Justice Department’s Epstein files.
New York Magazine’s The Cut combed the emails to determine how many Woody Allen films Jeffrey Epstein helped cast on Friday. The deep dive uncovered that Epstein had supplied “assistants”—a term he used to describe the young women in his orbit—to Allen for various films in which they appeared as extras or background actors.
The Daily Beast has reached out to Allen’s representative for comment
The emails reveal how Epstein used powerful connections to aid his search for “girls,” like in 2012, when he emailed a modeling agency owner whose name was redacted, “I’m with Woody Allen and [he is] looking for beautiful girls to cast. Any ideas?”
They also disclose intimate details of Epstein’s relationships with Allen and his wife of over 28 years, Soon-Yi Previn, including their lavish favor exchanges.
Among the favors Epstein did for the couple, as described in the email exchanges, included helping to get their daughter into Bard College in 2017, and a major donation made in their other daughter’s name to her elite New York City prep school.
Epstein had specific requests for his “assistants” in return, involving casting in Allen’s films.Woody Allen and Soon-Yi Previn AllenWoody Allen and Soon-Yi Previn Allen maintained a close relationship with the convicted pedophile. Bruce Glikas/Bruce Glikas/WireImage
In 2014, Epstein requested a set visit to the filming of Allen’s Irrational Man, which stars Emma Stone and Joaquin Phoenix. He also wanted background roles for three of his “assistants,” the emails revealed. Their ages ranged “between the ages of 21 and 26,” Epstein wrote. The site reports that a person closely resembling one woman whose name is not redacted appears in the film during a classroom scene, seated close to Stone.
Epstein’s requests became more frequent over time.
In 2016, he emailed Previn, “If Woody is filming on the beach, could some of the assistants be extras?” and added, “I would find that amusing, only if not a pain.”
Previn wrote back that she would ask Allen, as he hadn’t even cast the film’s leads. “Nice to know that he has extras :-),” she wrote at the time.
According to The Cut, Allen appears to have made the request happen. Months later, Epstein’s executive assistant Lesley Groff would “help coordinate getting the ladies as extras” on Allen’s 2017 Kate Winslet-starrer Wonder Wheel. Emails revealed that Epstein’s aide sent his “girls” the details for a September shoot at Ruby’s Bar and Grill on the Coney Island boardwalk.
It wasn’t just women that Epstein lobbied for Allen to include in his films. Epstein texted Allen to push for their mutual buddy, comedian Bobby Slayton, to appear in Wonder Wheel as well.
“Bobby Slayton was here last night. He said your casting director contacted him??” Epstein wrote, to which Allen replied that he was “discussing that now with casting.” Slayton is credited as “Fishing Buddy” in the film.
But most of Epstein’s requests were for young women. At one point, he asked Previn whether she could connect an “assistant” of his with Allen’s casting director, Patricia DiCerto.
Previn replied, “Anything for you.”
In emails between Epstein and the young woman he’d put in touch with DiCerto, he told her, “Watch some porn, learn some new tricks,” before coming to his island.
Apparently, DiCerto failed to meet up with the young woman, prompting Epstein to follow up Previn, who expressed frustration that his requests were not heeded.
“This should have been taken care of a long time ago. He was assured that it was taken care of a long time ago,” Previn wrote back to Epstein.
“I just wanted her to be given some guidance. Nothing more,” he responded.
In 2017, Epstein wanted another young woman to be considered for Allen’s next project, 2019’s A Rainy Day in New York.
“Woodys casting director patricia will call,” Epstein promised the woman via email. But Epstein’s influence wasn’t strong enough to move the needle on the lead role, as he’d write to her weeks later, “Sorry, you would have had fun. He decided on Selena Gomez.”
New York Times, World Economic Forum Chief Resigns Over Epstein Ties, Amelia Nierenberg, Feb. 26, 2026. Borge Brende, a former foreign minister of Norway (shown above in a file photo), had maintained contact with the convicted sex offender.
Borge Brende, the chief executive and president of the World Economic Forum, said on Thursday that he would resign, after an independent investigation by the group into his ties to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
His resignation came less than a month after the release of the latest batch of files related to Mr. Epstein appeared to show that Mr. Brende, a former foreign minister of Norway, had stayed in contact with the disgraced American financier long after Mr. Epstein had been convicted of soliciting a minor for prostitution.
The forum, best known as the organizer of an annual summit for world leaders in Davos, Switzerland, said in a statement that the independent review had not found “additional concerns beyond what has been previously disclosed.”
Mr. Brende said that after “careful consideration,” he wanted the forum to continue its work “without distractions.”
“We respect his decision to step down,” the organization added, expressing its appreciation to Mr. Brende for his “instrumental” leadership over a “pivotal period of reforms.”
The forum was rocked last May after its board said it was opening an investigation into allegations of improper behavior by its founder, Klaus Schwab, who had stepped down as chair in April.
Mr. Brende is among several prominent Norwegians named in the documents released by the Justice Department in recent weeks, which exposed how Mr. Epstein had courted decision makers around the world.
In Britain, the Epstein files have shaken its monarchy and government. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, and Peter Mandelson, Britain’s former ambassador to Washington, have both been arrested over their ties to Mr. Epstein. Several other senior government officials have also resigned.
But few other countries have been as roiled by the disclosures as Norway, a wealthy, oil-producing nation.
This month, Thorbjorn Jagland, a former prime minister, was charged with “gross corruption” in connection with his ties to Mr. Epstein. The future queen, Crown Princess Mette-Marit, said she regretted “having had any contact with Epstein” after emails appeared to show a long, close relationship between them.
And the police are investigating a Norwegian diplomat, Mona Juul, and her husband, Terje Rod-Larsen, after media reports that the couple had been left $10 million in Mr. Epstein’s will. Ms. Juul, who had been Norway’s ambassador to Jordan and Iraq, quit.
The latest tranche of the files appears to show that Mr. Brende maintained a relationship with Mr. Epstein to at least mid-2019, just months before Mr. Epstein killed himself in a New York jail.
Mr. Brende had previously told Norway’s public broadcaster that he was “completely unaware of his criminal actions and past,” and that he never would have met Mr. Epstein “had I known.”
In March 2019, Mr. Epstein appears to have texted Mr. Brende a letter written by his lawyers that was published in The New York Times.
In the letter, the lawyers refer to Mr. Epstein’s previous conviction and say that “the number of young women involved in the investigation has been vastly exaggerated,” among other claims.
Mr. Brende appears to have replied with a thumbs-up emoji.
Feb. 26
Former First Lady, Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic nominee for President Hillary Clinton speaks to the media Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026, after she testified in a closed-door deposition to the House Oversight Committee in Chappaqua, N.Y. (Photo by David Dee Delgado via Getty Images).
Top Stories
New York Times, Judge Declines to Halt Construction on Trump’s East Wing Ballroom Project, Zach Montague, Feb. 26, 2026. A federal judge ruled that a lawsuit challenging the project needed to be revised before he could consider the larger questions it presented.
Investigative Commentary: Trump America's and Nazi Germany's ambassador corps share extremism, corruption, domestic meddling, and lunacy, Wayne Madsen, Feb. 26, 2026. Mike Huckabee, Charles Kushner, Peter Hoekstra, Otto Abetz, Ulrich von Hassell, and Hans-Heinrich Dieckhoff come out of the same fascist pod.In-Depth Investigaive Commentaries
The Obama administration failed to prosecute Bernie Madoff for criminal conspiracy because of the links to the CIA and Mossad that would have been exposed.
The Steady State, Democracy SITREP - Accelerating Authoritarian Dynamics: Assessment of Democratic Decline - A Periodic Update, StaffReport, Feb. 26, 2026. We assess with high confidence that the cumulative effect of the Trump Administration’s ongoing actions indicates that democratic backsliding continues. While some institutional resistance exists and may be growing, the trajectory poses both immediate and long-term risks to constitutional order and national security. More On Epstein Files, Cover-up
The fired former federal sex crime prosecutor Maureen Comey, top left, daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime Jeffrey Epstein co-conspirator whom the Trump Justice Department is coddling in a "Club Fed" mimum security facility after Maxwell told Departy Attorney General Todd Blance, former defense attorney for Donald Trump, that she could exonerate Trump from trafficking allegations if Trump bestowed clemendy freeing her from her convictions in the massive sex and financial scandal that has enveloped them.
right, Feb. 26, 2026. Over the last few days, most mainstream outlets (for example, NPR, NYT, CNN, WSJ) have covered a discovery that Roger Sollenberger first found: that the FBI interviewed a woman in 2019 who said she had been abused by Trump in the mid-1980s, but has withheld three of four interview reports with her from the Epstein file release. All that coverage has only now created enough pressure for DOJ (as reported by WSJ) to concede it may have to review how these files were withheld.
Popular Information, Accountability Journalism: The missing Epstein files, Judd Legum, right, Feb. 26, 2026. "We did not protect President Trump.”
Larry Summers will resign from Harvard amid Epstein fallout, Gregory Svirnovskiy, Feb. 26, 2026 (print ed.). “I will always be grateful to the thousands of students and colleagues I have been privileged to teach and work with,” he said.U.S. Legal Fights On Immigration, Vaccines, Tariffs
Mattathias Schwartz, Feb. 26, 2026 (print ed.). What We’re Covering Today.More Global News
New York Times, For Trump, Military Strike in Iran Could Serve Symbolic Purpose, Julian E. Barnes and Helene Cooper, Feb. 26, 2026, Some officials in the Trump administration hope an attack would force Iran to give up its nuclear enrichment program. Others have doubts.Israelis Are Waiting for War With Iran, Again, Aaron Boxerman, Feb. 26, 2026. The national mood is somewhere between anxiety, resignation and anticipation as President Trump considers whether to attack Iran.
Frances Robles, Feb. 26, 2026 (print ed.). Four people aboard a Florida-based speedboat died in a gunfight with Cuban border troops near the island nation’s coast, the Cuban Interior Ministry said.More On U.S. Elections, Politics, Governance
Feb. 26, 2026. Learn why Democrats are in better shape than you might think. Feb. 26, 2026. At last night’s State of the Union address, President Donald Trump went on offense, seeming to try to set the terms for the upcoming midterm elections.More On U.S. Courts, Law, Justice, Crime, Corruption, Rights
U.S. Markets, Economy, Jobs, Inflation
Feb. 26, 2026. Actually it was a Substack post, but the reaction was telling.More On Trump's State of the Union and Reactions
Top Stories
Former First Lady, Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic nominee for President Hillary Clinton speaks to the media Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026, after she testified in a closed-door deposition to the House Oversight Committee in Chappaqua, N.Y. (Photo by David Dee Delgado via Getty Images).
NBC News, Hillary Clinton told lawmakers during closed-door testimony that she 'never met Jeffrey Epstein,' Dareh Gregorian, Ryan Nobles, Kyle Stewart and Lizzie Jensen, Feb. 26, 2026. Former President Bill Clinton is scheduled to sit for a similar deposition Friday.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the House Oversight Committee during roughly six hours of testimony on Thursday that she has no new information about Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, and criticized Republicans' handling of their investigations into the late convicted sex offender.
"I had no idea about their criminal activities. I do not recall ever encountering Mr. Epstein. I never flew on his plane or visited his island home or offices," she said in the opening statement, which she posted on X and delivered during a closed-door hearing with lawmakers.
After the interview, Clinton told reporters she "answered every one of their questions as fully as I could," and those questions "were repetitive." The answers, she said, were that "I never met Jeffrey Epstein" and "I knew Ghislaine Maxwell casually, as an acquaintance."
"I don't know how many times I had to say I didn't know Jeffrey Epstein," she said, adding the session took an odd turn towards the end, when one of the members asked her about UFOs and the Pizzagate conspiracy theory.Image: Bill And Hillary Clinton Give Deposition To House Oversight Committee On Epstein ConnectionsFormer U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks to the press after testifying in a closed-door deposition with the House Oversight Committee at the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center on Thursday in Chappaqua, N.Y.David Dee Delgado / Getty Images
Committee chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., said the interview had been "productive." "I think we learned a lot," he said, adding that on some questions involving the Clinton Global Initiative, Clinton told lawmakers, "you have to ask my husband."
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., said Clinton "took every question from every single member" on both sides of the aisle.RecommendedWhite HouseNYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani makes housing pitch to Trump in second White House visit2026 ElectionUnions privately urge Chuck Schumer, Democratic leaders to stay out of Maine Senate primary
In her opening statement, Clinton accused the panel of engaging in partisan "fishing expeditions" by forcing her and her husband to sit for depositions, and said they are interviewing the wrong people.
"[Y]ou have compelled me to testify, fully aware that I have no knowledge that would assist your investigation, in order to distract attention from President [Donald] Trump's actions and cover them up despite legitimate calls for answers," she wrote in the statement.
"If this committee is serious about learning the truth about Epstein's trafficking crimes, it would not rely on press gaggles to get answers from our current president on his involvement; it would ask him directly under oath about the tens of thousands of times he shows up in the Epstein files," the statement said.
Trump has never been charged with any wrongdoing connected to Epstein and has denied any wrongdoing. The Clintons have also repeatedly denied wrongdoing related to Epstein and have not been accused of any crimes in connection with him.
Comer told reporters before the interview that "this isn’t a partisan witch hunt. This was a motion, a bipartisan motion, supported by the Democrats, to bring the Clintons in. So I don’t think it’s any type of being unfair in any way to the Clintons."
The interview, which will be videotaped, is taking place in Chappaqua, New York, where the Clintons have a house. The committee will meet with former President Bill Clinton on Friday for a similar deposition.
Comer said it was "going to be a long video and a long deposition," and the deposition of the former president will be "even longer."
A source familiar with the situation told NBC News that Thursday's questioning was briefly paused after conservative influencer Benny Johnson posted two pictures of Clinton during the questioning on social media that he said were shared with him by Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo. NBC News reached out to both sides of the committee for comment on the delay.
“Benny did nothing wrong. Proceeding with deposition,” Boebert tweeted a short time later.
The top Democrat on the panel, Rep. Robert Garcia of California, told reporters during a mid-afternoon break that what Boebert did was “completely against the rules” and there should be “repercussions.”
Clinton said afterwards that what happened was "very upsetting" because it suggested that Republicans might violate other rules that had been agreed upon. She said the session resumed after assurances there would not be any more incidents.
Speaking to reporters throughout the day, Democrats on the committee said they hoped that deposing the Clintons would open the door to deposing other prominent politicians named in the files, including Trump.
“This committee has now set a new precedent about talking to presidents and former presidents, and we’re demanding immediately that we ask President Trump to testify in front of our committee and be deposed in front of Oversight Republicans and Democrats," Garcia said. "And that should happen immediately."
The in-person interviews come after months of bitter back-and-forth between the former first couple and the committee, which at one point threatened to hold the Clintons in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a subpoena it issued in August.
Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein partying together at Mar-a-Lago, along with an artist's rendering of a birthday card that the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump sent Epstein in 2003 boasting of their shared secrets.
New York Times, Epstein Files Are Missing Records About Woman Who Made Claim Against Trump, Mike Baker and Michael Gold, Feb. 26, 2026 (print ed.). Documents released by the Justice Department briefly mention a woman’s unverified accusation that Donald J. Trump assaulted her in the 1980s, when she was a minor. But several memos related to her account are not in the files.Listen to this article · 8:03 min Learn more
The vast trove of documents released by the Justice Department from its investigations into the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein failed to include some key materials related to a woman who made an accusation against President Trump, according to a review by The New York Times.
The materials are F.B.I. memos summarizing interviews the bureau did in connection to claims made in 2019 by a woman who came forward after Mr. Epstein’s arrest to say she had been sexually assaulted by both Mr. Trump and the financier decades earlier, when she was a minor.
The existence of the memos was revealed in an index listing the investigative materials related to her account, which was publicly released. According to that index, the F.B.I. conducted four interviews in connection with her claims and wrote summaries about each one. But only one summary of the four interviews, which describes her accusations against Mr. Epstein, was released by the Justice Department. The other three are missing.
The public files also do not include the underlying interview notes, which the index also indicates are part of the file. The Justice Department released similar interview notes in connection to F.B.I. interviews with other potential witnesses and victims.
It is unclear why the materials are missing. The Justice Department said in a statement to The Times on Monday that “the only materials that have been withheld were either privileged or duplicates.” In a new statement on Tuesday, the department also noted that documents could have been withheld because of “an ongoing federal investigation.” Officials did not directly address why the memos related to the woman’s claim were not released.
The woman’s description of being assaulted by Mr. Trump in the 1980s is among a number of uncorroborated accusations against well-known men, including the president, that are contained in the millions of documents released by the Justice Department.
When the files were made public late last month, officials described the trove as including all material sent by the public to the F.B.I. “Some of the documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims against President Trump that were submitted to the F.B.I. right before the 2020 election,” the department said in a statement at the time, calling such claims “unfounded and false.”
Mr. Trump has repeatedly denied wrongdoing. In a statement on Tuesday, a White House spokeswoman, Abigail Jackson, said Mr. Trump had “been totally exonerated on anything relating to Epstein.”
A lawyer who previously represented the woman in a lawsuit against Mr. Epstein’s estate declined to comment.
The missing records deepen questions about how the Justice Department has handled the release of the Epstein files, which was mandated by a law signed by Mr. Trump last year after bipartisan congressional pressure.ImageTodd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, addressing reporters after the Justice Department released more Epstein files last month.Credit...J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press
Under the law, the Justice Department can redact material that could be used to identify Mr. Epstein’s victims, depicted violence or child sexual abuse, or would hurt a continuing federal investigation. But the law expressly prohibited federal officials from withholding or redacting materials “on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm or political sensitivity” to public figures.
Some lawmakers and survivors of Mr. Epstein’s abuse have strongly condemned the department for how it handled redactions, noting that details identifying some victims were left exposed and nude photographs of young women were included in the public release, while material related to claims of abuse by other men had been heavily redacted.
The woman who made the accusation about Mr. Trump came forward in July 2019, days after federal investigators arrested Mr. Epstein on sex-trafficking charges, according to records in the public files of tips the F.B.I. received during that period. She claimed that she had been repeatedly assaulted by Mr. Epstein when she was a minor in the 1980s, according to a summary of an F.B.I. interview with her on July 24, 2019.
The F.B.I. did three subsequent interviews to assess her account in August and October 2019 and made a summary of each interview, according to the index of records compiled in the case. But the memos describing those three interviews were not publicly released.
The public files do contain a 2025 description of her account, as well as other accusations against prominent men contained in the documents. In that 2025 memo, federal officials wrote that the woman had said that Mr. Epstein introduced her to Mr. Trump, and that she claimed Mr. Trump had assaulted her in a violent and lurid encounter. The documents say the alleged incident would have occurred in the mid-1980s when she was 13 to 15 years old, but they do not include any assessment by the F.B.I. about the credibility of her accusation.
The Times’s examination of a set of serial numbers on the individual pages in the public files suggests that more than 50 pages of investigative materials related to her claims are not in the publicly available files. The missing materials were reported earlier by the journalist Roger Sollenberger on Substack and by NPR.
Representative Robert Garcia of California, right, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said that when he reviewed unredacted versions of the Epstein files at the Justice Department on Monday, interview summaries related to the woman’s claim were also missing from that trove.
“Documents that are listed, which should be included, which are referenced in other documents, are not in the files,” Mr. Garcia said. He added that the Justice Department had also not provided them to the Oversight Committee, which issued a subpoena last year for all of the Justice Department’s investigative material regarding Mr. Epstein.
Mr. Garcia said the Justice Department had not provided a proper explanation for why the materials were missing. Democrats plan to open a separate investigation into why the documents are not available.
In the sole summary of the F.B.I. interview that was released, the woman told investigators that she did not know Mr. Epstein’s full identity until 2019, when a friend sent her a photograph of Mr. Epstein. She said she then recognized the person who she said had raped her.
The woman told the agents she still had the photo on her phone, and they noted that it was a widely distributed photo of Mr. Epstein and Mr. Trump, according to the document. She gave the agents permission to take a photograph of the image but asked them to crop out Mr. Trump. When asked why, her lawyer interjected that the woman “was concerned about implicating additional individuals, and specifically any that were well known, due to fear of retaliation,” according to the F.B.I. memo.
It is unclear exactly what F.B.I. agents learned about her claims related to Mr. Trump in their three subsequent interviews.
The woman spent most of the interview on July 24, 2019, describing in detail what she said were repeated violent assaults by Mr. Epstein that she had endured, as reported earlier by The Post and Courier. She said that as a teenager in South Carolina, she was asked to babysit at a house on Hilton Head Island. But after she arrived, there were no children to babysit, and only a man she came to know as Jeff who she said plied her with alcohol, marijuana and cocaine. She described him raping her on multiple occasions.
The woman joined a lawsuit later in 2019 against Mr. Epstein’s estate. She subsequently dropped her claim. Court records do not indicate if she received any financial settlement. A court record from 2021 said she was separately deemed ineligible for compensation from a fund set up for Epstein victims, but it did not specify why.
Donald Trump (shown above with Jeffrey Epstein) is willing to take the country with him as he descends further into dementia marked by increased narcissism coupled with a public realization of his documented pedophilic disorder. There is an increasing understanding in the upper echelons of Washington’s most austere institutions that given the choice of allowing Trump to take the country down with his own corrupt ship of corruption and debauchery, extraordinary measures are being discussed in hushed tones in the most discreet of corners in the halls of power.
Axios, 1 big thing: Congress rips AI ultimatum, Hans Nichols, Feb. 26, 2026. Democratic senators — and at least one Republican — are urging the Pentagon to withdraw its ultimatum to Anthropic, insisting Congress must participate in the debate over military use of artificial intelligence.
Why it matters: The unprecedented showdown between the Department of Defense and Anthropic has largely been a two-party contest. Now Congress wants to enter the fray.
"Why in the hell are we having this discussion in public?" Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said to us. "Why isn't this occurring in a boardroom or in the secretary's office? I mean, this is sophomoric." "It's fair to say that Congress needs to weigh in if they have a tool that could actually result in mass surveillance," said Tillis, an Armed Services Committee member. "The deadline is incredibly tight," Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) told us. "That should not be the case if you're dealing with mass surveillance of civilians. You're also dealing with the potential use of lethal force without a human in the loop." "There's a contract in place that was signed with the administration, and now they're trying to break it."
Driving the news: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said today there has been "virtually no progress" in negotiations. The Pentagon set a deadline of 5:01 pm ET tomorrow for it to use its model Claude as it sees fit.
On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, left, informed Amodei he would declare the company a "supply chain risk" if it doesn't comply. That would essentially blacklist the company. The Pentagon could also invoke the Defense Production Act, which would force the company to tailor its model to the military's needs.
The intrigue: Before Amodei's statement, some senators were optimistic the two sides would reach an agreement.
"I think that's going to be resolved," said Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "If Anthropic doesn't choose to follow this business plan, there are other sources."
Zoom in: Many Democrats are deeply skeptical about giving the Pentagon unfettered access to Anthropic's Claude code without congressional 
oversight.
"DOD is trying to strong-arm Anthropic into providing every tool they have to surveil U.S. citizens," Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) said. "I have serious concerns about that."
The bottom line: Lawmakers are essentially making two demands: Lift tomorrow's ultimatum, and let Congress work with the administration and AI industry to develop clear rules of the road.
"If we need more time, we need more time. These are fundamental issues of our time," Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) told us.
Morning Shots via The Bulwark, Political Opinion: AI Death Machines. No Human Oversight. What Could Go Wrong? Andrew Egger, Cathy Young and Jim Swift, Feb. 26, 2026. Another day, another round of insane, racist Truth Social attacks against minority congresswomen from the president of the United States:
"When you watch Low IQ Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, as they screamed uncontrollably last night at the very elegant State of the Union, such an important and beautiful event, they had the bulging, bloodshot eyes of crazy people, LUNATICS, mentally deranged and sick who, frankly, look like they should be institutionalized. When people can behave like that, and knowing that they are Crooked and Corrupt Politicians, so bad for our Country, we should send them back where they came from—as fast as possible."
Happy Thursday.
The site of the demolished East Wing of the White House in December (New York Times photo by Doug Mills).
New York Times, Judge Declines to Halt Construction on Trump’s East Wing Ballroom Project, Zach Montague, Feb. 26, 2026. A federal judge ruled that a lawsuit challenging the project needed to be revised before he could consider the larger questions it presented.
A federal judge on Thursday declined to halt construction of the ballroom President Trump plans to build over the demolished East Wing of the White House, concluding that the lawsuit, as filed, focused on the wrong questions about the president’s authority.
The ruling, for now, cleared the way for work to continue on a planned addition that preservationists fear would overshadow much of the historical campus. It came in spite of concerns raised in a federal lawsuit that Mr. Trump had rushed the approval process, funding construction using donations from companies with business before the federal government.
Judge Richard J. Leon, left, of the Federal District Court in Washington wrote that the group that had filed the lawsuit could amend the claim to focus more squarely on the president’s power to make sweeping changes to the building without input from Congress. If it did so, he wrote that he would consider that argument “expeditiously.”
“Unless and until plaintiff amends its existing complaint,” he wrote, “the court cannot address the merits of the novel and weighty issues raised.”
In a 22-page opinion, Judge Leon noted that the project, financed by more than $300 million raised from corporations and wealthy donors, raised thorny questions about how to balance the president’s goals against what was authorized by the law.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation, an organization chartered by Congress to preserve historical buildings, filed suit to stop the ballroom project nearly two months after heavy excavators appeared at the White House in October to tear down the East Wing.
During a hearing in January, lawyers representing the trust argued that the ballroom was only the most dramatic example of a string of similar changes Mr. Trump has unilaterally made to the White House. Those included paving over the Rose Garden, gilding the Oval Office and adding installations and placards that insult Mr. Trump’s predecessors. The lawyers argued that left unchecked, Mr. Trump could redevelop the White House beyond recognition, using funds from entities seeking access or a business edge.
The argument appeared to resonate with Judge Leon, an appointee of President George W. Bush.
Throughout the hearing, he repeatedly referred to the funding scheme as a “Rube Goldberg machine,” wryly waving off claims by Yaakov M. Roth, a principal deputy assistant attorney general, that the changes were routine and that the donations that funded them were intended to spare taxpayers.
Asked to list any other time a president had marshaled private funds to carry out a significant White House renovation without approval from Congress, Mr. Roth cited the installation of a swimming pool by President Gerald Ford and the construction of a tennis pavilion during Mr. Trump’s first term.Editors’ PicksThey Wanted a Two-Bedroom in Queens, With Room to Grow, for Less Than $400,000What It’s Like to Grow Up With A.I.: The Winners of Our Multimedia ChallengeGathering Force in the Art Market: Female Collectors
“The ’77 Gerald Ford swimming pool? You compare that to tearing down and building a new East Wing?” Judge Leon replied. “C’mon, be serious.”
After the abrupt demolition of the East Wing last year, donations supporting the project streamed in from nearly two dozen companies whose leaders have positioned themselves to benefit from the Trump administration. Technology companies that contract with the government, including Palantir, Amazon, Meta and Google all made donations, as did a number of cryptocurrency firms and defense contractors.
An analysis by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington this month found that only one of the corporate donors had disclosed its contribution in lobbying reports. The White House also omitted from its public list a number of additional donors, including the billionaire investor Jeff Yass and the chip manufacturer Nvidia.
In filings in January, the government explained that funds were channeled through the National Park Service, which has legal authority to accept gifts. The money was then transferred to White House accounts.
New York Times, Netflix Backs Out of Bid for Warner Bros., Paving Way for an Ellison Takeover, Lauren Hirsch, Michael M. Grynbaum and Benjamin Mullin, Feb. 26, 2026. The move was a stunning development in the long-running corporate battle for the storied media giant.
Netflix said on Thursday that it had backed away from its deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, a stunning development that paves the way for the storied Hollywood media giant to end up under the control of a rival bidder, the technology heir David Ellison.
Netflix said that it would not raise its offer to counter a higher bid made earlier this week by Mr. Ellison’s company, Paramount Skydance, adding in a statement that “the deal is no longer financially attractive.”
“This transaction was always a ‘nice to have’ at the right price, not a ‘must have’ at any price,” the Netflix co-chief executives, Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters, said in a statement.
Netflix reached an $83 billion deal in December to acquire a large portion of Warner Bros. Discovery’s business, including HBO and the storied Warner Bros. movie studio. The acquisition was poised to cement Netflix, once a striving outsider to the film and entertainment business, as the pre-eminent juggernaut of Hollywood.
But Mr. Ellison, himself a relative newcomer to the industry whose bid is backed financially by his father Larry Ellison, the billionaire founder of Oracle, pledged to fight on. Paramount eventually submitted a revised offer of $111 billion, which Warner on Thursday had decreed a “superior deal,” giving Netflix four business days to decide if it would counter.ImageDavid Ellison, the chairman and chief executive officer of Paramount Skydance Corp. walks through the U.S. Capitol to the State of the Union address on Tuesday.Credit...Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
As it turned out, Netflix decided not to.
Any purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery will be scrutinized by regulators in the United States and Europe, including the Justice Department’s antitrust division. In an event where Paramount is unable to secure the proper regulatory approvals, Netflix could potentially revive its interest as a buyer.
For now, though, the war for Warner Bros. appears to have been all but decided in favor of Mr. Ellison, a 43-year-old budding mogul who came to Hollywood two decades ago as an aspiring actor and, somewhat improbably, could now control two of the town’s most famed movie studios, along with the prestige television channel HBO and the 24-hour news network CNN.
President Trump broke precedent last year by inserting himself directly into the sale process, saying he would “be involved” in the outcome and offering public commentary about Netflix and Paramount.On Thursday, Mr. Sarandos spent much of the day in Washington at the White House, where he discussed the transaction with aides to Mr. Trump and officials at the Justice Department.
New York Times, New A.C.A. Plans Could Increase Family Deductibles to $31,000, Reed Abelson, Feb. 26, 2026. The Trump administration is proposing Obamacare plans that it says will lower health insurance premiums. But critics warn they would make care unaffordable
The Trump administration’s proposed new rules for Obamacare plans next year would shift more health care costs to Americans, with much higher deductibles that could lead to greater medical bills.
Under the proposal, people who rely on the Affordable Care Act for their health insurance coverage could choose plans with much lower monthly premiums. But that could leave them exposed to medical expenses totaling thousands of dollars more than A.C.A. plans do now before their insurance would kick in.
Heading into the midterm elections, offering these new plans is one of few options open to the Trump administration to lower Obamacare premiums that do not require congressional approval. Affordability has become a campaign mantra for Democrats: Health care costs were viewed as the top economic concern in a recent public opinion poll from KFF, a health research group.
In his State of the Union address, Mr. Trump blamed “the crushing costs of health care” on the Affordable Care Act, saying the program funneled money to the big insurance companies, He advocated sending the payments directly to Americans, so they could “buy their own health care, which will be better health care at a much lower cost.”
But Congress would need to pass legislation to allow the money to be redirected or make any major changes to the program. Instead, the administration is proposing a set of rules that would allow the introduction of new plans, including those that are much less expensive than ones available today. These plans are favored by Republicans who believe people will be much better at finding care at low prices when they spend their own money for a doctor or treatment.
The administration “did what it could within the confines of the statute to increase consumers’ choice, try to keep premiums low,” said Joel White, a health policy analyst who advises Republicans.
Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees the Obamacare markets, promoted the new proposal. “The goal is simple: lower costs, more choice, and exchanges that work as intended,” he said. The agency declined to make anyone available to discuss the proposal.
Critics of the new approach warn that consumers are already abandoning costly health insurance coverage. More than a million people have dropped out of Obamacare this year to date, a decline that many attribute to a decision by the Republican-controlled Congress to let enhanced subsidies expire at the end of last year.
Millions of people who depended on the subsidy cushion under Obamacare were hit with monthly premiums that were double or more what they paid last year.
Dr. Oz’s new proposal would allow one kind of health plan to raise the annual deductible to more than $15,000 for an individual and $31,000 for a family; those are much higher than current Obamacare plans. The individual deductible would be eight times the average for someone with job-based insurance.
Many policy experts expressed doubt that the administration’s proposal would reduce the high cost of health care. “Nobody wants that product,” said Amitabh Chandra, a Harvard health economist who has studied high-deductible plans. “It’s going to be a really cheap product that nobody wants.”
The proposal involves a type of plan known as a catastrophic or skinny policies. While they may be appropriate for someone who is young and healthy, a sudden emergency room visit or unexpected hospital stay could cost thousands of dollars in unforeseen bills. People with chronic medical conditions also might have to pay for much — if not all — of their care out of their own pockets.
Dr. Joseph R. Betancourt, the president of the Commonwealth Fund, which finances health care research, pointed out that people are already struggling to pay for their medical care.
“There’s no doubt that we have an affordability crisis,” he said. “As we move forward to shifting more of the burden to patients, there’s a chance to really exacerbate the crisis.”
Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Trump America's and Nazi Germany's ambassador corps share extremism, corruption, domestic meddling, and lunacy, 
Wayne Madsen, left, Feb. 26, 2026. Mike Huckabee, Charles Kushner, Peter Hoekstra, Otto Abetz, Ulrich von Hassell, and Hans-Heinrich Dieckhoff come out of the same fascist pod.
The Trump regime, as was the case with its Nazi German antecedent, practices an egregious form of diplomacy in the choice of ambassadors sent abroad to represent it. U.S. ambassadors and other envoys posted to France, Canada, Poland, and other nations, as well as international organizations, have incurred the wrath of governments, civil society, the press, and other interests.
The most egregious of Trump’s ambassadors is Charles Kushner, the ambassador in Paris and the father of Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Charles Kushner, an ex-con pardoned by Trump, Kushner has become the bête noire of Trump’s diplomatic corps. He has been formally summoned twice by the French government, something that is unprecedented in recent U.S. diplomatic history. The elder Kushner has been accused of interfering in domestic political debates and had his access to French government ministers restricted. The French media speculated about whether Kushner was on the verge of being declared persona non grata but the French government, thus far, has stopped short of that.
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Kushner’s most recent violation of diplomatic protocol occurred after the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs summoned him to explain U.S. Embassy comments about the killing of far‑right activist Quentin Deranque. Kushner did not show up but sent a subordinate instead. France accused Kushner of crossing a red line by amplifying U.S. government statements about the politically sensitive killing of Deranque. The U.S. Embassy re-posted comments from the Trump administration describing the killing as linked to “violent left‑wing extremism.” French officials said this amounted to interference in internal political tensions.
Under diplomatic norms, when a host government summons an ambassador, the ambassador must appear in person unless physically unable. France called this a “breach of diplomatic protocol” and a “misunderstanding of the basic expectations of an ambassador.”
France barred Kushner from meeting with ministers until he complied. Ambassadors are expected to avoid taking sides in domestic political conflicts and Kushner has avoided that protocol twice. In 2025, Kushner publishing a Wall Street Journal letter urging President Emmanuel Macron to change French policy on antisemitism. Kushner also publicly criticized France’s handling of antisemitic incidents. Ambassadors may raise concerns privately, but public pressure campaigns directed at the host head of state are considered breaches of diplomatic etiquette.
Kushner’s actions in France are very similar to those of Nazi Germany’s ambassador to Washington. Hans-Heinrich Dieckhoff, who served as Nazi Germany’s top envoy in the United States from 1937 to 1938, Dieckhoff coordinated increased Nazi interference in directing German‑American organizations, including the pro-Nazi German-American Bund, a group with whom Trump’s father, Fred Trump, had more than a passing relationship. Dieckhoff also oversaw escalating German propaganda and intelligence activity in the United States.
Considering Jared Kushner’s close ties to Russia and Vladimir Putin and France supplanting the U.S. as a major supplier of intelligence and war materiel to Ukraine, Charles Kushner’s posting in Paris may be more than a coincidental political reward for a Trump crony. French intelligence may have evidence that Charles Kushner’s activities in France not only directly benefit Israel — the Kushners have been lifelong friends of Binyamin Netanyahu — but also Russia.
Ulrich von Hassell, Nazi Germany’s ambassador to Italy from 1932 to 1938, oversaw the development of the Nazi-Fascist Axis that would ally Germany and Italy. Trump’s ambassador to Canada, Peter Hokestra, Trump’s ambassador to the Netherlands during his first term, has irritated his Canadian hosts by defending Trump’s punishing tariffs on Canada and advancing the ridiculous notion of Canada becoming the 51st state and, barring that, peeling off the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan as U.S. states.
Hoekstra, a former Republican congressman from Michigan, has been in total lockstep with Trump’s belligerent foreign policy. He publicly charged that an Ontario government anti‑tariff ad campaign amounted to foreign interference in American electoral politics, claiming it targeted Trump shortly before U.S. elections and a critical Supreme Court case. This was an extraordinary escalation — ambassadors almost never accuse their host government of election meddling.
Hoekstra repeatedly expressed bafflement that Canadians were angry about Trump’s tariffs and even suggested Canada had been “nasty and mean” in its response. Canadian industry leaders and analysts described Hoekstra as a “diplomatic embodiment of the pugnacious president he represents”, noting that his public statements seemed aimed at pleasing Trump rather than maintaining bilateral stability. Canadian press reports describe Hoekstra allegedly delivering an expletive‑laden rant at Ontario’s trade representative in front of onlookers.
It is Trump’s aggressive stance toward Canadian sovereignty that has further resulted in demands from around Canada that Hokestra be declared persona non graya anmd expelled. Hoekstra has repeatedly spoke about Ottawa’s “unfair” treatment of the Prairie provinces, Canada’s “anti‑energy” policies, and the idea that Alberta’s economy was being “held back” by federal decisions. Hoekstra’s brief has been directly linked to Alberta separatist groups, U.S. conservative media, and American energy‑sector lobbyists. Hoekstra also amplified U.S. domestic culture‑war narratives inside Canada and treated Canadian provinces differently depending on their ideological alignment. Just as Kushner has used the U.S. embassy in Paris as a platform to advance the political messaging of far-right parties like the National Rally, Hoekstra has used the Ottawa embassy as a platform for political agitation rather than diplomacy. This has included inviting U.S. politicians who support annexing all or parts of Canada.
There is a major difference between a cockalorum like Hoekstra and Von Hassell, the seasoned German diplomat who helped create the Berlin-Rome Axis. Von Hassell later joined the anti‑Hitler resistance and was executed as part of the 1944 Operation Valkyrie plot against Hitler, a mark of courage that could never be emulated by any of Trump’s pathetic cronies.
Many of Trump’s political appointment ambassadors resemble Nazi envoys like Otto Abetz, Berlin’s ambassador to the fascist Vichy regime of France from 1940 to 1944. Abetz not only acted as a "viceroy” over the French puppet state but was intensely corrupt. Abetz relied on bribery, blackmail, and coercion to shape French collaboration with the Nazis and he oversaw the cultural looting of France and the implementation of the “Final Solution” for France’s Jewish population. There is very little difference between Abetz and the dastardly diplomatic duo of Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. The Trump-led Board of Peace, which is a $17 billion slush fund that is to oversee the redevelopment of the Gaza Strip, is operationally led by Kushner and Witkoff. A major stakeholder, the Palestinian people, are nowhere to be found on the Board of Peace. In fact, there are “final solution” proposals for the two million Palestinian inhabitants of Gaza that range from being deported to Somaliland or Libya or remain in Gaza as serfs and servants for Trump-aligned major seaside real estate ventures.
Another real piece of work is Ken Howery, Trump’s ambassador to Denmark and a co-co-founder of PayPal along with Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. Howery, who served as U.S. ambassador to Sweden during Trump 1.0, has done his very best to irritate his Danish hosts. Howery demonstrated his unapologetic social insensitivity, an arrested development trait for which Silicon Valley tech bros have become infamous, for removing Danish flags placed in front of the U.S. embassy in Copenhagen that honored Danish soldiers killed on NATO missions. Howery’s removal of the flags was disrespectful to Danish war dead, a breach of diplomatic sensitivity, and a signal that the U.S. embassy did not value allied sacrifices.
Danish officials saw Howery’s behavior as part of a new and aggressive U.S. posture in Europe. Denmark was already on a knife’s edge over Trump’s threat of militarily invading and annexing the Danish self-governing territory of Greenland. Danish intelligence had discovered U.S. covert influence operations in Greenland by Americans linked to Trump. That led to the U.S. chargé d’affaires in Copenhagen being summoned to the Danish Foreign Ministry. Denmark concluded that the U.S. was encouraging Greenlandic secessionist sentiment but with little results. The influence operations were not disclosed to Denmark or Greenland. The U.S. embassy in Copenhagen and the U.S. Consulate-General in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, were seen by the host countries as threats worthy of any Communist bloc embassy in a Western nation during the Cold War.
Tom Rose, the U.S. ambassador to Poland, is a walking conflict-of-interest. A senior adviser to Vice President Mike Pence during the first Trump term, Rose had previously been the publisher and CEO of The Jerusalem Post from 1997 to 2005 and is known for being a conservative pundit and columnist. Rose’s blatant political support for two successive right-wing presidents, Andrzej Duda, followed by incumbent Karol Nawrocki, whose candidacy was endorsed by Trump, has strained relations between the U.S. embassy and the liberal-centrist government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
Further inflaming the situation in Warsaw, Rose announced that the U.S. embassy would have “no further dealings, contacts, or communications” with Sejm (Parliament) Speaker Włodzimierz Czarzasty after the Speaker refused to support nominating President Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. This was an unprecedented step for a U.S. ambassador in Warsaw. Tusk — normally strongly pro‑American — responded sharply: “Allies should respect, not lecture, each other.” Rose flippantly replied that Tusk must have “sent the message by mistake,” implying the Prime Minister should instead reprimand the Speaker. Rose made matters even worse by threatening to withdraw U.S. troops from Poland, writing, “Should we take all our soldiers and equipment with us?”
Rose made it clear to the Poles that he would defend Trump “without hesitation, exception or apology.”
The U.S. ambassador to Belgium, Bill White, has also irritated the host nation with undiplomatic drivel. White has interfered in Belgium’s judicial process, publicly attacked Belgian officials, and spread accusations that Belgium calls “dangerous disinformation.” White publicly claimed that Belgium was engaging in “antisemitic harassment” for investigating three mohels suspected of performing circumcisions without required medical qualifications. He also personally attacked Belgian government ministers and threatened “political retaliation” against Belgian politicians. Belgium called out White for spreading disinformation and summoned him to the Foreign Ministry in Brussels for an explanation. Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot accused White of violating longstanding diplomatic norms. White has a degree in Culinary Arts from the French Culinary Institute in New York and he has been married to his husband for 14 years. His talents might be put to better use as the chef at the U.S. embassy in Brussels.
U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Andrew Puzder, is the former CEO of fast food restaurant chains Carl’s Jr. and Hardees. As is the case with White, Rose, and the other assholes who deign to represent the United States abroad, Puzder is no diplomat. Since arriving in Brussels, Puzder has adopted a combative, anti‑regulatory, culture‑war‑infused posture. Puzder has denounced the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA) — the bloc’s flagship Big Tech regulatory framework. Puzder also claimed EU digital rules would “limit free expression, free speech,” especially political speech. The EU sees these laws as protecting democracy from disinformation, not restricting it. Puzder suggesting the EU is anti‑free‑speech is a deep ideological insult in Brussels. Puzder’s rhetoric is part of the Trump regime’s efforts to permit the free flow of racist, Nazi, and other hate speech. Puzder has aligned the U.S. Mission to the EU with the overall regime’s argument that Europe is enabling a “civilizational erasure.” It is amazing that Trump’s Jewish “diplomats,” including both Kushners, Witkoff, Rose, Puzder, and White have embraced the “civilizational risk” arguments once advanced by Adolf Hitler and his Nazis to justify the extermination of the Jews.
And last, but not least, is the extremely problematic U.S. ambassador to Israel, former Arkansas Governor and perennial presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. In an interview with Tucker Carlson, Huckabee invoked Genesis 15:18 and said the land “from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates” belonged to Israel — a region that Carlson correctly noted is basically the entire Middle East. Huckabee replied to Carlson’s reminder by saying, “It would be fine if they took it all.”
Arab and Muslim governments replied to Huckabee’s comments by calling them “dangerous and inflammatory” and a “flagrant violation of international law.” The foreign ministries of Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bahrain, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Kuwait, Lebanon, and Egypt — plus the Organization of Islamic Conference, Arab League, and Gulf Cooperation Council — issued a coordinated denunciation. Huckabee’s comments threatened to derail Arab support for Trump’s Board of Peace initiative for Gaza since many of the nations that condemned Huckabee had also pledged billions of dollars of support for Gaza redevelopment assistance.
New York Times, Trump’s Push for Election Power Raises Fears He Will ‘Subvert’ Midterms, Shane Goldmacher and Nick Corasanit, Feb. 26, 2026 (print ed.). The president appears to be undermining Americans’ faith in the outcome, at a moment when Republicans face an uphill climb to keep control of Congress.
Ahead of the midterm elections, an emboldened President Trump has shown an increased eagerness to leverage the full investigative, prosecutorial and legislative powers of the federal government to bend election mechanics to his will.
With his words and deeds, the president — who pushed to overturn his 2020 defeat but declared his 2024 victory legitimate — appears to be undermining Americans’ trust that the midterms will be free and fair.
As the political environment darkens for his party, Mr. Trump is again warning Republicans that Democrats are going to rig the results. At the same time, he is taking actions that make Democrats fear that Republicans are actually going to subvert the election.
Mr. Trump has shown himself unbound by precedent in his second term, and with prominent election deniers in powerful federal posts and top cabinet officials on the hunt for evidence of voter fraud, his moves have heightened anxieties about potential interference.
He has called for Republicans to “nationalize” elections, though the Constitution leaves their administration to the states. The newly politicized Justice Department is suing states for private voter rolls. The F.B.I. has seized ballots from the 2020 election from a Georgia election center — and Mr. Trump was so personally invested that he praised some of the agents by phone.
“Beginning on his first day in office and continuing for the past year in plain view of the American people, Donald Trump has orchestrated and led a sweeping federal government effort to subvert the midterm elections,” said J. Michael Luttig, a conservative retired federal appeals court judge who has emerged as a Trump critic.
The election maneuvering comes as Mr. Trump has pushed the limits of his executive authority elsewhere, deploying troops to blue states against the will of Democratic governors to help carry out his immigration agenda, killing people he accuses of drug smuggling in the Caribbean without due process and directing the Justice Department to prosecute his political foes.
Mr. Trump himself has hedged his willingness to recognize the midterm results — only “if the elections are honest,” he said last month. He has insisted that he is only trying to make sure that elections are secure, pushing restrictions like voter ID — which polls in the past have shown has broad support — and seeking to limit voting by mail.
The issue is vital to Mr. Trump because it weaves together two threads that are enormously important to him — his belief that he didn’t lose in 2020 and his desire for his party to keep power this fall. On Jan. 6, 2021, his effort to force Congress to reject an unwelcome election result led to a riot at the Capitol.
Speaking from the symbolic seat of American democracy on Tuesday, Mr. Trump suggested during his State of the Union address that “it should be my third term” and declared that the “only way” that Democrats “can get elected is to cheat.”
New York Times, Patel Ousts F.B.I. Personnel Tied to Inquiry Into Trump’s Retained Classified Records, Glenn Thrush, Alan Feuer and Devlin Barrett, Feb. 26, 2026 (print ed.). The firings are part of a rolling barrage of retribution aimed at those who worked on the two federal prosecutions of President Trump.
About 10 F.B.I. employees, some veteran agents, were dismissed this week for their work on the investigation into President Trump’s retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, his residence in Florida, according to five people with knowledge of the move.
The firings are part of a rolling barrage of retribution aimed at those who worked on the two federal prosecutions of Mr. Trump after his first term in office. They came hours after Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, told Reuters that as part of the documents inquiry, the bureau had subpoenaed phone metadata for himself and Susie Wiles, currently the White House chief of staff.
They are not expected to be the last, those people said.
Requests for phone records are common in complex criminal investigations to establish timelines and provide proof of communication. It remains unclear if the F.B.I.’s Trump-appointed leaders have accused employees of wrongdoing. In the past, they have not. In some cases, firings have violated procedural safeguards created to protect agents from politically motivated dismissal, according to agents and their lawyers.
The F.B.I. Agents Association, a professional group representing bureau employees, denounced the dismissals in a statement, describing them as an unlawful termination that “violates the due process rights of those who risk their lives to protect our country.”
Mr. Patel’s announcement came at a tenuous moment in his tenure, after a week of unflattering headlines about his taxpayer-funded travel, which most recently included an appearance at the Olympics in Milan, where he celebrated the U.S. hockey team’s gold medal victory in their locker room.
In-Depth Investigaive Commentaries
Wayne Madsen Report (WMR), Investigative Commentary: Epstein once had competition (or perhaps not) from another Wall Street insider in the intelligence and dark money arena, Wayne Madsen, left, Feb. 26, 2026. The Obama administration failed to prosecute Bernie Madoff (shown above in a WMR photo graphic) for criminal conspiracy because of the links to the CIA and Mossad that would have been exposed.
A LOOK BACK in light of the Jeffrey Epstein sextortion and money laundering operation. This report from 2009 looks much like Epstein’s financial operations, albeit without the sex trafficking. The question that remains is: Were Madoff’s financial operations and their links to intelligence agencies ancillary to Epstein or competitive?
Madoff taking rap for Russian-Israeli mob, insiders report, March 13, 2009. Special Report by The Wayne Madsen Report:
The failure of federal prosecutors to bring conspiracy charges against Bernard Madoff, the mega-billion dollar Ponzi scammer who pleaded guilty March 12 to eleven counts of fraud and other crimes in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, is providing cover to those who pulled the strings on Madoff’s illegal operation.
WMR spoke to a former close aide to Madoff who related how he handled a number of transactions personally for Madoff. The source said that Madoff was running a special type of “pump and dump” scheme. The source said that Madoff would “pump money out of the system and dump it out to another place.” When asked what that “other place” was, the source replied, “Israel.”The source believes that no conspiracy charges were brought by the federal government against Madoff because it is the government and not necessarily Madoff that is trying to protect his “network and superiors.”
Media frenzy at Moynihan Federal Courthouse during Madoff plea hearinGMadoff’s Chief Financial Officer was Frank DiPasquale, who is being represented by Marc Mukasey of Bracewell Giuliani. Mukasey’s father is former Bush Attorney General Michael Mukasey. The U.S. judge handling the Madoff case, Denny Chin, is, according to informed legal sources in Manhattan, over his head in corruption.
Madoff defrauded investor Helen Chaitman of New Jersey speaks to reporters after Madoff sentencing and imprisonment.
WMR has learned how some of Madoff’s international operations were conducted. At 3:30 pm every day Madoff Investment Securities employees would call banks in Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands and tell them to “roll the accounts.” That was insider language for “lend the money.” In some cases, money was moved to the Belize Bank, which was described by a Madoff insider as a “back side” for secretive banking operations in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland.
Madoff, shown at right in a mugshot, would also dispatch messengers to 55 Water Street in New York’s financial district to pick up securities bearer bonds that could fit into an “Army duffle bag.” Those types of transactions dramatically decreased for Madoff after 9/11.
The weekend following the Fourth of July, Madoff would sponsor a three-day bash for Madoff employees and “special guests” at Montauk on the eastern tip of Long Island. One of Madoff’s special guests was Norman F. Levy, a billionaire who Madoff considered as a father figure. After his death, Levy’s old firm continued to maintain an office at 885 Third Avenue in Manhattan, the same location of Madoff’s firm. A Madoff insider speculated that Madoff may have been using Levy’s company as a conduit for his business activities.
The annual Montauk conclave featured a dinner for Madoff’s “special guests” on Saturday evenings at the Montauk Yacht Club. Madoff’s “special guests” were kept segregated from the regular Madoff employees. The special guests were often found at Madoff Securities in a secretive place called the “money fund room.”
In addition to Madoff’s immediate family members, including his brother Peter, he also tended to surround himself with key individuals who were veteran officers of the U.S. military.
Madoff’s London operation were handled out of a one-room small office located at 43 Newell Street. Every time Madoff visited the office, the London staff was extremely nervous. According to a Madoff insider, the Madoff London office was nothing more than a “front” operation.
There may have also been some synergy between Madoff’s London operations and American International Group (AIG), which reportedly is missing $500 billion from a similar small office pass-through operation in London.Madoff’s number one foreign destination was not England but France, where he maintained a luxurious estate in Provence.
Madoff routinely got his cash from the Bank of New York (BONY) and Chase.
One favorite Bernie Madoff term was an “inch of fifties,” which equates to $5,000 in cash.
The day before Madoff was arrested, he sent a “package” to Citibank’s private banking facility at 850 Lexington Avenue. Usually when Madoff Securities sent out a “package,” a set of documents in an 8 1/2 x 11 inch envelope authorizing electronic funds transfers, there was always a signed receipt from Citibank.
One exception were “packages” personally sent by Madoff to Citibank. On December 10, Madoff sent a “package” to Citibank with no receipt from the private banking service. That evening Madoff attended the company’s annual Christmas party, which had always been held on December 17. Madoff was reportedly not acting normal and his wife Ruth was trying to play the gregarious role normally handled by Madoff at previous such parties.
WMR’s inside source believes that Madoff knew then that he was facing arrest the next day.
WMR has also learned that Madoff Securities was for sale in the late 1990s. One of the names mentioned in the potential sale is Ezra Merkint, also under investigation by the federal government’s probe of Wall Street. WMR has learned that Madoff almost sold his firm for $1 billion.
The potential purchaser, who was not identified, flipped a coin between buying Madoff or Charles Schwab. The purchaser opted for a potential purchase of Schwab.
Madoff often had a tense relationship with his family associates. In the mid-1990s, WMR was told of a particularly nasty exchange between Bernie and his brother Peter. Bernie allegedly told his brother, “When you see your name on the door, you can tell me what to do. Until then, you have one percent of the stock and so you can keep your fucking mouth shut.”
When Peter’s son Roger died of cancer at the age of 30, a cancer fund was established in Roger’s name. Our source said that the fund for Bernie Madoff’s late nephew was also defrauded. The source said, “Bernie would never do that to his nephew,” adding, “Bernie was operating a “pump and dump” scheme for a domestic and foreign intelligence agency.”
Asked to name the domestic agency, the source replied, “CIA.”
Asked about the foreign agency, the source claimed it was “the Russia-Israeli mob operating with Mossad.” The source indicated that the cancer fund was raided by one or both of the intelligence agencies.
It is also reported that a number of key Madoff employees died suddenly from various causes, including what was described as “fast-acting cancer.” The cancer victims included Madoff’s 55-year old in-house lawyer and his “mid-fifties” computer software engineer. The woman who created Madoff’s over-the-counter stock trading system, was struck and killed by a bus while walking to Bloomingdale’s in Manhattan.
One long-time Madoff employee told WMR that Bernie Madoff’s father, Ralph Madoff, who worked as a New York plumber, once told one of his employees, “Never, never invest in Wall Street cause it’s run by crooks and SOBs.” Ralph Madoff told the employee to take his money and “buy books.”
In Bernie Madoff’s case, the apple fell extremely far from the tree.
As a postscript, someone who worked with Madoff told WMR that he does not expect his old boss to live until his sentencing in June. The ex-employee believes that Madoff will not physically survive prison for very long.
Given Madoff’s extensive and murky intelligence links, there is every reason to believe the ex-employee is making the correct prediction.
March 13-15, 2009 -- Madoff private investment business walled off from Madoff Investment Securities
Jailed Ponzi scammer Bernard Madoff carefully segregated and walled off his private investment business from the normal trading activities of Madoff Investment Securities at 885 Third Avenue in Manhattan.
Madoff Investment Securities on the 19th floor was a legitimate trading activity monitored electronically by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and internal compliance officers of the firm.
The SEC, as with all securities firms it inspects and monitors, conducted one announced audit of Madoff Investment Securities per year and one random “surprise” audit.
Since the 19th floor trading operation at Madoff complied with all regulations and requirements, no red flags were ever raised to the SEC.
There is also some speculation among ex-Madoff employees that even if the SEC auditors got wind of Bernard Madoff’s private investment operation, the auditors were paid so little that they may have easily been bribed with job offers or money to not report their findings.
On the 18th floor of Madoff Investment Securities, the firm’s compliance division kept all the important files for SEC inspection. Bernard Madoff’s niece, Shana, a lawyer, reportedly told one internal compliance employee who had asked about what her uncle was running from his 19th floor office, “he was making investments for a few “people.”
Madoff also, curiously, did not have a computer in his office nor did he use e-mail.
Madoff Investment Securities was required to electronically store all internal and external e-mails for SEC inspection. In addition, most of the employees on the 17th floor, where much of Madoff’s private investment activities took place, did not use e-mail.
According to Madoff insiders, these included Frank DiPasquale, Madoff’s late-fortyish Chief Financial Officer, and DiPasquale’s administrative assistant. When asked why Madoff and his private hedge fund group did not use e-mails, the response was to avoid burdening computer storage with excessive e-mails.
One insider felt that the avoidance of e-mails by Madoff and DiPasquale’s group was to limit the monitoring of their communications by the SEC.The lack of e-mail records for Madoff’s private investment scheme may be hampering federal investigators in their probe of the disposition of Madoff’s money, now estimated at $177 billion.
WMR has also learned from Madoff insiders that two close Bernard Madoff friends, the late Norman Levy, who Madoff viewed as a mentor, and Noel Levine, maintained offices on the 17th floor, but their small business operations were not “officially” part of Madoff’s firm.
Although Bernard Madoff’s eventual replacement was never discussed openly, many Madoff employees believed the mantle would be passed to his brother Peter, the vice president.
Although Bernard Madoff regularly left on vacations to Montauk, Long Island, where he had a home, and to his estate in France, Peter rarely left. Peter Madoff worked from 9 am to 5 pm every day, according to one source, and that Peter Madoff and DiPasquale were among the few Madoff officials who had access to Bernard Madoff’s private investment operation.
When asked who among Madoff’s family members knew about the private investment operation, a former employee replied, “They all had to know.” Bernard Madoff was also quoted as revealing to one employee that he invested money for a “negligible” number of people.
However, the financial statements received by some Madoff private investors clearly showed there were problems with his operation and the investors in question included some of the sharpest financial experts on Wall Street who never raised any red flags, according to a Madoff source.
The only visible political fundraising that Bernard Madoff ever conducted was a fundraiser for Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) at Madoff’s 885 Third Avenue headquarters. The amount of money raised for Schumer was within Federal Election Commission limits, but one source was not aware of what other financial arrangements existed between Bernard Madoff and the New York Senator, a member of the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Financial Institutions that had oversight authority for securities firms like Madoff’s.
More details have also been revealed to WMR about the nature of Madoff’s London operation. The office was headed up by Steven Raven and consisted of between 8 and 12 people in a small one room office. One of the few interfaces between Madoff’s New York office and the London office was on compliance issues such as disaster recovery operations and contingency plans.
However, generally, the Madoff compliance division was kept “out of the loop” on other London operations.
We have also discovered details about Madoff Energy, a spin-off of Madoff Investment Securities run by Bernard Madoff’s son Andrew. Madoff Energy bought up unproductive oil wells, all of which were in Texas, refurbished them, and either sold them off or retained them.
There were plans for Madoff Energy to expand and move out of Madoff’s Third Avenue headquarters but those plans were aborted after Bernard Madoff’s arrest on December 11, 2008.
Just prior to Madoff’s December 2008 arrest, the firm consisted of about 137 employees. An overwhelming majority of them were unaware of Madoff’s private operation and complied with all SEC requirements in a totally legal manner.
However, many who are now seeking other employment after losing their jobs with Madoff are being confronted with hostility by other firms and job recruiters.
One former Madoff employee, who is now unemployed, called a recruiter who responded, “You worked for a criminal organization . . . if you want a job, go work for the mob.”
WMR has also received word from a reliable source that Bernard Madoff was, in fact, linked to shady intelligence agency slush funds and took his orders from intelligence officials. WMR previously reported that Madoff’s Ponzi scheme was linked to the CIA, the Mossad, and the Russian-Israeli mob and that much of his Ponzi scheme funds were diverted to Israeli banks.
March 16, 2009 -- Madoff took fall for New York’s richest and most powerful politicians
A reliable source who is close to both the U.S. Court for the Southern District of New York and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York’s Organized Crime Unit tells WMR that Ponzi scammer Bernard Madoff, who was remanded to prison last week by U.S. Judge Denny Chin, took a “fall” for some of New York’s most powerful and wealthiest politicians who were using Madoff’s private investment scheme as a “front” to assist in a major real estate redevelopment plan for New York – called the Cornerstones Project -- that stood and still stands to make the conspirators super-rich.
Although the federal prosecutors in the case against Madoff claim the former chairman of NASDAQ and chief of Madoff Investment Securities refused to cooperate in their criminal conspiracy investigation of him, the prosecutors have no intention of expanding the case beyond Madoff and, possibly, some of his family members.
WMR has been informed by a well-informed New York legal source that Madoff is a second-tier player in a major real estate development plan that used some of the money skimmed off by Madoff’s Ponzi scheme to fund some of the real estate development projects.
WMR has been told that another second-tier player in the real estate scheme is none other than Madoff’s trial judge, Chin.
The judge, WMR is told, particularly represents the real estate development interests of Tishman Speyer, the real estate firm that owns the Chrysler Building, Rockefeller Center, and the MetLife Building.
Chin has been amply rewarded for his “services” with a luxurious penthouse for him and his wife in Battery Park City in lower Manhattan. WMR has also been told that Chin has been responsible for destroying important email evidence that points to the involvement of New York’s top political leadership in the Cornerstones Project.Madoff, another second-tier player in Cornerstones, also stood to gain financially from the project as a major investor in real estate in his own right.
A branch of the Tishman family, Tishman Construction Company, specializes in the building and operation of entertainment complexes, including casinos projects in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. Last July, Tishman and Revel Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City executives were killed in a plane crash in Owatonna, Minnesota, 60 miles south of Minneapolis.
Chin and Madoff were linchpins in Cornerstones. There are four “Cornerstone” redevelopment projects planned for Manhattan that will see the building of major entertainment and gambling casino operations in the city with high-speed rail links between them and to other parts of the city.
The four “Cornerstones” are the new World Trade Center site surrounding the future Freedom Tower, Grand Central Station/Times Square, Penn Station, and a floating casino complex on the East River near the Brooklyn Bridge.
WMR has been told that Chin is closely allied in the mega-billion dollar real estate development scheme with former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who once served on the same Southern District of Manhattan federal judicial circuit with Chin.
WMR is told that Chin and Mukasey represented the interests of New York’s “Landlord Lobby” and “West Side Lobby” in major cases involving real estate plans for New York City.
Chin and Mukasey failed to recuse themselves from cases in which they had clear conflicts-of-interest, WMR was informed. Mukasey’s son Marc, an attorney for the law firm Bracewell Giuliani, is representing Frank DiPasquale, Madoff’s chief financial officer.
Mukasey and Giuliani are also close friends and business associates and both worked for the same law firm Patterson Belknap.
The Cornerstones projects are supported by New York interests who represent the middle class and poor, mainly due to the fact that they will create mixed-income housing units and provide money for public education and the city’s increasingly deteriorating public schools. Critics point out that the project has been stalled because major players, who used Madoff to launder money in New York and abroad for the entertainment and casino operations skimmed some of the proceeds for themselves and have essentially stalled the project.
Critics also point out that the planned Freedom Tower complex at the Old World Trade Center site has been delayed for seven years due to lack of money, in addition to basic construction materials like concrete and steel. The materials have been siphoned off for other more immediate construction projects.
In addition, although the Cornerstones is slated to improve public education, a number of public schools have been sold off for private development as part of the overall scheme.
Former Assistant U.S. Attorney in the southern district of Manhattan Chad Vignola, who also worked for Mayor Giuliani on the city’s Waste Management Commission and resigned from the city’s Department of Education amid a nepotism scandal, is reportedly very much involved with the Cornerstones project and is close to both Giuliani and Chin in ensuring the project’s completion.
Vignola resigned as chief counsel for New York City’s Education Commissioner Joel Klein, a Bloomberg appointee who allegedly takes his orders from the Giuliani-Bloomberg “mafia” in New York. Deputy Education Commissioner Diana Lam resigned after she tried to get her husband hired by her department.
The sale of public school property to private real estate developers has reportedly been at the center of Klein’s tenure, along with the creation of charter schools at the expense of deteriorating schools in poorer areas of the city.
Two area state governors who posed potential problems for the Cornerstones project were dispatched quickly through sex scandals.
Tishman Construction received the consulting contract from the state of New Jersey for the Xanadu entertainment complex at the Meadowlands sports complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey during the administration of Governor Jim McGreevey.
Tishman had hired McGreevey’s Israeli intelligence “honey trap,” Golan Cipel, as a consultant at a salary of $7500 a month after Cipel left other jobs arranged by McGreevey, including one as New Jersey homeland security chief adviser.
McGreevey resigned as governor after his affair with Cipel became public. The new transportation hub at the World Trade Center Cornerstones entertainment center will link that complex with the Xanadu complex in New Jersey via the PATH train operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.New York’s Governor, former Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, was a dogged pursuer of fraud on Wall Street and those pursuits posed a severe problem for the Cornerstones money laundering operation.
Spitzer was forced to resign as governor after he was identified as a customer of the Emperors Club VIP prostitution service run by ex-Israeli government official Mark, aka “Michael,” Brener.
Details of the probe of Spitzer, known as “Client 9” in federal investigation documents, were leaked by federal investigators working out of the U.S. Attorney’s office for Southern Manhattan, which has been described as a hub for organized criminal activity even though it includes the “Organized Crime” investigation unit for Manhattan.
The Barack Obama administration’s interest in the mega-bucks real estate boondoggle in New York is heightened by the fact that Klein was on the short list to be Obama’s Secretary of Education.
In fact, WMR has been told by a knowledgeable source that the Cornerstones project and its receipt of federal stimulus money is a major priority for both Obama and his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, along with New York Democratic Senator Charles Schumer, a major recipient of campaign contributions from Madoff and his well-heeled associates.
A veteran of the corrupt U.S. Attorney’s office for Southern Manhattan is the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Patrick Fitzgerald. His pursuit of Rod Blagojevich, who was forced to resign as Governor of Illinois, parallels the campaign by his old New York federal colleagues against Spitzer.
Chicago billionaire real estate developer Sam Zell, the owner of the Tribune Company that owns Chicago’s Wrigley Field, is interested in selling the lucrative baseball park, which sits within the Fifth Congressional District once held by Blagojevich and subsequently by Emanuel.
Blagojevich was seen as a possible problem if the ballpark were sold for the development of a Cornerstones-like mega entertainment and casino center.
With McGreevey, Spitzer, and Blagojevich out of the picture, the Russian-Israeli mob-connected entertainment and casino interests now have a virtual free hand in New York and Chicago, with a wink and a nod from Emanuel, who occupies the powerful White House position as Chief of Staff and who can influence the dispersal of federal stimulus money to assist in the various redevelopment schemes.
With Spitzer gone and an increasingly unpopular David Paterson as Governor, Bloomberg is given a good chance of unseating Paterson and ensuring that Albany supports the Cornerstones plan for New York City.
The billions of dollars that the Cornerstones players had Madoff skim in his Ponzi scheme and had sitting in off-shore locations, including Israel, the Cayman Islands, Belize, and other financial centers, was to have been re-introduced into New York to fund the Cornerstones development projects. But the fact that Madoff was caught in the scheme and ran the risk of identifying and testifying against his “handlers” has put the entire Cornerstones project at risk, WMR has been told.
The Madoff money that was “parked” in Israel, with Russian-Israeli mobsters earning interest and able to use the funds for other financial “leverage,” was to be pumped back into New York for the Russian-Israeli mob to make billions from the Cornerstones casino/entertainment complexes in Manhattan. Bloomberg was being counted on to “deliver” the project but now that Madoff has been caught, the project has been further delayed and silent “investors” in the project are growing restless.
Madoff had guaranteed the major Cornerstones developers that there would be “no release” of information on the source of funding for the project and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani guaranteed that Madoff’s “account” would be protected from federal, state, and local law enforcement scrutiny.WMR was told by our legal source in New York that Madoff and Chin have their “strings pulled” by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a “shill” for Giuliani, who plans to run for Governor of New York to take care that New York City’s redevelopment project does not face any problems in Albany; former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, who is shilling for the financial interests of his son Andrew Cuomo, the New York’s Attorney General (Giuliani jumped the GOP ship in 1994 to endorse Democrat Mario Cuomo for Governor); and former Senator Alphonse D’Amato, Giuliani’s political enemy who, nevertheless, hopes to capitalize on the Cornerstones project.
In fact, WMR was told that the federal stimulus package for New York City is almost entirely slated for rail and rail station projects to support the Cornerstones. These projects include a hookup between the Second Avenue subway and the Q Street subway that will also connect to a high-speed rail link from the East River floating casino to Coney Island; a new rail tunnel linking the Grand Central Station/Times Square casino/entertainment complex with the World Trade Center complex; and enhanced rail links between the Cornerstones and New Jersey.
One indication that the federal stimulus money is geared for new rail stations is the fact that the rail station for the new Yankee Stadium is still not completed just weeks prior to the opening of the new stadium.
One source familiar with Cornerstones emphasized the pressure on Bloomberg to deliver on the project. The source revealed that if the Madoff fiasco is any indication of Bloomberg’s team’s performance, the project is in real trouble. The source added that Bloomberg will pay dearly politically and financially if he fails “to deliver the goods” on the Cornerstones.
With Madoff going to federal prison without a jury trial and no conspiracy charges being brought, the investors in Cornerstone hope their mega-project can be saved with little public notice.
It is also certain that based on the massive returns that were expected from Cornerstones, some of Madoff’s closest investors, who are now complaining about not knowing about his Ponzi scheme, likely knew very well that if the project came off without a hitch, they stood to gain on their original investments.
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The Steady State, Democracy SITREP - Accelerating Authoritarian Dynamics: Assessment of Democratic Decline - A Periodic Update, Staff Report, Feb. 26, 2026. We assess with high confidence that the cumulative effect of the Trump Administration’s ongoing actions indicates that democratic backsliding continues. While some institutional resistance exists and may be growing, the trajectory poses both immediate and long-term risks to constitutional order and national security.
The period from January 19—February 22, 2026, began with a significant uptick in authoritarian overreach and ended in a fit of pique as the Supreme Court rejected President Donald Trump’s claimed authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to levy taxes on a whim.
Trump is becoming increasingly incoherent and disconnected from reality—falling asleep during the first meeting of his self-lauded Board of Peace.
The broad spectrum of overreach suggests the administration is aware its policies are failing, and is desperate for anything that will a) resonate with the public and boost approval numbers, and b) punish those he judges to be the source of his problems.
Executive Overreach and the Weaponization of the State
Executive branch overreach drives America’s slide toward authoritarianism. In its quest to stifle public dissent against brutal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policies, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued administrative subpoenas—which are not issued by a federal judge, but by federal agencies—to social media and tech companies seeking identifying information about people sharing information about ICE activity in their communities, or criticizing Trump.
Trump announced on February 19 that he would take $10 billion in federal funds for his Board of Peace—funding not allocated for that purpose by Congress—stating he will use the funds as he deems fit. And Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard allegedly covered up a whistleblower complaint that alleged she hid an intercepted conversation between foreign persons that mentioned someone close to Trump.
The faltering Trump is attempting to appear virile and project strength, risking American security and trying to save face in ways that make the presidency seem petty and small.
The Administration launched a massive military buildup in the Middle East—the largest deployment to the region in several decades—in an attempt to press Iran to make a “deal” to end its nuclear weapons program: a decision on whether to attack Iran could come in a matter of days.
Embarrassed that an American stationed on a submarine several miles off Greenland was evacuated by Denmark for emergency medical treatment, Trump announced he would deploy a naval hospital ship to Greenland, to provide treatment for the “sick” who are not being cared for, despite the existence of free healthcare and six hospitals serving Greenland’s 50,000 residents.
In true “strongman” form—strongmen typically want their name and image plastered throughout public places, to shore up their personality cult, project power, and intimidate citizens into believing that the state is everywhere—Trump told Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer he would unfreeze funding for a tunnel project connecting New York and New Jersey if Schumer agreed to rename New York’s Penn Station and Washington’s Dulles International Airport after Trump.
Reminiscent of authoritarians who have gone before him, two huge banners with Trump’s image were unfurled on the main Department of Justice (DOJ) building in DC.Always willing to attack the weak to appear strong, The Trump Administration announced it had the authority to detain lawful refugees who have already been extensively vetted via NGOs, the UN, and US security agencies if they have not obtained their green cards within a year.
This is clearly an effort to target vulnerable people—largely people of color—as refugees are not by law allowed to apply for a green card until they have been here for a year. T
his could lead to 200,000 vetted refugees being detained in concentration camps across America; meanwhile, ICE seeks to buy up to 20 warehouses in which to detain migrants.There were several promising signs as well, as some entities began to push back against the administration’s overreach.
The Republican chief election official in West Virginia refused to turn over his state’s voting rolls, defying the DOJ’s demand for these private voting records: DOJ claims it needs the documents to ensure noncitizens are not voting.
Pushback against ICE brutality in Minnesota had significant effect, and Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino was removed from Minnesota and replaced by border czar Tom Homan, who quickly announced a drawdown in ICE troops. ICE operations continue but fewer than 500 ICE agents reportedly remain in Minnesota, according to DHS officials.
That number is three times the number usually in Minnesota, but the trajectory is in the right direction.
Weakening Judicial Independence
We assess that, under pressure from Trump, the DOJ has slow-walked the Congressionally-mandated release of the Epstein files, likely seeking to protect people in power.
During an early February House Judiciary Committee hearing, Attorney General Pam Bondi showed enormous disrespect for victims---many of whom were present at the hearing---was argumentative, and, looking to intimidate those seeking the truth about Epstein’s contacts with the politically powerful, displayed a document containing Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal’s search history as she pursued the Epstein files on congressional computers.
In late January, the FBI launched a raid on the Fulton County, GA, election office, claiming probable cause that fraud had occurred in the 2020 election.
In a promising sign, Fulton County officials pushed back, asserting that “unsupported by probable cause and dependent on unsubstantiated hypotheticals, Respondent’s seizure violated the Fourth Amendment” and demanding the return of all materials.
Reflecting Trump’s disdain for refugees and immigrants, the 5th Circuit in early February ruled that all migrants, not just convicted criminals or recent arrivals, can be detained while in the process of having their cases adjudicated no matter how long they have lived in the United States. This is a significant shift from how a 30-year old immigration statute has been interpreted and could result in two million immigrants being detained indefinitely, and may be why DHS is buying warehouses in which to detain migrants.
Signs exist that judicial independence largely holds, and an ethics complaint filed by the DOJ after US District Judge James Boasberg privately suggested to several federal judges in March 2025 that the Administration’s disregard for court decisions would trigger a constitutional crisis was dismissed by a federal appeals court in December 2025 in a decision publicized in early February 2026.
Additionally, a judge blocked Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s effort to strip Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) of his rank over a video he made with five congressional colleagues reminding our military and intelligence community that they are not obliged to obey illegal orders.Legislative WeaknessCongress has continued to show some signs of life, and Democrats successfully blocked a DHS funding reauthorization bill over opposition to funding ICE absent significant restrictions on its actions.
Unfortunately, ICE is well-funded due to allocations in legislation passed over the summer, so administration officials have little incentive to negotiate or meet Democrats’ demands for a ban on face covering and that judicial warrants be required to enter private homes and businesses.
Hope remains alive on the Republican side of the Capitol as well, where six Congressional Republicans voted with Democrats to rescind Trump’s tariffs on Canada, and numerous Republicans condemned a racist video Trump shared on truth social.
Likely trying to woo back support from Republicans who are increasingly opposed to the administration’s brutal immigration crackdown, House Speaker Mike Johnson misused scripture to justify poor treatment of immigrants, suggesting wrongly that the Bible requires assimilation before humane treatment is expected, then denying that the admonition to welcome the immigrant is given to governments as well as individuals.
Not to be outdone, Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) tried to appeal to patriotism and the founders in an effort to reclaim the high ground on immigration, claiming (falsely) that President George Washington would have worked for ICE.
Systemic Electoral Flaws
Podcast host Steve Bannon, who has pull with the Trump Administration and the MAGA base, threatened that ICE will patrol voting places. White House Spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt attempted to downplay this possibility but did not deny it. Frustrated with opposition to his effort to thwart the will of the people in the 2026 midterms, Trump threatened to issue an Executive Order requiring voter ID if Congress does not pass the SAVE Act, which would place constraints on the ability of especially women to cast a ballot in elections.
Undermining Faith In Public Institutions
Constantly peeved with institutions of higher learning, especially Harvard, which the Administration claims has violated students’ civil rights, Trump announced a “settlement” with Harvard of $1 billion after the New York Times reported that the White House had abandoned efforts to extort a financial payout.
Harvard, however, has rejected any financial payment, and has been focused on negotiating an agreement to establish trade schools
Civil Society/Media
We assess that Trump is increasingly frustrated by the slow pace of his cultural revolution, and is attempting to bolster progress in ways that permanently change the nature of entertainment and civic life in American. Annoyed by declining revenues sparked by numerous cancellations by artists protesting the addition of Trump’s name to The Kennedy Center, Trump announced the Kennedy Center would be closed for renovations for two years beginning July 4th.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has asked the media to air patriotic content in the run up to America’s 250th birthday, and one must wonder whether the Trump-lauded Melania documentary will become part of that content. The documentary opened in late January, and has grossed $15.8 million. The film cost Amazon-MGM $75 million, including $40 million paid to Melania.
Having experienced Trump’s commitment to revenge, and specifically fearing retaliation from the FCC, Paramount and CBS refused to allow Stephen Colbert to interview Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico on the air, citing equal time regulations, although CBS claims it only provided “legal guidance” that the Talarico interview could not be aired unless the show offered equal time to rival candidates.
Paramount and CBS last year settled a complaint over the editing of an interview with then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris for $16 billion.
Finally, Trump demanded Netflix remove former Obama-era National Security Adviser Susan Rice from its board after she said that entities that caved to Trump’s demands would eventually be held accountable. Netflix has ignored this demand.
More On Epstein Files, Cover-up
Politico, ‘You'll have to ask my husband:’ House Republicans say Hillary Clinton punted questions on Epstein, Maya Kaufman, Gelila Negesse and Hailey Fuchs, Feb. 26, 2026. The former secretary of State testified for roughly six hours, paving the way for Friday’s scheduled grilling of former President Bill 
Clinton.Photo illustration of Hillary Clinton with Epstein documents
Hillary Clinton appeared to offer little new or relevant information during her closed-door testimony Thursday for a House investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, according to Republicans who questioned her for hours — raising the stakes for them to pry revelations out of Bill Clinton when he sits for his deposition Friday.
The former secretary of State testified for roughly six hours under oath, fielding questions from members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about any involvement Epstein, the late financier and convicted sex offender, and longtime co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, might have had with the Clinton Global Initiative.
Hillary Clinton reiterated that she did not recall ever meeting Epstein and that she only knew Maxwell “casually as an acquaintance.” She denied knowing anything about Epstein and Maxwell’s sex trafficking offenses before the accusations went public. In fact, she repeatedly punted questions to her husband, the former president.
“I don’t know how many times I had to say I did not know Jeffrey Epstein. I never went to his island, I never went to his homes, I never went to his offices,” she told reporters after the deposition. “So it’s on the record numerous times.”
She also complained that Republicans’ questions were “repetitive,” noting how lawmakers frequently veered off topic — asking about UFOs and the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory that circulated among some conservatives during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, when she was the Democratic nominee.
“They asked literally the same questions over and over again, which didn’t seem to me to be very productive,” she said.
Democratic lawmakers said that proves Republicans are engaged in a political fishing expedition — Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) earlier in the day called the proceedings a “clown show” — but Republican members of the committee are using the nonresponses to tee up Bill Clinton’s forthcoming deposition Friday morning.
PoliticusUSA, Immediate Trump Deposition Demanded Over Missing Alleged Trump Child Sexual Assault Epstein Files, Jason Easley, right, 
Feb. 26, 2026. After Hillary Clinton sat for a deposition where she confirmed that she never met and had nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein, House Oversight Democrats demanded that Trump immediately be deposed.
House Oversight Committee Democrats saw their opportunity, and they took it.
Another way of looking at the situation is that Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer’s (R-KY) insistence on trying to transfer Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein to the Clintons is the gift that keeps on giving.
After Hillary Clinton’s deposition, House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-CA) started his remarks by talking about Clinton and the fact that she was being deposed.
Garcia said:
I want to begin by just clarifying and putting emphasis on something that’s very important, and it’s something the secretary herself has said. Secretary Clinton never met Jeffrey Epstein. She never visited the island. She never flew on his plane, and she also had no knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein’s horrific crime.
So, zero knowledge of any wrongdoing, and you’ve also all heard that directly from her Secretary Clinton is also completely cooperating with the deposition and the committee, and is answering questions in full faith and in good faith, what is not acceptable is Oversight Republicans breaking their own committee rules that they established with the secretary and her team.
Which, you’ve all reported you’ve seen by releasing photos not acceptable, and it was gracious of the secretary and her team to continue the deposition.
Rep. Garcia made the connection between Republicans coming after somebody with no connection to Epstein to cover someone who definitely did.
Read what Garcia had to say about deposing Trump, the missing Epstein files, and watch the video below.
Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, Steve Bannon (left to right, file photos).
Ranking member Garcia said:
What we also want to say at this very moment is it’s becoming more clear every single day is the questions continue to build around this DOJ and the White House, and the focus of the majority we want to understand right now where the missing FBI files are.
These are files that accuse the President of the United States about serious, serious accusations around sexual abuse, and the fact that they’re not in the files and have been apparently either removed or discarded is incredibly concerning. And so we’re calling on Attorney General Pam Bondy to immediately release those files.
And lastly, I wanna also add that this committee has now set a new precedent about talking to presidents and former presidents, and we’re demanding immediately that we ask President Trump to testify in front of our committee, and be deposed in front of Oversight Republicans and Democrats, and that should happen immediately.
He’s the person that appears almost more than anyone else in the files, and it needs to happen right now.
James Comer broke the seal, and now presidents and former presidents can be called before Congress to testify.
The person that the House Oversight Committee should be hearing from is Donald Trump. It is Trump who has the connection to Epstein that James Comer tried to pin on Hillary Clinton. It is Trump who made the Epstein files vanish, and it is Trump who has had horrific allegations made against him.
If Democrats win back the House, at some point, Trump will be subpoenaed to testify about the Epstein files. No one is buying the Clintons as the center of the Epstein files, and the scandal will never go away until Trump testifies.
The fired former federal sex crime prosecutor Maureen Comey, top left, daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime Jeffrey Epstein co-conspirator whom the Trump Justice Department is coddling in a "Club Fed" mimum security facility after Maxwell told Departy Attorney General Todd Blance, former defense attorney for Donald Trump, that she could exonerate Trump from trafficking allegations if Trump bestowed clemendy freeing her from her convictions in the massive sex and financial scandal that has enveloped them.
Emptywheel, Analysis: How Todd Blanche Gave Ghislaine Maxwell Blackmail over Donald Trump, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler, Ph.D), right, Feb. 26, 2026. Over the last few days, most mainstream outlets (for example, NPR, NYT, CNN, WSJ) have covered a discovery that Roger Sollenberger first found: that the FBI interviewed a woman in 2019 who said she had been abused by Trump in the mid-1980s, but has withheld three of four interview reports with her from the Epstein file release. All that coverage has only now created enough pressure for DOJ (as reported by WSJ) to concede it may have to review how these files were withheld.
This post attempts to explain the significance of the discovery, which most are missing.The allegation
There’s significant evidence Sollenberger lays out here that the woman refused to cooperate with the FBI, particularly to implicate Trump. One of — by far — the most significant aspects of the files accorded to her a level of protection greater, at least as reflected in the files, than the other survivors.
This Nina Burleigh post (which has not been credited by most sources) suggests the victim may have been pressured in October 2019; the link to the report from her attorney does not currently work.
Unless and until DOJ releases the other materials, what the woman alleged is less immediately salient than that the accusation led DOJ to do something stupid, provably cover it up. For the moment, the cover-up is the smoking gun.
The woman alleged that when she was around 13 years old, Jeffrey Epstein started abusing her in South Carolina, then sharing her with other men (an SC paper covered the initial allegation here). In one instance, the woman alleged (and told a friend, contemporaneously), Epstein shared her with Trump, who forced her to give him oral sex, she bit his penis, he punched and then raped her.
There are reasons to be cautious about this allegation: details that don’t match Epstein’s later MO, the woman was excluded from an earlier victim settlement.
We may have the opportunity to litigate its truth if and when DOJ releases these files.
Until then, however, the allegation is important because it provided the documentary backbone to assemble proof that DOJ withheld the files.
The paper trail: There are multiple iterations of paper trail, many of which this allegation provides a way of tracking:
Records from the first investigation (not relevant here) Records from the 2019-2021 renewed investigation in SDNY Civil lawsuit records Treatment of the first FBI review early in March 2025 The decision to kill the release and do a “proffer” with Ghislaine Maxwell in July 2025 The several stage release of the files in December and January
Sollenberger and others first discovered this woman’s existence via several summary documents (of a report by a friend of hers of the allegation, called into FBI’s tip center; of her complaint; of allegations against famous people).
That led them to find the one 302 that got published, which matched her known lawsuit (which in turn provided details of her representation). And that, in turn, allowed Sollenberger to identify the interview reports in the discovery inventory provided to Ghislaine Maxwell in 2021, and through that, the omission of these reports (marked with pink rectangles) from the public release.
What we have is the interview from July 24, 2019, which was entered on August 9, 2019, one day before Epstein suicided and two days after the second interview, dated August 7. DOJ withheld that one, plus two more, dated August 20 and October 16.
It’s unclear whether Trump appears in those later interviews. The information that has been summarized in several documents was not shared in the interview that has been released, only that she didn’t want to say anything about Trump.
But the asterisk here is annotated with a discussion about NTOC tips, and much of the information in it does match the NTOC tip.
What doesn’t appear in the NTOC tip is the detail that Trump kicked her out. That may be in a missing interview report.
According to survivors, many of their own interview reports have been withheld as well, but without being able to identify them in the Ghislaine discovery inventory, you can’t show what has been withheld.
Ghislaine blackmail
One basic reason this matters is because by withholding these files, DOJ has created an information asymmetry, leaving Ghislaine Maxwell with information that she has but the rest of us don’t. As Sollenberger describes, it gave Ghislaine blackmail material against Trump.
That’s because this document shows the FBI conducted not just one but four interviews with Trump’s accuser. And, as I reported Wednesday, while the government gave all four of those interviews to Maxwell’s legal team ahead of her trial, the government gave only one of those four interviews to us in the Epstein files.
In other words, this document shows that, in choosing to withhold three of the four interviews from the Epstein files, the DOJ has granted Maxwell 
potential blackmail on the sitting president of the United States. (That depends, of course, on what the victim said in those interviews, but it doesn’t look good for Trump. However, if the victim “exonerated” him, the public needs to know that as well, and you’d think he’d see common ground there.)
Maxwell has held this leverage over Trump since her team received the files in batches from DOJ prosecutors as a standard part of her trial prep in 2021, in April, July, and October, the record shows. (The victim was suing Epstein’s estate at the time, settling with a reported payout in December 2021.) But if DOJ had released those interviews with the Epstein files, as it appears the law absolutely requires, any leverage Maxwell had there would be gone. Instead, Trump’s DOJ — starring Pam Bondi, Todd Blanche, and Kash Patel, above left — let her keep it.
Todd Blanche’s script
And that adds important new insight into the interview Blanche, right, did with Ghislaine on July 24 and 25 of last year.
The press has treated that interview with shameless credulity, as if it were a sincere search for new information.
It was not.
You can be sure it was not because Blanche came into the interview, knowing fuckall about the case (remember, he had fired one of the people left at DOJ who did have that knowledge, Maurene Comey, 8 days earlier, which I’ll return to). He didn’t hold Ghislaine to any standard of exactitude, particularly on dates, which he would have had to do to pursue what she said further. He didn’t press her for details.
And she made multiple claims that wildly conflict with the known record, yet Blanche has made no effort to prosecute her for lying to his face.
Lying to his face may have been the point. As I’ve said, the interview effectively locked her into a story that she would face perjury charges if she ever deviated from it.
Perhaps the most important document Sollenberger found, aside from the discovery index, is this email, sent from one NY FBI email to another, two days before Blanche’s interview.
There was no reason to put together this list. It postdated the day when DOJ announced it would not release the files by 16 days. They were, at least according to public claims, done with the whole thing. Yet more than two weeks after declaring no there there, FBI put together a list of famous people mentioned in the files and noted that one victim implicated Trump.
Much of Blanche’s “interview” consisted of him asking her about whether she knew one or another person. While the names on this list are not the only names Todd Blanche asked about (he asked about Elon Musk and George Soros; he asked about JFK and instead learned — to his surprise — that Ghislaine knew RFK Jr), he did ask about most of them:
Trump Prince Andrew Jes Staley Leon Black Glen Dubin Harvey Weinstein Bill Clinton Alan Dershowitz David Copperfield Les Wexner Jean Luc Brunel Naomi Campbell Chris Tucker Larry Summers Kevin Spacey Didier Bill Gates
Some of them (such as the Hollywood figures), he asked in quick succession.
Interestingly, this Powerpoint about the files, which I believe to post-date the interview, includes a name that Blanche should have asked about, but did not: Howard Lutnick, below right (though Blanche did ask about both Bill Barr, left, and his father).
It is exceedingly likely that whoever “prepped” Blanche for that “interview” worked off the email. Which means Blanche could have asked about the blowjob allegation.
He did not.
Instead, he let Ghislaine provide vague statements about Trump’s good behavior, and now Trump claims he has been exonerated.
Blanche also asked her, across both days, about what she remembered from her discovery, as if testing whether she had reviewed it closely enough to know about this allegation.
Maurene Comey’s new job
The documents uncovered so far appear to show a tip focused on Trump, not Epstein, called into NTOC, the publicly released interview on July 24, 2019, three more interviews, (and, curiously, an FBI intake report dated October 29, 2019, almost two weeks after the fourth interview).
Someone involved in the Epstein investigation in 2019 chose to pursue an allegation implicating Trump, during precisely the period when Geoffrey Berman was attempting to protect SDNY’s investigation into Rudy’s solicitation of dirt from Ukraine. Someone, likewise, chose to include those interviews in the discovery production to Ghislaine.
We don’t know who. DOJ’s redaction of personnel names, itself not permitted under the law, makes it impossible to track most personnel in the same way that redacting victims makes it really hard to track whose interview reports are missing.
But it could be Maurene Comey, who was fired 9 days after DOJ said they would not release the Epstein files, 8 days before Blanche’s “interview” with the sex predator.
And perhaps it’s all a wild coinkydink, but just yesterday we learned that during almost the entire time people have been digging through Epstein files, Maurene Comey has had a new job.
She appears to have only started Wednesday, when Patterson Belknap firm made it public. But in a letter to the judge in her lawsuit, Jesse Furman, alerting him and the government that she is no longer seeking her job back, she is only seeking back pay and pension reinstatement through her ten year hiring anniversary in November, she treated December 20, not this week, as her desired resignation day.
While Ms. Comey continues to seek all of these forms of relief, because of her new employment, she seeks reinstatement and back pay effective only through December 20, 2025. Specifically, Ms. Comey requests that the Court order that she be reinstated from the date of her termination, July 16, 2025, through December 20, 2025, which would provide, inter alia, the following relief: (a) restoration and supplementation of Ms. Comey’s pension rights,2 credits, and benefits, including by requiring the government to make its required employer contributions into her pension plan, the Thrift Savings Plan, through December 20, 2025, along with interest and earnings to make her whole for the loss of investment during that four-month period; (b) restoration of employee contributions into the Thrift Savings Plan from awarded backpay through December 20, 2025, along with interest and earnings to make her whole for the loss of investment during that four-month period; (c) amendment of her service tenure to reflect more than ten years of service (from November 15, 2015, through December 20, 2025, rather than through only July 16, 2025); (d) a revision of her personnel files, including her SF-50, to reflect that she resigned as of December 20, 2025, rather than was terminated on July 16, 2025; and (e) back pay through December 20, 2025.
December 20, of course, was the day after the Epstein files started coming out.
Maybe it took one of the best lawyers in the country five months to find a new job. Maybe she held out hope she could return, take care of unfinished business, until the Epstein release became certain.
Hypothesis
We don’t know what happened but I want to present a hypothesis.
When DOJ charged Epstein in 2019, previously identified and new victims reached out to the FBI. It appears that the friend of this victim did so, focusing on the Trump allegation, not the Epstein one. In a period when Geoffrey Berman, left, was insisting on the independence of SDNY, DOJ did four interviews with the woman, and in one, she appears to have corroborated the tip her friend had shared, but then refused any further cooperation.
And so the allegation sat there, among all the other allegations, and got shared (during the Biden Administration) with Ghislaine in discovery.
When Kash Patel and Pam Bondi, right, got into office, they were gung ho to corroborate all the conspiracy theories the far right has chased for years. Remember, there were two allegations — first in February of last year, then after the initial December release — that FBI had hidden some files.
But then they did a review of the filings — the review that focused on famous people implicated rather than on protecting victims — and discovered the material implicated Trump.
So they claimed there was no there there.
They fired Maurene Comey.
They locked Ghislaine into testimony that exonerated Trump. She moved to Club Fed and got a puppy and may well get her sentence commuted.
On at least two occasions when DOJ reviewed the import of the files, they focused on this allegation. They fought the Epstein Transparency Act, using the Situation Room to ensure their threats would not get made public.
And then then they started to release the files, they did so so incompetently that they managed to reveal they were covering up these files, along with interview reports that don’t yet have this kind of paper trail.
That’s just a hypothesis, consistent with what we know, but in no way proven.
For now, we just have proof they tried, incompetently, to cover up this allegation.
Update: Corrected the timing of the interviews. I take the timing of the entry, August 9, to be unsurprising given the second interview dated August 7. It’s possible DOJ waited to ensure there was some level of credibility before formalizing this. Though I do think it notable that Epstein was suicided that same day.
Popular Information, Accountability Journalism: The missing Epstein files, Judd Legum, right, Feb. 26, 2026. "We did not protect President Trump.”
That is what Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said on January 30, after what he described as the final release of the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
It turns out that was not true.
According to a new report by NPR, the DOJ is withholding “more than 50 pages of FBI interviews, as well as notes from conversations with a woman who accused Trump of sexual abuse decades ago when she was a minor.” The New York Times also reported Wednesday that the DOJ withheld summaries of three FBI interviews with the woman about her interactions with Trump. They released a fourth FBI interview, where the woman made allegations about Epstein.
The missing files were first discovered by independent journalist Roger Sollenberger.
The failure to disclose the interviews about Trump and related files seemingly puts the administration in violation of the Epstein Files Transparency Act. That law, signed by Trump last year, prohibits the withholding or redacting of documents “on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.”
The DOJ released a statement on Tuesday claiming that any document withheld “falls within one of the following categories: duplicates, privileged, or part of an ongoing federal investigation.”
The interviews about the allegations against Trump, however, are not duplicates. Nor is it clear what legal “privilege” would allow the DOJ to disclose FBI interviews where the woman is questioned about her allegations against Epstein, but not interviews with the same woman about Trump. On CNN earlier this month, Blanche indicated that there were no ongoing investigations, saying that the DOJ already determined in July “there was nothing in there that allowed us to prosecute anybody.”
In a second statement, released by the DOJ on Wednesday afternoon, the DOJ directly addressed the missing interviews, referring to them as “documents produced to Ghislaine Maxwell in discovery of her criminal case.” The suggestion was that the documents were withheld pursuant to a protective order in that case. But the DOJ, in a court filing, already acknowledged that those documents were not subject to the protective order. Further, as Sollenberger noted, the DOJ released many other files from the Maxwell discovery.
Congressman Robert Garcia (D-CA), right, said, “The DOJ appears to have illegally withheld FBI interviews with this survivor who accused President Trump of heinous crimes.”
The withheld documents also undermine Trump’s claim that he was “totally exonerated“ by the release of the files. Trump cannot be exonerated by the release of the files when key documents related to serious criminal allegations were not disclosed.
Released files reveal the woman “came forward in July 2019,” days after federal officials arrested Epstein. The woman alleged, according to a summary of one interview that was disclosed, that Epstein “repeatedly assaulted” her in the 1980s, when she was a minor.
Summaries of three interviews regarding the woman’s allegations against Trump are being withheld. But a brief description of the woman’s allegations was included in a 2025 DOJ slide presentation that was released.
According to the slide presentation, the woman claimed that Trump attempted to force her to perform oral sex. When she resisted, Trump allegedly “punched her in the head.” This allegedly occurred when the woman was between 13 and 15 years old.
The revelation that FBI interviews with the woman about Trump are being withheld raises serious questions. Why did the FBI interview the woman three times regarding her interactions with Trump? Why has the DOJ gone to such extremes to keep these interviews from the public?
New York Times, Justice Department Exposed Cooperating Witnesses in Epstein Files, Jonah E. Bromwich and William K. Rashbaum, Feb. 26, 2026. The disclosure is the latest example of how the urgent push to release the files led to the government publicizing information it would normally keep under wraps.
The phrase, buried among millions of pages of documents tied to Jeffrey Epstein, would not mean much to most people. But it could still have had deadly consequences.
The simple words, “proffer at 500,” amounted to a sign that seven of the defendants listed on two 2019 documents released in the files were either cooperating with federal prosecutors or seeking to do so.
And in fact, several of the men whose names appeared with that phrase on the internal documents did cooperate, after talking to prosecutors in what are known as proffer sessions at 500 Pearl Street, the address of the federal district courthouse in Manhattan.
By failing to redact the names of those seven people, who were being held at the Manhattan jail where Mr. Epstein was awaiting trial, the government may have put them in harm’s way. The disclosure of the names could also send a chilling message to anyone else considering whether to cooperate with the authorities.
When initially informed that the names had been included in the Epstein Files, the Justice Department did not redact the documents further or remove them from the online database. A spokeswoman said that the word proffer “did not necessarily mean cooperator.”
But after The New York Times confirmed that at least three of the seven people had in fact cooperated with the government, and then informed the department, agency officials took down the files. They then restored them with the names and notations redacted.
Even if the people in question had not cooperated, legal experts said, the phrase could indicate that they had attempted to do so, which would still have put them in harm’s way by signaling to co-defendants and criminal associates that they were willing to provide information to prosecutors.
“It’s very upsetting,” said Marc Greenwald, a partner at Quinn Emanuel and a former prosecutor who was involved in one of the seven cases, adding that in many instances the names of those who cooperate are never revealed to the public, and should not be. “Some of these gangs and transnational organizations have long memories,” Mr. Greenwald said.
The Times has not named the seven people, or provided any other identifying information.
The disclosure is the latest example underscoring how the urgent push to release the files resulted in the Justice Department publicizing information that prosecutors would normally take pains to keep private. The agency also released dozens of unredacted nude images on its website, showing young women or possibly minors, and re-exposed the names and identifying information of women who have accused Mr. Epstein.
The failure to redact the inmates’ names makes plain that it is not only the rich and powerful who have been imperiled by the rush to release the files. Their publication has also affected people from very different stations in life who never traveled to Mr. Epstein’s private island, flew on his private jet or did business with him.
The revelation also raises questions about what other sensitive information might have slipped through the Justice Department’s hasty redaction process and remain, in effect, hidden in plain sight in the vast online digital repository that contains the files.
The Epstein Files Transparency Act, which called for the release of a wide range of materials, including documentation of his detention and death, set a Dec. 19 deadline for the Justice Department to do so. After missing the deadline, the agency scrambled last month to release millions of documents, as well as 2,000 videos and 180,000 images. A team of more than 500 department lawyers and reviewers worked on the redaction and publication of the materials. In some cases, prosecutors in New York, Washington and elsewhere put off other work to assist in those efforts.
Among the files were at least 20 documents that had the potential to reveal cooperating witnesses. Those documents are known as prisoner schedule reports and are stamped “CONFIDENTIAL” in red ink by the U.S. Marshals Service, which generates them as a way of tracking where a detainee is going on a given day. Such documents are not generally made public. Mr. Epstein was listed on each one, which likely explains why they were released as part of the files.
The set of documents was redacted inconsistently. On some, all of the information was concealed; on others, only prisoners’ names were redacted, leaving other potentially identifying information visible.
The prisoner schedule reports in the files were from July and August of 2019, when Mr. Epstein was being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. Several of the lawyers contacted by The Times recalled seeing him at the jail as he met with his own lawyer, something he did nearly every day until his death by suicide that August.
Jonah E. Bromwich covers criminal justice in the New York region for The Times. He is focused on political influence and its effect on the rule of law in the area's federal and state courts.
New York Times, Former Senator Bob Kerrey Resigns From Nebraska Start-Up Amid Epstein Emails, Sonia A. Rao, Feb. 26, 2026 (print ed.). Mr. Kerrey, shown above in a file photo, has left his role as chairman of the company, Monolith, after Justice Department documents showed he had met and corresponded with Jeffrey Epstein.
Bob Kerrey, the former U.S. senator from Nebraska, has resigned from the board of a clean energy start-up in the state after documents released by the Department of Justice indicated that Mr. Kerrey and Jeffrey Epstein had met and corresponded over email more than a decade ago.
Mr. Kerrey confirmed the resignation, which occurred on Friday, over text message on Wednesday, saying that he resigned from the company, Monolith, because he was concerned the revelations would “make it difficult for them to succeed.”
“I will offer no defense of my meetings with Jeffrey Epstein,” Mr. Kerrey said. “If I knew then what I know now, I would not have said yes to a meeting.”
The correspondence occurred several years after Mr. Epstein, the financier who died by suicide in 2019 while facing sex-trafficking charges, had pleaded guilty in 2008 to charges of solicitation of prostitution with a minor.
Monolith, the Nebraska start-up, is an energy company that focuses on producing low-emission hydrogen and carbon black, a substance used in tires and other rubber products. Mr. Kerrey had been chairman of the board, a position he had held for years. Monolith did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Kerrey, 82, served as a U.S. senator from 1989 to 2001, was the governor of Nebraska in the 1980s and ran for president in 1992. He met with Mr. Epstein in 2013, a few years after a stint leading the New School in New York City, where he was president from 2001 to 2010 and president emeritus until 2013.
Files released by the Justice Department show that Mr. Kerrey and Mr. Epstein met at least twice in early 2013. In February of that year, Mr. Kerrey responded to an email invitation to meet Mr. Epstein at his house while Bill Gates would be there. Mr. Kerrey said he would be out of town but had enjoyed meeting and talking with Mr. Epstein at an earlier lunch. “Invite me again!” Mr. Kerrey said in the email.
That May, Mr. Kerrey sent Mr. Epstein an email that said, “Thanks for breakfast. It was great being with you.”
Further correspondence indicated that the two tried to meet again several times in 2013 and 2014, including invitations for lunches and dinners with Ehud Barak, the former Israeli prime minister; the filmmaker Woody Allen; and the PayPal and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel.Editors’ PicksSuper-Agers’ Brains Have a Special Ability, New Study SuggestsWhat It’s Like to Grow Up With A.I.: The Winners of Our Multimedia ChallengeThey Wanted a Two-Bedroom in Queens, With Room to Grow, for Less Than $400,000
Mr. Kerrey said over text that he remembered meeting Mr. Epstein once, although there could have been more meetings that he did not recall.
He added that he believed focusing on his connections to Mr. Epstein was counterproductive to achieving justice for the victims of Mr. Epstein’s crimes.
“There are victims in this story and I am not one of them,” he said. “The victims are women who were abused by Epstein and his friends when they were children.”
Amy Malsin, a spokeswoman for the New School, said in a statement that the university had reviewed the correspondence between Mr. Kerrey and Mr. Epstein in the documents released by the Department of Justice.
“Those interactions appear to have been limited and there is no indication that they were related to the activities of the New School,” she said. “We regret that any member of our community had any association with Mr. Epstein, whose crimes were reprehensible.”
Mr. Kerrey’s resignation came after the Nebraska Republican Party last week called on political candidates, all of whom appeared to be Democratic or Independent, to return donations from Mr. Kerrey, who is a Democrat. The Nebraska Republican Party cited campaign finance records that showed Mr. Kerrey donated to several campaigns last year, including the U.S. Senate campaign of Dan Osborn and the congressional campaign of John Cavanaugh.
Mr. Cavanaugh said in a statement that he donated Mr. Kerrey’s contribution to a Nebraska nonprofit that works to end sexual and domestic violence once the ties with Mr. Epstein were brought to his attention.
New York Times, World Economic Forum Chief Resigns Over Epstein Ties, Amelia Nierenberg, Feb. 26, 2026. Borge Brende, a former foreign minister of Norway (shown above in a file photo), had maintained contact with the convicted sex offender.
Borge Brende, the chief executive and president of the World Economic Forum, said on Thursday that he would resign, after an independent investigation by the group into his ties to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
His resignation came less than a month after the release of the latest batch of files related to Mr. Epstein appeared to show that Mr. Brende, a former foreign minister of Norway, had stayed in contact with the disgraced American financier long after Mr. Epstein had been convicted of soliciting a minor for prostitution.
The forum, best known as the organizer of an annual summit for world leaders in Davos, Switzerland, said in a statement that the independent review had not found “additional concerns beyond what has been previously disclosed.”
Mr. Brende said that after “careful consideration,” he wanted the forum to continue its work “without distractions.”
“We respect his decision to step down,” the organization added, expressing its appreciation to Mr. Brende for his “instrumental” leadership over a “pivotal period of reforms.”
The forum was rocked last May after its board said it was opening an investigation into allegations of improper behavior by its founder, Klaus Schwab, who had stepped down as chair in April.
Mr. Brende is among several prominent Norwegians named in the documents released by the Justice Department in recent weeks, which exposed how Mr. Epstein had courted decision makers around the world.
In Britain, the Epstein files have shaken its monarchy and government. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, and Peter Mandelson, Britain’s former ambassador to Washington, have both been arrested over their ties to Mr. Epstein. Several other senior government officials have also resigned.
But few other countries have been as roiled by the disclosures as Norway, a wealthy, oil-producing nation.
This month, Thorbjorn Jagland, a former prime minister, was charged with “gross corruption” in connection with his ties to Mr. Epstein. The future queen, Crown Princess Mette-Marit, said she regretted “having had any contact with Epstein” after emails appeared to show a long, close relationship between them.
And the police are investigating a Norwegian diplomat, Mona Juul, and her husband, Terje Rod-Larsen, after media reports that the couple had been left $10 million in Mr. Epstein’s will. Ms. Juul, who had been Norway’s ambassador to Jordan and Iraq, quit.
The latest tranche of the files appears to show that Mr. Brende maintained a relationship with Mr. Epstein to at least mid-2019, just months before Mr. Epstein killed himself in a New York jail.
Mr. Brende had previously told Norway’s public broadcaster that he was “completely unaware of his criminal actions and past,” and that he never would have met Mr. Epstein “had I known.”
In March 2019, Mr. Epstein appears to have texted Mr. Brende a letter written by his lawyers that was published in The New York Times.
In the letter, the lawyers refer to Mr. Epstein’s previous conviction and say that “the number of young women involved in the investigation has been vastly exaggerated,” among other claims.
Mr. Brende appears to have replied with a thumbs-up emoji.
New York Times, Trump Administration Live Updates: Clinton Briefly Halts Epstein Deposition After Republican Leaks Photo, Annie Karni, Feb. 26, 2026.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton briefly halted her closed-door testimony before the House Oversight Committee on Thursday afternoon after learning that a Republican attendee had leaked an image from inside the deposition, prompting an eruption in the room as her lawyers vociferously objected.
Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado shared a photograph of Mrs. Clinton answering questions, which was posted on social media by Benny Johnson, a right-wing podcaster. Mrs. Clinton’s attorneys immediately asked to pause the proceedings, noting that the former secretary of state had been denied her request for a public hearing. The deposition resumed about 30 minutes later.
The disruption came after a defiant opening statement from Mrs. Clinton, who decried House Republicans for forcing her to participate in their investigation into the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and accused them of using her as a prop in “partisan political theater.”
“You have compelled me to testify, fully aware that I have no knowledge that would assist your investigation, in order to distract attention from President Trump’s actions and to cover them up despite legitimate calls for answers,” she said according to a copy of her statement provided in advance.
“You have made little effort to call the people who show up most prominently in the Epstein files,” she added, noting that not a single Republican had attended a closed-door session last week in Ohio to depose Leslie Wexner, the retail billionaire and prolific donor to G.O.P. candidates.
Representative Suhas Subramanyam, Democrat of Virginia, said the first hour of the deposition before the interruption had been an embarrassment to Republicans, turning up nothing of significance.
“Secretary Clinton is puzzled as to why she’s here answering questions,” he said. “I’m trying to figure out what else to ask her. She doesn’t know much.”
He said that Republicans had grilled her about Mr. Epstein’s involvement in raising money for the Clinton Global Initiative. But Mrs. Clinton was a senator during the years when her husband, former President Bill Clinton, was starting his foundation. And she told the committee she had not been involved.
Speaking to reporters ahead of the deposition, Representative James R. Comer of Kentucky, the Republican chairman of the Oversight Committee, appeared defensive about why the panel was investigating Mrs. Clinton, a Democrat who has said she never met or spoke to Jeffrey Epstein, who died in prison in 2019.
Mr. Comer noted that Democrats on the committee had voted to hold both Clintons in contempt of Congress if they did not appear to testify. He also reiterated his claim that Hillary Clinton was of interest to the committee because Ms. Maxwell, a longtime companion of Epstein, attended her daughter Chelsea Clinton’s wedding.
Mr. Subramanyam said Ms. Maxwell had been “a guest of a guest at the wedding,” adding that Mrs. Clinton “didn’t really know or talk to her in any way.”
Some Democrats on the Oversight Committee were careful not to criticize Republicans on the panel for investigating the Clintons, saying that they were happy to question to anyone who might have knowledge of Mr. Epstein’s and Ms. Maxwell’s crimes.
Others were more blunt. “There is no indication — zero, zip, zilch, nada — that Secretary Clinton had any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes,” said Representative James Walkinshaw, Democrat of Virginia. “My fear is we’re here today as part of a political exercise, part of a long-running fever dream where Republicans want to lock up Secretary Clinton.”
In her opening comments, Mrs. Clinton said that she had never met Epstein and knew nothing of his criminal activities.
“I do not recall ever encountering Mr. Epstein,” she said, according to her prepared statement. “I never flew on his plane or visited his island, homes or offices. I have nothing to add to that.”
Representative Robert Garcia of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Comittee, noted the leak of a second photo and asked that the news media be allowed in to watch Hillary Clinton’s deposition, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a closed proceeding.
Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said that his party would demand that the Justice Department and F.B.I. preserve their records “on what transpired behind the scenes” regarding the release of the Epstein files. Schumer said the action was a step to hold Trump administration officials accountable for improperly redacting and withholding material in an apparent violation of the law that mandated the files be made public.
A group of Senate Democrats, including Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, said that they would be viewing the unredacted versions of the Justice Department’s Epstein files in the coming days, as the department faces questions about its failure to release key materials related to a woman who made an accusation against President Trump.
“Let me be blunt,” Schumer said at a news conference at the Capitol. “There is a massive cover-up going on in the Justice Department to protect Donald Trump and people associated with Jeffrey Epstein.”
Lawmakers deposing Hilary Clinton in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation have taken a break. Lawyers are conferring after Representative Lauren Boebert, Republican of Colorado, leaked a photograph from inside the proceedings to the right-wing commentator Benny Johnson, who posted it on social media. Clinton had demanded a public hearing, which Republicans rejected. Now Clinton is protesting that if a member is leaking to the press, reporters should be let in.
Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and erstwhile Democratic presidential nominee, opened her testimony to the House Oversight Committee by decrying their investigation — and the panel’s decision to involve her in it — as a “partisan political theater.”
“You have compelled me to testify, fully aware that I have no knowledge that would assist your investigation, in order to distract attention from President Trump’s actions and to cover them up despite legitimate calls for answers,” she said, according to a prepared statement.
In her opening comments, she excoriated the House’s justification for issuing her a subpoena, stating plainly that she did not have any information pertaining to the criminal activities of Jeffrey Epstein.
More Global News
New York Times, For Trump, Military Strike in Iran Could Serve Symbolic Purpose, Julian E. Barnes and Helene Cooper, Feb. 26, 2026, Some officials in the Trump administration hope an attack would force Iran to give up its nuclear enrichment program. Others have doubts.
The targeted strikes on Iran being considered by the Trump administration would probably be aimed at nuclear and missile sites in the country. But the president has yet to specify, to either the American people or the troops who would carry out his orders, exactly what he wants this military engagement to accomplish.
In his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, President Trump appeared to suggest a goal — that Iran needs to say the “secret words” that it will never have a nuclear weapon. But Iran has already essentially made that promise, even if it has enriched enough uranium to make intelligence officials scoff.
U.S. officials say they doubt that Iran is ready to make a deal, but that the strategy behind targeted strikes would be to force its leaders to make concessions.
More immediately, the objective would be to damage Iran’s nuclear and missile facilities.
Mr. Trump declared that Iran’s three most important nuclear sites were “obliterated” in U.S. strikes last year. They were not obliterated, but they are not operational either, according to officials who have reviewed the intelligence.
For Israel, the most critical immediate threat is Iran’s missiles. Destroying them would limit the country’s ability to retaliate against Israel and military bases in the region that house U.S. troops. American military officials say that while their bombers and Tomahawks can significantly damage Iran’s missiles, it could manufacture more. And Iran has spread out some of its launch sites, making an attack more difficult.
But any damage from a U.S. strike would more likely serve two symbolic purposes. Several administration officials said it would allow Mr. Trump to claim a military victory against an old foe. But top officials also hope it would drive Iran to give up its nuclear enrichment program, although some current and former officials doubt whether it would accomplish that.
Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said in Situation Room meetings that while the U.S. forces amassed in the Middle East could carry out small or medium strikes, there would be a potentially high risk of American casualties and a negative effect on American weapons stockpiles.Want to stay updated on what’s happening in Iran and Israel? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update, and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.
“When we initiate contact, we should expect Iran to launch 100 missiles at U.S. bases, because that was what they did to Israel in June,” said Maj. Gen. Paul D. Eaton, a retired Army veteran of the war in Iraq. American troops, he added, have neither Israel’s vaunted Iron Dome air defense system nor its vast bunker network that helped keep casualties down during the country’s armed conflict with Iran last June.
New York Times, Israelis Are Waiting for War With Iran, Again, Aaron Boxerman, Feb. 26, 2026. The national mood is somewhere between anxiety, resignation and anticipation as President Trump considers whether to attack Iran.
Across Israel, hospitals have been conducting emergency drills while neighbors share locations of bomb shelters in WhatsApp groups.
The national mood is wavering somewhere between anxiety, resignation and anticipation as President Trump deliberates over whether to attack Iran. If he orders a strike, it will most likely pull Israel into its second war with Iran in less than a year, following a 12-day conflict in June.
Ruth Bahaj of Jerusalem, 38, said she was trying to maintain a semblance of normalcy, including by heading on a vacation this week. But she and her wife also made preparations, such as cleaning and organizing the fortified shelter in their apartment building.
“Plenty of people are anxious, aren’t sleeping at night because they’re checking the news,” Ms. Bahaj said. “But it’s impossible to be tense and at the ready constantly for so long.”
Mr. Trump first began threatening to attack Iran last month after Iran’s leaders began a bloody crackdown on mass protests calling for an end to the country’s authoritarian clerical rule. He has ordered a buildup of American military power in the region unparalleled since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
But he has also zigzagged between declaring his readiness to attack Iran and expressing a desire to use a moment of weakness in the country to reach a new diplomatic agreement to rein in Iran’s nuclear program.
Morning Shots via The Bulwark, Political Opinion: Hegseth’s AI Ultimatum, Andrew Egger, Feb. 26, 2026. Who gets to decide when the government AI-bots are ready to start killing people without direct human oversight—the Pentagon or the AI companies?
This remarkable—some might say insane—question is at the center of a major standoff between the Defense Department and Anthropic, creator of the AI platform known as Claude. While the Pentagon has contracts with all the leading AI labs, Anthropic until this month was the only one contracted for AI use in classified settings: Claude was, for instance, reportedly involved in the operation to capture Nicolas Maduro.
But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has grown unhappy with two elements of the DoD’s contract with Anthropic. One, Anthropic won’t let its AI be used to conduct mass surveillance of Americans. Two, it won’t let the DoD use it to operate autonomous weapons systems that can identify, track, and kill targets without direct human involvement. To the Defense Department, the idea that a contractor would be able to tie the military’s hands like this is outlandish; they should be permitted, they argue, to use AI they contract for “for all lawful purposes.”¹
Hegseth could simply drop Anthropic’s contract over this, pivoting instead to any of the AI labs—OpenAI, Google Gemini, Elon Musk’s xAI—that aren’t insisting on these contractual sticking points. But he doesn’t really want to. After all, Claude is supposed to be the best, and at any rate it’s already integrated into lots of DoD systems. It’d be a hassle.
So instead, Hegseth has issued Anthropic an ultimatum: Change your policy, or we’re going to start getting nasty. This could happen in a couple different ways. The Defense Department is threatening to use the Defense Production Act to compel Anthropic to drop its usage requirements. Or it could go the exact opposite direction, declaring Anthropic a “supply chain risk”—which would not only eliminate DoD’s Anthropic contract, but also forbid any business that contracts with DoD from working with Anthropic in any way. Both of these, it is hardly sufficient to say, would be enormous, unprecedented escalations. Hegseth says Anthropic has until tomorrow to decide.
The fact that DoD is considering both possibilities—making it illegal for Anthropic not to work with them and making it illegal for Anthropic to work with anybody DoD works with—makes it pretty clear that all this is a pure squeeze play. Hegseth doesn’t actually think Anthropic is a supply-chain risk, a label typically reserved for software developed in hostile nations and suspected to contain hidden malign code. He’s just threatening to use the strongest weapon he has against the lab if it doesn’t give him what he wants.
The confrontation has spooked the AI-policy world, which has until now viewed the Trump administration as highly AI-friendly. This week, I spoke with Dean Ball, who worked in a senior AI-policy role at the White House last year, helping the Trump administration develop its AI Action Plan. Ball now serves as a senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation, a newly influential think tank on the tech right.
In Ball’s view, the actual dispute between Hegseth and Anthropic had reasonable points on both sides: The government wants to control its own military, and Anthropic doesn’t want to be involved in specific use cases, so whatever—seems like they should go their separate ways. But Hegseth’s ultimatum was a whole different beast. Throughout our conversation, Ball seemed to struggle to summon words powerful enough to express his incredulity at what he called the DoD’s “giant escalation.”
“I will say this in no uncertain terms, bipartisan, regardless of administration,” Ball said. “This would be one of the worst things for the American business climate I have ever seen the government do.”
I asked the White House how Hegseth’s threatened kneecapping of Anthropic was in keeping with their broader AI policy, which has placed a huge priority on unleashing U.S. AI capabilities as part of a global AI arms race against China. The White House referred me back to the Pentagon; the Pentagon did not respond to my comment request.
Even when they’re the targets of ludicrous government bullying, AI labs don’t necessarily make for the most sympathetic victims, which perhaps explains why we haven’t seen more Democrats rallying to Anthropic’s defense. One exception is Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), who serves as the ranking member of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. In a statement to The Bulwark, Lofgren said that the administration’s “bullying tactics” against Anthropic were “shocking and senseless.”
“Anthropic is trying to do the right thing and put their own guardrails in place in the absence of legislation,” she added. “It should go without saying that AI technology should not be making potentially lethal decisions without human involvement. I fear what America will become if the DoD is given this unrestricted power.”
Maybe that’s the biggest takeaway from this whole crazy story: While it’s nice that Anthropic is digging in their heels here, it’s insane that such questions as “how much killing will we let the killer robots do on their own” are being hashed out as back-room handshakes between the military and its AI contractors in the first place. This seems like a matter of public policy if ever there was one. Have we got a legislature or what?
If Congress were actually to do its job and legislate on this issue, what’s the right answer? And what would be the right solution to this standoff if your favorite administration were in power? Share your thoughts in the comments.
More On U.S. Elections, Politics, Governance
The Contrarian, Opinion: The Rip-roaring Response to Trump’s Lies, Jennifer Rubin, right, Feb. 26, 2026. Learn why Democrats are in better shape than you might think.
Tuesday night was unlike any other State of the Union — and not solely because a decomposing president lied for hours, smeared entire groups of citizens (e.g., Somali Americans) and crabbed that Democrats would not applaud. It will be most remembered as the night when the response(s) outdid the president’s speech — and it was not close.
The official response from Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger was a succinct tour de force. (I will have much more to say about her tomorrow…watch this space!) But the multiplicity of alternative events featuring Democratic elected officials, whistleblowers, victims of the Trump regime, and activists turned the evening into a marathon of truth-telling and effective political communication.
It was a brilliant idea: give people a contrast between, on one hand, a feeble, rambling, low energy narcissist (whose hair looked more bizarre than usual and whose speech was longer than ever) making up ridiculous “facts” and, on the other, a wide assortment of energetic, dynamic House Democrats (e.g., Reps. Greg Cesar of Texas, Robert Garcia of California, Dan Goldman of New York) and some senators ideally equipped to lead Democrats into the future (e.g. Sens. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Chris Murphy of Connecticut).
If anyone doubted the appropriateness of boycotting Trump’s harangue, the split screen highlighted the contrast between a party grounded in reality and one in delusion. Cogent arguments from Democrats made Trump’s incoherence (e.g., bragging about the enormous tariffs he illegally snatched; keeping home prices high and making housing more affordable!) even more noticeable. Democrats’ dedication to inclusion and empathy made Trump appear even smaller and meaner as he gloated over the spoils of oligarchy (2.4 million “taken off” SNAP) and celebrated his campaign of terror.
In the face of absurd demands that they treat Trump like a normal president and accord him undeserved deference (the Oval Office occupant who called them “crazy”), Democrats and the event sponsors (MoveOn.org, Defiance.org) used the evening to reinforce their denunciation of a regime engaged on a pedophile coverup, massive self-dealing, the largest transfer of wealth from working people to the uber-rich, and the worst deprivation of civil liberties in a century.
Most evident, Democrats took every opportunity to blast Donald Trump for covering up a pedophile ring that apparently extended to elites across industries and oceans. “The single most powerful moment tonight is going to be when Donald Trump has to look up at the gallery of the U.S. House and see the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein looking straight back at him — demanding justice, demanding truth, and demanding accountability,” Garcia declared, hours after we learned that a batch of critical documents concerning a minor’s complaint against Trump was allegedly withheld from Congress.
Second, we heard more about corruption in all its forms than Americans would have picked up from legacy coverage over weeks, if not months. One of the premier alternative events, “State of the Swamp,” put the issue front and center. Speaking at the event, Rep. Goldman hit the regime for Trump’s effort to “extort foreign governments, take money from pardon seekers, line his own pockets, and make sure his billionaire buddies are getting record profits and tax cuts.” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) slammed the “Epstein class” that dominates government and escapes responsibility. He vowed to finish his 4 year investigation into Epstein’s finances and to “follow the money.”
Third, with Trump lying up a storm about the economy (e.g., No, inflation is not at 1.7 percent; No, you won’t find gas for $1.85 per gallon; No, tariffs were not paid by foreign governments; No, drug prices are not going down), Democrats could blast Trump for being utterly out of touch with ordinary Americans who have lost healthcare, lost SNAP benefits, lost student aid relief, and lost roughly $1700 per person on his tariffs (taxes). As Cesar put it, “He steals from working Americans to give to the rich. Donald Trump doesn’t owe us a two-hour rambling speech. He owes the American people their money back.”Subscribed
Finally, whatever inhabitations Democrats used to harbor about speaking out on immigration have vanished — along with Trump’s advantage in the polls on that issue. Democrats repeatedly hit Trump for killing Americans, intimidating and terrorizing cities, bursting into homes, and lying about its victims. Americans understand what is happening and do not accept that this is the cost to be paid for secure borders.
Democrats put out the best possible argument for the DHS shutdown. “Donald Trump won’t talk tonight about how ICE is tear-gassing elementary schools, murdering American citizens, and disappearing legal immigrants,” Murphy said. “Democrats position is clear: no more funding for ICE until they stop their lawlessness and abuse.”
As he invariably does, Trump’s disordered mind, delusional thinking (Ended 8 wars?! Well, except for the one he started in Venezuela and the one he appears to be planning against Iran, one might counter), and decrepit condition provided all the evidence ad makers could hope for to make the case for Democratic majorities to check the unhinged autocrat. And by forcing Republicans to applaud every spasm, Trump made clear that Republicans are too cowardly to do anything but enable his tyranny while approving and encouraging his lies.
Think of Tuesday as a preview of the November election, when Democrats will run on the arguments they made Tuesday night and MAGA Republicans will have to defend that mess of a regime. Democracy may not yet be kaput. And Democrats may not be as feckless as their critics have made them out to be.
Morning Shots via The Bulwark, Political Opinion: Trump’s Murder Stories: A Case Study, Cathy Young, Feb. 26, 2026. Donald Trump’s State of the Union address was designed, at least in part, to trap Democrats in a no-win situation in which they participate in Trump’s theatrics either by joining in or by being shamed for not joining in.
And lo: There has been much right-wing indignation over congressional Democrats’ failure to stand for Donald Trump’s tribute to Iryna Zarutska, the Ukrainian refugee fatally stabbed in Charlotte, North Carolina last August. (Her mother, Anna Zarutska, was in attendance.) That faux outrage is morally bankrupt.
For starters, MAGA couldn’t care less about the Ukrainians slaughtered daily in the war from which Zarutska fled. MAGA influencer Matt Van Swol, who asserted that the Democrats’ refusal to stand may have been his life’s “most radicalizing moment,” had previously been “radicalized” by Joe Biden giving billions to Ukraine and Volodymyr Zelensky not wearing a suit.
The only reason Trump cares about Zarutska is because he could blame her slaying on criminal-coddling Democrats: The killer, Trump declared, “had been arrested over a dozen times and was released through no-cash bail.” In reality, DeCarlos Brown had previously served five years for robbery; his recent no-cash bail release was over misusing 911 calls during a schizophrenic episode. (The real problem was not leniency but failure of psychiatric interventions.) For quite a few on the far right, the story also fits a racist narrative of black criminality and anti-white terrorism.
It gets worse still: Trump managed to spin a refugee’s tragic death into an attack on immigration, falsely claiming that the U.S.-born suspect “came in through open borders.” The next day, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin told CNN’s Jake Tapper that Zarutska was killed “by an illegal immigrant.” From Trump gaffe (or lie) to GOP talking point.
In other words, Trump cares about Zarutska not because of who she was, but because of who he imagined her killer to be.
Trump’s demagoguing of Zarutska’s genuinely horrifying murder grates all the more because, earlier that day, the United States had abstained from a United Nations resolution backing Ukraine on the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion. Meanwhile, civilian deaths in Ukraine have surged in the past year while Trump’s “peacemaking” buffoonery gave Putin room to prolong the war. Worse, while Trump sheds crocodile tears for Zarutska, his administration is moving to strip Ukrainian refugees like her of protected status—which could mean deportation into peril.
Trump told a whole Scheherazade’s worth of stories in his speech. The scale of the tendentious lying is almost hard to believe.
AROUND THE BULWARK
Quick Hits
PLEASE, SIR, MAY I HAVE SOME MERGER?: Donald Trump has been building up a head of steam against Netflix lately, so the streaming giant seems worried its planned acquisition of Warner Bros. may be entering stormy waters. Days after Trump publicly demanded Netflix fire Obama-alum board member Susan Rice “or pay the consequences,” CEO Ted Sarandos is heading to the White House today to try to smooth things over. Politico reports:
The meeting comes as a bidding fight over the deal intensifies. Warner Bros. has said a revised bid from Paramount —now increased to $31 a share from $30—could outbid Netflix’s current offer, raising the prospect that political pressure and a bidding war are colliding in real time.
Speaking to the BBC, Sarandos downplayed the clash saying: “This is a business deal. It’s not a political deal.”
[Trump’s] rhetoric marks a shift, as Trump previously said he would stay out of the deal, leaving the matter to the Justice Department, which is examining whether a Netflix takeover of Warner Bros. would create a monopoly.
Just hours after his studio raised its bid, Paramount CEO David Ellison appeared at the State of the Union as a guest of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a close Trump ally.
Billions of dollars and the fates of some of the biggest entertainment products and companies in the world are in the balance—and it really may all come down to who can most vigorously gladhand the president. Just another day of normal business in 2025 Trumplandia.Subscribed
OKAY, NOT OUR BEST IDEA: It was the MAGA brainstorm to end all MAGA brainstorms: “What if we put the great men and women of ICE to work busting crime at polling places?” The idea had been gaining popularity in some corners of the right this month. Steve Bannon pushed it on his “War Room” podcast, Karoline Leavitt dismissed the idea as “ridiculous” but declined to totally rule it out, and—as we wrote last week—MAGA lawmakers in Arizona introduced legislation that would have required county officials to welcome ICE oversight.
Now, Republicans are more aggressively backing away from the idea. The Arizona bill—which would never have survived Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs’s veto—was pulled before a vote amid a widespread voter outcry. And yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security assured election officials around the country in no uncertain terms that ICE wouldn’t be involved in election integrity efforts: “Any suggestion that ICE is going to be present at polling places is simply disinformation,” DHS Assistant Secretary for Election Integrity Heather Honey said, according to NPR. “There will be no ICE presence at polling locations.”
In a statement to The Bulwark, however, DHS reintroduced a smidge of ambiguity. “ICE is not planning operations targeting polling locations,” an official said in an email. “ICE conducts intelligence-driven targeted enforcement, and if an active public safety threat endangered a polling location, they may be arrested as a result of that targeted enforcement action.”
CASEY AT THE BAT: Dr. Casey Means, Donald Trump’s pick for surgeon general, may not be one of the president’s worst nominees, but she’s certainly among the kookiest. A wellness influencer, vaccine skeptic, and RFK Jr. ally—her brother Calley Means is a top aide at HHS—Means’s history of crunchy and kooky content caused plenty of head-scratching when her nomination was announced last year.
It’s not hard to figure out why:
I set up a small meditation shrine in my house and prayed to photos of my ancestors . . . I worked with a spiritual medium who helped me try to connect with my spirit guides for support and guidance . . . I did full moon ceremonies with grounded, powerful women . . . I did plant medicine experiences with trusted guides and wrote extensively about my experience and insights.
Yesterday, in her confirmation hearing before the Senate Health Committee—ahead of what is expected to be an uneventful party-line confirmation vote—Means repeatedly dodged questions of whether she believed vaccines cause autism and if she would encourage American parents to vaccinate their children, although she did say that “vaccines save lives” and that she would encourage parents to talk to their doctors.
Meanwhile, Means said she had “significant concerns” about the use of pesticides like glyphosate—unsurprising, given her past anti-pesticide campaigning, but notable given the Trump administration’s actions this month to boost U.S. glyphosate production.
Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: February 2, 2026 [Trump Ramps Up Midterm Attacks], Heather Cox Richardson, right, Feb. 26, 2026. At last night’s State of the Union address, President Donald Trump went on offense, seeming to try to set the terms for the upcoming midterm elections.
Although the State of the Union in the past was an opportunity for the president to tell the American people where the country stood with regard to foreign affairs, finances, the economy, the public lands, and so on, it has, over the years, become more about messaging and future plans rather than a summing up of the past year.
With his approval ratings under 40%, administration officials mired in corruption scandals, and every one of his policies underwater, Trump delivered a campaign rally. To answer Americans’ concerns about his economic policies, the slowing of economic growth, and rising inflation, he insisted that he had “inherited a nation in crisis” but had “achieved a transformation like no one has ever seen before.” He proceeded to claim that the economy is booming, using statistics that were either made up or staggeringly misleading, like his boast that “in one year we have lifted 2.4 million Americans—a record—off of food stamps.” In fact, Republicans cut food assistance from those people, so they are indeed off the rolls, but “lifted” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
In between his celebrations of what he assured the audience was a “golden age,” Trump turned the event into what appeared to be an awards show. “Our country is winning again,” he claimed. “In fact, we’re winning so much that we really don’t know what to do about it. People are asking me, please, please, please, Mr. President, we’re winning too much. We can’t take it anymore. We’re not used to winning in our country until you came along, we’re just always losing. But now we’re winning too much. And I say, no, no, no, you’re going to win again. You’re going to win big. You’re going to win bigger than ever. And to prove that point, to prove that point, here with us tonight is a group of winners who just made the entire nation proud. The men’s gold medal Olympic hockey team. Come on in!”
Trump said he would be awarding the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to the goalie of that team, which had just won the gold medal at the Olympics.
He also presented two recipients with Purple Hearts, a military decoration awarded to service members killed or wounded in action; and one with the Legion of Merit award for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of an outstanding service or achievement. Trump awarded two recipients the Medal of Honor, the U.S. military’s highest decoration for valor in action. After awarding one, Trump mused: “I’ve always wanted the Congressional Medal of Honor, but I was informed I’m not allowed to give it to myself, and I wouldn’t know why I’d be taking it. But if they ever opened up that law I will be there with you someday.”
Trump did not serve in the military.
But the party atmosphere was selective. Trump did not acknowledge the Epstein survivors in the audience, invited by Democratic representatives. Representative Al Green (D-TX) was escorted out after holding up a sign that referred to the president’s posting of an image of former president Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes, reading: “BLACK PEOPLE AREN’T APES.” And Trump’s descriptions of murders committed by undocumented immigrants—with apparent relish and with the victims’ family members in the audience—seemed to glorify cruelty and violence.
It seemed clear that Trump intends to try to persuade Americans who have soured on his economy and hate his immigration policies that they are wrong, and that both are, in fact, triumphs. He also appeared to try to answer concerns about the skyrocketing deficit on his watch by blaming immigrants for it, claiming that they are committing fraud that is “plundering” the country. He announced a “war on fraud to be led by our great Vice President J.D. Vance,” saying, “And we’re able to find enough of that fraud, we will actually have a balanced budget overnight.”
Trump’s tax cuts primarily benefited the wealthy and corporations, and pinning their effects on immigrants illustrates how Trump’s strongest calls were to his base. Not only did he portray immigrants as violent criminals, in a moment scripted for television, he then turned on Democrats in the chamber, setting them up to force them to back off their insistence on reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol by demanding that they stand to show their support for the statement: “The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.”
It was a deliberate division of the country into “us” and “them,” a classic authoritarian move, that he followed up by calling the Democrats “crazy” and claiming that “Democrats are destroying our country.” Facing a midterm election in which voters appear strongly to favor Democrats, Trump went out of his way to try to define them, rather than his own administration, as dangerous extremists.
Shawn McCreesh of the New York Times noted that deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller, an adherent of the Great Replacement theory who is the key figure driving the administration’s crusade against migrants, made it “clear that the night’s performance had been built around this moment.” Miller posted: “0 democrats stood for the foundational principle of all government that leaders must serve citizens before invaders. Never has there been a more stunning moment in Congress.”
And he was right, in a way, because it was indeed stunning that Republican members of Congress cheered and applauded at the attacks on their colleagues. In his 1951 The True Believer: Notes on the Nature of Mass Movements, philosopher Eric Hoffer noted that once people are wedded to a strongman, they will cling to him ever more tightly as his behavior becomes more and more erratic. This loyalty is in part to demonstrate their own devotion to the cause, and in part to justify their own attacks on those the strongman has given them permission to hurt.
The behavior of the Republican representatives was really the only memorable part of the evening. Trump’s almost two-hour State of the Union—the longest State of the Union address in history—felt pretty much like a Trump rally, full of outrageous exaggerations, lies, game show promises, and attacks, and those are old hat by now.
In contrast, the response to the State of the Union—which is usually deadly—was a breath of fresh air. Delivered by Virginia governor Abigail Spanberger, the response was short and clean, and in a refreshing change from Trump’s constant focus on himself, it centered the American people.
Spanberger noted that she was speaking from the Virginia House of Burgesses, where “[b]efore there was a Declaration of Independence, a Constitution, or a Bill of Rights—there were people in this very room” who “dreamed of what a new nation…could be.” She continued: “The United States was founded on the idea that ordinary people could reject the unacceptable excesses of poor leadership, band together to demand better of their government, and create a nation that would be an example for the world.”
“Tonight,” she said, “we did not hear the truth from our President.” She asked, is the president “working to make life more affordable for you and your family,” is he “working to keep Americans safe—both at home and abroad,” and is he “working for YOU?”
She noted that the rising costs of housing, healthcare, energy, and childcare are pressing everyone. Trump’s trade policies, especially tariffs, have hurt small businesses, farmers, and everyday Americans, while the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” is forcing rural health clinics to close, stripping healthcare from millions of Americans, and cutting food programs for children.
Turning to the excesses of federal agents from ICE and Border Patrol, Spanberger highlighted her own career as a law enforcement officer working money-laundering and narcotics cases alongside local and state police to note that law enforcement requires “an abiding sense of duty and commitment to community.” “And yet,” she said, “our President has sent poorly trained federal agents into our cities, where they have arrested and detained American citizens and people who aspire to be Americans—and they have done it without a warrant.
“They have ripped nursing mothers away from their babies, they have sent children—a little boy in a blue bunny hat—to far-off detention centers, and they have killed American citizens on our streets. And they have done it all with their faces masked from accountability. Every minute spent sowing fear is a minute not spent investigating murders, crimes against children, or the criminals defrauding seniors of their life savings.”
“Our President told us tonight that we are safer because these agents arrest mothers and detain children,” she said. “Think about that. Our broken immigration system is something to be fixed—not an excuse for unaccountable agents to terrorize our communities.”
At the same time, she said, the president “continues to cede economic power and technological strength to China, bow down to a Russian dictator, and make plans for war with Iran.” “[T]hrough [the Department of Government Efficiency], mass firings, and the appointment of deeply unserious people to our nation’s most serious positions, our President has endangered the long and storied history of the United States of America being a force for good.”
“In his speech tonight,” she said, “the President did what he always does: he lied, he scapegoated, and he distracted. He also offered no real solutions to our nation’s pressing challenges—so many of which he is actively making worse.” Who is benefitting from “his rhetoric, his policies, his actions, and the short list of laws he’s pushed through this Republican Congress?” she asked.
“He’s enriching himself, his family, his friends,” she said. “The scale of the corruption is unprecedented. There’s the cover-up of the Epstein files, the crypto scams, cozying up to foreign princes for airplanes and billionaires for ballrooms, putting his name and face on buildings all over our nation’s capital. This is not what our founders envisioned. So, I’ll ask again: Is the President working for you?”
“We all know the answer is no.”
“But here is the special thing about America,” she said. “[W]e know better than any nation what is possible when ordinary citizens—like those who once dreamed right here in this room—reject the unacceptable and demand more of their government.” She noted the power of the Americans taking action across the country to protest the government and to vote. “With their votes,” she said, “they are writing a new story.”
In November, Spanberger said, she won her election by 15 points, earning votes “from Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and everyone in-between; because they knew as citizens, they could demand more. That they could vote for what they believe matters, and they didn’t need to be constrained by a party or political affiliation.” In that election, Democrats flipped legislative seats in Georgia, Iowa, Mississippi, and Texas. Now “[o]rdinary Americans are stepping up to run…to demand more and do more for their neighbors and communities.”
“Those who are stepping up now to run will win in November because Americans know you can demand more, and that we are working to lower costs, we are working to keep our communities and country safe, and we are working for you,” she said.
“In his Farewell Address,” she concluded, “George Washington warned us about the possibility of ‘cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men’ rising to power. But he also encouraged us—all Americans—to unite in ‘a common cause’ to move this nation forward. That is our charge once more. And that is what we are seeing across the country.
“It is deeply American and patriotic to do so, and it is how we ensure that the State of our Union remains strong, not just this year but for the next 250 years as well.”
Politico, ‘It's clearly fake': Olympic hockey star disavows AI-generated White House video, Gregory Svirnovskiy, Feb. 26, 2026. "It's not my voice, not my lips moving," he said.Brady Tkachuk is pictured celebrating.
Brady Tkachuk, a bruising winger on the American Olympic men’s ice hockey team, was none too pleased with an AI-generated video the White House released on social media this weekend that appeared to show him criticizing Canada.
The video featured Tkachuk, who plays for the National Hockey League’s Ottawa Senators full time, calling the Canadian team “maple syrup eating f----s” in a press conference, before cutting to highlights from the gold medal match of the Olympics, which saw the U.S. men’s team take down Canada by a 2-1 score in overtime. The White House bleeped the AI-generated profanity in the video.
Tkachuk made it clear he didn’t condone the language in the video.
“It’s not my voice. It’s not what I was saying,” he told reporters at a media scrum Thursday. “I would never say that. That’s not who I am, so yeah, I guess I don’t like that video because that just would never come out of my mouth.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
With the threat of ever-changing tariffs and a barrage of 51st state rhetoric, President Donald Trump has antagonized Canada since before his return to the White House early last year. He called the American team shortly after they won gold last Sunday, inviting them to the White House and cracking a controversial joke that he’d soon have to do the same for the American women’s team, which also won gold at the Olympics. The women’s team declined Trump’s initial invitation to attend his State of the Union address, according to CNN.
The men’s team, including Tkachuk, visited the White House on Tuesday, later making a short appearance during Trump’s State of the Union address.
“It just was special,” he said of the visit.
Tkachuk is the captain of the NHL’s Senators, who ply their trade in the capital of the Great North. Local fans have had a frosty reaction to his international triumph. But he said he had nothing to do with the administration’s dig on social media.
“Well, it’s clearly fake, because it’s not my voice, and not my lips moving,” he said. “I’m not in control of any of those accounts. I know that those words would never come out of my mouth.”
The Warning with Steve Schmidt, U.S. Men's Hockey Team Serving As Political Props For Trump: They will regret their choice, Feb. 26, 2026.
New York Times, The Athletic: Brady Tkachuk talks ‘clearly fake’ TikTok shared by White House, Trump call and gold medal, Julian McKenzie, Feb. 27, 2026 (print ed.). Brady Tkachuk and his brother, Matthew, helped the U.S. win its first Olympic gold medal in men's hockey since 1980.
Ottawa Senators captain Brady Tkachuk said he understands why the U.S. women’s hockey team would feel put down by President Donald Trump’s comments on a call with players Sunday following the U.S. men’s hockey team’s gold medal win over Canada.
On the call, Trump joked he would have to invite the gold-medal-winning women’s team to the White House in addition to the men to avoid being impeached. The women’s team declined an invitation, citing scheduling issues. On Wednesday, U.S. captain Hilary Knight called the remarks “distasteful and unfortunate.”
Asked why he would laugh at Trump’s comments, Tkachuk said he didn’t have an answer.
“Honestly, it was just a whirlwind of a moment that (you) can’t really control what somebody says, and it’s just caught (me) off guard a little bit,” Tkachuk said Thursday morning ahead of his first game back from the Olympic break with the Ottawa Senators.
In his first media appearance in Ottawa since returning from Milan-Cortina, Tkachuk called the experience “a dream come true.” He and Ottawa teammate Jake Sanderson joined most American players at the White House as Trump’s guests before attending the State of the Union address, where the team was celebrated and cheered.
“I remember thinking, being in the Oval Office, ‘How did I get here?” Tkachuk said. “It was special. Just being an American citizen, you never really think you’ll go in the White House, see the White House, be in the Oval Office. And for it to happen, it was really cool.”
That evening, Tkachuk appeared on Fox News and acknowledged Ottawa fans weren’t the “happiest” with him right now.
“It’s a funny feeling when you feel their support every day. And then, within two weeks, you’re public enemy No. 1,” he said on Fox.Your browser does not support the video tag.
Members of the U.S. team have faced criticism for laughing at Trump’s joke. Some of Tkachuk’s U.S. teammates, including defensemen Charlie McAvoy and Zach Werenski, apologized in their first media appearances back with their NHL teams.
“(We’re) just coming off the ice, and I think it was 15 minutes later, you have the President of the United States calling you,” Tkachuk said Thursday, recounting the events that led to Trump’s call. “You just can’t really believe, you’re still riding the high of being a world champion, and for the President to take the time and call.Want more on this topic? Follow your interests to personalize your experience.
“When it comes to the women’s team, one of my favorite memories from the Olympics is after we won and after the women’s team came back from the closing ceremonies, both our teams are just in the dining hall hanging out having fun, just kind of being on top of the world. You have two gold medalist teams just hanging out before we’re going back to our respective cities. And it was just great to hear their experience. A lot of us went to a couple of their games, and they know that we supported them throughout the whole tournament.”
Tkachuk was also asked about an AI-generated video shared earlier this week by the White House’s official TikTok account in which he and his brother, Matthew, are answering a question during last year’s 4 Nations Face-Off tournament. In the video, Brady’s answer is overdubbed to make him appear to refer to Canadians as “maple syrup-eating f—s” before showing highlights of the Americans during the Olympic tournament to the tune of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird.” It has been viewed over 11 million times.
“Well, it’s clearly fake,” Tkachuk said. “Because it’s not my voice, not my lips moving. … I’m not in control of any of those accounts, and I know that those words would never come out of my mouth. So, I can’t do anything about it.
“It’s not my voice. It’s not what I was saying. I would never say that. That’s not who I am. … I don’t like that video because that’s just never come out of my mouth.”
Tkachuk also said he didn’t yell “close the Northern border” during the team’s phone call with Trump.
“I’ve been seeing stuff that people think it’s me,” Tkachuk said. “But if you watch the video, that’s not my voice. It’s something that I’d never say. I don’t really know how that kind of took a storm on its own when I play here (in Ottawa) and give everything I have here. I just think that’s something that I never thought would happen in my head and especially would never say. It’s crazy when things go on social media, how fast they go. And, of course, I would never say anything like that.”
Sanderson was also asked about Trump’s phone call and said the team’s reaction to his comments was a “mistake.”
“But I think things got blown out of proportion a little bit,” Sanderson said. “We have nothing but the utmost respect for the women. We had a lounge in the village that we were hanging out with them all the time, watching other events, and going to their games …
“If we were to do it again, I think we wouldn’t do that, and we made a mistake. But, again, I think it kind of got blown out of proportion a little bit.”
More On U.S. Courts, Law, Justice, Crime, Corruption, Rights
One First, Legal Commentary: The Supreme Court is Not "Reining in" Executive Power, Steve Vladeck (Georgetown University Law Center professor), 
right, Feb. 26, 2026.The Court's defenders claim the tariffs ruling is part of a trend in which the justices are reining in President Trump and (re-)empowering Congress. The full dataset is overwhelmingly to the contrary.
Welcome back to the weekly bonus content for “One First.” Although Monday’s regular newsletter will remain free for as long as I’m able to do this, I put much of the weekly “bonus” issue behind a paywall as an added incentive for those who are willing and able to support the work that goes into putting this newsletter together every week. I’m grateful to those of you who are already paid subscribers, and I hope that those of you who aren’t will consider a paid subscription if and when your circumstances permit:Subscribed
After (and in light of) last Friday’s ruling in the tariffs cases, some of the Court’s most visible public supporters are using it to re-up a claim that the “real” goal of the Roberts Court is (I’m not kidding) to limit executive power. Writing in The Atlantic, for instance, Sarah Isgur (who, among other things, is now the editor of SCOTUSblog) asserted on Monday that “the larger project the Roberts Court seems to have undertaken is reining in the power of the presidency and making the president more politically accountable,” all, in Isgur’s words, to “force 535 people [i.e., Congress] to figure out a lasting solution to our problems, one that everyone can live with.”
To back up this claim, Isgur purports to offer data—about how often the Court has ruled against Trump (especially during his first term); about how often the Court isn’t dividing 6-3 (or, at least, not always having only the three Democratic appointees in dissent); and about how, focusing on one hyperspecific data point, the Court “unanimously rejected Trump’s attempt to change the outcome of the 2020 election.”
As I explain in detail below the fold, just about every part of this claim is specious. The implication that the Court has ruled against Trump more than other presidents depends upon entirely ignoring the emergency docket—not just over the last 13 months, but throughout the first Trump administration, when the justices also regularly put back into effect policies that lower courts had blocked (like the second iteration of the travel ban). Likewise, the claim that the Court isn’t typically dividing along ideological lines in most of these cases is belied, again, by the Court’s behavior on the emergency docket—where, during the most recent full term (OT2024), every single order with at least one dissent reflected the Court’s “normal” ideological divisions, including 15 different rulings on emergency applications from which the three Democratic appointees were the lone public dissenters. And even the throwaway line about the 2020 election both misstates the vote count in Texas v. Pennsylvania (Justices Thomas and Alito dissented from the denial of leave to file); and implies that Trump himself had been the moving party (he wasn’t).
It is true, as the tariffs decision drives home, that the Court is not ruling for Trump in every single case. It is also true (again, as the tariffs decision demonstrates) that the Court isn’t dividing into its “normal” 6-3 ideological alignment in every single high-profile, politically charged dispute. And it is undeniably true that the Court has taken steps to dramatically rein in the authority of administrative agencies. But none of these points actually prove the thesis—and the quantitative and qualitative data to the contrary is completely overwhelming.
This Court, far more than any of its predecessors, has embraced expansive readings of the President’s inherent and indefeasible constitutional authority that both directly and indirectly have redounded to the short- and long-term detriment of Congress. And even when it hasn’t formally embraced executive power, it has acted—over and over and over and over again—to enable its exercise, again, typically at the expense of Congress. That some of the rulings reflecting this trend aren’t 6-3, and that sometimes the Court still rules against Trump, is persuasive evidence only that there are some lines that even this Court (most of it, anyway) won’t cross.
For those who are not paid subscribers, we’ll be back (no later than) Monday with our regular coverage of the Supreme Court. For those who are, please read on.Make Denominators Great Again
Let’s start with the math. In her essay in The Atlantic, Isgur makes two different statistical claims. They both suffer from the same (recurring) problem, i.e., the author’s refusal to fully account for the emergency docket.
Isgur’s first claim is about the justices’ overall voting alignments, and what she (ironically) says is “basic accounting.” In her words:
A common myth holds that the current court is a 6-3 conservative institution that protects Trump and the GOP—that it is “enabling” him and giving him a “free pass” or a “blank check.” But basic accounting shows that this isn’t true. Last term, for instance, only 10 decisions, or 15 percent of decided cases, were 6-3. The Court’s liberal justices—Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson—were the sole dissenting votes in six of those cases. The Court’s most conservative justices—Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch—were the sole dissenting votes in the other four.
Among both 5-4 and 6-3 cases, the Court’s liberal justices dissented together 15 percent of the time. Conservatives likewise dissented together in 5-4 and 6-3 cases 15 percent of the time. Most of those closely divided cases—70 percent—were a mixed bag of conservatives and liberals on both sides. And almost half of the Court’s cases were unanimous.
Leaving aside that none of this has anything to do with Isgur’s thesis (about the Court and executive power), this data is … remarkably cherry-picked. As I explained in detail back in October, during OT2024, the Court handed down signed rulings in 55 argued cases, 31 of which were non-unanimous. Were that the only denominator we cared about, it would be one thing. But the Court handed down another 140 rulings on emergency applications, 46 of which provoked at least one public dissent. And unlike what was true on the merits docket, all of those dissents—every single one—divided the Court ideologically, with no justice in the Thomas/Alito/Gorsuch bloc ever joining a justice in the Sotomayor/Kagan/Jackson bloc on the short side. This is not a “mixed bag”; it is overwhelming evidence of just how deep the Court’s ideological divide really is, especially in so many of the cases that matter.
More than that, take the claim about how “few” cases there were in which the only dissenters were the Democratic appointees. Isgur says there were six. That’s true if we look to the merits docket alone. But if we add in emergency applications, there were 15. So Isgur is defining the data set in a way that excludes 71.4% (15/21) of the relevant examples. And if we include the cases in which the Democratic appointees were joined by one of the Republican appointees in dissent, that last number goes even higher.
Associated Pres via Politico, Supreme Court litigator convicted of tax evasion over income from high-stakes poker, Staff Report, Feb. 26, 2026. “He lied to everyone around him,” Justice Department prosecutor Sean Beaty said.
A prominent Supreme Court litigator who also published a popular blog about the nation’s highest court was convicted Wednesday of tax evasion and related charges stemming from his secretive lifestyle as an ultra-high-stakes poker player.
A federal jury found SCOTUSblog co-founder Thomas Goldstein guilty of 12 of 16 counts after a six-week trial in Greenbelt, Maryland. Jurors deliberated for approximately two days before convicting Goldstein of one count of tax evasion, four of eight counts of aiding and assisting in the preparation of false tax returns, four counts of willful failure to timely pay taxes, and three counts of false statements on loan applications.
Goldstein was charged with failing to pay taxes on millions of dollars in gambling income. Justice Department prosecutors also accused him of diverting money from his law firm to pay gambling debts and falsely deducting gambling debts as business expenses.
Goldstein argued more than 40 cases before the Supreme Court before retiring in 2023. He was part of the legal team that represented Democrat Al Gore in the Supreme Court litigation over the 2000 election ultimately won by Republican President George W. Bush.
Goldstein’s indictment a year ago sent shockwaves through the legal community in Washington, D.C. Many friends and colleagues didn’t know the extent of his gambling.
“He lied to everyone around him,” Justice Department prosecutor Sean Beaty said during the trial’s closing arguments.
Defense attorney Jonathan Kravis said the government rushed to judgment and failed to adequately investigate the case. Goldstein made “innocent mistakes” on his tax returns but didn’t cheat on his taxes or knowingly make false statements on his tax returns, Kravis told jurors.
“A mistake is not a crime,” he said.
Beaty described Goldstein as a “willful tax cheat.” Goldstein raked in approximately $50 million in poker winnings in 2016, including roughly $22 million that he won playing in Asia, according to Beaty. The prosecutor said the tax evasion scheme “fell apart” when another gambler, feeling cheated by Goldstein, notified the IRS about a 2016 debt owed to the attorney.
“It was a textbook tax-evasion scheme,” Beaty said. “And Mr. Goldstein executed that nearly flawlessly.”
The trial, which started Jan. 12, included testimony by “Spider-Man” star Tobey Maguire, an avid poker player who enlisted Goldstein’s help in recovering a gambling debt from a billionaire.
Goldstein, who testified in his own defense, denied any wrongdoing. He has said he repeatedly instructed his law firm’s staff and accountants to correctly characterize his personal expenses. In a 2014 email, he told a firm employee that “we always play completely by the rules.”
Goldstein also was accused of lying to IRS agents and hiding his gambling debts from his accountants, employees and mortgage lenders. He omitted a $15 million gambling debt from mortgage loan applications while looking for a new home in Washington, D.C., with his wife in 2021, his indictment alleges.
“He was thinking only of his wife when he left off the gambling debts,” Kravis said.
U.S. Markets, Economy, Jobs, Inflation
Paul Krugman via Substack, Political-Economy Commentary: When Extraterrestrials Attacked the Stock Market, Paul Krugman, right, Feb. 26, 2026. Actually it was a Substack post, but the reaction was telling.
On October 30, 1938 a very young Orson Welles pulled a clever stunt. He masterminded a live radio dramatization of H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds, presented as if CBS was actually reporting on a Martian invasion. Although the program occasionally notified listeners that it was a dramatic presentation, not news, thousands of Americans panicked, packing churches, fleeing their homes, and jamming switchboards.
Last weekend Citrini Research released a report — on Substack! — titled The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis. The report, which rapidly went viral, laid out a scenario for economic and financial chaos caused by AI, written as if it were a retrospective published after the dire developments it projected. Although it’s always hard to know why financial markets move on any given day, the report may have played a role in Monday’s 800-point decline in the Dow. Science fiction moving markets? Why not?
There are two distinct questions about the huge reaction to a report that didn’t actually contain any news. It was just opinion, albeit cleverly presented. The first is whether the economic scenario the report laid out makes sense, to which the answer is no. The second is why investors are so on edge that such a report could elicit such an extreme reaction.
Citrini Research argued that AI will rapidly disrupt many businesses – a statement that could be true but is hardly news. Interestingly, the authors didn’t stress the ways AI could replace human workers. Instead, they argued that AI agents can replace many businesses that act as middlemen.
Their motivating example was DoorDash, America’s largest online food delivery company. When you go to DoorDash’s website to order a meal, the company’s algorithm both passes that order on to the restaurant and arranges for delivery by a gig-worker driver. All this, the authors argued, will become unnecessary. Writing as if describing past events, they say
Coding agents had collapsed the barrier to entry for launching a delivery app. A competent developer could deploy a functional competitor in weeks, and dozens did, enticing drivers away from DoorDash and Uber Eats by passing 90-95% of the delivery fee through to the driver. Multi-app dashboards let gig workers track incoming jobs from twenty or thirty platforms at once, eliminating the lock-in that the incumbents depended on. The market fragmented overnight and margins compressed to nearly nothing.
Could this happen? Maybe. The ludicrousness of much AI hype shouldn’t blind us to the growing evidence that it is significantly changing some kinds of work. When someone like Mike Konczal explains how AI has transformed some parts of his work, I sit up, take notice, and resolve to try it out myself (eventually).
Examples of industries that have been quickly wiped out by technological change — not as quickly as the Citrini post predicts, but quick nonetheless — are easy to find. Consider the case of video rental stores, still ubiquitous in 2005, obliterated by streaming a few years later.
When an industry suddenly collapses, people get hurt: Investors lose their money, workers lose their jobs and in some cases their whole careers. But does technology-driven industrial disruption cause financial and economic crises, the way Citrini Research predicts? I can’t come up with any examples. The tech boom of the 1990s caused a recession when it ended, not while it was underway.
The Citrini post argued that investors and workers hurt by AI will cut their spending, which they will. But if AI delivers big productivity gains, it will reduce prices and raise real income in sectors that aren’t displaced, causing other Americans to spend more. There’s no reason to believe that disrupting part of the economy will reduce overall demand.
The only way I can see that AI could be a recessionary force would be if the firms and/or workers who lose from the technology were highly leveraged — that is, were carrying a lot of debt — and so were forced to cut their spending much more than those gaining from AI increased their spending. But there’s no evidence for that.
So while Citrini may be right about how disruptive AI will be — I think they’re overhyping it but I could be persuaded otherwise — I’m quite sure that they’re wrong about the macroeconomic effects.
Which still leaves the question of how a basically literary endeavor — a speculative essay about the economics of AI that brought no new facts to the table — could rattle financial markets.
Let’s go back to Orson Welles and the Martians.
Welles was a genius and his adaptation of H.G. Wells was brilliant, but it the fact that it aired in 1938 surely contributed to its impact. For Americans were primed for panic. The Great Depression wasn’t over — in fact, the economy had just suffered a nasty relapse.
Overseas, fascism was on the rise, and the storm clouds of war were obviously gathering. Americans were, understandably, ill at ease. No wonder, then, that some were ready to panic over what sounded like dire news on the radio.
Fast forward to this week. We’re living amidst political turmoil that is spilling over into economic uncertainty. Donald Trump has just seen most of his signature economic policy, his tariffs, declared illegal by the Supreme Court, and has responded by imposing steep new tariffs, also clearly illegal. The European Union has suspended consideration of its trade deal with the United States.
Everyone is also worried that Trump will seek political and psychological compensation by attacking Iran. According to news reports, military officers have been warning Trump that such an attack would be high-risk. The real news here is that someone is leaking this information, an indication that insiders are worried that Trump might do it anyway.
So these are uneasy times — the kind of times in which investors can be rattled by an alarmist financial analysis that goes viral.
And the truth is that I’m uneasy too. But I’m less worried about either Martians or artificial intelligences than I am by some of the human beings currently in positions of power.
U.S. Legal Fights On Immigration, Vaccines, Tariffs
New York Times, Trump Administration Live Updates: Federal Judge Finds Third-Country Deportations Unlawful, Mattathias Schwartz, Feb. 26, 2026 (print ed.). What We’re Covering Today
A federal judge in Boston on Wednesday found that the Trump administration’s policy of summarily deporting immigrants to so-called third countries — nations other than their countries of origin — is unlawful.
In an 81-page ruling, Judge Brian E. Murphy of the Federal District Court for the District of Massachusetts wrote that the government must first try to deport detained immigrants to their home countries — or to countries designated by an immigration judge when the immigrants were ordered removed from the country. After that process, immigration detainees must be given “meaningful notice” before being deported to another country, to allow them the opportunity to raise any fears they have that they might be persecuted or tortured there.
Politico, ‘You'll have to ask my husband:’ House Republicans say Hillary Clinton punted questions on Epstein, Maya Kaufman, Gelila Negesse and Hailey Fuchs, Feb. 26, 2026. The former secretary of State testified for roughly six hours, paving the way for Friday’s scheduled grilling of former President Bill Clinton.Photo illustration of Hillary Clinton with Epstein documents
Hillary Clinton appeared to offer little new or relevant information during her closed-door testimony Thursday for a House investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, according to Republicans who questioned her for hours — raising the stakes for them to pry revelations out of Bill Clinton when he sits for his deposition Friday.
The former secretary of State testified for roughly six hours under oath, fielding questions from members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about any involvement Epstein, the late financier and convicted sex offender, and longtime co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, might have had with the Clinton Global Initiative.
Hillary Clinton reiterated that she did not recall ever meeting Epstein and that she only knew Maxwell “casually as an acquaintance.” She denied knowing anything about Epstein and Maxwell’s sex trafficking offenses before the accusations went public. In fact, she repeatedly punted questions to her husband, the former president.
“I don’t know how many times I had to say I did not know Jeffrey Epstein. I never went to his island, I never went to his homes, I never went to his offices,” she told reporters after the deposition. “So it’s on the record numerous times.”
She also complained that Republicans’ questions were “repetitive,” noting how lawmakers frequently veered off topic — asking about UFOs and the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory that circulated among some conservatives during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, when she was the Democratic nominee.
“They asked literally the same questions over and over again, which didn’t seem to me to be very productive,” she said.
Democratic lawmakers said that proves Republicans are engaged in a political fishing expedition — Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) earlier in the day called the proceedings a “clown show” — but Republican members of the committee are using the nonresponses to tee up Bill Clinton’s forthcoming deposition Friday morning.
Politico, Larry Summers will resign from Harvard amid Epstein fallout, Gregory Svirnovskiy, Feb. 26, 2026 (print ed.). “I will always be grateful to the thousands of students and colleagues I have been privileged to teach and work with,” he said.
Larry Summers, the embattled former Treasury secretary and Harvard president, is leaving his teaching post at the higher education institution at the end of the academic year, as the fallout over his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein continues to spill into public view.
“I have made the difficult decision to retire from my Harvard professorship,” Summers said in a statement Wednesday. “I will always be grateful to the thousands of students and colleagues I have been privileged to teach and work with since coming to Harvard as a graduate student 50 years ago.“
Summers, right, took a step back from his teaching duties late last year — and also left his job as director of Harvard’s Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government — amid a review into his ties to the late convicted sex offender.
A series of releases from the Department of Justice and House Oversight Committee, with millions of previously undisclosed documents now public, has roiled academic and international financial institutions, current and former elected officials at the highest level of American politics as well as the media industry.
Former President Bill Clinton, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates and MAGA stalwart Steve Bannon are among the many public figures whose connections to Epstein have been made public. All have denied wrongdoing. In Europe, it’s led to the arrest and sacking of Peter Mandelson, the former British ambassador to the U.S., and the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew. Both have also denied criminal wrongdoing.
Harvard spokesperson Jason Newton confirmed in a statement that Summers would be retiring. The Harvard Crimson was first to report that Summers planned to retire.
Summers came under fire last November after a tranche of emails released by the House Oversight Committee revealed that he’d sought Epstein’s advice about pursuing a relationship with a mentee — among other communication — just before the financier’s 2019 arrest.
Epstein referred to himself as the former Treasury secretary’s “wing man” in one email. Summers and his wife, Elisa New, visited Epstein’s private island during their honeymoon in 2005.
“I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused,” Summers told POLITICO in November. “I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein.”
Summers has not been charged with a crime.
Summers stepped back from his public commitments shortly after the emails were released, and left the board of the OpenAI Foundation several days later. He also left high-profile posts at the Center for American Progress, Bloomberg News, the Brookings Institution and Yale Budget Lab, among other spots.
PoliticusUSA, Immediate Trump Deposition Demanded Over Missing Alleged Trump Child Sexual Assault Epstein Files, Jason Easley, right, Feb. 26, 2026. After Hillary Clinton sat for a deposition where she confirmed that she never met and had nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein, House Oversight Democrats demanded that Trump immediately be deposed.
House Oversight Committee Democrats saw their opportunity, and they took it.
Another way of looking at the situation is that Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer’s (R-KY) insistence on trying to transfer Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein to the Clintons is the gift that keeps on giving.
After Hillary Clinton’s deposition, House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-CA) started his remarks by talking about Clinton and the fact that she was being deposed.
Garcia said:
I want to begin by just clarifying and putting emphasis on something that’s very important, and it’s something the secretary herself has said. Secretary Clinton never met Jeffrey Epstein. She never visited the island. She never flew on his plane, and she also had no knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein’s horrific crime.
So, zero knowledge of any wrongdoing, and you’ve also all heard that directly from her Secretary Clinton is also completely cooperating with the deposition and the committee, and is answering questions in full faith and in good faith, what is not acceptable is Oversight Republicans breaking their own committee rules that they established with the secretary and her team.
Which, you’ve all reported you’ve seen by releasing photos not acceptable, and it was gracious of the secretary and her team to continue the deposition.
Rep. Garcia made the connection between Republicans coming after somebody with no connection to Epstein to cover someone who definitely did.
Read what Garcia had to say about deposing Trump, the missing Epstein files, and watch the video below.
Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, Steve Bannon (left to right, file photos).
Ranking member Garcia said:
What we also want to say at this very moment is it’s becoming more clear every single day is the questions continue to build around this DOJ and the White House, and the focus of the majority we want to understand right now where the missing FBI files are.
These are files that accuse the President of the United States about serious, serious accusations around sexual abuse, and the fact that they’re not in the files and have been apparently either removed or discarded is incredibly concerning. And so we’re calling on Attorney General Pam Bondy to immediately release those files.
And lastly, I wanna also add that this committee has now set a new precedent about talking to presidents and former presidents, and we’re demanding immediately that we ask President Trump to testify in front of our committee, and be deposed in front of Oversight Republicans and Democrats, and that should happen immediately.
He’s the person that appears almost more than anyone else in the files, and it needs to happen right now.
James Comer broke the seal, and now presidents and former presidents can be called before Congress to testify.
The person that the House Oversight Committee should be hearing from is Donald Trump. It is Trump who has the connection to Epstein that James Comer tried to pin on Hillary Clinton. It is Trump who made the Epstein files vanish, and it is Trump who has had horrific allegations made against him.
If Democrats win back the House, at some point, Trump will be subpoenaed to testify about the Epstein files. No one is buying the Clintons as the center of the Epstein files, and the scandal will never go away until Trump testifies.
A Columbia University student was detained by DHS agents Thursday morning after the agents allegedly made "misrepresentations" to enter a dorm, the school said. @ellharve/Instagram
ABC News, Columbia University student detained by Homeland Security agents in dorm released, Armando Garcia and Ivan Pereira, Feb. 26, 2026. New York Mayor Mamdani spoke with Trump about the incident at the White House.
A Columbia University student who was detained by Department of Homeland Security agents Thursday morning after the school claimed agents allegedly made "misrepresentations" to enter a dorm was released later in the day after New York City's mayor spoke with the president.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Thursday afternoon that President Donald Trump informed him that the student, Elaina Aghayeva, would be "released immediately" after the mayor said he spoke with the president.
Previously, following the Mamdani's meeting, Claire Shipman, the school's acting president, sent a letter to the school community informing them that the DHS agents entered an unspecified dorm on the campus around 6:30 a.m. and detained the student.Undated photo of Columbia University student Elaina Aghayeva
posted to her Instagram account. @ellharve/Instagram
"Our understanding at this time is that the federal agents made misrepresentations to gain entry to the building to search for a 'missing person.' We are working to gather more details," she said.Judges reject Trump admin's deportation cases against 2 pro-Palestinian college students
A statement from a DHS official identified Aghayeva as an Azerbajani native, and alleged her "student visa was terminated in 2016 under the Obama administration for failing to attend classes."
"The building manager and her roommate let officers into the apartment. She has no pending appeals or applications with DHS," the statement further said.
The statement did not address the allegations that DHS agents made misrepresentations to gain entry to the building.
Mamdani, who met with Trump at the White House Thursday, posted a statement on social media in the afternoon in which he said he spoke with the president about the incident.New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks during a news conference in Morningside Heights, Feb. 25, 2026, in New York.Yuki Iwamura/AP
"In our meeting earlier, I shared my concerns about Columbia student Elaina Aghayeva, who was detained by ICE this morning. He has just informed me that she will be released imminently," Mamdani said.
Aghayeva made a story on her Instagram page shortly after Mamdani's announcement, in which she expressed gratitude for the support.
"I just got out a little while ago. I am safe and okay. In an uber (on the way) back home," she said. "I am so sorry, but I am in complete shock over what happened."Columbia University student Elaina Aghayeva, hidden under a coat, returns to her dorm after being released from detention in New York City, Feb. 26, 2026.ABC News
Aghayeva was seen by ABC News exiting a vehicle and entering a building Thursday evening. She did not give a statement.
An attorney representing Aghayeva filed a petition in federal court Thursday asking a judge to order her release.Carl Hurvich said in court documents that the student was unlawfully detained and was being held "without justification."
The habeas petition said agents "represented they were searching for a missing person to gain entry" and did not have a warrant for Aghayeva's arrest. Hurvich requested a temporary restraining order barring the Trump administration from transferring Aghayeva outside of New York.
Aghayeva is described in court documents as an undergrad student at Columbia's School of General Studies pursuing a degree in neuroscience and political science. She entered the U.S. around 2016 on a visa, the filing says. Protestors gather at Columbia University after a student was detained, Feb. 26, 2026 in New York CityWABC
Protests took place on the school's campus on Thursday following the news of the student's detention, but there were no reported incidents or arrests.
The school was "working to reach the family, and providing legal support," the Shipman said in her letter.
"It is important to reiterate that all law enforcement agents must have a judicial warrant or judicial subpoena to access non-public areas of the University, including housing, classrooms, and areas requiring CUID swipe access," the letter said.Claire Shipman, Board of Trustees Co-Chair, Columbia University testifies before a House Committee on Education and the Workforce hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, April 17, 2024.Jose Luis Magana/AP
"If law enforcement agents seek entry to non-public areas of the University, ask the agents to wait to enter any non-public areas until contacting Public Safety," Shipman wrote. "Public Safety will contact the Office of the General Counsel to coordinate the University's response. Do not allow them to enter or accept service of a warrant or subpoena."
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul released a statement condemning the federal agents' alleged actions.
"Let's be clear about what happened: ICE agents didn't have the proper warrant, so they lied to gain access to a student's private residence," she said.Columbia University campus in New York City.Adobe Stock
Thursday's incident is not the first encounter between the Trump administration and Columbia.
Last year, pro-Palestinian activist and Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil was arrested and held for 104 days on immigration charges.
New York Times, Surgeon General Nominee Sidesteps Questions on Vaccines at Senate Hearing, Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Dani Blum,.Feb. 26, 2026 (print ed.). Dr. Casey Means, a wellness influencer, author and supporter of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., below right, said that “anti-vaccine rhetoric has never been part” of her message.lth Committee.
Dr. Casey Means, President Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, told senators on Wednesday that “anti-vaccine rhetoric has never been part of my message,” as she deflected questions about birth control, pesticides, vaccines and her finances.
Testifying before the Senate Health Committee, Dr. Means, left, a wellness influencer, author and leader in Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement, said Americans were suffering from an epidemic of chronic diseases linked to ultraprocessed foods, chemical exposures and the stressed, sedentary nature of modern life.
“Nothing is more urgent than restoring wholeness for Americans, physically, mentally and societally,” Dr. Means said, adding, “Our nation is angry, exhausted and hurting from preventable diseases.”
The hearing represented a significant test for Dr. Means, who would be a highly unconventional surgeon general. She would carry the informal title of the “nation’s doctor,” yet she does not have an active medical license and is a vocal critic of the medical establishment, which she regards as too focused on sickness and not enough on what she sees as the root causes of chronic disease.
But Dr. Means resisted senators’ efforts to pin her down.
She refused to say whether she would advise parents to vaccinate their children against measles, even as the disease spreads in South Carolina, telling senators instead that she was “supportive of vaccination,” and that parents should consult with their pediatricians. She has previously raised questions about whether children receive too many vaccines.
Dr. Means was scheduled to come before the panel in October, but her confirmation hearing was canceled when she went into labor with her first child, a boy.
On Wednesday, Dr. Means was calm and mostly unflappable. The Republican-controlled committee, which will have to vote on whether to forward her nomination to the Senate floor, seemed poised to do so, but it was unclear whether Dr. Means would win any Democratic support.
On Wednesday, Dr. Means was calm and mostly unflappable. The Republican-controlled committee, which will have to vote on whether to forward her nomination to the Senate floor, seemed poised to do so, but it was unclear whether Dr. Means would win any Democratic support.Sign up to get Dani Blum's articles emailed to you. Dani Blum is a health reporter focusing on news and trends. Get it sent to your inbox.
She found agreement with Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent and ranking member of the committee, telling him she would “absolutely lend” her voice to support a ban on ads for junk food. But Mr. Sanders said Dr. Means was evasive on vaccines.
“I think the answers you gave us were a little bit political,” he said, “and not to the point.”
Dr. Means also showed her unorthodox side. When Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, pressed her on her past use of the hallucinogen psilocybin, also known as magic mushrooms, she said she was grieving her mother’s death, and looking for healing, when she took it.Editors’ PicksWill Americans Get Over Their Fear of Eating Animal Blood?What You Miss When You’re Always Wearing HeadphonesIs Climate Change Making Inflation Worse?
“I do believe that Americans are ready to hear about spirituality when it pertains to medicine,” Dr. Means said. She said that as surgeon general, she would not advise Americans to take the drug, though she cited “exciting work” into its potential benefits. “The science is still emerging,” she said.
Dr. Means and her brother Calley Means, a top adviser to Mr. Kennedy, rose to prominence in 2024 as the authors of “Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health.” Both have become emissaries of the Make America Healthy Again movement.
Dr. Means called the administration’s MAHA strategy report released in September “a profound document” and “groundbreaking.” Her brother was the architect of it.
Wednesday’s hearing unfolded during a precarious time for the MAHA movement. The White House has made clear that it wants Mr. Kennedy to pivot away from discussing vaccines to focus on his healthy eating agenda going into the midterm elections.
At the same time, Mr. Trump’s recent executive order promoting production of the weedkiller glyphosate — a possible carcinogen that has been the target of thousands of lawsuits — has infuriated the so-called MAHA moms who power Mr. Kennedy’s movement.
New York Times, Businesses Push for Tariff Refunds as Trump Aides Hint at Fight to Come, Tony Romm, Feb. 26, 2026 (print ed.). Now, some of them quite literally have the receipts to show for it — and they want that money repaid. By the president’s own admission, it could be years before the matter is settled, even though the administration previously indicated it would pay.
As federal judges last spring began to consider the legality of President Trump’s punishing global tariffs, the administration offered an assurance: It told the court that a set of suing companies would “assuredly receive payment” if Mr. Trump ever lost the fight.
Now that the president has suffered such a stinging defeat, major businesses including Dyson, FedEx and L’Oreal have filed an early barrage of lawsuits in search of hefty tariff payouts. But the Trump administration has responded in recent days with a mix of dismissal and derision, setting up what may be a landmark legal battle over refunds.
At stake is more than $100 billion in revenue collected over the past year under a roster of tariffs that the Supreme Court invalidated last week. While a defiant Mr. Trump has since taken steps to try to revive the duties, he still faces the prospect that the money collected from his past tariffs might have to be paid back.
So far, roughly 900 claims seeking those refunds have been filed in federal court, according to the Liberty Justice Center, a legal group that represented some of the small businesses in the lawsuit that reached the nation’s justices. On Tuesday, the group took the first steps in two different courts to pave the way for affected firms to recover their past duties. The government must respond in one of those proceedings by Friday.
Despite its earlier assurances that it would repay the money, the Trump administration has now signaled it may be ready for a fight. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling, Mr. Trump brushed off any refunds as unsettled legal ground, as he wagered aloud that a resolution could take “years.” Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, said on Tuesday that refund requests could not even start for about a month.
“We will see what the lower court says, and we will follow what the lower court says to do,” Mr. Bessent said in an interview on NBC.
The secretary also faulted FedEx, after the company sued the government this week and demanded a tariff refund. He attacked it for participating in an organization that helps U.S. firms operate in China. And Mr. Bessent argued that the chief executive of FedEx and others should “explain how he’s going to get the money back to the consumers if he, in fact, passed those costs along.”
The public sniping evinced not only the fiscal stakes for Mr. Trump but the philosophical issue that has loomed over his trade war for nearly a year. Even though the president insists that foreigners, not Americans, pay the sky-high duties, his tariffs are taxes on imports, which means they actually fall on U.S. consumers and firms.
Jeffrey Schwab, the senior counsel of the Liberty Justice Center, said he believed that businesses were in “pretty good shape” legally “because the government has already essentially promised” to issue refunds.
“We won the case, and our clients were harmed by paying the money,” he added. “Our clients are the ones that are, right now, harmed by the fact they haven’t gotten their money back.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
From Washington to Wall Street, the simmering battle over tariff refunds could prove highly consequential, given the sum that the Trump administration has amassed over the past year and the state of the U.S. economy.
Mr. Trump, for one, long has boasted about the revenues collected from his tariffs around the world. Without that money, however, the government’s own finances could worsen, a decline coming months after Republicans added considerably to the federal debt by enacting a set of expensive tax cuts.
On Tuesday, a report from Oxford Economics outlined some of the hypothetical stakes: If the administration is forced to send out tariff refunds in full, it will amount to about 0.4 percent of the country’s total economic output. That would worsen the ratio of U.S. debt to growth, a closely watched figure for fiscal hawks, while possibly adding seven basis points to the yield on 10-year bonds, making borrowing more expensive, the firm found.
For businesses, the tariffs they have paid over the past year also represented a major financial burden. Some raised prices; others renegotiated deals with suppliers or absorbed the duties into their bottom lines. There were even firms that sold the rights to any potential refunds ordered by the court in exchange for an upfront cash payment.
More On Trump's State of the Union and Reactions
New York Times, News Analysis: Trump Puts On a Show, Casting Democrats as the Villains, Katie Rogers, Feb. 26, 2026 (print ed.). On the defensive over the economy and with the midterms approaching, President Trump made clear that his political strategy is to paint Democrats as unpatriotic and ‘crazy.’
It was spectacle as survival strategy.
In his State of the Union address, President Trump didn’t bother to introduce a raft of new policies — unusual in a midterm election year with control of Congress on the line. He did not seem concerned with making the case that he gets it when it comes to the issue Americans are most worried about. “Affordability,” he said, was part of a “dirty, rotten lie” perpetuated by the Democrats.
Instead, with the slashing style of a natural campaigner and the instincts of a onetime reality television producer, he spent the better part of two hours 
baiting the ranks of incensed Democrats in the chamber and endeavoring to define them to the electorate as “sick,” unpatriotic and utterly out of step with the values of most Americans.
“These people are crazy, I’m telling ya, they’re crazy,” Mr. Trump said at one point, while relaying the story of a young person who had been forced to undergo a gender transition. “Boy oh boy, we’re lucky we have a country with people like this — Democrats are destroying our country, but we’ve stopped it just in the nick of time.”
Going into the speech, Mr. Trump knew that he needed to use it to maneuver out of a politically treacherous moment for himself and his party. A majority of Americans oppose how Mr. Trump is pursuing his anti-immigration agenda, and more than 70 percent of them think his priorities are in the wrong place. His approval rating has plummeted to 41 percent.
His solution was to wrap himself in the imagery of American heroism with staged asides throughout the speech while throwing the blame for every problem, from the security of elections to the state of the economy, back on his opponents.
In a number of cases, Democrats gave Mr. Trump the confrontations he sought.
Representative Al Green of Texas, who was ejected from the chamber last year for waving his cane at Mr. Trump, was once again removed after he held up a sign proclaiming “BLACK PEOPLE AREN’T APES” — a reference to a racist video Mr. Trump recently shared on social media.
Representative Lauren Underwood of Illinois got up and walked out rather than “take another minute” of the speech. And Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, a frequent target of Mr. Trump’s, was one of a handful who yelled at him.
“You’ve killed Americans!” she shouted as Mr. Trump talked about immigration enforcement.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” the president shot back.
But if Mr. Trump drew the contrasts he wanted to draw inside the chamber, it was not clear how much effect his performance would have outside of it, where the political realities for him and his party are bracing.
The killing of U.S. citizens by immigration agents and scenes of children being detained have undercut public approval for his deportation campaign despite his success in largely closing the border to illegal immigration. His base remains fixated on the Jeffrey Epstein files and whether the administration has been fully transparent in making public all that is known about those who consorted with him, including Mr. Trump. Last week, the Supreme Court struck down Mr. Trump’s preferred method for implementing tariffs, a keystone of his economic and foreign policy agenda.
If Mr. Trump felt defensive about any of this, it came out as defiant. On Tuesday evening, he looked at a row of stone-faced Supreme Court justices and told them his tariff plans would continue under the “legal power that I as president have to make a new deal.”
New York Times, Who Said It Better? How Trump’s Economic Pitch Echoes Biden’s, Shane Goldmacher and Reid J. Epstein, Feb. 26, 2026 (print ed.). With the midterms approaching and polls showing unease about the economy, some of President Trump’s arguments about its strength sounded eerily like those of his predecessor.President Trump is sounding a lot like President Joseph R. Biden Jr. these days, at least in one respect.
In a State of the Union address on Tuesday night that sought to reframe his first-year economic record before a midterm election that threatens to upend Republican majorities in Congress, Mr. Trump told a skeptical American public that the economy was doing great, despite what many may believe.
“Inflation is plummeting,” Mr. Trump declared on Tuesday. “Incomes are rising fast.”
“Wages keep going up,” Mr. Biden had said two years ago in his final State of the Union address. “Inflation keeps coming down.”
Telling voters that the economy is better than they believe is a risky strategy, as Mr. Biden found out in his own truncated re-election campaign. He had spent months with an on-again, off-again branding exercise to sell “Bidenomics” as an economic miracle that never quite stuck. It did not matter that he was armed with a blizzard of macroeconomic data. Voters felt squeezed.
Now, with polls showing that a majority of Americans think that Mr. Trump’s policies have made life less affordable, he was the one trying to sell the idea that America has entered a “golden age.”
“The roaring economy is roaring like never before,” the president said, bragging about what he characterized as the stock market’s rise, the drop in gas prices and lower mortgage rates.
For former top Biden economic and White House advisers, Mr. Trump’s pitch feels like a bad case of déjà vu.
“I would be lying if I didn’t say fellow alums didn’t laugh when Trump says the same things that used to come out of our White House,” said Kate Berner, a White House communications adviser during the Biden administration.
“He is telling people to ignore their lived experience and that economic indicators and what the elites are saying should overpower what they feel or see,” Ms. Berner added. “Trump would slam us for saying it, and now he’s doing the exact same thing.”
The two presidents even have a familiar and favored scapegoat — each other.
That is not how voters see it.
Overall, 70 percent of voters viewed the economy as only fair or poor, according to the most recent poll from The New York Times and Siena University, down from 74 percent in February 2024, shortly before Mr. Biden delivered his speech.
In 2024, 40 percent of voters said the economy was worse than a year before; last month an almost identical 41 percent said the economy was worse than it was a year ago. (The share who said the economy was getting better has ticked up this year to 31 percent, up from 23 percent two years ago.)
PoliticusUSA, Trump State Of The Union Flops Even With Republicans, Jason Easley, right, Feb. 25, 2026. Trump's speech was such a dud that even among a poll of SOTU watchers that was heavily Republican, the president's address got relatively low marks.
View in browserTrump State Of The Union Flops Even With RepublicansTrump's speech was such a dud that even among a poll of SOTU watchers that was heavily Republican, the president's address got relatively low marks.Jason EasleyFeb 25 ∙ Paid READ IN APP
If you have ever questioned how bad a president’s State Of The Union address has to be for members of his own party to grade it relatively low, Trump’s 2026 SOTU address provided some answers.
Usually, viewers of State Of The Union addresses tend to be two things. Viewers follow politics, and they tend to also be fans of the current president. Therefore, it is difficult for a president to get low marks on a viewer poll after the State Of The Union address.
After each SOTU, CNN conducts a poll of speech watchers to see what they thought.
CNN Washington Bureau Chief David Chalian reported on the results of the network’s poll after Trump spoke:
I just wanna take a moment here to explain. This is a poll of speech watchers, so it is not a poll that is reflective of the population overall and what we know about people who tune in to State of the Union addresses. They tend to be fans of the president, whichever president is giving the speech.
So the polling universe here is about 13 points more Republican than the overall population usually is, so just keep all that in mind as we go to the results of our instant poll.
Get this reaction from those that watched the speech tonight. 38% said they had a very positive reaction to the speech.
25%, somewhat positive, 36% negative. So roughly two-thirds are in the positive territory, one-third negative, among speech watchers. How does that very positive number stack up against previous addresses? Well, look here. It’s about six percentage points lower than Donald Trump was at with the very positive score last year.
He was at 44% very positive reaction. This year, 38%, even though. The universe of speech watchers was actually even a bit more Republican than it was last year, and we also took a look at that very positive speech reaction here compared to previous presidents in this midterm year.
So in 2026 this year, tonight, 38%. Very positive reaction. Joe Biden, four years ago, 41%. Very positive reaction. That was the year Democrats lost control of the House. You see Trump in 2018 was at 48%. very positive when he, his party, lost control of the House in his first term. So you see here, again, Donald Trump is at the bottom of this.
I think these polls are even by fans of the president, people who tuned in to watch tonight, and he gets a two-thirds overall positive reaction. I still think you’re seeing his overall trouble in the polls these days, which is that he’s at a low point even compared to a year ago when he gave his speech to a joint session.
The signal that this poll is sending is that the intensity of positive support for Trump is declining among Republicans. That is really bad news for Republican candidates who are counting on the president’s popularity within their own party to get people out to the polls to vote in the midterm election.
The reality is that what Trump is doing is worse than what other incumbent presidents did in their midterm election years when they, at a minimum, lost control of the House.
Trump’s speech was a bomb, and he could not motivate some of his most dedicated supporters.
Republicans trotted Trump out in front of the nation, let him ramble for two hours, and the president pulled his worst numbers with his own party ever.
This all suggests that it is close to being over for Trump, even among some Republicans.
Politico, ‘It's clearly fake': Olympic hockey star disavows AI-generated White House video, Gregory Svirnovskiy, Feb. 26, 2026. "It's not my voice, not my lips moving," he said.Brady Tkachuk is pictured celebrating.
Brady Tkachuk, a bruising winger on the American Olympic men’s ice hockey team, was none too pleased with an AI-generated video the White House released on social media this weekend that appeared to show him criticizing Canada.
The video featured Tkachuk, who plays for the National Hockey League’s Ottawa Senators full time, calling the Canadian team “maple syrup eating f----s” in a press conference, before cutting to highlights from the gold medal match of the Olympics, which saw the U.S. men’s team take down Canada by a 2-1 score in overtime. The White House bleeped the AI-generated profanity in the video.
Tkachuk made it clear he didn’t condone the language in the video.
“It’s not my voice. It’s not what I was saying,” he told reporters at a media scrum Thursday. “I would never say that. That’s not who I am, so yeah, I guess I don’t like that video because that just would never come out of my mouth.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
With the threat of ever-changing tariffs and a barrage of 51st state rhetoric, President Donald Trump has antagonized Canada since before his return to the White House early last year. He called the American team shortly after they won gold last Sunday, inviting them to the White House and cracking a controversial joke that he’d soon have to do the same for the American women’s team, which also won gold at the Olympics. The women’s team declined Trump’s initial invitation to attend his State of the Union address, according to CNN.
The men’s team, including Tkachuk, visited the White House on Tuesday, later making a short appearance during Trump’s State of the Union address.
“It just was special,” he said of the visit.
Tkachuk is the captain of the NHL’s Senators, who ply their trade in the capital of the Great North. Local fans have had a frosty reaction to his international triumph. But he said he had nothing to do with the administration’s dig on social media.
“Well, it’s clearly fake, because it’s not my voice, and not my lips moving,” he said. “I’m not in control of any of those accounts. I know that those words would never come out of my mouth.”
The Warning with Steve Schmidt, U.S. Men's Hockey Team Serving As Political Props For Trump: They will regret their choice, Steve Schmidt, Feb. 26, 2026. After winning the gold medal the U.S. men’s hockey team chose to politicize their victory alongside Donald Trump and Kash Patel. I expose the disgrace and complicity in their actions:
Global News
New York Times, Cuban Government Says 4 Are Killed in Gunfire Exchange With Florida Speedboat, Frances Robles, Feb. 26, 2026 (print ed.). Four people aboard a Florida-based speedboat died in a gunfight with Cuban border troops near the island nation’s coast, the Cuban Interior Ministry said.
The Cuban government said it exchanged gunfire with a Florida-based speedboat that had entered its territorial waters Wednesday, killing at least four people and wounding six others.
The vessel approached within one nautical mile northeast of the El Pino channel north of Corralillo, a town in the central Cuban province of Villa Clara, according to a statement on the Facebook page of Cuba’s Ministry of the Interior.
Cuban border-guard troops on a government boat approached the speedboat seeking identification when the people aboard the boat opened fire on the Cuban personnel, wounding the Cuban vessel’s commander, the statement said.
“As a result of the confrontation, at the time of this report, four foreign attackers were killed and six were wounded,” the government said.
The wounded were evacuated and received medical attention, the government said. The government’s statement included what it said was the boat’s Florida registration number.
A U.S. official said the firefight involved a U.S. civilian boat that was part of flotilla to get relatives out of Cuba, adding that the vessel was not U.S. Naval or Coast Guard boat.
“In the face of current challenges, Cuba reaffirms its commitment to protecting its territorial waters, based on the principle that national defense is a fundamental pillar for the Cuban State in order to protect its sovereignty and stability in the region,” the Cuban government statement said.
The Cuban government is in the throes of a critical energy crisis, largely because of Trump administration moves to block foreign oil shipments.
The shooting involving the boat took place a day after the 30th anniversary of the Brothers to the Rescue shoot-down, when Cuban military planes shot down two planes from a South Florida humanitarian organization that was distributing fliers in Cuba. Four people were killed.
U.S. Law, Courts, Crime, Corruption, Rights
Chief Justice John Roberts with other members of the Supreme Court (Pool photo by Chip Somodevilla).
New York Times, Opinion: John Roberts Sent Trump a Message, Linda Greenhouse, Linda Greenhouse, right (recipient of a 1998 Pulitzer Prize, reported on the Supreme Court for The Times from 1978 to 2008), Feb. 25, 2026 (print ed.). Chief Justice John Roberts doesn’t waste words.
His majority opinion in last week’s tariff ruling was, characteristically, a model of succinctness. In a mere 21 pages (Justice Neil Gorsuch’s concurring opinion, by contrast, clocked in at 46 pages, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s dissent at 63), he explained why, as a matter of statutory interpretation and the constitutional separation of powers, President Trump lackedthe authority he had claimed, under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, to impose a hodgepodge of tariffs on countries all over the world.
There was, however, one exception to the opinion’s conciseness: a meaty paragraph describing the roller-coaster course of Mr. Trump’s tariff regime. Here, with citations to seven separate executive orders omitted for the sake of readability, is the chief justice’s account:
Since imposing each set of tariffs, the president has issued several increases, reductions and other modifications. One month after imposing the 10 percent drug trafficking tariffs on Chinese goods, he increased the rate to 20 percent. One month later, he removed a statutory exemption for Chinese goods under $800. Less than a week after imposing the reciprocal tariffs, the president increased the rate on Chinese goods from 34 percent to 84 percent. The very next day, he increased the rate further still, to 125 percent. This brought the total effective tariff rate on most Chinese goods to 145 percent. The president has also shifted sets of goods into and out of the reciprocal tariff framework ([e.g.] exempting from reciprocal tariffs beef, fruits, coffee, tea, spices and some fertilizers). And he has issued a variety of other adjustments ([e.g.] extending “the suspension of heightened reciprocal tariffs” on Chinese imports).
For all the attention the decision in this case, Learning Resources v. Trump, has received, this paragraph has gone largely unremarked. I understand why; it’s unnecessary to the opinion’s argument. If, as a matter of law, the tariffs are invalid, it doesn’t matter whether they were imposed sensibly or capriciously. The paragraph is, in a word, gratuitous, something that can rarely be said about a passage in a Roberts opinion. So what is it doing there?
The answer, I think, is that the chief justice is sending a message, not necessarily or not only to Mr. Trump but to the waiting world. Something along the lines of: “People, this is what we’re dealing with.” The point being not that “some fertilizers” are now exempt from reciprocal tariffs, but that a reckless president is sowing chaos in America and around the globe.Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
We don’t need to know Chief Justice Roberts’s innermost thoughts about Mr. Trump — whatever they were before the president, in reaction to the tariff decision, described him and his majority as “fools” and “lap dogs” swayed “by foreign interests” — to discern his exasperation.
For the past year, the Trump administration has trolled the Supreme Court, sending up one emergency application after another to demand temporary relief from adverse lower-court rulings. The administration frequently got what it wanted: a stay of the ruling while an appeal proceeded. Powerful dissenting opinions from the three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, made sure the public knew that these orders, while making no law, had the real-world effect of enabling the president to carry out his agenda, including slashing the federal work force and gutting lifesaving foreign assistance programs. Chief Justice Roberts was usually in the majority on these unsigned and generally unexplained orders; obviously he thought the stays were called for. But he probably isn’t happy with the drip-drip-drip of public perception — reflected in polls and social media chatter — that the court was handing the president a blank check.
Something different happened in late December when the justices denied the administration’s request for a stay of a district-court decision barring its use of the National Guard in Illinois. The order was unsigned, with Justices Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissenting. The three-page order essentially made new law by narrowly defining the circumstances under which a president could federalize a state’s National Guard.
This was a very big deal. The president promptly acceded to the order, removing the federalized Guard from Los Angeles and Portland, Ore., as well as Chicago. Yet the court’s action, coming on the day before Christmas Eve, received far less attention than the tariff case. In discussions about the court today, few people even seem to remember it. It is as if the view of the court as the administration’s lackey was so entrenched that evidence to the contrary was too discordant to be fully absorbed.
The tariff decision was the first of the court’s rulings, after full briefing and oral argument, on the merits of one of the second Trump administration’s cases. A decision on the administration’s effort to fire a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors may be next. In that case, the administration claims sufficient cause to dismiss a Fed governor, Lisa Cook, based on assertions it claims she made in mortgage agreements. During oral argument, Chief Justice Roberts seemed to recoil from the overwrought tone of Solicitor General D. John Sauer’s argument, which began with, “Deceit or gross negligence by a financial regulator in financial transactions is cause for removal,” even though there has been no judicial finding that Ms. Cook engaged in either.
“You began by talking about deceit,” Chief Justice Roberts said to Mr. Sauer. “Does what you said after that apply in the case of an inadvertent mistake contradicted by other documents in the record?” Mr. Sauer’s answer, “We would say yes,” hung unsatisfactorily in the air as the argument proceeded for the next two hours.It’s worth remembering that Chief Justice Roberts is the head of the entire judicial branch. It is in that capacity that his vexation with Mr. Trump verges on acute concern. The president has denounced judges who have ruled against him, including by calling for a Federal District Court judge’s impeachment. Mr. Trump has helped create an atmosphere in which judges appropriately fear for their personal safety and that of their families. Many people expected the chief justice to address this issue directly in his year-end report in December, but he did not. In two decades as the nation’s top jurist, he has at times spoken directly in defense of the judiciary, as in his 2024 report. But these occasions have been infrequent, as if the only messages this notably self-possessed and buttoned-down man cares to send are those his opinions deliver.
U.S. Sen. Katie Britt, Republican of Alabama, in a file photo from an appearance on C-SPAN on March 7, 2024.
Emptywheel, Analysis: Katie Britt’s Sad Confusion about and Complicity in Misallocation of HSI, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler), right, Feb. 25, 2026. HSI, Homeland Security Investigations, which is an overlooked subpart of ICE. Normally, HSI focuses on transnational crimes, including but not limited to sex and drug trafficking. Katie Britt, who as Chair of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, plays a central role in funding DHS, has been ranting about the effect of the shut down on HSI. While Britt is right that In Normal Times™, HSI plays a key role in policing transnational child sex trafficking, some of the cases she cites are largely ridiculous.
Monday, DHS submitted declarations in a lawsuit trying to make Stephen Miller’s goons adhere to the Fourth Amendment in Minnesota.
Plaintiffs seek injunctive relief to halt three unlawful policies and practices. First, federal agents are stopping people to question them about immigration status without reasonable suspicion of removability—and particularly targeting those they perceive to be Somali or Latino. Second, federal agents are arresting people for immigration reasons without warrants and without probable cause to believe that they are removable, outrageously including U.S. citizens (who plainly cannot be detained for civil immigration purposes) and individuals with immigration status. And third, federal agents are making warrantless arrests without probable cause to believe the person is a flight risk. The constitutional guarantees of the Fourth Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause, and federal statutory law, prohibit these kinds of police-state tactics.
The filings were submitted in response to Judge Eric Tostrud’s questions about whether the lawsuit has been mooted by the claimed drawdown in DHS goons.
The declarations are from:
ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Director for St. Paul, Sam Olson Director of Border Patrol Field Operations in Detroit, Marty Raybon
At their most basic level, the declarations provide some official accounting of the size of the surge.
On the ICE side, the St. Paul Office went from 190 ERO officers covering Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Iowa, of which 80 focus on the Twin Cities, to “approximately 3,000 additional ERO officers and HSI agents.” As of Monday, there were “270 ERO officers and 700 HSI agents” in the St. Paul office. After today that’s supposed to drop to “approximately 107 ERO officers.”
I’ll come back to the HSI officers.
On the CBP side, Raybon only describes what happened after he was brought in on February 3 to clean up after Greg Bovino (though he doesn’t mention Bovino). On that day, there were “approximately 1029 CBP employees” assigned to the invasion of Minnesota. In his declaration submitted February 23, Raybon said the last remaining 67 surged into Minnesota would be demobilized.
So aside from people working at ports of entry, the surge went from 80 officers to more than 4029 back down to 107.
The declarations seem to offer dramatically different levels of candor. Raybon — the guy CBP had to bring in from Michigan to clean up after Bovino’s mess — describes the invasion included some actions purportedly enforcing Title 18, crimes. “These enforcement actions primarily involved immigration enforcement authorities granted under Title 8 of the U.S. Code but may have also involved enforcement of certain portions of the U.S. criminal code under Title 18.”
Olson, the local guy, was far less forthcoming. He offered an explanation for the invasion that doesn’t make logical sense in ways that are directly relevant to this lawsuit: “Operation Metro Surge was an exclusively federal operation which mission was to significantly increase ‘at-large’ arrests of illegal aliens in the Twin Cities metropolitan area, focusing on criminal aliens and individuals with executable final orders.” Why would you seek to arrest known criminal aliens or those with deportation orders via “at-large” snatches? He claims, “During Operation Metro Surge, ICE successfully arrested more than 4,000 illegal aliens.” Except the huge surge in habeas corpus petitions that plaintiffs catalog — along with 54 petitions filed between August and November last year, 1,071 in total — suggests that many of those arrests were problematic, if not altogether erroneous (indeed, many were focused on people with legal status as refugees).
Between December 1, 2025, and December 31, 2025, 56 petitions were filed. Between January 1, 2026, and January 31, 2026, 585 petitions were filed. Between February 1, 2026, and February 11, 2026, 276 petitions were filed. Since the announcement of the end of Operation Metro Surge and associated “drawdown” on February 12, 2026, 100 habeas petitions have filed.
And Olson lists the Scary Immigrants the goons arrested with no names or dates — a rather telling omission, since this declaration was submitted under penalty of perjury.
Operation Metro Surge led to the successful arrest and apprehension of criminal aliens, including aliens with convictions for murder, aggravated assaults, domestic abuse/violence, drug trafficking, counterfeiting, identity theft, robbery with a dangerous weapon, sexual assault and rape convictions.
These resemble the same claims that MN Department of Corrections already corrected to show that these defendants had been turned over by state and local authorities, not arrested by the goons Stephen Miller used to invade Minnesota.
Examples (screenshots taken from website links below):
So there are numerous indices of unreliability in Olson’s declaration (which would be fairly normal for declarations from DHS).
And that’s why I’m interested in his focus on HSI, Homeland Security Investigations, which is an overlooked subpart of ICE. Normally, HSI focuses on transnational crimes, including but not limited to sex and drug trafficking.
Katie Britt, who as Chair of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, plays a central role in funding DHS, has been ranting about the effect of the shut down on HSI.
While Britt is right that In Normal Times™, HSI plays a key role in policing transnational child sex trafficking (indeed, HSI played a role in both iterations of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, as well as the Ross Ulbricht investigation, but somehow Britt forgot to mention any of that), some of the cases she cites are largely ridiculous:
The 2024 arrest of Sean Combs, did credit HSI. For now, Trump has said he won’t pardon him, but he has entertained doing so in the past. The 2014 arrest of Chapo Guzmán, under Barack Obama, did credit HSI for its role. Likewise, the 2024 arrest of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia, under Joe Biden, credited HSI. And as with the other Sinaloa busts, HSI also played a role in the 2024 arrest of Joaquin Guzmán Lopez. The 2008 arrest of Viktor Bout, under George W Bush, was significantly a DEA sting; the arrest press release did not credit HSI. HSI was involved in the arrest of alleged MS-13 leader Francisco Javier Roman-Bardales last March, one of three of the ten criminals Britt identified arrested in any of the five years of a Trump presidency. But almost immediately after his extradition, DOJ started, in secret, to dismantle much of the conspiracy prosecution in which he was charged as part of a bid to help Nayib Bukele cover up his ties to MS-13. While EDNY’s Gangs team charged Keith Raniere, for crimes significantly perpetrated in NDNY, in 2018, after sentencing Seth DuCharme credited HSI for its role in the investigation. HSI played a key role in the 2018 arrest and conviction of R Kelly. HSI did play a role in the 2021 arrest, under Joe Biden, of Josh Duggar. The timing was probably particularly important, given the chummy ties Duggar had with broad swaths of the GOP political world, especially Mike Huckabee. The 2015 arrest of Jared Fogle, under Barack Obama, did not credit HSI.
It’s not just that in her list of ten prosecutions in which HSI played a part, she listed at least three — Diddy, MS-13, and Duggar — in which Republicans have or might yet tamper. It’s not just that Britt ignored other key HSI successes, like Epstein and Ulbricht, that are problematic for Trump for other reasons.
It’s that Britt is misinformed — or more likely, given her role overseeing how DHS spends its money — lying about what has sidetracked HSI.
There have been reports, for months, about the frustrations of HSI officers who would normally hunt child sex predators who instead got reassigned to hunt brown grannies and day laborers.
Homeland security investigators worked approximately 33 percent fewer hours on child exploitation cases from February through April compared to their average in prior years, according to a Times analysis of data obtained through the F.O.I.A. lawsuit.
“It’s heartbreaking,” said Hany Farid, a computer scientist who helped create software used by law enforcement and technology companies to detect child sexual abuse material. “You can’t say you care about kids when you’re diverting actual resources that are protecting children.”
The guy who carried out Todd Blanche’s order to kidnap Newark’s Mayor, Ricky Patel (and who will be easily discredited as a witness if LaMonica McIver ever goes to trial)? A senior HSI officer showing off for Kristi Noem.
One of the guys who assaulted David Huerta, Ryan Ribner, after saying that protesters exercising their First Amendment rights were “vicious, horrible people”?
He’s supposed to be supervising cyber financial investigations.
The guy who took time away hunting for child sex predators to avenge this poor Border Patrol officer who got spat on? HSI Special Agent Ryan Hudson.
3. I have been employed as a Special Agent (“SA”) of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations (“HSI”) since 2023, and I am currently assigned to the Child Exploitation Investigations Group in Orange County. Prior to my employment as a Special Agent, I was employed as a Border Patrol Agent with USBP from 2018-2021. My responsibilities as a Special Agent include investigating crimes involving the sexual exploitation of minors, including, but not limited to, offenses involving travel in foreign commerce to engage in sexually explicit conduct with minors, and offenses involving the production, possession, distribution, and transportation of child pornography.
That pattern has continued in Minnesota.
The guys who took time away from narcotics, sex, and child trafficking investigations to charge protestors with felony spitting in Minnesota? HSI Special Agents Bronson Day and Richard Berger.
Even the guy who shifted from IRS investigations to HSI last year, Timothy Gerber, who appears to focus on doing someone’s dirty work and who wrote the affidavit in the Don Lemon case, also lists child exploitation among the cases he investigated before shifting to investigating Trump’s enemies.
The guys involved in a snatching in the vicinity of a daycare that led to a violent confrontation with Alex Pretti, 11 days before he was shot dead by CBP officers? Still anonymous HSI officers.
Max Shapiro had also recorded the interaction on Jan. 13. He was tipped off by Signal chats and friends in the area about Immigration and Customs Enforcement presence at the intersection and went because his son’s day care center was nearby.
“As I approached, it appeared that Mr. Pretti had kicked out a taillight, and then, as you see in the video, an agent grabs him and throws him on the ground,” Shapiro told NBC News.
Shapiro said he spoke to Pretti once three federal vehicles pulled out of the area.
“I went up to him and I gave him a half-hug. I had my phone in one hand, and I sort of hugged him with the other,” he said.
“I asked him, ‘Are you good, are you OK?’ He says: ‘Yep, I’m good, I’m OK. Are we all OK? Are we safe? We OK?” Shapiro said. “He was making sure that everyone was safe.”
It’s not Democrats defunding DHS who are taking HSI away from their jobs hunting child sex traffickers.
Stephen Miller already did that.
And that’s why I’m interesting in the equivocations that Sam Olson, who is not all that forthcoming, made about HSI’s role in Minnesota’s surge.
4. During Operation Metro Surge, approximately 3,000 additional ERO officers and HSI agents were detailed to the St. Paul Field Office. These details have come at different times and for varying lengths of time. Typically, the ERO St. Paul Office is staffed with approximately 190 officers covering the five states of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Iowa. In the Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, ERO has approximately 80 officers.
5. As of February 23, 2026, there are approximately 270 ERO officers and 700 HSI agents on detail to the St. Paul Field Office.
6. After February 25, 2026, approximately 107 ERO officers will remain on detail to the St. Paul Field Office. HSI anticipates that there will be approximately 300 agents on detail to the St. Paul Field Office by March 2026.
To be fair, he’s only reporting what HSI tells him to report; he’s in ERO, a parallel organization to HSI.
But if HSI are and possibly were such a big component of the Minnesota invasion, making up almost 3/4 of the deployed officers into this week, then why not have HSI do a declaration as well?
As of Monday, more than a tenth of the 6,000 HSI agents nationwide remained in Minnesota, possibly indicating that Kristi Noem is, as she has done consistently, trying to excuse the unmitigated violence of her goons, including the murders of Pretti and Renee Good, by criminalizing those they target. Hundreds of people who could be out hunting sex traffickers remain in Minnesota doing goddess knows what.
Katie Britt wants HSI officers back on the beat hunting down child sex traffickers.
Great! We can agree on that.
The problem is that, under Katie Britt’s oversight, they’ve already been taken off that job and sent to help kidnap children, often unlawfully. She’s a central part of the problem.
Feb. 23
Top Stories
Then-Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage.
New York Times, What’s Happened Since the Supreme Court’s Tariff Ruling, Kim Bhasin, Feb. 23, 2026. After the Trump administration’s punishing tariffs were invalidated, the president said he would impose new tariffs using a different authority. It’s been a whirlwind.Global News
Paul Krugman via Substack, Political-Economy Commentary: Day 1461 of Putin’s Three-Day War, Paul Krugman, right, Feb. 23, 2026. Courage, betrayal — and reasons for hope.
President Claudia Sheinbaum was addressing the unrest incited after the death of “El Mencho,” the longtime head of a powerful cartel. The mayhem has stranded travelers and forced airlines to cancel flights.New York Times, Trump Considers Targeted Strike Against Iran, Followed by Larger Attack, Julian E. Barnes, David E. Sanger, Tyler Pager and Eric Schmitt, Feb. 23, 2026 (print ed.). The top negotiators plan to meet in Geneva on Thursday for last-ditch talks, debating a new proposal that could create an off-ramp as two carrier groups massed within striking distance of Iran.
Binance Employees Find $1.7 Billion in Crypto Was Sent to Iranian Entities, David Yaffe-Bellany and Michael Forsythe, Feb. 23, 2026. Binance pledged to crack down on crime. But internal investigators at the world’s largest crypto exchange continued to find evidence of potential legal violations on the platform. U..S. Media, Culture, Politics, Courts
U.S. Governance, Politics, Elections
eb. 23, 2026. On February 6, four direct descendants of President Theodore Roosevelt wrote to United States senators to ask them to vote against a measure that opens up the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) in Minnesota to the Chilean mining giant Antofagasta Plc and its subsidiary Twin Metals Minnesota.the primary Super PAC supporting President Trump, revealed that it received a $5 million donation from Crypto.com on January 23, 2026. The donation was made in the name of Crypto.com’s parent company, Foris Dax, Inc.¹More On Epstein Files
Feb. 23, 2026. America’s tolerance of Epstein associates is a national disgrace.
day seems to bring new reports of financiers, academics, politicians and royalty (among others) who cozied up to Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender whose predation took a horrendous toll on innocent lives. With accountability for people in power in short supply, it can be hard to see a downside in the huge dump of documents relating to Mr. Epstein and his various associates.More On U.S. Courts, Tariffs, Reactions
Trump's Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dillon, lead prosecutor in the U.S. Justice Department's prosecution of journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort for covering a protest at a Minneapolis church of abuses by federal immigration employees of abusive anti-immigration enforcement tactics.'
to delay their trial that likely explains the real reason that Harmeet Dhillon and her lawyers are asking for a delay in their case: DOJ is experiencing “technical issues” with accessing the phones of the nine defendants, which might be another way to say at least some of the defendants have complex passwords for their phones, which can add months to exploiting them.Feb. 23, 2026. Almost as quickly as Trump responded to his Supreme Court setback by imposing new tariffs, JB Pritzker responded by sending a bill, demanding Trump pay Illinois more than $8.6B in “damages” from his unlawful IEEPA tariffs.Immigration, Rights, Law
U.S. Weather, Hardships
Top Stories
Then-Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage.
New York Times, Judge Bars Release of Special Counsel Report on Trump’s Mishandling of Documents, Alan Feuer, Feb. 23, 2026. Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump-appointed federal judge in Florida, slammed the former special counsel, Jack Smith, for drafting the report even after she had dismissed the case.
A Trump-appointed federal judge on Monday permanently barred the Justice Department from releasing a report by the special counsel Jack Smith detailing President Trump’s mishandling of reams of classified documents after he left the White House in 2021.
The ruling by the judge, Aileen M. Cannon, right, was her latest effort in the past several months to keep the public from seeing Mr. Smith’s sprawling report — one of the most significant parts of his twin prosecutions of Mr. Trump that has yet to see the light of the day.
The order, issued from Federal District Court in Fort Pierce, Fla., slammed Mr. Smith for the “brazen stratagem” of drafting his report even after Judge Cannon had dismissed the classified documents case in July 2024 and found that he had been improperly appointed to his post as special counsel.
“To say this chronology represents, at a minimum, a concerning breach of the spirit of the dismissal order is an understatement, if not an outright violation of it,” Judge Cannon wrote on Monday.
Judge Cannon also ruled that releasing the report, which contains investigative materials that have never been made public, would “cause irreparable damage” to Mr. Trump and his two co-defendants and would “contravene basic notions of fairness and justice in the process.”
Mr. Smith himself dropped the other case he brought against Mr. Trump — the one accusing him of seeking to overturn the 2020 election — after the 2024 election. The report about the election interference case, often described as Volume I of his work, was released to the public in January 2025.
But Volume II of Mr. Smith’s report has never been released even though special counsels appointed by both Republican and Democratic administrations have traditionally shown their work to the public. Volume II details Mr. Smith’s prosecution of Mr. Trump on charges of illegally retaining highly sensitive classified documents from his first stint in the White House and then conspiring with his co-defendants — Waltine Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira — to obstruct the government’s repeated efforts to get the material back.
Last month, Mr. Smith testified in front of Congress about several aspects of his election interference prosecution, flatly accusing Mr. Trump of causing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. But he has never been able to discuss his findings in the classified documents case publicly because Judge Cannon, who has repeatedly received lavish praise from the president, temporarily blocked the release of his report about it shortly before Mr. Trump returned to office.
The order on Monday made that preliminary ruling permanent — though it is unlikely to be the last word on the matter. Two watchdog groups, American Oversight and the Knight First Amendment Institute, have been trying for months to force the release of Mr. Smith’s report, filing a series of requests to the federal appeals court that sits over Judge Cannon.
Both organizations denounced the ruling.
“Judge Cannon’s ruling continues a troubling pattern of decisions that shield the president from public scrutiny and place secrecy above the public’s right to know,” Chioma Chukwu, the executive director of American Oversight, said in a statement issued Monday. “By permanently blocking the release of Volume II of the special counsel’s report and denying our effort to seek a stay while our appeal moves forward, the court has ensured that the public is denied information of extraordinary national importance.”
Scott Wilkens, senior counsel at the Knight Institute, echoed the criticism.
“Judge Cannon’s decision to permanently block the release of this extraordinarily significant report is impossible to square with the First Amendment and the common law,” he said.
Judge Cannon’s decision came in response to a request from Mr. Trump’s lawyers, who had argued that Volume II of Mr. Smith’s report should never be released outside the Justice Department because it was the work product of a special counsel who never should have been appointed in the first place. Lawyers for Mr. Nauta and Mr. De Oliveira made an even broader request, asking Judge Cannon to destroy all copies of the report.
While the judge granted Mr. Trump’s request, she rejected the effort to have all remaining copies of Volume II destroyed. In an unusual, but perhaps unsurprising, move, the Justice Department weighed in on the issue last month, agreeing with Mr. Trump and telling Judge Cannon that the report should remain sealed.
“The illicit product of an unlawful investigation and prosecution belongs in the dustbin of history,” prosecutors wrote. “The United States will leave it there.”
New York Times, U.K. Police Arrest Ex-Ambassador to U.S. Amid Epstein Accusations, Lizzie Dearden and Stephen Castle, Feb. 23, 2026. Peter Mandelson was arrested on Monday on suspicion of “misconduct in public office” following revelations about his dealings with Jeffrey Epstein, the sex offender.
The British police on Monday arrested Peter Mandelson, right, the former British ambassador to the United States, following allegations that he passed confidential government information to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
London’s Metropolitan Police, which began an investigation into Mr. Mandelson earlier this month, said in a statement, “Officers have arrested a 72-year-old man on suspicion of misconduct in public office.”
The statement added that the man had been taken to a police station in London to be formally interviewed.
The police did not name Mr. Mandelson, in line with British rules that ban them from identifying suspects before any charges are brought. But footage broadcast by the BBC showed Mr. Mandelson being led from his home into an unmarked police car by plainclothes police officers and driven away, at around 4:30 p.m. local time. Mr. Mandelson was not handcuffed and was carrying a bottle of water.
The arrest is the latest dramatic development in Britain to follow the U.S. Justice Department’s release of files related to Mr. Epstein, and marks a new low for Mr. Mandelson, a veteran Labour Party strategist and one of Britain’s best known political figures.Want to stay updated on what’s happening in the United Kingdom? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update, and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.
It comes just days after the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former prince, on suspicion of the same offense — misconduct in public office, which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Official guidance to British prosecutors says that the offense is committed when a public officer, such as an elected politician or government official, “willfully neglects to perform their duty” or “willfully misconducts themselves” in a way that abuses the public’s trust.
Previously a Labour lawmaker representing Hartlepool in northeast England, Mr. Mandelson served as a minister in Tony Blair’s government between 1997 and 2001, and under Prime Minister Gordon Brown from 2008 to 2010.
In September, Mr. Mandelson, 72, was fired from his diplomatic post in Washington when the depth and duration of his friendship with Mr. Epstein became clear after the publication of emails between them. Editors’ Picks15 Ways to Turn Store-Bought Rotisserie Chicken Into a Great DinnerShould I Tell My Housekeeper, ‘I’m Here for You’?9 Songs We’re Talking About This Week
The release of new material by the U.S. Department of Justice on Jan. 30 increased the scrutiny of Mr. Mandelson’s relationship 
with the sex offender and provoked a political crisis for Prime Minister Keir Starmer, right.
The latest batch of documents appears to show that in 2009, when Mr. Mandelson was a senior cabinet minister, he gave potentially confidential and market sensitive information to Mr. Epstein.
Mr. Mandelson has not been charged with a crime.
He resigned from the Labour Party on Feb. 1, the same day that it was revealed that the police were investigating him over the accusations. He has not publicly commented since then.
Previously, he said that the documents released by the Department of Justice did not “indicate wrongdoing or misdemeanor on my part.”
Mr. Starmer has acknowledged that he knew of Mr. Mandelson’s links to Mr. Epstein when he appointed him as ambassador to the United States, but has said that Mr. Mandelson lied about the extent of the relationship during vetting procedures.
Under pressure from lawmakers, the government has agreed to release internal documents relating to the appointment of Mr. Mandelson, although particularly sensitive ones will first be submitted to a parliamentary committee that deals with security and intelligence matters.
New York Times, Judges Grow Angry Over Trump Administration Violating Their Orders, Mattathias Schwartz, Zach Montague and Ernesto Londoño, Feb. 23, 2026. At least 35 times since August, federal judges have ordered the administration to explain why it should not be punished for violating their orders in immigration cases.
In internal communications, the Justice Department’s leadership in Washington has taken a defiant posture toward federal judges. The judge was angry. She had ordered a detained immigrant to be released in Minnesota, but instead he was let go in El Paso, where he had to spend the night in a shelter. All his property was supposed to have been returned, but the government was still holding his identity papers.
“Why should I not hold you in contempt?” the judge asked a Justice Department lawyer at a hearing last week. Instead of answers, she got excuses.
“I don’t think there was ever any intention to defy the court orders,” said the lawyer, Matthew Isihara, a military judge advocate on temporary assignment to the Justice Department. “We were doing our best and things, unfortunately, slipped — slipped through the cracks.”
That explanation was not enough for Judge Laura M. Provinzino of the Federal District Court for the District of Minnesota. Last Wednesday, she found Mr. Isihara in civil contempt of court.
Legal experts said her ruling marked the first time during President Trump’s second term that a judge had attempted to assert authority by issuing a civil contempt ruling, which enforces a judicial order by imposing a penalty until the offending party complies. In this case, Judge Provinzino ordered Mr. Ishiara to pay $500 a day until the identity documents were returned.
But the anger Judge Provinzino flashed at Mr. Isihara has been repeated in courtrooms across the country amid Mr. Trump’s drive to deport large numbers of immigrants. A New York Times review of federal dockets found at least 35 instances since August in which federal district court or magistrate judges issued an order requiring the government to explain why it should not be similarly punished for violating court orders, essentially giving officials one last chance to explain themselves.
Those so-called “show cause” orders came from judges in California, Texas, Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, West Virginia and Puerto Rico. They all arose from cases in which the government had detained immigrants who had been living in the United States for years after entering the country illegally.Sign up for the Docket newsletter. Adam Liptak helps you make sense of legal developments in a turbulent time. Get it sent to your inbox.
They represent the culmination of weeks of frustration from the bench. Judges have castigated administration officials for testifying dishonestly, representing the law inaccurately, and above all, failing to comply promptly with their orders.
Experts said that judges appeared to be grappling with a key question: Could the violations of court orders be explained merely by the stress on the legal system caused by the recent flood of immigration cases? Or is there a more systematic effort by the government to defy the courts?
“Don’t hide the ball,” wrote Judge Roy Dalton Jr. in Florida, complaining that a Justice Department lawyer had failed to fully explain relevant law in one case.
“Antiseptic judicial rhetoric cannot do justice to what is happening,” Judge Joseph R. Goodwin in West Virginia wrote in another, calling the warrantless arrest and imprisonment of thousands across the country “an assault on the constitutional order.”
In a statement, Natalie Baldassarre, a Justice Department spokeswoman, blamed “rogue judges” whom she accused of not following the law for allowing the high case loads.
The Trump administration, Ms. Baldassarre said, was “complying with court orders and fully enforcing federal immigration law.”
New York Times, Senator Handcuffed After Interrupting Noem Will Give Spanish Rebuttal to Trump, Jennifer Medina, Feb. 23, 2026. Senator Alex Padilla, a Democrat from California assaulted by federal bodyguard last June while asking a question (as shown in the photo collage above), offered a preview of his remarks, which he expects to focus on the economy, immigration and fair elections.
Senator Alex Padilla of California will deliver the Democratic Party’s Spanish-language rebuttal to President Trump’s State of the Union address this week. Mr. Padilla, a former California secretary of state, is likely to focus on three major issues: the economy, immigration and fair elections.
And he will almost certainly get personal. The son of Mexican immigrants and the first Latino senator from California, he drew national headlines last year when federal agents forced him to the floor and handcuffed him after he tried to question Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, at a news conference.
We spoke to Mr. Padilla by phone on Sunday about what he expects from President Trump’s speech, how he is preparing for his own address and which Americans he hopes to reach. (Gov. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia will deliver Democrats’ English-language rebuttal to Mr. Trump.)
This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
What will you be listening for in the president’s speech? What do you expect him to say to Americans?
He will say the state of the union is strong, but it’s really hard for people to feel like it’s strong when prices are still high, when we see the out-of-control ICE and C.B.P. officers in communities across the country. I also think we’re probably going to hear the plans he has to try to disrupt the November election — and I certainly will call that out.
Mr. Trump won the 2024 election in part because Latino voters swung in his direction. How are you thinking about reaching those voters? Are you speaking mostly to people who already agree with you?
That’s part of our work, day in and day out. It’s not difficult, for example, to connect the dots between, the cost of your health care is going up because Trump and Republicans have chosen to give tax breaks to billionaires.
I’m convinced that the president knows the only chance of Republicans staying in power is to rig the November elections. Kristi Noem said it herself: They want to make sure that the right people are voting in November. The not-so-subtle threat of sending ICE agents to voting locations in November, it’s blatant. It’s a desperate effort to hold onto political power, plain and simple.
(Note: Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement that President Trump was “committed to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of elections.” Karoline Leavitt, another White House spokeswoman, said this month that there were no plans to dispatch ICE agents to polling places, calling the idea a “silly hypothetical.”)
Democrats have repeatedly said this year that they want to focus on the economy. How much do you expect to focus on immigration?
It’s not just a front burner for so many families and so many communities across the country, but it’s also very indicative that they’re willing to ignore the law and ignore the Constitution and fundamental rights. It is a fundamental question about democracy. We’ve seen it for a decade now with Donald Trump: When all else fails and everything’s going bad, he comes back to demonizing immigrants to try to turn his approval ratings around.
For all the talk from Trump and those around him about dangerous, violent criminals, the truth is the vast majority of people that are being detained or being arrested or even being deported without due process are not convicted criminals. Then there’s legal immigrants that are being swept up. There’s even veterans and citizens who have been swept up.
The Supreme Court on Friday, in a 6-to-3 ruling, found that the statute that President Trump invoked to bypass Congress did not allow him to unilaterally impose tariffs.
New York Times, What’s Happened Since the Supreme Court’s Tariff Ruling, Kim Bhasin, Feb. 23, 2026. After the Trump administration’s punishing tariffs were invalidated, the president said he would impose new tariffs using a different authority. It’s been a whirlwind.
On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled that President Trump’s sweeping tariffs on U.S. trading partners violated federal law. The ruling dealt a major blow to the administration’s economic agenda and left trade deals in limbo as world leaders tried to figure out their next steps.
Here’s what has happened since Friday:The court’s 6-3 decision determined that Mr. Trump exceeded his authority in imposing the levies.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority that the 1970s emergency statute that Mr. Trump invoked to bypass Congress did not allow him to unilaterally impose the duties.
Mr. Trump was in the East Room of the White House speaking to a group of governors and cabinet officials when he found out that the court had struck down his tariffs. He told those gathered that he had a contingency plan and ended the meeting early.
In a news conference at the White House on Friday afternoon, Mr. Trump announced a 10 percent global tariff on all imports, using a different legal authority to impose them. He also said that he would open investigations into unfair trade practices in an effort to secure additional tariffs, and that he would not reinstate the so-called de minimis exemption, a policy that had allowed billions of dollars of low-value imports to enter the United States tax-free.
Mr. Trump vowed to press forward with his tariff tactics despite the ruling. “It’s ridiculous but it’s OK. Because we have other ways, numerous other ways,” the president said on Friday. “The numbers can be far greater than the hundreds of billions we’ve already taken in.”
On Saturday, Mr. Trump said that he would raise the new global tariff rate to 15 percent, effective immediately.
The federal budget has reached a new level of volatility. Tariffs had become a key source of revenue, and it’s unclear if Mr. Trump will be able to make up the difference to help pay for an expensive tax cut that he signed into law last year that will add to the nation’s deficit.
The fate of billions of dollars in duties collected by the United States remains up in the air. The Supreme Court has left it to the U.S. Court of International Trade and the lower courts to figure out refund proceedings. Mr. Trump was also unsure of how the process would work.
The ruling may have dashed Mr. Trump’s spending dreams, which had tariffs as their centerpiece. He had promised to use tariff revenue to offset the costs of programs that included a bailout for farmers who had faced retaliation from other countries because of his trade wars.
But Trump aides said on Sunday that the administration was on track to resurrect its punishing tariffs through a new approach that they contended would better resist legal challenges.
Global News
Paul Krugman via Substack, Political-Economy Commentary: Day 1461 of Putin’s Three-Day War, Paul Krugman, right, Feb. 23, 2026. Courage, betrayal — and reasons for hope.
Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2002. Putin expected a quick Russian triumph — reports are that he expected the Ukrainians to fold in days. He never said “three days,” but this meme has become shorthand for his belief that it would be a walkover. Western military analysts who had bought into propaganda about Russia’s military strength shared his assessment.
U.S. right-wingers were especially enthralled with what they perceived as the toughness, masculinity, and anti-wokeness of Russian soldiers.
But Putin’s dream of a short, victorious war has turned — as such dreams usually do — into a long nightmare of blood, destruction and humiliation. Ukrainian courage and Russian incompetence — combined with the effectiveness of British and American man-portable weapons — ensured that the attempt to seize Kyiv became an epic debacle. The three-day war is about to enter its fifth year.
I am not a military expert. But I pay attention to those who are — especially Phillips O’Brien, who has been far more right about this war than anyone else I know. Furthermore, the future of the war will depend greatly on an issue I do know something about, Europe’s ability to provide Ukraine with the support it needs. So I thought I would use the fourth anniversary of the beginning of the war to talk about where we are right now.
First, about the military situation. The maps at the top of this post show how the area of Ukraine under Russian control — shaded pink — has changed over the past year. You may ask, what change? Exactly. The Ukraine war isn’t like World War II, in which breakthroughs could be exploited by armored columns sweeping into the enemy’s rear. It’s a war in which the battlefield is swarming with drones, where there isn’t even a well-defined front line, and the “kill zone” within which even armored vehicles are basically death traps is many kilometers wide.
Some observers still don’t understand how the reality of war has changed. Thus there have been breathless reports about the danger Ukraine would face after Russia seized the “strategic city” of Pokrovsk since July 2024. Russian forces finally entered Pokrovsk late last year and may now occupy most of the rubble. But it made no difference.
This reality shows how idiotic it is for the U.S. Department of Defense — sorry, Department of War — to decide that its mission is to embrace a “warrior ethos.” Bulging biceps and macho posturing won’t help you prevail in modern war, while bombastic stupidity is a good way to get many soldiers killed.
So if modern technology has turned war on the ground into a bloody stalemate — much bloodier for Russia than for Ukraine, but still indecisive — what will determine victory and defeat? The answer, which has been true in most wars, is that it will come down to resources and logistics.
If this were purely a conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the Ukrainians, for all their heroism, would be doomed. Russia, after all, has four times Ukraine’s population and ten times its GDP.
But Ukraine has powerful friends.
For the first three years of the war, the United States was the most important of these friends. Indeed, Ukraine wouldn’t have been able to resist Russia without U.S. aid.
Unfortunately, top Biden officials were too cautious. They didn’t want Putin to win, but they clearly lost their nerve at the prospect of outright Russian defeat. So they slow-walked aid and kept putting restrictions on the use of U.S. weapons. Without those restrictions, Ukraine would have been able to hammer Russian rear areas, and this war might well have ended in its first year.
As it was, Ukraine was able to hang on but not triumph. And now we have a U.S. president who clearly wants to see a Russian victory. He’s unwilling or unable to openly throw America’s weight behind Putin, but he has effectively cut off all U.S. aid to Ukraine. That’s not hyperbole. Here are the numbers.
This is a betrayal of everything America used to stand for. We’re witnessing a war between freedom and tyranny, between an imperfect but decent government and a monstrous mass murderer — and the U.S. government is de facto backing the tyrannical monster.
Yet despite Trump’s pro-Putin policy, Ukraine is still standing, while Russia’s year-long offensive has been a bloody failure. While Trump may have thought that he could discreetly hand Ukraine over to Putin, it turns out that he didn’t have the cards.
Crucially, as you can see from the chart above, Europe has for the most part stepped up to the plate, replacing most of the lost aid from the United States. True, some of the military aid takes the form of U.S. weapons purchased by European nations and transferred to Ukraine. In particular, there is still no good alternative to Patriot air defense systems. And the Trump administration has been stalling some military deliveries even though Europe is paying.
But European — and, increasingly, Ukrainian — arms production has been ramping up. One indicator of European potential for arms manufacturing is that U.S. officials have gone ballistic over proposed buy-European provisions in Europe’s ongoing military buildup and threatened retaliation. This is quite rich: America in effect reserves the right to use its control over weapon systems to hobble other countries’ military efforts — on behalf of dictators the president likes — but is furious at any attempt to reduce dependence on those systems.
But does Europe have the resources to ensure Ukrainian victory without the United States? Mark Rutte, a Dutch politician who is currently secretary-general of NATO, made waves last month when he told people who believe that Europe can defend itself against Russia without the United States to “keep on dreaming.” One sees similar declarations of helplessness from some other Europeans. But it’s really difficult to see where this defeatism is coming from. Combined, the economies of the European nations that have strongly supported Ukraine are vastly larger than Russia’s:
It’s true that Europe has in the past had great difficulty acting like the superpower it is. But that may be changing.
So, how will this war end? Russia’s strategy now appears to be to terror-bomb Ukraine into submission, but as far as I know that has never worked. The more likely outcome is that European aid and Ukraine’s own growing prowess in arms production will gradually shift the military balance in Ukraine’s favor, and that Russia’s war effort will eventually collapse.
I hope that’s how it turns out. But even if it does, shame on America, for betraying a valiant ally.
New York Times, Live Updates: Violence Flares in Mexico After Killing of Cartel Boss, Ravi Mattu, Feb. 23, 2026. President Claudia Sheinbaum was addressing the unrest incited after the death of “El Mencho,” the longtime head of a powerful cartel. The mayhem has stranded travelers and forced airlines to cancel flights.
President Claudia Sheinbaum, left, was speaking at a news conference on Monday morning, the day after the killing of Mexico’s most wanted cartel boss by Mexican authorities that incited violence across the country.
The unrest stranded travelers in the country and forced many international airlines to cancel flights. The U.S. State Department told American citizens in five Mexican states to “shelter in place.”
The Mexican government said on Sunday that it killed Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” the longtime leader of the Jalisco New General Cartel, one of Mexico’s most powerful criminal organizations. The cartel, which vowed to seek revenge after the killing, oversaw an enterprise that had expanded rapidly over the past decade, producing and selling drugs, extorting businesses and terrorizing communities.
The Mexican authorities captured Mr. Oseguera in Tapalpa, a town in the western coastal state of Jalisco, the government said in a statement. He was injured in the operation and died while being transported to Mexico City for medical treatment, the government added.
The death of Mr. Oseguera is a major victory for the Mexican authorities, who recently launched a new offensive against drug cartels. The operation could also help counteract pressure from President Trump, who has threatened military strikes against Mexico if it did not do more to fight cartels. U.S. officials said that Mexico carried out the operation and that American troops were not involved, but they welcomed news of Mr. Oseguera’s death.
Here’s what else to know:
New York Times, For Iran’s Rulers, Refusing U.S. Demands Is a Risk Worth Taking, Erika Solomon, Feb. 23, 2026. The government in Tehran sees capitulating to Washington’s demands on uranium enrichment and ballistic missiles as riskier to its survival than going to war, analysts say.
Facing high-stakes brinkmanship as American warships and fighter jets mass off its shores, Iran has refused to concede to President Trump’s demands on its nuclear program and weapons — a stance that has bewildered U.S. officials.
The authoritarian clerics who rule Iran see those concessions — which, in their view, could compromise their core ideology and sovereignty — as a greater threat to their survival than the risk of war.
A dangerous mismatch in perceptions between Iran and the United States is why efforts to negotiate a deal over Iran’s nuclear and military capabilities look increasingly fragile, experts say, and a new regional conflict seems almost inevitable.
“Avoiding war is indeed a high priority, but not at any cost,” said Sasan Karimi, a political scientist at the University of Tehran who served as the deputy vice president for strategy in Iran’s previous government. “At times, a political state — especially an ideological one — may weigh its place in history as heavily as, or even more heavily than, its immediate survival.”
U.S. and Iranian negotiators are struggling to break an impasse over their respective red lines.
The Trump administration says it wants Iran to agree to zero nuclear enrichment to ensure it cannot build a nuclear weapon. U.S. officials have also sometimes insisted on limiting the range of Iran’s ballistic missiles and ending the country’s support for allied militias across the region.
For Iran, which says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, nuclear enrichment is a right that the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, upholds and that his officials cannot abandon. And Iran sees possessing missiles that can reach as far as Israel as critical for self-defense.
U.S. and Iranian officials are set to meet in Geneva this Thursday for talks seen as a last-ditch effort to find a compromise before Mr. Trump orders a strike. According to people briefed on internal administration deliberations, the two sides will consider a proposal that offers an off-ramp to war: Allowing Iran a limited nuclear enrichment program for civilian purposes.
Mr. Trump’s administration views Tehran as so weak that it should accept U.S. demands, regional officials have said.
New York Times, Trump Considers Targeted Strike Against Iran, Followed by Larger Attack, Julian E. Barnes, David E. Sanger, Tyler Pager and Eric Schmitt, Feb. 23, 2026 (print ed.). The top negotiators plan to meet in Geneva on Thursday for last-ditch talks, debating a new proposal that could create an off-ramp as two carrier groups massed within striking distance of Iran.
Politico, Trump team on damage control after Huckabee comments on Israel, Felicia Schwartz, Feb. 23, 2026. Senior administration officials have called Arab officials to explain that a Huckabee comment that Israel can control much of the Middle East did not signal a policy shift.
Senior Trump administration officials have called around to several Arab countries in recent days to mollify their concerns after Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee claimed Israel has a right to control much of the Middle East.
In the discussions, officials including Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Allison Hooker and others, have explained to concerned countries that Huckabee’s assertion in a podcast interview with Tucker Carlson reflects his personal views and is not a shift in administration policy, according to three people familiar with outreach, who were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic discussions.
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Huckabee’s interview has sparked outrage among Arab and Muslim countries, and his comments were a significant departure from the Trump administration’s stance on Israeli sovereignty. President Donald Trump has promised Arab and Muslim leaders he would not let Israel annex the West Bank.
The flap comes at a particularly sensitive moment, as the Trump administration is trying to enlist Arab and Muslim nations to help with its ambitious plans to secure and rebuild Gaza.
Trump will also need support from Arab countries that host U.S. military facilities like Qatar and Jordan should he make good on his threats to attack Iran.
In the interview, which was released Friday, Carlson asked Huckabee whether Israel had the right to an area that constituted “essentially the entire Middle East” — in Carlson’s interpretation of the Bible, from the Nile to the Euphrates. Huckabee said “it would be fine if it took it all” but said Israel was not seeking to do so. He said Israel is “asking to take the land that they now occupy” and protect its people, in reference to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. In a later part of the exchange, Huckabee said his comment was “somewhat of a hyperbolic statement.”
More than a dozen governments such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates condemned the comments in a joint statement Saturday, calling Huckabee’s assertions “dangerous and inflammatory” as well as directly contradictory to Trump’s plans for the Gaza Strip.
The remarks threaten to derail one of the Trump administration’s key goals: integrating Israel into the Middle East, said one of the people familiar with the conversations, a senior diplomat from a Gulf country.
“The sovereignty of Arab states is not something to be made light of, specifically when we are in the midst of attempting to create a unified Middle East that includes Israel,” the diplomat said.
The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem said over the weekend Huckabee’s comments “were taken out of context.”
Huckabee has posted several times on X to criticize Carlson since the interview was released. He has faulted news outlets for covering his remarks about possible Israeli control of the Middle East without providing “the full context.”
Huckabee, an evangelical Christian who has long supported the West Bank settlement movement, has long been seen as a more extreme voice on Israel in the administration.
“He doesn’t represent our views and doesn’t represent the best version of the pro-Israel position,” said another one of the people, a State Department official, granted anonymity to speak candidly about ideological splits in government.
In the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt and the Golan Heights from Syria. Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt under the peace treaty that followed the 1973 war, and Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. After an October ceasefire with Hamas that ended two years of combat, Israeli troops now hold much of eastern Gaza.
More than 500,000 Israelis live in more than 100 Israeli settlements built across the occupied West Bank, in addition to more than 200,000 settlers in East Jerusalem, which was annexed by Israel in 1967. A majority of United Nations members considers all the settlements to be illegal. Palestinians claim East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza for a future state.
U..S. Media, Culture, Politics, Courts
New York Times, Trump Calls on Netflix to Oust Susan Rice From Its Board, Lauren Hirsch, Feb. 22, 2026.The president made the attack as Netflix and Paramount Skydance face a key deadline in a bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery.
President Trump appeared to wade anew into the bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery, calling on Netflix, one of the suitors, to 
fire a member of its board, Susan Rice, right.
“She’s got no talent or skills — Purely a political hack!,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media Saturday evening, sharing an X post by the right-wing agitator Laura Loomer. Ms. Loomer’s post quoted Ms. Rice as saying that companies that took “a knee to Trump” would face accountability from Democrats if that party wins a majority in Congress in the midterm elections in November.
Ms. Rice worked in the Clinton, Biden and Obama administrations. She served as the American ambassador to the United Nations and as national security adviser to President Barack Obama and joined the Netflix board in 2018, then left in 2020 to work in the Biden administration, and then joined again in 2023.
Netflix declined on Sunday to comment.
Warner Bros. announced a deal in December to sell a large portion of its business to Netflix for $83 billion, beating an offer by Paramount Skydance to acquire the whole company for $108 billion. Netflix is now seeking federal regulatory approval for the deal, including from the Justice Department.
Paramount has continued to pursue its own bid. It has taken its offer to shareholders and threatened a proxy war. Last week, Warner Bros. reopened talks with Paramount after its latest sweetened offer, giving Paramount until Monday to present its best and final offer. Antitrust experts have raised concerns about both deals.
Occupy Democrats, Advocacy: The US Olympic women’s hockey team has REFUSED Trump’s invitation to visit the White House after he insulted them! Staff and wire reports, Feb. 23, 2026. It looks like the President won’t be sharing the spotlight with the gold medal-winning Team USA women’s hockey team, who "sincerely appreciate the invitation but "due to the timing and previously scheduled academic and professional commitments following the Games, the athletes are unable to participate,” said the team in a statement.
Obviously, they had to be polite about it, but it’s not hard to figure out why they WOULD’NT want to come.
On top of his authoritarianism, his association with pedophiles, his disgusting racism, his long history of sexual assault and misogyny, he also insulted the team during a phone call with the men’s squad, saying "I must tell you, we're going to have to bring the women's team, you do know that. I do believe I probably would be impeached."
Thanks, Trump, nice to know the women of Team USA are an irritating afterthought despite winning 8 out of the 12 gold medals picked up by Team USA.
Trump's Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dillon, lead prosecutor in the U.S. Justice Department's prosecution of journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort for covering a protest at a Minneapolis church of abuses by federal immigration employees of abusive anti-immigration enforcement tactics.'
Emptywheel, Analysis: Harmeet Dhillon Confesses She Blew Off Her Don Lemon Homework, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler, Ph.D), right, Feb. 22, 2026. There’s a line in the response Don Lemon and Georgia Fort gave to DOJ’s bid to delay their trial that likely explains the real reason that Harmeet Dhillon and her lawyers are asking for a delay in their case: DOJ is experiencing “technical issues” with accessing the phones of the nine defendants, which might be another way to say at least some of the defendants have complex passwords for their phones, which can add months to exploiting them.
In their papers and at Mr. Lemon’s arraignment, the Government raised particular concern about the ability to timely produce the “data found in seized cellphones” because of the use of a filter team, id. at 4-5, and because technical issues with accessing the data itself. This case involves, at most, the cell phones seized incident to the arrests of the nine defendants, and data from conduct that allegedly occurred over a single day.
That’s not the excuse DOJ (which was too slovenly to change the title of the document they used as boilerplate) offered, though. They’re claiming that the amount of evidence in this case — described as 2,000 pages of reports!!!! — merits a complex designation.
Moreover, the Government submits that this case involves a large volume of discovery. The Government estimates that discovery will include approximately 2,000 pages of reports and various other documents, plus multiple videos of the incident, BWC videos of St. Paul PD interviews of some church members/victims, photographs, and data from cellphones and social media. The process of reviewing and producing some discovery materials (e.g., data found in seized cellphones) also will be prolonged by the Government’s use of a “filter team” to conduct initial reviews and privilege screens of seized data to ensure that defendants’ rights are adequately protected. Additional discovery materials are still being received. Accordingly, the Government will need additional time — certainly more than seven-days — to process the discovery (e.g., redact, number-stamp, index the discovery, etc.) and provide fulsome and orderly disclosures to defendants.
And if that doesn’t work, DOJ threw in at the end, could they pretty please have another 30 days and then still another 30, on top of the 31 they’ve already had, again hinting that they’ve had problems accessing some of the evidence in this case?
If the Court denies the motion for a complex case designation, the Government nonetheless asks, in the alternative, for an order that extends the deadline for the Government’s initial production of Rule 16 discovery for a period of 30 days, with an extra 30-day period for discovery materials that are not yet possessed by, or accessible to, the Government.
Lemon, left, and Fort’s attorneys (remember, both have a long-time former MN AUSA on their defense teams) mocked the claim that this merited complex case designation, pointing to what gets called a complex trial in the district, including the fraud cases that served as pretext for this invasion.
In recent years, this District has seen cases of unusually massive scope and evidentiary volume, such as the Feeding Our Future cases or the Highs RICO prosecution, each of which warranted complex case designation by mutual agreement of the litigants. Cases like those involved approximately fifty defendants each, millions of pages of evidence, and conspiracies of sweeping temporal and geographic scope. This case has none of those characteristics.
Magistrate Judge Wright recently rejected the complex designation in a case charging five defendants with eight counts related to alleged drug trafficking over at least an eight-month period. See United States v. Alm, et. al., No. 25-CR-289-LMP-EMB, ECF 84 (Sept. 2, 2025). The Court characterized the case as “hardly unusual in this District,” despite the fact that the Government identified substantially more discovery and counts than it has identified here.
The other seven defendants called DOJ’s claim they need more time than they want to prepare for trial “paternalistic.”
When all accused demand adherence to the statutory timeline, the Government may not manufacture “complexity” by asserting that additional preparation time would be beneficial. The statute does not permit suspension of the Speedy Trial clock based on a paternalistic assessment of defense needs that the defense itself rejects.
But the real issue — again from the Lemon and Fort filing — is that DOJ rushed to charge this before investigating. Again, two defense teams with DOJ career prosecutors scold Trump’s legal blow-ins for failing to follow DOJ polices.
The Government provides no explanation (other than its unpreparedness) why it cannot get its house in order. But the Government cannot manufacture urgency and then invoke its own unreadiness as an excuse for delay.
As the Government should know, the Department of Justice’s own internal policies reinforce that prosecutors are expected to thoroughly assess evidence and discovery obligations before charges are brought, as part of the charging decision, not afterward. The Justice Manual’s criminal discovery provisions direct prosecutors to fully understand their obligations under Rule 16, Brady, Giglio, and the Jencks Act and to “consider thoroughly how to meet discovery obligations in each case.” These important policies reflect how the Justice Department itself expects prosecutions to be conducted: investigate first, evaluate the evidence, and then determine whether and how to bring charges. There is nothing in the record before the Court that evinces thoughtful deliberation from the Government about this case. To the contrary, the Government’s backwards approach of charging first and investigating later underscores the points raised—and the relief sought—in Mr. Lemon and Ms. Fort’s Joint Motion to Disclose Grand Jury Proceedings. ECF 125.
And the problem may go further than difficulty accessing some of the phones; it may go to why they need to access the phones.
The government needs to show defendants used “force or threat of force or [] physical obstruction” to prove the FACE Act charge, for which there’s at best flimsy evidence, especially from Lemon and Fort.
They need to prove a conspiracy and intent to deprive Cities Church parishioners of their right to exercise their faith to prove the Conspiracy against Rights charge, something incompatible with the purpose of the protest. They might find evidence to support this in phone evidence; or they might find exculpatory evidence. Going to trial without knowing what is there would be reckless.
But they didn’t bother to look for this evidence before they charged it. Instead, Harmeet, especially, simply trolled and trolled and trolled, making false claims about what evidence existed without — she now confesses — having bothered to check what kind of evidence was there.
U.S. Governance, Politics, Elections
New York Times, Trump’s Challenge to Free Market Capitalism, Ben Casselman, Feb. 23, 2026 (print ed.). Stakes in private companies. Handshake deals with chief executives. The president’s economic policy has drifted far from principles that long defined the Republican Party. Is it capitalism at all?
Since returning to the White House last year, President Trump has gotten the government involved in the private sector in ways that Mr. Obama and other past presidents, of either major party, would never have considered.
The Trump administration has taken ownership stakes in corporations, intervened in business deals and negotiated a cut of the revenue of American companies’ overseas sales. Mr. Trump has unilaterally deployed tariffs and other policy levers to help industries he favors, like artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies, and to punish those he dislikes, like wind power. He has wielded the powers of the federal bureaucracy to pressure executives, sometimes in ways that blur the lines between his policy objectives and his personal business interests.
Mr. Trump has often failed to offer a clear legal justification for his actions, and some of them may have been illegal. On Friday, the Supreme Court struck down many of Mr. Trump’s most sweeping tariffs, finding he had exceeded presidential authority when he imposed them. Mr. Trump quickly announced that he would impose new across-the-board tariffs using a different law.
The sheer extent of his interventions — and the fact that they have often come with little explanation and few details — has left economists and other theorists struggling to describe them. Are they examples of “state capitalism,” “crony capitalism” or, perhaps, not capitalism at all? Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, a Republican, last year called Mr. Trump’s move to take a stake in Intel, the chipmaker, “a step toward socialism.” Some political scientists have applied the term “neoroyalism,” likening Mr. Trump to European kings of the 16th century.
“When you start picking winners and losers like this, it’s like, where does it end?” said Vance Ginn, a conservative economist who served in the first Trump administration but has been critical of the second. “We’re far away from capitalism in my view.”
Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: February 22, 2026 [], Heather Cox Richardson, right, Feb. 23, 2026. On February 6, four direct descendants of President Theodore Roosevelt wrote to United States senators to ask them to vote against a measure that opens up the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) in Minnesota to the Chilean mining giant Antofagasta Plc and its subsidiary Twin Metals Minnesota.
Antofagasta wants to build a copper-nickel mine just outside the BWCAW on national forest land.
The BWCAW is made up of more than a million acres, or over 4,000 square kilometers, of pristine forests, glacial lakes, marshes, and streams in the Superior National Forest in the northeast of Minnesota. It runs along 150 miles (about 240 kilometers) of the border with Canada, linking with the slightly larger Quetico Provincial Park on the other side of the border. The BWCAW is the most visited wilderness in the U.S., with about 250,000 visitors annually. The Interior Department estimates that it contributes more than $17 million annually to the economy in northeastern Minnesota by supporting industries in the outdoor recreation business.
In 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt, above, dedicated the lands that include the BWCAW as the Superior National Forest. Since then, presidents of both parties have protected the region, and in 1964 the BWCAW became part of the National Wilderness Preservation System. In 1978, after logging threatened to destroy the area, Congress passed the BWCAW Act, ending logging and snowmobiling in the wilderness area and restricting mining.
But in the early 2000s, mining companies proposed new copper mines in the national forest near the wilderness, and according to Luke Goldstein of The Lever, the owner of Antofagasta, Chilean billionaire Andrónico Luksic, began to try to get leases from the U.S. government for exclusive mining rights to the lands near the BWCAW in 2012. In 2013, conservationists began a campaign to ban mining there, and in 2016 the Obama administration blocked Luksic’s plans. Shortly after Trump was elected in 2016, Luksic bought a mansion in Washington, D.C., that he then rented to Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
In 2023, then–interior secretary Deb Haaland issued Public Land Order 7917 closing more than 350 square miles (900 square kilometers) of the Superior National Forest, upstream from the BWCAW, to mineral and geothermal leasing for 20 years after a comprehensive review by the U.S. Forest Service found sulfide-ore copper mining could cause irreparable damage.
Minnesota has a long history of iron mining, but the state has never had a copper-sulfide mine. Such mines are usually located in the Southwest, where there is little rain and not a lot of transfer between groundwater and the surface, for the simple reason that water compounds the dangers of sulfide mining. Copper-sulfide mining blasts rock from underground to claim the rock that has metal-bearing ore: less than 1% of it. Once exposed to the air, the sulfide minerals in the rock oxidize and combine with water to create toxic materials, including sulfuric acid. That toxic waste picks up heavy metals as it runs into watersheds or pits.
“Protecting a place like Boundary Waters is key to supporting the health of the watershed and its surrounding wildlife, upholding our Tribal trust and treaty responsibilities, and boosting the local recreation economy,” Haaland said in a statement. “With an eye toward protecting this special place for future generations, I have made this decision using the best available science and extensive public input.”
In response, Twin Metals said it has a mining design that would enable it to mine without generating acid mine drainage. It claimed it could limit the exposure of the sulfide-bearing ore to air and water. People who want to protect the BWCAW called for the state legislature to pass a “Prove It First” law that would require mining companies to prove their methods have worked safely elsewhere before they are imported into Minnesota.
Trump has pushed for mining to reopen in the area, and Republican Minnesota representative Pete Stauber called the moratorium on mining near the BWCAW “an attack on our way of life” and “a dangerous, purely political decision.” On January 21, 2026, Republicans in Congress pushed through House Joint Resolution 140, a resolution introduced by Stauber to end the moratorium on mining.
Crucially, Stauber based his resolution on the 1996 Congressional Review Act (CRA), which established a way for Congress to overturn a rule by a federal agency, so long as the procedure was begun within 60 days of the agency submitting the rule to Congress for review. CRA resolutions are generally passed in the Senate as “expedited procedure,” which means they cannot be filibustered and can pass with a simple majority. Once Congress rejects a rule, it cannot be reinstated without an act of Congress.
In its first 20 years, the CRA was used only once, but after Trump took office the first time, Republicans in Congress invalidated 16 rules that had been issued by the Obama administration. The Democratic-dominated Congress under Biden used the CRA 3 times. But once Trump got back into the White House, congressional Republicans dramatically expanded the authority of the CRA to include agency actions far beyond rules and the ability to claw back authority far beyond 60 days.
Stauber’s Joint Resolution 140 would overturn a Public Land Order, something that has never before been considered a “rule.” And it targets a Public Land Order that was issued a full three years ago. Jack Jones and Richard L. Revesz of The Regulatory Review said the Republicans’ expanded use of the law “violates the law, threatens to disrupt countless long-settled agency actions moving forward, and imperils the stability of agency action and the reliance interests of regulated entities.”
The authors noted that Congressional Republicans have been using the CRA primarily to overturn environmental regulations. If this measure, with its expanded parameters of time and scope, passes, those who want to protect the environment from industrial development worry that Congress can target virtually any action to protect the public lands, retroactively.
The Senate is set to vote this week on the measure to reopen the lands above the BWCAW to copper-sulfide mining. Senator Tina Smith (D-MN) is leading the charge against its passage. “We appreciate that mining is crucial to our economy and our national security and our way of life, but that is not what this mine is about. This mine is about a very well-connected, foreign mining conglomerate, Antofagasta,” she said outside the Minnesota State Capitol on Wednesday. “It wants to develop this mine, dig up the copper, leave us with the mess, then send the metal most likely to China, and then sell it back to us or whoever is willing to pay the highest price.”
It will take four Republicans joining the Democrats to block the measure from moving forward.
In their February 6 letter, descendants of three of Roosevelt’s sons—a fourth, Quentin, died in combat in World War I and left no children—stated that its purpose was “to strongly recommend all Senators vote against H.J. Res. 140, to ask you to work with President Trump to seek ways to permanently protect the Boundary Waters, and to send a unified message that America is still a land that relentlessly protects its greatest wilderness terrain.”
The Roosevelts noted that the proposed mining is “the opposite of America First.” “The mining company in question is foreign owned, will use Chinese state-owned smelters, and will then sell the extracted metals on the open market.” Opening the area to mining “removes the American public from public land decision making,” as hundreds of thousands of Americans have made it clear they overwhelmingly want the BWCAW protected forever.
Opening up the land for mining “disregards sound science,” they wrote, noting that a detailed scientific review had “documented the substantial risk copper mining poses to this highly valued ecosystem.” Copper mining near the BWCAW “would deal a crushing blow to a great rural American economy—it would kill jobs, dampen growth, decrease affordability, and erase any meaningful prospects for future economic prosperity in the region.”
Overturning the Public Land Order “sets a very bad precedent for other public lands.” “Using the CRA in this fashion, which has never been done before, would put at risk other public land withdrawals across America to similarly irresponsible actions.”
“Finally,” the Roosevelts wrote, “the proposed resolution is diametrically at odds with the conservation legacy of President Theodore Roosevelt (TR),” who protected around 230 million acres of land during his presidency. TR protected the Superior National Forest in 1909, and “there’s no doubt TR wanted Minnesota’s greatest natural resource, its most beloved Boundary Waters ecosystem, protected in perpetuity for all future generations to enjoy.”
They “strongly” asked senators of both parties to “vote no on this resolution and any other similar legislation proposed in the future.” Theodore Roosevelt IV, Tweed Roosevelt, Kermit Roosevelt III, and Mark Roosevelt concluded their message: “The four of us…have never collectively co-signed a letter together, which should give an indication of how strongly we support voting no on this resolution—and then voting yes on permanent Boundary Waters protection.”
Popular Information, Accountability Journalism: Days after $5M donation, Trump administration backs Crypto.com in lawsuit. Days after $5M donation, Trump administration backs Crypto.com in lawsuit, Judd Legum, right, Feb. 23, 2026. In a document quietly filed with the Federal Election Commission on Friday night, MAGA Inc., the primary Super PAC supporting President Trump, revealed that it received a $5 million donation from Crypto.com on January 23, 2026. The donation was made in the name of Crypto.com’s parent company, Foris Dax, Inc.¹
25 days later, on February 17, the Trump administration’s Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), intervened on Crypto.com’s behalf in high-stakes lawsuit in federal court.
Last year, Crypto.com sued the Nevada Gaming Control Board, arguing that it has the right to offer “prediction markets” on the outcome of sporting events without obtaining a Nevada gaming license. In October 2025, a federal court denied Crypto.com an injunction, and the company is now appealing the decision.
In addition to filing a formal amicus brief in support of Crypto.com’s appeal, CFTC chairman Mike Selig published an op-ed supporting Crypto.com’s position in the Wall Street Journal and posted a video supporting Crypto.com on X.
The timing of CFTC’s intervention raises serious ethical questions.
Selig, during his November 2025 confirmation hearing, was asked whether he believed it was legal for prediction markets to offer contracts on sporting events without complying with state law. Selig testified that the issue is “working its way through the courts, and so I will respect the decisions of those courts.”
He was also asked directly if he considered placing a bet on the outcome of a football game to be “gambling,” which would place it outside the jurisdiction of the CFTC:
Senator SCHIFF. Well, I mean, let me just ask—maybe even break it down more simply. If you and I bet on who wins the Bills game tomorrow, would you consider that gambling?
Mr. SELIG. Senator, on this issue, I would look to the courts, so I would look to what the courts say about that issue.
In a matter of weeks, Selig went from telling Senators under oath that he would defer to the courts on the issue to arguing on behalf of Crypto.com that the courts have erred.
He publicly announced he was considering intervening in the case during a public appearance on January 29 — less than a week after Crypto.com’s $5 million contribution to MAGA Inc. “I’ve directed CFTC staff to reassess the commission’s participation in matters currently pending before the federal district and circuit courts,” Selig said during his first public remarks as CFTC chairman.
On February 5, Selig explicitly stated that he believed it was legal for prediction markets to offer bets on sports, regardless of whether the company complied with state law.X avatar for @MichaelSelig Mike Selig@MichaelSeligStrong Disagree. Chris Christie @GovChristieI believe Prediction Markets are violating the law. In 40 states we have regulated betting that can’t market to teenagers, pays state taxes, protects game integrity & reports suspicious activity to law enforcement. Prediction markets do none of that at all.
Few companies have spent more money to ingratiate themselves politically with Trump than Crypto.com. Including the $5 million in January, Crypto.com has donated a total of $35 million to MAGA Inc. since 2025. It is the Super PAC’s largest donor, accounting for more than 10% of total funds.
Prior to its support for MAGA Inc, Crypto.com’s only political giving was a $1 million donation to Trump’s second inauguration in 2025.
Crypto.com has also formed an extensive partnership with Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), Trump’s money-losing media conglomerate that has recently pivoted into cryptocurrency and nuclear fusion. Among other integrations, Crypto.com and TMTG announced in October that Crypto.com would integrate its prediction market with Truth Social, TMTG’s social network. The joint venture will be called Truth Predict. President Trump is TMTG’s largest shareholder.Crypto.com’s thin legal argument
Crypto.com and other prediction markets — and now the CFTC — argue that creating markets for sporting events is fundamentally different than sports gambling. In practice, however, it looks identical. A screenshot from Crypto.com’s prediction market.
The CFTC has jurisdiction over event-related contracts or “swaps” that provide “for any purchase, sale, payment, or delivery… that is dependent on the occurrence, nonoccurrence, or the extent of the occurrence of an event or contingency associated with a potential financial, economic, or commercial consequence.” (Emphasis added.)
The traditional example of this is a contract to buy corn at a certain price in the future. This serves as an economic hedge against price fluctuations that can affect producers of tortilla chips, for example.
There are theoretical arguments that betting on the outcome of a sporting event could serve as an economic hedge. The CFTC, in its brief in support of Crypto.com, tries to make this argument:
Broadly speaking, sporting events are economic enterprises that generate billions of dollars in economic activity and materially affect both regional and national markets… For these reasons, hotels likely adjust pricing models, restaurants expand staffing to accommodate increased demand, vendors increase supply orders, and cities allocate resources to accommodate projected crowds. All of these decisions pose economic risk, which is precisely the type of economic exposure that derivatives markets are designed to mitigate.
Of course, this is not how prediction markets on sporting events are used. No one is wagering on a basketball game to hedge against hotels raising prices. They are used by people who want to gamble on sports, particularly in states where sports gambling is not currently legal. On popular prediction markets like Kalshi, sports betting accounts for over 90% of all trading volume.
Utah Governor Spencer Cox (R) mocked Selig’s position on X. “I don’t remember the CFTC having authority over the ‘derivative market’ of LeBron James rebounds,” Cox wrote. “These prediction markets you are breathlessly defending are gambling—pure and simple.”
The district court noted that, under Crypto.com’s interpretation, if every bet on a sporting event qualified as a “swap” subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the CFTC. That would mean it would no longer be permissible for people to place sports bets in casinos. “Had Congress intended such a sea change in the regulatory landscape, it surely would have said so,” the district court wrote.
More On Epstein Files
The Contrarian, Opinion: The UK and Other Democracies Hold the Epstein Elite Accountable, Jennifer Rubin, right, Feb. 23, 2026. America’s tolerance of Epstein associates is a national disgrace.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew, was arrested last week for his conduct in connection with child rapist Jeffrey Epstein. (“Documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice as part of the Epstein Files Transparency Act revealed that Andrew leaked details he learned from meeting with bank executives in the wake of a $45 billion bailout,” wrote Julie K. Brown, who revived the coverage of the Epstein story she began for the Miami Herald roughly 10 years ago. “Andrew also allegedly passed on other sensitive information he learned to a banker friend, according to the Telegraph.”)
Other members of the Epstein class have faced punishment. Thorbjørn Jagland, a former prime minister of Norway, was charged with “gross corruption.” Former British Ambassador Peter Mandelson was fired, and Morgan McSweeney, the former chief of staff to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, was forced out. French, Slovak, and Latvian officials are under investigation and/or have been forced to resign. Academics and businesspeople have been cut loose after their ties with Epstein were revealed. Britain’s former prince, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (left), was arrested last week on charges that he might have shared improper financial information with Jeffrey Epstein. (Department of Justice)
And yet in the United States, Donald Trump remains in office, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick appears secure in his job, and cover-up stooges Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche have faced no consequences for failing to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act (or their preferential treatment of convicted child sexual abuser Ghislaine Maxwell). Longevity guru Peter Attia remains employed by the Trump-subservient CBS News, which purports to cover the Epstein story.
This disgraceful lack of accountability underscores the rise of a malignant oligarchy that has attained far too much wealth and power in the United States. The New York Times reported:
In unsparing detail, the documents lay bare the once-furtive activities of an unaccountable elite, largely made up of rich and powerful men from business, politics, academia and show business. The pages tell a story of a heinous criminal given a free ride by the ruling class in which he dwelled, all because he had things to offer them: money, connections, sumptuous dinner parties, a private plane, a secluded island and, in some cases, sex.
The chasm is vast between how functional democratic societies (even ones with a monarch) are responding and how the United States is coddling the Epstein elite. As Brown put it, “It’s astonishing how much accountability seems to be possible once you cross the Atlantic.” She observed, “Meanwhile, neither the U.S. Justice Department or the Treasury Department seems to have made an effort to ‘follow the money’ involving some of Epstein’s friends and associates.”
At least two factors may account for the abhorrent lack of consequences for MAGA political elite. Most critically, the entire Republican Party, which controls all three branches of government (yes, the Supreme Court, too) has been captured by a corrupt, authoritarian movement in which loyalty to Trump supersedes any legal or moral obligations. Every Republican who continues to support Trump and Lutnick — e.g., refuses to call for independent legal investigation and for their resignation (at the very least for dissembling to voters about the extent of their Epstein ties) or countenances Bondi and Blanche — is an Epstein enabler. Only when the MAGA Republican Party is forced from power and compelled to reconstitute as a normal, pro-democracy party embracing the rule of law and simple decency can we hope for accountability for the Epstein elite.
Second, the legacy media has utterly failed to hold the MAGA political elite accountable, insisting on maintaining a pose of “objectivity” even in the face of a pedophile coverup, authoritarian repression, and abject corruption. So long as they refuse to confront Trump, other MAGA officials, and Epstein-connected characters at every opportunity on Epstein, the patina of business as usual will continue.
This phenomenon need not persist. Democrats, responsible media outlets, civil institutions, and all decent Americans need to lay down some markers. First, there should be broad-based, bipartisan agreement that Lutnick, Bondi, and Blanche must resign, be fired, or face impeachment (the need for the latter alone would justify booting out MAGA GOP majorities in both chambers of Congress). Second, a fully independent and credible investigation (e.g., a bipartisan committee of Congress or state or local prosecutors) must investigate Trump’s relationship with Epstein, find out what he knew and when he knew it, and determine whether he lied about his association. If, as some documentation suggests, Trump knew or should have known about Epstein’s pedophilia ring and/or misled Americans about the extent of his relationship or knowledge, Americans should demand that Trump — like so many other world leaders — leave office in disgrace. (Will that happen? Don’t count on it, but then consider what that says about our broken legal and political system.)
In sum, the persistence of the untouchable political Epstein elite is the most vivid evidence of the decrepit state of our democracy. If we want the rich and powerful to be held to account (i.e. everyone is treated equally under the law), then we need to replace a system dominated by authoritarian-minded oligarchs with one responsible to the voters.
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New York Times, Opinion: The Epstein Files Should Never Have Been Released, Daniel Richman, right, Feb. 23, 2026. Every day seems to bring new reports of financiers, academics, politicians and royalty (among others) who cozied up to Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender whose predation took a horrendous toll on innocent lives. With accountability for people in power in short supply, it can be hard to see a downside in the huge dump of documents relating to Mr. Epstein and his various associates.
But we should recognize the release of millions of pages of the Epstein files as both a sign of institutional failure and a cause for concern. If our justice system were working properly, the public would never have such access.
In the not-too-distant past, most people probably would have at least grudgingly accepted a regime in which prosecutors and law-enforcement agents sorted through materials from a sprawling investigation and made public only those portions needed to properly handle a case. The additional information that might interest us, and perhaps even help improve society, would remain secret. Federal prosecutors could generally be trusted to focus on their narrow criminal enforcement mission and to not abuse the tools given them for that limited purpose. No longer.
Calls for the Epstein files’ release predate the Trump administration. But they are now online and searchable because too many Americans didn’t trust the Justice Department’s leadership with control of them. In the past, departmental leaders could limit suspicions about their motives by conspicuously leaving a matter such as this to career subordinates, rather than political appointees. Seen by so many as having fired or driven out prosecutors and agents who refused to become tools of President Trump’s will, Attorney General Pam Bondi lacked credibility. She couldn’t get away with asking the public to rely on the apolitical and independent judgment of those who remained. The eventual result was the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
The release of the files is also cause for concern because so much of the raw investigative material in them — untold layers of hearsay, unverified accusations and vague circumstantial connections — ought not be released for the public to pick over.Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
We don’t know the degree to which the Justice Department has appropriately or inappropriately withheld or redacted documents. We do know that any effort to protect victims was woefully inadequate, as explicit photos and identifying information of many women, and possibly girls, have been found in the files. The government’s obligation not to revictimize people ought to be one of its highest priorities. Here, it failed.
We give federal prosecutors and agents a broad range of information-gathering tools that private parties and even most government agencies aren’t allowed to use. At the heart of criminal enforcement authority is the power to invade privacy. Legally available tools include search warrants, wiretaps, grand jury subpoenas and administrative subpoenas. That is how criminal investigators gain access to our emails, our private conversations, and our phone, bank and medical records. In addition, we allow prosecutors and agents to use the threat of prosecution to gain the cooperation of witnesses.
These coercive investigative tools can and have been misused, as when prosecutors and F.B.I. agents illegally rummaged through my emails and computer files in an effort to come up with a case against James Comey, the former F.B.I. director. Cogent arguments have been made for more rigorous legal restriction of these tools and the government’s use of information obtained with them. But so long as we think federal criminal laws are worth enforcing, we need to give federal enforcers a way to get information about criminal activity that, by its very nature, is closely held, and to pierce veils of privacy that normally shield our everyday activities from prying eyes or ears.
The tools we give the government are justified not only by the importance of the criminal enforcement mission but by the care and professional judgment prosecutors and agents are required to exercise with the information they obtain with those tools. Government secrecy may conceal misconduct or atrocious judgment. We have yet to understand the decision by U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta, almost two decades ago, not to charge Mr. Epstein. (Mr. Epstein was ultimately convicted in state court in 2008, after taking a plea deal.) Still, prosecutors’ use of the materials they collect is ordinarily bounded by their mission — to charge individuals (or not to charge them), to satisfy disclosure obligations after a case is brought and, if possible, to convince a jury or to obtain a guilty plea.
When materials collected in a criminal investigation get released in bulk for public consumption, the justification for the coercive and privacy-invading tools we give investigators gets a lot weaker. Institutions claiming to protect user or customer privacy might be more likely to resist valid uses of these tools. Witnesses who would otherwise speak to investigators about sensitive matters might start to rethink whether they want to provide grist for internet searches.
We have to reckon with what happens when a huge investigative haul — with its swirling mix of gossip, casual association and possible criminal misconduct — is opened up for public viewing. The justice system should never be the only means of holding people accountable. The power of shame can be a good thing, and some reputations deserve to be tarnished. But informal accountability processes can easily slide into misuse of unfiltered source material.
At a time when the Justice Department seems intent on filling the criminal docket with baseless prosecutions of its perceived enemies, many might not mourn a spectacle that highlights the lack of public confidence in the department. Or one that appears to weaken the justification for extraordinary prosecutorial powers generally. But we need to think about a future in which real crimes fill the docket, when coercive information-gathering tools are needed to pursue them. Those of us who want to preserve those tools and the justification for them ought to regret the dump of the Epstein files, even as we rummage through them ourselves.More on the Epstein filesOpinion | M. Gessen, Lydia Polgreen and Stephen Stromberg‘We Can See Obvious Patterns’: Two Columnists on Former Prince Andrew and the Fallout From the Epstein FilesFeb. 20, 2026Opinion | Ezra KleinRo Khanna Is Shaken by What He’s Learned From the Epstein FilesFeb. 15, 2026Opinion | The Editorial BoardBondi’s Incompetence Is the Latest Insult for Epstein’s VictimsFeb. 14, 2026
JIP Editor's note: The New York Times identified the author of this piece, which generated mostly adverse reader comments before comments were closed, as indicated below but omitted his role as a friend and counselor to former FBI Director James Comey in the Justice Department's troubled and controversial prosecution of the former director on legally flawed and otherwise dubious charges of perjury during Senate testimony. The Times description of the author: "Daniel Richman is a professor of law at Columbia University and a former prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. He is writing a book on early federal criminal enforcement."
Immigration, Rights, Law
New York Times, Binance Employees Find $1.7 Billion in Crypto Was Sent to Iranian Entities, David Yaffe-Bellany and Michael Forsythe, Feb. 23, 2026. Binance pledged to crack down on crime. But internal investigators at the world’s largest crypto exchange continued to find evidence of potential legal violations on the platform.
A group of internal investigators at the giant cryptocurrency exchange Binance made a series of startling discoveries last year.
People in Iran had gained access to more than 1,500 accounts on the Binance platform over the previous year. About $1.7 billion had flowed from two Binance accounts to Iranian entities with links to terrorist groups, a possible violation of global sanctions. And one of those accounts belonged to a Binance vendor.
After uncovering the transactions, the investigators reported them to top executives, according to company records and other documents reviewed by The New York Times.
Within weeks, Binance fired or suspended at least four employees involved in the investigation, according to the documents and three people with knowledge of the situation. The company cited issues such as “violations of company protocol” related to the handling of client data.
The sequence of events shows that Binance, the world’s largest venue for crypto trading, has continued to find evidence of potential legal violations on its platform, even after it pleaded guilty to breaking anti-money-laundering laws in 2023. At the time, the company pledged to crack down on bad actors who used its platform to move money, and said it had hired more than 60 employees with law enforcement or regulatory experience to address the problem.
But internal warnings about the Iranian transactions surfaced last year, in the months before President Trump granted a pardon to Binance’s founder, Changpeng Zhao, who had spent four months in federal prison in 2024 for his role in the firm’s crimes. The Trump family’s crypto start-up, World Liberty Financial, has forged close business ties with Binance, and Mr. Zhao was a guest this month at a conference at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s club in Palm Beach, Fla.
“Learned a lot,” Mr. Zhao posted on social media on Wednesday, along with a photo from the event.
By analyzing crypto transactions, Binance investigators found that accounts on the exchange had moved funds to entities tied to Iran, a major foreign adversary that the Trump administration has been preparing to strike. When Binance pleaded guilty three years ago, it agreed to pay a $4.3 billion penalty and admitted that it had violated U.S. sanctions, including by allowing customers from Iran to use its platform. It also agreed to alert U.S. authorities to any lawbreaking detected on the exchange.
A Binance representative, Rachel Conlan, said in a statement that the exchange took action to address the issues raised by its investigators, adding that the company did not find evidence of sanctions violations. The accounts linked to the $1.7 billion in Iranian transactions were removed, she said, and Binance notified the authorities.Editors’ PicksHow to Create a ‘No-Makeup Makeup’ LookT-Shirts That People Wait All Year ForA Food Festival Coincides With a Family Drama
“Any suggestion that Binance knowingly allowed sanctionable activity to continue unchecked is incorrect and defamatory,” Ms. Conlan said.ImagePresident Trump, wearing a black suit, white shirt and yellow tie, speaks from behind a lectern.President Trump’s family’s cryptocurrency venture has forged close business ties with Binance.Credit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times
It’s unclear exactly why the investigators were disciplined. Over the last few months, more than half a dozen compliance officials have left Binance, including a sanctions manager and the leader of the enterprise compliance team. Binance’s chief compliance officer, Noah Perlman, has also discussed leaving, a person familiar with the matter said.Want to stay updated on what’s happening in Iran? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update, and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.
Ms. Conlan said the investigators who examined the Iranian transactions were not suspended or terminated for “raising compliance concerns.”
“Certain individuals” involved in the investigation were disciplined “in connection with the unauthorized disclosure of confidential client information,” she said.
But the timing of the discipline, not long after the Iranian transactions were reported last year, raised the question of whether it was connected to the team’s findings. All of the investigators declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment. Their dismissals were reported earlier by Fortune.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement that Mr. Zhao’s prosecution was part of a “war on cryptocurrency” by the previous administration.
“These actions by the Biden administration severely damaged the United States’ reputation as a global leader in technology and innovation,” she said.
Mr. Zhao founded Binance in 2017 and built it into the world’s most influential platform for buying and selling cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether. As the industry boomed, Binance processed as much as two-thirds of all crypto transactions, generating revenue by collecting fees on those trades.
The exchange has at times served as an attractive destination for money laundering. In 2023, Binance pleaded guilty to allowing people in sanctioned countries to use the platform and conduct business with customers in the United States. In the case of Iran, U.S. prosecutors found at least 1.1 million transactions worth almost $900 million that violated federal law.
After his plea, Mr. Zhao stepped down as chief executive but retained his majority stake in the company. He is worth nearly $80 billion, according to Forbes, and remains one of the crypto industry’s most powerful figures.
Occupy Democrats, Advocacy: What Is He Talking About, Staff and wire reports, Feb. 23, 2026. Dementia Don goes on a completely unhinged rant about Mamdani shoveling snow and, uh, giving women money for eye operations!
The president’s grasp on reality is deteriorating rapidly, on live television, day after day after day. Today was no different, as the President held a press conference at the White House and stumped his viewers with a truly nonsensical series of tangents.
Beginning with complaints about opposition to the Republican Party’s draconian new voter ID law, Trump said “Why would we do this? And they walk in, nobody even asked for like, do you have an identification? Do you have an ID? It's so crazy.”
Then he starts thinking about handsome Zohran Mamdani. With no transition, he says “You know, the mayor of New York, and he's a very nice person. I met him, but his ideology is not too good. But we're having a massive snow storm right now. And I heard that he's asked people to come out and help shovel the snow.”
“Okay, so you get a shovel and you start shoveling, right? What the hell? You're not going to help too much, but you can help.”
Uh, what?
That’s when he sees a woman that he apparently knows. “And hello, darling. How are you? Noah, right behind you, look. My friend, right? Are you okay? Yes, you. Are you okay? Are you okay? Good. Good. Are your eyes okay?”
“I gave her money to get her eyes fixed. A lot of money to get her eyes fixed. That doctor ripped me off, but that's okay. And when do you go?”“Well, you get them done. It's a pretty — it's an operation, but it's it's it's 100 percent. You know, it's great. Good. And you're going to have a 20-20 vision. You she's — she's almost blind, cataracts. She's almost blind. And with one operation, that'll take a very short period of time. Hope you have a good doctor. He's an expensive — he's an expressive doctor. Top of the line, right?”
“But you know what? You're going to have 20-20 vision, because I noticed you were wearing glasses. I saw you yesterday on television wearing glasses, and I said, but anyway. But, you know, speaking of your family, would be a lot different right now, except for the election. So I always say it's too bad that happened.”
What the f*ck is he talking about?
Despite all his struggles with his speech impediment, President Biden was NEVER as incoherent and untethered to reality as this — and the media dragged him for it ruthlessly, day in and day out, while Trump gets a pass for babbling incoherently, his brain jumping from topic to topic in an obvious sign of dementia that his corporate cronies work to hide from the public.
It is beyond irresponsible for the Republican Party to continue leaving this man in office; millions of peoples’ lives are in his hands, and all he can think about is complaining about an election that happened six years ago and how New York’s sexy mayor is urging his community to help their neighbors shovel snow. 25th Amendment now.
Occupy Democrats, Advocacy: Epstein files fallout claims another celebrity, as longevity guru Peter Attia steps down from CBS News after “tasteless,”“chummy” emails surface, Staff and wire reports, Feb. 23, 2026.
The Epstein aftershocks just claimed another high-profile name.
Dr. Peter Attia, the celebrity longevity guru who built a massive following preaching metabolic health and extended lifespans, is stepping down from his role as a contributor at CBS News after newly released Justice Department emails revealed unexpectedly cozy communications with Jeffrey Epstein.
And the emails? Not exactly clinical.
In one 2015 message, Attia reportedly wrote to Epstein: “You [know] the biggest problem with becoming friends with you? The life you lead is so outrageous, and yet I can’t tell a soul …”
In another, he used vulgar language to describe women’s genitals in a crude joke.
Let’s be clear: Attia has not been accused of criminal wrongdoing. He says he was never on Epstein’s plane, never visited his island, never attended any so-called “sex parties,” and insists his communications had nothing to do with abuse or exploitation.
But the tone of the messages — described as “chummy” and personal — is what’s raising eyebrows.
Attia had been tapped in January as part of a contributor shake-up under editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, but he never actually appeared on-air before stepping aside. His spokesperson said the role was “newly established” and that he withdrew to avoid becoming a distraction.
On X, Attia posted a lengthy statement acknowledging that some of the emails were “embarrassing, tasteless, and indefensible,” adding, “I accept that reality and the humiliation that comes with it.”
The broader pattern is what’s impossible to ignore.Epstein cultivated relationships with elites across politics, finance, academia, media, and science. Each new document release peels back another layer of just how normalized those connections were — even as abuse allegations swirled for years.
Attia’s defenders say tasteless jokes aren’t crimes. Critics say proximity to Epstein — especially once his reputation was widely known — should have been a flashing red warning sign to CBS.
The Justice Department says the purpose of releasing the trove of emails is transparency. And transparency cuts both ways. For a figure whose brand is built on discipline, optimization, and control, this episode is a reminder that reputations can deteriorate far faster than lifespans can be extended.
Morning Shots via The Bulwark, Political Opinion: At the Spot Where Alex Pretti Was Killed, Sam Stein, Andrew Egger and Jim Swift, Feb. 23, 2026. “Any righteous person would have done the same.”
We don’t know about you, but we’ve found it a little trickier than usual to summon a spirit of uncomplicated, leave-it-all-on-the-dance-floor, red-white-and-blue patriotism these days. But after a magical few days for America to close out the Winter Olympics—from Alysa Liu’s breathtaking gold-medal figure-skating performance to the gold-medal hockey wins for the American men and women (both in overtime!)—we were fist-pumping along with Mike Tirico’s Olympics signoff for NBC yesterday: “For all the young people out there, those dreams are formed now. Go chase them and go get them, because our country loves sports and it brings us together unlike anything else.”
Plenty of time ahead to get jaded again. But first, just once more, with feeling: USA! USA! USA!
Now we return to the bleaker parts of our reality. Happy Monday.
Morning Shots via The Bulwark, Political Opinion: At Alex Pretti’s Memorial, Sam Stein, Feb. 23, 2026. One of the more unsettling elements of the Alex Pretti memorial site in Minneapolis is how unexpectedly it arrives on you. Driving down Nicollet Avenue, you see few indications it’s near save for subtle atmospherics: The streets seem more bare, and pedestrians offer the occasional nervous glance around for nearby agents.
When you get to the site, you find just a slab of street, no longer than two parking spots, blocked off by traffic cones and tape. Flowers are strewn across the sidewalk, some falling onto the pavement. There are posters and signs and mementos. A nurse’s uniform with a stethoscope looped over it has been affixed to a wall, with “Freedom is not free – Alex Pretti” written in black marker on the front. A black banner stretches between two lampposts; its inscription, in a biblical-looking white block font, says “REST IN POWER ALEX / ANY RIGHTEOUS PERSON WOULD HAVE DONE THE SAME.” An American flag hangs sluggishly off the rope anchoring one corner of the banner, as if it was burdened by what happened that day in January. There are crosses and beads and a window in the background that is covered in post-it notes. So many post-it notes.
“I hope people at my school don’t feel scared to come to school :(“ reads one in pink.
“I pray (and I don’t normally do that) that we will have an ounce of the courage and compassion of Mr. Pretti,” reads a yellow square. “Alex, thank you for being brave enough for all of us ❤️” reads a purple one.
It’s been more than a month since Pretti was killed while protesting ICE. And while the Trump administration has since drawn down its deployment of agents to Minneapolis, the people who live here don’t feel as though things have changed. One Uber driver I spoke to—a Somali American with U.S. citizenship—said he’d been pulled over three times since the killing. Each time, an ICE agent claimed he looked like someone they’d flagged as being in the country illegally. They searched his car even after he produced papers; he now doesn’t drive without them. In one instance, he was held for 40 minutes before they let him go. In another, a customer sat in the backseat as the interrogation took place.
These experiences are now part of the well-understood pattern of life in a city under ICE occupation. The psychic effects, though, are harder to describe. One man I spoke with had begun volunteering to help form physical human barricades around crosswalks to protect children going to school. He said he felt spiritually called to the task. But it unnerved him, too. The children, he told me, often feared that he might be an ICE agent in disguise.
Pretti’s memorial draws people from within the city and outside of it. Two men were standing watch there the day I showed up. Micah Stewart, 22, saw video of the killing on his phone and felt immediately compelled to go to Minneapolis. So he hitchhiked from his home state of Washington. It took him about five days. He now stays overnight at the memorial site, except when it gets too cold and he boards with locals he has met. He told me that Pretti’s friends and relatives have come by to see it. But they do it with no fanfare, not wanting to be noticed.
Alongside Stewart was Bobby Fitzpatrick, 56, a Minneapolis resident of ten years. He stays around the site through the day and night, often until 2 or 3 in the morning. “It means something,” he said. “It touches anyone who has a heart.”
The site takes about ten minutes to reach by car from downtown Minneapolis, if that. Its setting is the kind you could envision in any other city: A sliver of life for people who enjoy the melding of cultures and a bit of urban vitality.
Within a one block radius of the memorial, there is a German restaurant, a Malaysian place, and a family-run Vietnamese sandwich shop. Across the street, next to the now-famous Glam Donut shop, is a hipster thrift store with racks of vintage shirts and pants and coats and banana pudding–colored walls covered with stacks of sunglasses and jewelry. There’s art on those walls, and disco balls hang from the ceiling, and signs touting political causes and community events have been plastered throughout. And on the day I visited, a guitarist and a singer performed a protest song that seemed more like an elegy.
We are all connected.Can’t you see?None of us are free, till all of us are free.
The performance lasted only a few minutes. But it served as a reminder that good things can come out of horrible tragedies. People can be galvanized into action, communities can be brought closer, neighbors can feel called to protect one another. Art can be made.
But even then, the tragedy remains. It’s inescapable.
Looking out from the thrift store at the memorial site across the street, I noticed the building just off to the side of it with a white banner over the door: the “New America Development Center.” Inside was an organization dedicated to helping immigrants culturally integrate into their new home here. What a cruel irony: a place predicated on immigrants being part of our social fabric at the same spot anti-immigrant forces ripped that social fabric apart.
More On U.S. Courts, Tariffs, Reactions
PoliticusUSA, Senate Democrats Sink Trump By Announcing They Will Block Any Extension Of His Tariffs, Jason Easley, right, Feb. 23, 2026. Senate Democrats announced that there will be no extension of Trump's Section 122 tariffs, as they will block any effort to go beyond the 150 day limit.
Donald Trump is losing all of his bluster on tariffs. Trump can no longer bully foreign countries after the Supreme Court threw out his emergency reciprocal tariffs. Republicans and the White House complained that Trump “lost leverage{ when the court ruled that no president can make up and impose tariffs unilaterally.
Aaron Blake of CNN explained that Trump may bring his whole tariff house of cards crumbling down if he keeps trying to use Section 122:
And his stated alternative, that he would institute a global 15% tariff under a different authority, could easily fizzle — and bring his entire tariffs gambit down with it.
That’s because the law he’s now relying upon, Section 122(a) of the Trade Act of 1974, was intended to address different situations. It’s meant not for trade deficits, which the Trump administration has cited as the justification for the president’s now-nixed emergency tariffs, but rather a severe “balance of payments” deficit.
The problem is that the Trump administration has already argued that Section 122 does not apply to trade deficits, which is why the president had to use an emergency to impose his own tariffs. The 122 tariffs are not unilateral and must be renewed by Congress, but Senate Democrats immediately slammed the door on that possibility.
At his press conference after the Supreme Court ruling. Trump tried to claim that the 122 tariffs are stronger than his reciprocal tariffs.
The president said that the Section 122 tariffs are stronger and that he, “probably the direction that I should have gone the first time.”
The reasons why he didn’t include the need for congressional approval, and the limited scope of the tariffs.
In a statement, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said that Senate Democrats would block any attempt to extend the Section 122 tariffs.
Schumer said:
Following his defeat at the hands of the Supreme Court, Donald Trump is doubling down on his reign of economic chaos. Donald Trump’s 15% global tariffs will continue to raise prices and make life unaffordable for millions of Americans.
Senate Democrats will continue to fight back against Trump’s tariff tax, and will block any attempt to extend these harmful tariffs when they expire this summer. Democrats will not go along with furthering Trump’s economic carnage.
Republicans and the administration were worried that Trump had no leverage after the Supreme Court decision. Senate Democrats sent the message that the rest of the world can ignore Trump’s tariff threats because any tariffs that he tries to impose under Section 122 are going to be shut down by Democrats once the time limit expires.
This means that Trump’s ego-stroking tariffs, which are harming the American people, are dead in the water.
Trump can bluster and pretend like his economy-killing tariffs are still his domain, but the courts are likely to strike down Trump’s latest tariffs, and if they don’t, Democrats will block their extension.
Morning Shots via The Bulwark, Political Opinion: The Tariffs Will Continue Until Morale Improves, Andrew Egger, Feb. 23, 2026. On Friday, at long last, the Supreme Court struck down one of the tentpoles of Donald Trump’s economic agenda: the “Liberation Day” tariffs he’d wielded under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which he’d taken as a license to set tariff rates at any time on any good from any country for any reason. The decision was an unalloyed triumph for the rule of law—but whether and how soon it will pay dividends for the economy remains to be seen.
In another universe, where Trump wasn’t Trump, the president could have quietly realized this apparent L was actually a blessing in disguise. The tariffs have been a pillow on the face of the economy; letting them lapse would, to say the least, be good for the economy’s health. Trump could even run a version of the talking-points playbook he ran after COVID, taking credit for the reviving economy while insisting it would have been even better if only SCOTUS had let him cook.
But alas: Trump is Trump, and deep in his belly he believes two things: Tariffs are goodgreatwonderfulbeautifulmagicalstrong, and nobody fucking tells me what to do. Working from the collapsed house of his IEEPA tariffs, Trump spent the weekend with one obvious top priority in mind: No matter what, we’re going to have more tariffs after this than we had before.
Hours after the Court’s decision, Trump announced a new global tariff rate of 10 percent, invoking a never-before-used trade authority under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. On Saturday, having apparently considered the matter further, he announced the new rate would actually be 15 percent—the maximum allowed under the statute. (These tariffs, by law, can last no longer than 150 days without Congressional approval.)
And Trump’s vowed he’s not done. “The court has also approved all other Tariffs, of which there are many,” he proclaimed on Truth Social this morning, “and they can all be used in a much more powerful and obnoxious way, with legal certainty, than the Tariffs as initially used.”
Oh, you thought the old tariffs were obnoxious? You have no idea how obnoxious I can be.
Trump’s outburst is now threatening to collapse even the fragile trade deals he managed to strike last year. The European Union, for instance, reacted with outrage at the announcement of the new 15 percent tariff. Bernd Lange, who chairs the European Parliament’s trade committee, told Politico the announcement was “a clear breach of the deal we had agreed,” adding on X that they were seeing “pure tariff chaos from the U.S. administration.”
Pure chaos is right. In addition to the steep tariff rates themselves, what really crushed American businesses last year was the fact that the rates kept whipsawing around without warning. The second you’d adjusted your business plans to account for one new tariff, suddenly Trump would be rolling that one back and coldcocking you with a different one. Some of that had slowed in the second half of last year, but now we’re right back where we started: new tariffs cropping up as soon as Trump can think them up, a state of total uncertainty in our trade relationships with basically every other country, chaos, chaos, chaos. None of this helps the economy.
I don’t want to be too glum here. It’s nothing but good the court knocked down Trump’s IEEPA tariffs and the breathtakingly sweeping vision of presidential power on which they rested. Trump thrashes around like a caged animal any time he feels his unilateral authority is being constricted; that’s no reason to let him run free.
But the vanishing of these tariffs may not provide the hoped-for economic boon, either. Trump seems determined to see to that.
AROUND THE BULWARK
Quick Hits
WILL TRUMP BOMB IRAN? Last year, in the wake of Operation Midnight Hammer against Iran’s nuclear facilities, the White House insisted that Iran’s nuclear program had been “obliterated,” and that any “suggestions otherwise are Fake News.” So it was a little strange yesterday to hear Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff tell Fox News that “they’re probably a week away from having industrial-grade bomb-making material, and that’s really dangerous.”
Witkoff’s willingness to drop the “mission accomplished” rhetoric for warnings about ongoing threats from Iran are among the clearest signs yet that Trump is serious about the possibility of new strikes against the country, around which he’s been surging more American hardware and personnel now for weeks. USA Today reports:
Trump’s administration is currently locked in negotiations with Iran to curb its nuclear program, and the White House has repeatedly emphasized that Trump prefers the diplomatic route. But the mediated talks have not yet produced a deal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pushed to include Iran’s ballistic missile program and funding for its proxy forces in the region in the deal—conditions that experts say the Iranians are highly unlikely to accept.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is scheduled to meet in Israel with Netanyahu on the evening [of] Feb. 28. Trump has typically consulted close ally Israel on his actions in the region and worked in close coordination with Israel when it bombed Iran’s nuclear sites last June. Netanyahu also visited Trump in Washington this month.
Over on the homepage, Giselle Donnelly gives the strategic, international, and domestic political context.Subscribed
NO U.S. ATTORNEYS ALLOWED: Alina Habba and Lindsey Halligan may have crashed out of their posts as illegally appointed interim U.S. attorneys, but the Justice Department’s long war against the laws governing who can serve in these roles is ongoing. In the last two weeks, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has fired two interim U.S. attorneys lawfully appointed by a local panel of district federal judges, baldly stating—in total denial of existing U.S. law on the subject—that “judges don’t pick U.S. attorneys, POTUS does.”
A quick refresher: The president indeed nominates people to serve as U.S. attorneys, who can begin the job as soon as the Senate confirms them. Until then, the president can pick someone to serve as an interim U.S. attorney—but only for a period of 120 days. After that, if the Senate still hasn’t moved forward, it falls to the district’s federal judges to select a new interim prosecutor until the president’s nominee is confirmed. Judges have repeatedly confirmed this in recent months, which is why Habba and Halligan are no longer at their posts.
But if they can’t win on the law, the DOJ has apparently decided they’ll win on brute force. If they can’t stop the judges from picking new interim U.S. attorneys, they’ll just fire the new selection as soon as it’s made—within a few hours, in one case.
You can think of some reasons why even Blanche and Attorney General Pam Bondi might not want to do this. The DOJ is starved enough of career lawyers these days as it is. And it’s hard to imagine a better recipe for utter chaos and low morale in a U.S. attorney’s office than to ensure nobody can run it—because the courts keep throwing out the White House’s illegal interim picks and the White House keeps throwing out the courts’ legal ones. But to the political leadership at Justice, all that’s a small price to pay rather than let the law get one over on Dear Leader. To prevent that, no cost is too great.
HATE IS STRONGER THAN LOVE: As they geared up to make an offer to buy Warner Bros. last year, father-and-son billionaire duo Larry and David Ellison thought they’d put themselves in prime position by attaching themselves tightly to Trump at every turn. So when Warner Bros. announced they’d decided to sell to Netflix instead, the Ellisons played their ace, announcing a hostile-takeover bid to acquire Warner Bros. while making an explicit argument that the government was unlikely to approve Netflix’s pitch.
And yet, to the Ellisons’ apparent surprise, Trump didn’t seem inclined to bring the hammer down on their behalf. In retrospect, perhaps they realized: It was less important for Trump to like them than for them to find a way to make Trump hate Netflix.
It was in this interesting environment that Laura Loomer—a Trump loyalist with a record of shaping administration policy and an alleged history of pay-for-play Twitter posts—hopped on X Saturday to spotlight comments former U.N. ambassador Susan Rice, who now serves on Netflix’s board, made on a podcast last week, saying that “it’s not going to end well” for companies that “take a knee to Trump,” and that “they’re going to be held accountable by those who come in opposition to Trump and win at the ballot box.”
“This is as anti-American as it gets, and Netflix is proving everyday they are an anti-American, WOKE company,” Loomer wrote, adding that the Netflix–Warner Bros. merger would also result in a worrying uptick in Barack and Michelle Obama-related streaming content. “President Trump must kill the Netflix-Warner Bros. merger now.”
Whoever set the bait, Trump took it hook line and sinker. “Netflix should fire racist, Trump Deranged Susan Rice, IMMEDIATELY, or pay the consequences,” he posted on Truth Social.
Emptywheel, Analysis: JB Pritzker’s Invoice: Payback’s a Bitch, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler), right, Feb. 23, 2026. Almost as quickly as Trump responded to his Supreme Court setback by imposing new tariffs, JB Pritzker responded by sending a bill, demanding Trump pay Illinois more than $8.6B in “damages” from his unlawful IEEPA tariffs.
Your tariff taxes wreaked havoc on farmers, enraged our allies, and sent grocery prices through the roof. This morning, your hand-picked Supreme Court Justices notified you that they are also unconstitutional.
On behalf of the people of Illinois, I demand a refund of $1,700 for every family in Illinois. There are 5,105,448 households in my state, bringing the total damages you owe to $8,679,261,000.
The Supreme Court has ruled that this is yet one more unconstitutional act by you and your administration. This letter and the attached invoice stand as an official notice that compensation is owed to the people of Illinois, and if you do not comply, we will pursue further action.
Let me be clear: This invoice is legally suspect, though it may prove legally useful, too. But it is also, IMO, political genius.Consumers are legally fucked
Start with the fact that, legally, consumers are almost certainly not legally entitled to a refund. Indeed, DOJ has already argued that Illinois is not entitled to a refund.
Illinois is one of the 12 Democratic-led states, led by Oregon, that sued and won, in parallel with VOS Selection and the other named small businesses plaintiffs (to which DOJ promised to pay refunds in a successful bid to stave off an injunction in May).
But back in May, DOJ argued that states that, like Illinois, which had described their injury as stemming from their purchases of imported goods, rather than by importing goods and paying tariffs directly, had no standing to sue.
In the complaint and again last May, IL described its injury as stemming from problems with sourcing new computers for its Department of Information Technology.
And so DOJ attempted to exclude Illinois from the list of states that could even sue.
Plaintiffs allege that they are suffering “actual, ongoing, and imminent economic harm.” Mot. 11. But, critically, only some plaintiff states say that any of their arms or instrumentalities are importers of record. None of the other plaintiff states (Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, and Vermont) are importers who have personally paid tariffs; rather, they are purchasers who allegedly paid increased costs to third party importers. While importers have standing to challenge tariffs, purchasers of imported goods do not. “[P]urchasers have no remedy to challenge [a] tariff classification.” Totes-Isotoner Corp. v. United States, 594 F.3d 1346, 1352 (Fed. Cir. 2010). This is because the requirements of traceability and redressability are not satisfied where an injury “results from the independent action of some third party not before the court,” such as an importer. Murthy v. Missouri, 603 U.S. 43, 57 (2024) (citation omitted),. Thus, the non-importer states’ allegations of “increased cost” in the goods they purchase, Mot. 11, are not sufficient. Prices are set by independent private actors and informed by multiple, complex market forces. Plaintiffs cannot reasonably infer that importers will uniformly pass on not just these costs but also any savings (like duty refunds or post-tariff price decreases) to consumers—let alone onto these specific plaintiffs. 3
Indeed, this Court has held that plaintiffs lack standing where the requested relief would require independent action by a non-party to the action. Ontario Forest Indus. Association v. United States, 444 F.Supp.2d 1309, 1313 (Ct. Int’l Trade 2006) (holding that plaintiffs lacked standing because the requested relief would require independent action by the Canadian government—a party not before the Court); see Arjay Assocs., Inc v. Reagan, 707 F.Supp.1346, 1347 (Ct. Int’l Trade), aff’d, 891 F.2d 894 (Fed. Cir. 1989). Here, as in Ontario Forest, the nonimporter plaintiffs’ claims of redressability are based on future, independent action that their third-party vendors might take. And that independent action—vendors lowering their prices—is highly speculative even if the Court were to grant injunctive relief, as vendors may retain higher prices for any number of reasons independent of tariffs. See Mot. 31-32 (discussing the difficulty of connecting specific tariffs to the surcharges paid by plaintiffs). The Supreme Court has also criticized States’ reliance on downstream harms for standing. United States v. Texas, 599 U.S. 670, 680 n.3 (2023).
3 Plaintiffs claim it is undisputed that the “IEEPA Tariffs are causing increases in prices of goods and materials on which the States rely,” ECF No. 32-1 ¶13, but the very evidence on which they rely for that statement refutes it. For example, plaintiffs say that vendors of certain Canadian goods have “pass[ed] through the cost of the IEEPA Tariffs to the States,” id. ¶13(c), but no IEEPA tariffs currently apply on these Canadian (i.e., USMCA-qualifying) goods. Executive Order 14231, 90 Fed. Reg. at 11,785; Executive Order 14257, 90 Fed. Reg. at 15,046. And plaintiffs themselves acknowledge that “[t]ariff costs that are passed through to the States by vendors and importers of record are administratively infeasible to recover,” ECF No. 32-1 ¶14, making it purely speculative that a favorable ruling would somehow cause those vendors and importers to pass on their saving.
[snip]
Second, plaintiffs allege that they are suffering irreparable harm by “paying more for goods, equipment and services where third parties must pay the tariffs.” Mot. 31. As discussed above, non-importer plaintiffs lack standing for their claims of economic harm, meaning such injuries cannot be considered in the injunctive factors analysis. See Totes-Isotoner Corp., 594 F.3d at 1352.
The Court of International Trade, where disputes about rebates will start, didn’t go so far, with regards to standing — and didn’t have to, given that several of the plaintiff states are direct importers that paid tariffs.
The State Plaintiffs allege “direct financial harm” from the challenged tariffs’ impact on the cost of imported goods that are “essential” to the states’ provision of public services, see Oregon Compl. ¶¶ 94–112, and also from their impact on “Plaintiff States’ ability to procure goods and services and to budget for and audit price adjustments,” id. ¶ 114.
The Government implicitly concedes that Oregon, Arizona, Colorado, and Connecticut are “importers who have personally paid tariffs” who thus “have standing to challenge tariffs.” Gov’t Resp. to Oregon Mots. at 11. The Government is right to make this concession: challenged conduct that “directly injures” a state can also “confer[] standing on that State.” Biden v. Nebraska, 600 U.S. at 489. And an importer’s allegation that it pays unlawful U.S. duties “typically would satisfy constitutional standing requirements.” Totes-Isotoner, 594 F.3d at 1351.
Since “[i]f at least one plaintiff has standing, the suit may proceed,” Biden v. Nebraska, 600 U.S. at 489 (citation omitted), there is no need to go further. The State Plaintiffs seek only broad injunctive and declaratory relief. That means that even if the non-importer states among them were to hypothetically lack standing, the contours of available relief would not change. See Oregon Compl. at 35–36.
But in a footnote, the CIT implied that DOJ might be right about remedy.
8 Responding to the State Plaintiffs’ Motions, the Government argues that “[w]hile importers have standing to challenge tariffs, purchasers of imported goods do not.” Gov’t Resp. to Oregon Mots. at 11. For that proposition the Government quotes Totes-Isotoner Corp. v. United States, where the Federal Circuit held that “purchasers have no remedy to challenge the tariff classification.” 594 F.3d 1346, 1352 (Fed. Cir. 2010). This reference to a lack of a remedy, however, had nothing to do with the purchasers’ Article III standing. It instead had to do with the fact that a purchaser could not have “sought a refund of duties” that it never paid to Customs, a fact that in turn supported an importer’s claim of third-party standing on the purchaser’s behalf. See id. at 1350.
Lack of remedy is legal speak for “fucked.” The tariffs were illegal. Illinois paid more; Illinois’ families paid more. But there is no easy legal way for them to demand their money back.
The number Pritzker cited, $1,700 per family or $8.6B for the state, is high, in any case. It’s high because the states’ own economist found the damage to all 12 plaintiff states, along with local governments, to be $3.4 billion.
[T]he tariffs announced under IEEPA authority raise the costs of direct purchases by the governments of the 12 states that are parties to this action by $1.6 billion per year. Adding local government purchases in these 12 states increases the tariff-induced burden to $3.4 billion per year.
Though, to that, the economist added the increased welfare payments required to bring spending level up.
Applying the 2024 U.S. ratio of imports to GDP (14.0 percent) to the $216.4 billion welfare expenditure, it follows that, with full pass-through of tariffs to prices, and again very conservatively taking the average tariff rate to be 12 percent, the 12 state governments that are parties to this action would need to increase their welfare spending by $3.6 billion to maintain their real values. Adding local government welfare expenditures increases this total to $4.1 billion. Consequently, incorporating the need to maintain the real purchasing power of welfare expenditures more than doubles the implied burden on state governments because of the IEEPA-related tariffs.
Even accounting for higher prices, the $1,700 figure Pritzker used to calculate how much Illinois is owed is at the high end of calculations. The non-partisan Tax Foundation put the total tariffs paid by consumers, which include tariffs that were not ruled illegal, at $1,000 a household. The $1,700 comes from the Democrats’ Joint Economic Council (and it also appears to include all tariffs). Defensible, but likely high.
In that earlier filing, DOJ tacitly agreed that importer states — states like Oregon — should be paid back for the tariffs they directly paid.
Finally, plaintiffs fail to explain how monetary compensation would be inadequate. For plaintiffs that will actually pay tariffs, were they to ultimately prevail, they could receive back any duties or tariffs they paid on any unliquidated entries. 28 U.S.C. §§2643-44.
But it appears possible — likely, even — that Illinois won this lawsuit but still will be fucked, just like consumers. Nevertheless, Pritzker says he’ll demand the money back. And if Democratic states were (and are) forced to sue to get paid back, demanding that all their constituents get paid back for everything is a fine place to start.
This is a political argument as much as a legal one.Trump doesn’t want to say consumers are fucked
But Trump doesn’t want to say all that.
Admittedly, Stephen Miller can be slovenly about facts. But when Laura Ingraham asked Stephen Miller about Pritzker’s invoice, Miller didn’t respond by noting that Illinois is shit outta luck. Instead, Miller responded, first, with an ad hominem attack, calling Pritzker “economically,” [right head twitch] “historically” [right head twitch] “and probably functionally illiterate” [another twitch], followed by projection, accusing Pritzker of hurting America, just hours after Trump insisted he had a right to destroy countries (ostensibly, but not in fact, referring to other countries). Then Miller lied, serially and shamelessly [twitch twitch twitch], falsely claiming that Trump’s economic policies have been successful. Then he accused Pritzker of affirmatively supporting inflation [another twitch].
Miller preferred to twitch away, the tell he’s lying, than simply speak the truth: Pritzker may have a point about how much consumers paid, but they’re legally fucked and will never see the money.
Unless a political means is found.
Miller’s choice to dodge that reality comes on top of two other attempts, by Trump’s top financial aides, to deny inconvenient truths in recent days.
There was Kevin Hassett’s attack on NY Fed economists for concluding that Americans paid most of these tariffs, an attack he subsequently walked back.
Then there was Scott Bessent’s petulant attack on Maya MacGuineas for her NGO report calculating that losing the tariffs creates a real budgetary shortfall. Bessent adopted the same approach as Miller used: First ad hominem, then projection back on Biden.
Bessent: Maya MacGuineas should be ashamed and they should take the word “responsible” out of her organization’s name. Everything she told you was completely irresponsible. Where were they when the Biden Administration blew out the deficit … that we had a fiscal contraction last year. She should be ashamed.
In addition to Trump’s meltdown immediately after the tariff decision, which was entirely expected, one after another Trump aide have responded to factual descriptions of what a disaster these tariffs are by attacking those who speak the truth about them. By attempting to silence those who are speaking about just how destructive the tariffs really were.
And Pritzker spoke up in particularly accessible fashion.
Pritzker didn’t just address the impact Trump’s tariffs had on consumers. On Jen Psaki’s show, he addressed the small businesses that had been bankrupted by the tariffs and the soybean farmers — whose monocultures span large swaths of Illinois — whose markets Trump’s trade war has destroyed, potentially forever.
But by producing a bright shiny invoice, Pritzker made it easy for consumers to visualize the $1,700 that Trump took out of their pockets. Illegally, Trump’s hand-picked court said.
Compare Pritzker’s ploy with what Maria Cantwell did. She sent Todd Bessent a letter designed to influence what will (or should) happen: that all business who paid tariffs will get refunds automatically.
But Pritzker did something different. He demanded America’s families be made whole for Trump’s illegal financial grab. And by making that harm visible, he’ll make the harm arguments of future challenges to Trump’s new illegal tariffs a different calculus for courts, a point WSJ makes today. If there’s no way to make the consumers harmed by Trump’s illegal financial grab whole, then you can’t just let illegal taxes percolate for another year like you did last year.
And all the while, consumers will know the stakes of Trump’s intransigence.Pritzker flips Trump’s rebate lies
There’s one more reason Pritzker’s immediate demand that Trump make his constituents whole is so smart, IMO.
When the impact of Trump’s illegal tariffs started to become clear last fall, Trump responded in the Trumpiest way: with a promised kickback. The effort became particularly shameless last November, just as it became clear that SCOTUS was going to overturn his illegal taxes, as I wrote up here.
First, Trump promised he’d give all the non-rich $2000 rebates from his unlawful tariffs.
Then, he claimed there’d still be money leftover after he had sent people “free” money.
Then, he accused Democrats of making numbers up.
Then, he said it would create a national security crisis if the Supreme Court made him give back money he raised unlawfully.
But there are three ways you can tell Trump is just as full of shit as he always is.
[snip]
Trump’s advisors have told him he’s going to lose at SCOTUS on this. And like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, he’s trying to claim (simultaneously) that the cookies have already been eaten, but here, would you like some? in an effort to stave off an order to give the cookies back.
[snip]
Trump is just applying political pressure — on the Justices, with false claims about what the real numbers are, on his mob, in hopes they’ll provide another kind of pressure if denied money he claims is free but which in reality they’ve actually already paid out of pocket themselves — to avoid being ordered to pay the money back to everyone.
If and when SCOTUS rules against Trump on the tariff issue, it will be a very significant loss, the first time right and left joined together to force Trump to stop doing something unlawful.
But if SCOTUS rules Trump has to pay the money back, to everyone, it will create the kind of fiscal challenge that could turn his current political woes into a crisis, not least because right wing members of Congress have been treating this tariff revenue as “free” money they could point to to pretend they were addressing the deficit.
And that’s why Trump is ranting about tariffs.
Not because he wants to give out “free” — in reality, unlawfully seized money that American consumers already paid — money. But because he doesn’t want to pay any consequences for his unlawful actions.
And he definitely wants to avoid the default reality: that Trump will be forced to pay back importers, but consumers will get nothing.
Then Trump tried to deceive people into believing that he had given a rebate, albeit just to service members, not to everyone, as he had promised. The checks he sent out while fraudulently claiming that tariffs, as opposed to the Big Ugly Bill, had paid for them happened to be close to the same amount that Pritzker now claims Illinois’ families are owed: $1,776.
But people still remember that promise. People still believe that promise, including too-credulous journalists, as played out in that NYT sit-down last month.
Katie Rogers
You’ve promised $2,000 checks to Americans based off of your tariff revenues. When can they expect those?
President Trump
I did do that? When did I do that?
Katie Rogers
Well, I mean, your —
President Trump
Yeah, I’m thinking. Well, I did $1,776 for the military.
Tyler Pager
When will those Americans get those checks?
President Trump
Well, I am going to — the tariff money is so substantial. That’s coming in, that I’ll be able to do $2,000 sometime. I would say toward the end of the year.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs
Don’t you need Congress? Don’t you need Congress to help you with that?
President Trump
No, I don’t believe we do. We have it coming in from other sources.
When NYT tried to hold Trump to his past promises of free money, Trump squirmed through his prior deceits. He didn’t say that, he tried first. He already gave that rebate, he falsely claimed. The magical ponies are still on their way, he blustered next.
But, “don’t you need Congress?” Zolan Kanno-Youngs asked.
That poisoned question underscores all Trump’s efforts to usurp Congress’ power of the purse. Don’t you need Congress, to fulfill your promises of free money? You not only need them, but you need to take money away from people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, who never needed it in the first place.
Trump promised voters free money, even more than the $1,700 Pritzker is demanding. He promised that money as a kickback, a cut of his illegal taxes.
And now Pritzker is demanding something much more modest: Make taxpayers whole. Fix the acute financial crisis your lawlessness caused ordinary families.
Trump won’t — can’t — do that. And against the background of those empty promises, that’s going to make everything that comes next with Trump’s tariffs, his effort to double down, all the more toxic to Americans struggling to pay their bills.
U.S. Weather, Hardships
New York Times, Live Updates: Record Snowfall Slams New England as New York Digs Out, Andy Newman and Jacey Fortin, Feb. 23, 2026. Three feet of snow fell in parts of southern Rhode Island, where treacherous conditions forced a halt to snow removal in Providence. Massachusetts officials said more than 350 vehicles were stranded.
A blizzard buried much of the Northeast on Monday, leaving a heavy blanket over New England as night fell. Snowfall topped three feet in parts of Rhode Island, where city plows were knocked out of commission for several hours in Providence, while more than 350 vehicles were stranded on icy roads in Massachusetts.
“This appears to be the most historic blizzard we’ve received,” said Josh Estrella, a spokesman for the city of Providence, where 33 inches of snow — a record by a wide margin — had fallen by midafternoon. In nearby Warwick, R.I., a spotter recorded 36.2 inches of snowfall just after 3 p.m.
Feb. 20
Top Stories
News Round-Ups
The Parnas Perspective, News and Commentary: Supreme Court Overturns Trump's Tariffs in Stunning Loss for the Administration, Aaron Parnas, Feb. 17, 2026.This decision marks a major turning point with sweeping implications for trade, executive power, and the limits of presidential authority.right, Feb. 20, 2026. In the United Kingdom this morning, Thames Valley Police arrested Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew, on suspicion that he committed misconduct in public office.More On U.S. Politics, Elections, Governance
From left, the morbidly wealthy billionaires Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg each have assets valued at well over $100 billion.
right, Feb. 20, 2026. Only the little people pay taxes, redux. Feb. 20, 2026. “It is safer,” the political philosopher Leo Strauss wrote in 1965, “to try to understand the low in the light of the high than the high in the light of the low. In doing the latter one necessarily distorts the high, whereas in doing the former one does not deprive the low of the freedom to reveal itself fully as what it is.”More On Epstein Files
U.S. Media, Education, Culture
Global News
Feb. 20, 2026. An analysis of ship movements shows that the Trump administration is isolating the island at one of its most vulnerable moments.
Top Stories
New York Times, Live Updates: Supreme Court Strikes Down Trump’s Sweeping Tariffs, Ann E. Marimow, Feb. 20, 2026. In a major setback for President Trump’s economic agenda, the court ruled that he could not invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 to set tariffs on imports.
The Supreme Court ruled Friday that President Trump exceeded his authority when he imposed sweeping tariffs on imports from nearly every U.S. trading partner, a major setback for his administration’s second-term agenda.
The court’s 6-3 decision has significant implications for the U.S. economy, consumers and the president’s trade policy. The Trump administration had said that a loss at the Supreme Court could force the government to unwind trade deals with other countries and potentially pay hefty refunds to importers.
Mr. Trump is the first president to claim that a 1970s emergency statute, which does not mention the word “tariffs,” allowed him to unilaterally impose the duties without congressional approval.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the statute does not authorize the president to impose tariffs.
“The president asserts the extraordinary power to unilaterally impose tariffs of unlimited amount, duration, and scope. In light of the breadth, history, and constitutional context of that asserted authority, he must identify clear congressional authorization to exercise it,” the chief justice wrote.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Brett M. Kavanaugh dissented.
Early last year, he invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 to set tariffs on imported goods from more than 100 countries. He said his goal was to reduce the trade deficit and spur more manufacturing in the United States. Since then, he has used the tariffs to raise revenue and to pressure other countries in trade negotiations.
A dozen states and a group of small businesses, including an educational toy manufacturer and a wine importer, sued over the tariffs, saying the president had unlawfully infringed on Congress’s power under the Constitution to impose taxes. The businesses, which rely on imported goods, argued in court filings that the tariffs had disrupted their operations and led to higher prices for consumers and cutbacks in staffing.
In court filings and social media posts, the president and his advisers cast the outcome of the Supreme Court case as critical to his trade and foreign policies, making clear he would see defeat as a personal rebuke. Without the emergency power, the solicitor general had warned the justices, there would be economic ruin akin to the Great Depression, in addition to an interruption of trade negotiations and diplomatic embarrassment.
But even while battling in court, the president began to explore alternatives to the 1977 law. Mr. Trump’s top trade negotiator Jamieson Greer said last month that the administration would move quickly to replace any emergency tariffs invalidated by the court with other levies. The president has already used other statutes to set tariffs, including national security-related ones on some specific goods and industries. Still, other laws that more clearly afford the president the power to impose duties are more limited and less flexible than the emergency law.
Mr. Trump initially set tariffs on goods imported into the United States from China, Canada and Mexico, saying the levies were a punishment for those nations’ failing to stop the flow of fentanyl. In April, he expanded the duties to imports on goods from nearly all trading partners, saying they were needed to address trade deficits with the rest of the world.
Under the 1970s-era law, the president has the authority to take certain steps in response to a national emergency to “deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat” to “the national security, foreign policy or economy of the United States.” That includes the power to “regulate” the “importation” of foreign property. Past presidents have relied on that language to place sanctions or embargoes on other countries, but not to impose taxes. But the administration has argued that phrase also gives Mr. Trump the power to levy tariffs.
The affected businesses countered that the word “regulate” did not encompass the imposition of tariffs. The statute does not include the words “tariffs,” “taxes” or “duties.”
During oral arguments in November, several conservative justices sharply questioned the Trump administration’s lawyer about whether Congress had intentionally delegated to the president broad taxing powers, which the Constitution generally reserves for lawmakers.
The case reached the Supreme Court after three lower courts concluded the tariffs were unlawful.
In August, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled 7 to 4 that the emergency statute did not authorize the sweeping tariffs while declining to decide whether the statute might allow Mr. Trump to impose more limited duties.
New York Times, U.S. Economy Grew More Slowly at End of 2025, Ben Casselman, Feb. 20, 2026. Gross domestic product expanded at a 1.4 percent annual rate in the last quarter of the year, hit by the effects of the government shutdown.
The U.S. economy slowed at the end of 2025 to cap a volatile year in which consumers and an A.I. investment boom helped keep growth on track despite tariffs, uncertainty and the longest government shutdown in history.
Gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, grew at a 1.4 percent annual rate in the final three months of the year, the Commerce Department said on Friday. That was down sharply from a 4.4 percent rate in the third quarter, partly because of the prolonged shutdown.
The shutdown left hundreds of thousands of public sector employees temporarily without paychecks. Furloughed workers eventually received back-pay, and economists believe the shutdown’s long-term impact on G.D.P. will be small. But the episode may have lowered growth by about one percentage point at the end of 2025; the subsequent rebound should lift growth by a similar amount in early 2026.
The numbers are preliminary and will be revised at least twice in the coming months.
For 2025 as a whole, measured from the end of 2024, G.D.P. increased 2.2 percent, compared with 2.3 percent the previous year. That represented solid growth, once again surprising forecasters, who in recent years have repeatedly predicted slowdowns or outright recessions, only to see growth continue.
Occupy Democrats, Advocacy, Husband of Trump’s Labor Secretary BANNED from department after sexual assault allegations surface, Staff and wire reports, Feb. 20, 2026. This is not a small scandal. This is a flashing red alarm.
According to reporting from The New York Times, Dr. Shawn DeRemer — husband of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer — has been barred from entering Labor Department headquarters after at least two female staffers reported that he sexually assaulted them inside the federal building.
The allegations include inappropriate touching at the department’s Constitution Avenue offices. One reported incident, which allegedly took place during working hours in December, was captured on security cameras and later reviewed as part of a criminal investigation.
Washington’s Metropolitan Police filed a report in January regarding forced sexual contact at the Labor Department’s address. The department’s sexual assault unit is now investigating.
But, so far, the Trump administration has responded to the news with only silence.
Dr. DeRemer has not publicly responded. The Department of Labor has declined to comment. Lawyers representing the secretary in a separate inspector general investigation also declined to speak.Here’s what we do know: After the women reported the incidents, Dr. DeRemer was barred from the building. Not reassigned. Not quietly shuffled. Barred.
The allegations reportedly surfaced amid an internal inspector general investigation into alleged misconduct involving Secretary Chavez-DeRemer and senior staff. Now, the situation has escalated into a criminal matter.
This isn’t partisan sniping. This is about workplace safety in a federal agency tasked with protecting American workers.
If these allegations are true, it means women inside the very department charged with safeguarding labor rights were subjected to inappropriate conduct in their own workplace — by the secretary’s husband.
That’s not just hypocrisy. That’s a betrayal of trust.Federal employees deserve a workplace free from harassment, intimidation, or fear — no matter who someone is married to. And the American public deserves transparency.Because when allegations this serious surface at the highest levels of government, silence is not an acceptable response.
More On Epstein Files
The New Republic, Why Did DOJ Give Ghislaine Maxwell These Epstein Files on Trump? Malcolm Ferguson, Feb. 20, 2026. Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice has Epstein files that the rest of us don’t have.
The FBI conducted four interviews with a woman who accused President Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her as a child, and Trump’s Justice Department gave all four of those interviews to Ghislaine Maxwell before her trial, as reported by Roger Sollenberger. Only one of those interviews is in the publicly searchable Epstein files—and it was removed and put back earlier this week.
“By choosing not to release three FBI interviews with an underage Trump accuser—interviews the DOJ gave to Maxwell at trial—Trump’s DOJ allowed Maxwell to retain potential blackmail over the president,” Sollenberger wrote Friday on X. “But that leverage over Trump vanishes if DOJ made them public, as law requires.”
The woman sat down for the interviews with the FBI after filing a lawsuit against the Epstein estate. In the publicly available interview, she claims that she was “brutally and forcibly battered, assaulted, and raped by these other men she met through Epstein. On one occasion, one of these prominent men forcibly slapped Jane Doe 4 in the face after she was forced to perform oral sex on him. This same man forcibly raped her, penetrating her both vaginally and anally. On information and belief, Epstein was aware of and, indeed encouraged, the assault of Jane Doe 4 by these other men.”
This lawsuit matches the FBI’s lone public interview with her, in which she names Trump.
“[REDACTED] stated Epstein introduced her to Trump who subsequently forced her head down to his exposed penis which she subsequently bit,” the FBI said. “In response, Trump punched her in the head and kicked her out.” This allegedly occurred in the mid-1980s when she was “approximately 13-15 years old.”
Trump has of course denied any wrongdoing.
There are three more interviews that this woman has with the FBI, and we don’t know what else she says or who else she names. But Maxwell does.
News Round-Ups
The Parnas Perspective, News and Commentary: Supreme Court Overturns Trump's Tariffs in Stunning Loss for the Administration, Aaron Parnas, right, Feb. 17, 2026. This decision marks a major turning point with sweeping implications for trade, executive power, and the limits of presidential authority.
In a landmark ruling, the United States Supreme Court has overturned Donald Trump’s tariffs, delivering one of the most significant losses to date for the Trump administration’s political and economic agenda. The decision comes after Trump himself framed the case as a matter of “life and death,” while senior administration officials repeatedly warned of severe economic fallout if the high court overturned the tariffs, which had remained in effect while the courts reviewed their legality on the merits. Full ruling here.
Meanwhile, Epstein survivors have unleashed explosive new allegations accusing Les Wexner of lying to Congress, a development that could upend his long-standing public narrative. I won’t stop digging and bringing you the facts. Subscribe today to support independent reporting and help hold the powerful accountable.Subscribed
Here’s the rest of the news:
Sky Roberts, brother of the late Virginia Giuffre, told CNN that Donald Trump is “potentially implicated” in the Epstein files and may need to answer questions, while Trump has denied wrongdoing and said he was “exonerated” by the released documents.
Les Wexner denied any knowledge of Maria Farmer or her alleged assault by Jeffrey Epstein at his Ohio estate, but Annie Farmer noted that Maria possessed a driver’s license listing Wexner’s address, raising questions about his claim.
Leslie Wexner’s early political investment in Ohio Governor George Voinovich helped him expand his business and civic influence—transforming New Albany into an upscale enclave and cementing his philanthropic legacy—but that standing is now clouded by his close past association with Jeffrey Epstein, who owned property there and, according to Ghislaine Maxwell, effectively “ran New Albany” during the 1990s.
The arrest in the UK of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on suspicion of misconduct in public office linked to newly released Epstein-related emails has sparked bipartisan calls from US lawmakers and survivors for greater accountability in the United States, with critics arguing that British authorities have moved more decisively than US officials in pursuing figures connected to Jeffrey Epstein.
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After newly released Justice Department records revealed extensive communications between Steve Bannon and Jeffrey Epstein, several prominent MAGA figures and allies publicly criticized Bannon for failing to address his ties, with Laura Loomer calling on him to be “100% forthcoming,” Michael Flynn saying an explanation was overdue, Marjorie Taylor Greene condemning any “friendly relationship” with Epstein post-conviction, and others accusing him of hypocrisy for aggressively demanding transparency about the Epstein files while remaining largely silent about his own involvement.
Newly released Justice Department files reviewed by The Guardian show federal investigators examined Jeffrey Epstein’s relationships with at least six Customs and Border Protection officers in St. Thomas and Florida—probing whether any aided or had knowledge of his activities after evidence showed friendly communications, island visits, and travel coordination—though no officers were charged and investigators said they found no proof CBP agents knowingly assisted his sex trafficking.
Bard College’s board has hired the law firm WilmerHale to conduct an independent investigation into communications and financial ties between longtime president Leon Botstein and Jeffrey Epstein—including a 2012 trip to Epstein’s island—amid newly released Justice Department records, with the firm also set to recommend changes to donor vetting and governance policies.
Jeffrey Epstein’s estate has agreed to pay up to $35 million to settle a 2024 federal class action lawsuit accusing his former personal lawyer Darren Indyke and former accountant Richard Kahn—co-executors of the estate—of helping facilitate and conceal his sex trafficking through complex financial structures; the settlement, which requires court approval, provides a confidential avenue for additional victim compensation, adds to the $170 million+ already paid out by the estate, and includes no admission of wrongdoing by the co-executors.
Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are scheduled to give recorded depositions in Chappaqua, New York, on Feb. 26 and 27 to the House Oversight Committee as part of its Jeffrey Epstein investigation, after a subpoena dispute with House Republicans over testimony format; the Clintons, who deny wrongdoing, agreed to comply following contempt threats, and their testimony comes amid the Justice Department’s broader release of Epstein-related files.
U.S. GDP grew at a 1.4% annual rate in the fourth quarter, slowing sharply from prior quarters due to a federal government shutdown and weaker consumer spending, as the economy continues to expand modestly despite low job growth and lingering public pessimism.
Donald Trump accused Democrats of orchestrating a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security to hurt U.S. economic growth, claiming it cost at least two points of GDP and warning against further “mini” shutdowns, while again attacking Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell for not lowering interest rates ahead of new GDP figures from the Commerce Department.
Donald Trump announced his intent on releasing all of the files related to aliens:
May be a Twitter screenshot of crossword puzzle and text that says 'Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump + Based on the tremendous interest shown, will be directing the Secretary of War, and other relevant Departments and Agencies, to begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters. GOD BLESS AMERICA! 104 ReTruths 306 Likes 2/19/26, 5:13PM'
A new Trump administration order directs that refugees applying for green cards be taken back into federal custody one year after arrival for case review, a move critics say could lead to the detention of tens of thousands of legally admitted refugees and overturn longstanding safeguards, as legal challenges unfold in Minnesota where a federal judge has temporarily blocked related arrests under “Operation PARRIS,” calling mandatory detention likely unlawful and “nonsensical.”
New polling shows that Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of Trump’s work as President in comparison to President Biden and President Obama:
Border czar Tom Homan rejected Democrats’ call to ban masks for ICE agents as a “nonstarter,” citing an 8,000% rise in threats against officers and their families, denied accusations of racial profiling by saying agents require reasonable suspicion for detentions, and pushed back on critics who label ICE as racist or Nazi, arguing the agency is enforcing laws written by Congress.
The FBI plans to streamline the process for current bureau employees seeking to become special agents by eliminating panel interviews and writing assessments, allowing those who pass an online exam to proceed directly to Quantico training—a move critics say lowers vetting standards amid Director Kash Patel’s push to hire 700 new agents, though the FBI insists qualifications are not being reduced.
Poland has formally withdrawn from the 1997 Ottawa Convention banning antipersonnel mines, citing heightened security threats from Russia, and plans to resume domestic production of both antipersonnel and anti-tank mines to fortify its eastern borders with Russia and Belarus as part of its “Eastern Shield” defense strategy—saying mines would be deployed only in the event of a realistic threat of Russian aggression, despite criticism from human rights groups.
Former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol apologized for the “frustration and hardship” caused by his brief December 2024 martial law declaration but defended its “sincerity and purpose” a day after being sentenced to life in prison for insurrection, with the court finding he subverted constitutional order by deploying troops to parliament; Yoon called the verdict politically motivated and is weighing an appeal.
Eric Dane, the actor known for playing Dr. Mark “McSteamy” Sloan on Grey’s Anatomy and Cal Jacobs on Euphoria, has died at 53, less than a year after publicly revealing his ALS diagnosis; he continued working despite the degenerative disease, became an advocate for awareness, and is remembered by family and colleagues for his career spanning television and film. As someone who lost his grandfather to ALS, my heart breaks for Eric’s family this morning.
Donald Trump is reportedly weighing an early, limited US strike on Iranian government or military targets to pressure Tehran into a nuclear deal, after giving Iran a “10 to 15 day” deadline to negotiate, while the US continues a major military buildup in the region that keeps options open for broader action if talks fail.
CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss withdrew from UCLA’s Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture citing security concerns amid internal opposition from staff and anticipated student protests, reflecting broader controversy over her leadership at CBS, including criticism of her decision to pull a “60 Minutes” segment and ongoing tensions within the network.
Prince Andrew, before being stripped of his British royal titles, at the funeral of his father, Prince Philip, on April 17, 2021 (Pool photo by Chris Jackson of Reuters).
Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: February 19, 2026 [Drama, Theater On Global Stage], Heather Cox Richardson, right, Feb. 20, 2026. In the United Kingdom this morning, Thames Valley Police arrested Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew, on suspicion that he committed misconduct in public office.
Mountbatten-Windsor was stripped of his royal titles last October because of his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice suggest that when Mountbatten-Windsor represented the United Kingdom as a trade envoy, he gave confidential government documents to Epstein.
Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest is the first arrest of a senior royal since 1647, when supporters of Parliament arrested King Charles I during the English Civil War. Today is Mountbatten-Windsor’s 66th birthday.
King Charles III said the investigations into his brother have his “wholehearted” support and that Buckingham Palace will cooperate. He said that “the law must take its course.”
In South Korea, Seoul Central District Court Judge Jee Kui-youn sentenced former president of South Korea Yoon Suk Yeol to life in prison after he was found guilty of leading an insurrection against the government. With his approval rating plummeting as his administration was engulfed by scandals, on December 3, 2024, Yoon declared martial law and tried to paralyze the parliament by using troops to blockade the National Assembly building and arrest opposition politicians. As Lim Hui Jie reported for CNBC, five other conspirators have also received prison sentences of up to 30 years.
During the trial, prosecutors told the court that Yoon had declared martial law “with the purpose of remaining in power for a long time by seizing the judiciary and legislature.” Yoon claimed that he was within his constitutional authority to declare martial law and that he did so to “safeguard freedom and sovereignty.”
After Yoon declared martial law, 190 of the 300 lawmakers in the National Assembly fought their way into the chamber and overturned his edict, forcing Yoon to back down about six hours after his martial law announcement. Lawmakers impeached him 11 days later and removed him from office. Prosecutors had asked for the death penalty for Yoon. The judge said that in sentencing Yoon, he had taken into consideration that Yoon is 65 and that he did not order his troops to use lethal force during the period in which he declared martial law.
In Washington, D.C., today, President Donald J. Trump held the first meeting of his so-called Board of Peace at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), newly renamed the “Donald J. Trump U.S. Institute of Peace,” a change being legally challenged. Last year, officials from the Trump administration seized the USIP building, which housed an independent entity created by Congress in 1984, and fired nearly all the employees.
Trump has made it clear he wants his new board to replace the United Nations. Twenty-seven countries have said they will participate, but so far none appear to have tossed in the $1 billion that would give them permanent status. The countries participating include Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Egypt, El Salvador, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kosovo, Mongolia, Morocco, Pakistan, Paraguay, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. Trump extended invitations to Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, both of whom have been indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes.
Trump withdrew an invitation to the board from Canada after Prime Minister Mark Carney denounced Trump’s foreign policy at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, so Canada is out. Rejecting Trump’s invitation are Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, and the Vatican. They cite their continuing support for the United Nations, concerns about Russian influence in Trump’s board, and concerns about the board’s organization, which gives Trump final say in all decisions, including how to spend the board’s money.
Today, Trump announced that the U.S. will put $10 billion into the Board of Peace, although since Congress is the only body that can legally appropriate money in our system, it’s unclear how he intends to do this.
The event at the board appeared to be the Trump Show. Representatives from the countries who had accepted Trump’s invitation stood awkwardly on stage waiting for him while his favorite songs blared. Once he arrived, he rambled for an hour and then appeared to fall asleep at points in the meeting as dignitaries spoke.
Lena Sun and Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post reported today that having pulled out of the World Health Organization (WHO), the Trump administration has called for creating an alternative run by the U.S. that would recreate WHO systems. The cost would be $2 billion a year funded through the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), up from the $680 million the U.S. provided to the WHO. The secretary of HHS is Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Public health experts told the journalists it was unlikely that any new U.S.-based system could match the reach of the WHO. Director Tom Inglesby of the Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health said: “Spending two to three times the cost to create what we already had access to makes absolutely no sense in terms of fiscal stewardship. We’re not going to get the same quality or breadth of information we would have by being in the WHO, or have anywhere [near] the influence we had.”
Only sovereign nations can join the WHO, but California, Illinois, New York, and Wisconsin, as well as New York City, have joined the WHO’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network.
Today Trump’s Commission of Fine Arts swore in two new members, including Chamberlain Harris, Trump’s 26-year-old executive assistant, who has no experience in the arts. Then the commission, now entirely made up of Trump appointees, approved Trump’s plans for a ballroom where the East Wing of the White House used to stand, although the chair did note that public comments about the project were over 99% negative.
According to CNN’s Sunlen Serfaty, Harris said the White House is the “greatest house in [the] world. We want this to be the greatest ballroom in the world.” Trump says the ballroom is being funded by private donations through the Trust for the National Mall, which is not required to disclose its donors.
Today workers hung a banner with a giant portrait of Trump on the Department of Justice building.
On Air Force One as Trump traveled to Georgia this afternoon for a speech on the economy, Peter Doocy of the Fox News Channel asked Trump about the arrest of Mountbatten-Windsor. “Do you think people in this country at some point, associates of Jeffrey Epstein, will wind up in handcuffs, too?”
Trump answered: “Well, you know I’m the expert in a way, because I’ve been totally exonerated. It’s very nice, I can actually speak about it very nicely. I think it’s a shame. I think it’s very sad. I think it’s so bad for the royal family. It’s very, very sad to me. It’s a very sad thing. When I see that, it’s a very sad thing. To see it, and to see what’s going on with his brother, who’s obviously coming to our country very soon and he’s a fantastic man. King. So I think it’s a very sad thing. It’s really interesting ‘cause nobody used to speak about Epstein when he was alive, but now they speak. But I’m the one that can talk about it because I’ve been totally exonerated. I did nothing. In fact, the opposite—he was against me. He was fighting me in the election, which I just found out from the last three million pages of documents.”
In fact, Trump has not been exonerated.
When he got to Georgia, Trump’s economic message was that “I’ve won affordability.” More to the point was his focus on his Big Lie that he won the 2020 election and that Congress must pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act to secure elections. In fact, in solving a nonexistent problem, the law dramatically restricts voting. Republicans in the House have already passed it. If the Senate passes it, Trump told an audience in Rome, Georgia, “We’ll never lose a race. For 50 years, we won’t lose a race.”
More On U.S. Politics, Elections, Governance
From left, the morbidly wealthy billionaires Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg each have assets valued at well over $100 billion.
Paul Krugman via Substack, Political-Economy Commentary: The Ultra-Rich Are Different from You and Me, Paul Krugman, right, Feb. 20, 2026. Only the little people pay taxes, redux.
There's Rich, And There's Jeff Bezos Rich: Meet The World's Centibillionaires: NPR
On Wednesday the Wall Street Journal published an article with the headline “Billionaires’ low taxes are becoming a problem for the economy.” Hey, what do you expect from a woke, left-wing rag?
To be honest, the article didn’t make a very compelling case for its ostensible point, that the growing concentration of wealth at the very top may lead to economic instability. But it did offer a good discussion of both the soaring concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny elite and of the extent to which this elite is able to avoid paying taxes.
Many discussions of inequality in America fail to grapple with the way we have become an oligarchy, with a large share of income, an even larger share of wealth, and a huge amount of political power accruing to a very small number of people. One still sees discussions of the “elite” that focus on the top 20 percent or the top 10 percent, when the real action is much further up the scale. Never mind the 1 percent. To understand what’s happening to us, we need to focus on the 0.1 percent, the 0.01 percent, even the 0.00001 percent.
True, even the economic position of the top 1 percent is widely misunderstood. The WSJ article misleadingly suggested that Americans in the top 1 percent as a whole are heavily taxed, because they pay 40 percent of income taxes. But the income tax isn’t the only tax! In particular, the federal government also collects a lot of revenue from payroll taxes, which fall much more heavily on low- and middle-income Americans than on the upper class. As a result, the top 1 percent only pays 27 percent of total federal taxes: A blue bar with black text AI-generated content may be incorrect.
Furthermore, state and local taxes are strongly regressive: A graph of a graph showing the percentage of tax rates AI-generated content may be incorrect.
Overall, the top 1 percent as a group pay at most a slightly larger share of U.S. taxes than their share of pretax income.
Furthermore, most people within the top 1 percent are what Leona Helmsley called “little people,” as in “Only the little people pay taxes.” The ultra-rich — the 0.1 percent, the 0.01 percent, the 0.00001 percent — pay much lower tax rates than the merely rich. I’ll explain how they pull this off shortly. First, let me make the point that it’s the ultra-rich, who account for only a tiny fraction of the 1 percent, who have been pulling away from the rest of the nation.
The data from the Federal Reserve’s Distributional Financial Accounts are startling. It turns out that the share of total wealth held by the merely rich — those in the top 1 percent but not in the top 0.1 percent — has actually declined since the 2010s: A graph showing the growth of the stock market AI-generated content may be incorrect.
At the same time, the wealth share of the top 0.1 percent, the ultra-rich, has soared: A graph showing the growth of the dollar AI-generated content may be incorrect.
In 2022, the minimum wealth required to be in this category was $46 million. It’s more now.
And much of the rise in wealth of the 0.1 percent is accounted for by the super-billionaire class, a tiny sub-group of almost inconceivably wealthy individuals. Reposting a chart from Wednesday’s post: A graph showing a line AI-generated content may be incorrect.
Why are the ultra-rich pulling away from everyone else? Partly because they pay much lower taxes than the little people. Some manage a full Leona Helmsley, paying no taxes at all. On average, according to recent estimates by Balkin, Saez, Yagan and Zucman, they pay a total tax rate — federal, state, and local — of only 24 percent. That’s less than the average for the whole population, around 30 percent. And it’s much less than the tax rate for “top labor income earners.” That means people who receive big paychecks — but who do receive paychecks. In contrast, the incomes of the ultra-rich flows largely from or through businesses they own.
Put it this way: The “$400,000 a year working Wall Street stiff, flying first class, and being comfortable,” mocked by Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street, pays around 40 percent of his income in taxes. The modern equivalents of Gekko — who make orders of magnitude more money than the financial predators Gekko was modeled on — typically pay only around half as much.
How do the ultra-rich pull this off? Most of their success at tax-dodging presumably reflects tax avoidance rather than tax evasion. Avoidance, as opposed to evasion, involves strategies that are legal, although they shouldn’t be. Balkin et al emphasize the way the ultra-rich arrange to ensure that most of their income accrues not directly to themselves but to businesses they control, and are able to benefit from their wealth without ever turning that wealth into taxable income.
The WSJ notes one example:
Amassing assets like stocks, borrowing against them rather than selling during the owner’s lifetime, and passing them to the next generation after death is sometimes called the “buy borrow die” tax-avoidance strategy.
It’s clear that by any reasonable standard the extremely rich pay much less than their share in taxes.
Why doesn’t the U.S. government try to close the loopholes that allow the extremely rich to pay so little? Don’t say that it would be technically difficult or that it would hurt the economy. We were able to tax the rich for a generation after World War II, a generation during which the U.S. achieved the best growth in its history. In general, governments in advanced nations have enormous ability to achieve their goals, if they want to.
The problem, of course, is that too many politicians don’t want to collect taxes on the superrich, because the ultra-wealthy have used their wealth to achieve immense political power. And the failure to tax them effectively is reinforcing the vast accumulation of wealth at the top.
It’s a vicious circle. And whatever you think of specific proposals for wealth taxes and other approaches toward reining in America’s billionaire class, we had better take action before it’s too late.
Gold Diggers of 1933 - "We're in the Money"
New York Times, Trump Has a Head-Spinning Day, but Republicans Want Him to Focus, Tyler Pager, Feb. 20, 2026 (print ed.). President Trump’s advisers want him to lock down a message on the economy that will resonate ahead of the midterms. But Mr. Trump is never one to stay on message.
President Trump started the day on Thursday by celebrating peace in the Middle East while also threatening to launch a new, all-out attack in the region.
Shortly thereafter, he celebrated that his handpicked arts commission had approved his $400 million White House ballroom project.
By the day’s end, Mr. Trump was speaking to a crowd in northwest Georgia, where he was supposed to focus on the economy and jobs but spent much of the time on wild tangents: railing against the Supreme Court, making false claims of voter fraud and calling himself a “schmuck” for donating his presidential salary.
The president’s head-spinning day came as Republicans look to Mr. Trump to lock down a message that will resonate ahead of the midterms, when the party could face big losses. They want him to stay focused on an economic message to help his party keep control of Congress in November’s midterm elections — but Mr. Trump is never one to stay on message.
In fact, he sounded as though he wanted to move on entirely from the one issue they want him to focus on — affordability — as Democrats hammer him on the cost of living and high prices.
“What word have you not heard over the last two weeks? Affordability,” Mr. Trump said at a rally at a steel distributor in Rome, Ga. “Because I’ve won. I’ve won affordability.”Sign up for Your Places: Global Update. All the latest news for any part of the world you select. Get it sent to your inbox.
Earlier this week, the president’s top aides and cabinet officials gathered near the U.S. Capitol to discuss their midterm strategy. The takeaway was clear: The economy would be the deciding factor in the midterms, strategists and pollsters said, and Republicans needed to stay laser-focused.
But even if Republican candidates and Mr. Trump’s aides focus on the economy, they can never match the megaphone of their leader, who is not quite so laser-focused on the issue.
Still, Mr. Trump and his allies have been eager to celebrate his economic wins on the heels of two strong economic reports: Employment growth in January came in at more than twice the rate that economists had expected, and inflation was softer than predicted.
In his speech on Thursday, Mr. Trump attributed the country’s economic success to his tariff policies. He has vowed that the levies will reduce U.S. imports and shrink the trade deficit.
“Tariff is my favorite word in the whole dictionary,” he said.
But data released on Thursday showed the opposite of what Mr. Trump has promised has occurred: U.S. imports grew last year, and the trade deficit in goods hit a record high. Mr. Trump’s vision of reviving American manufacturing has so far not borne out either. U.S. manufacturers have cut more than 80,000 jobs in the past year.
Morning Shots via The Bulwark, Political Opinion: There Are Still Heroes Among Us, Bill Kristol, Andrew Egger and Jim Swift, Feb. 20, 2026. Fighting ICE. Fighting the Epstein class. Fighting Putin. Ready for America’s new golden age? Well, stay ready ’cause it ain’t here yet. The U.S. economy grew by just 1.4 percent (annualized, inflation-adjusted) in the fourth quarter of 2025. That’s significantly less than 2.5–3 percent economists had predicted, and way behind last summer’s 4.4 percent rate.
A big reason for the slower growth was the record-long government shutdown. Government spending counts directly into GDP, so less spending means less growth. But there are knock-on effects, too—all those employees who aren’t getting paid are spending less money, and so on and so on.
And, oh, yeah, also the tariffs and the deportation of large parts of the workforce. Could be those had something to do with it, too. Happy Friday.
The Contrarian, Opinion: Undaunted in Denouncing Religious Hypocrites, Jennifer Rubin, right, Feb. 20, 2026. A tribute to those who fearlessly call out white Christian nationalists.
In the wake of Rev. Jesse Jackson’s passing, we have heard from many politicians, including African Americans who benefited from his inspirational rhetoric and morally-grounded politics.
None has been more eloquent than Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) in speaking about Jackson’s legacy and in setting an example for how people of faith should speak in the public square.
Warnock, appearing on CNN this week, recalled, “Reverend Jackson laid the foundation for that in 1980, and 1984, 1988. There could be no 2008 without 1988. And even before that, Shirley Chisholm, her courage as a Black woman to stand up.” He added that “change is not a straight line.” Warnock reminded us, “It happens in fits and starts. You make steps forward. Sometimes you have steps back, sometimes the democracy expands. At other times it contracts.” Rev. Raphael Warnock and the late John Lewis at "Souls to the Polls" event. (Credit: Raphael Warnock - Ga3bSEBg, Public Domain)
Moreover, Warnock stressed that MAGA Republicans cannot be allowed to monopolize religious discussion or impose their views on others. Democrats — and all those who love our country — would benefit from listening to how Warnock speaks about faith and values:
[S]omething much deeper than politics is at stake here. The soul of our country is in danger. And many of the loudest voices of faith in our country are the meanest voices. They have a vision of the country that, in my view, is a far cry from the vision of the Old Testament prophets, the Hebrew prophets who said ‘let justice roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream,’ who told us to welcome the stranger and to center the poor.
Jesus is a victim of identity theft in American politics and American culture. And so, those of us who have been shaped by the faith that inspired Martin Luther King Jr. and for that matter, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and so many larger figures, Reverend Jesse Jackson.
Nothing better illustrates Warnock’s argument about “identity theft” than the stomach-turning and hateful remarks Donald Trump spewed during one of his harangues at the recent prayer breakfast, where he managed to combine blasphemy and hatred with contempt for our Constitution.
Roughly a month ago, Warnock said during an interview: “The biggest adversary to Christian faith is people who speak in the name of Christianity but continue to behave in ways and support policies that are decidedly anti-Christian. So, I’ll be taking my cues from Jesus, and not Donald Trump.” He recalled: “It is the American Christian slavocracy that is the biggest enemy of Christianity. It is the segregationist who opposed Martin Luther King, Jr. and his movement in the name of faith.”
Warnock continued, “The folks who are so quick to use his name are some of the meanest people I know, and they support some of the meanest policies I know.” Coming from a member of the clergy, Warnock’s defense of religious pluralism and the First Amendment’s prohibition on establishment of religion carries particular force and moral clarity.
Certainly, Warnock is not alone in fighting to reclaim faith from the idolaters who worship Donald Trump and prey on the stranger, take food (SNAP) and healthcare from the poor, and spout venomous bigotry. Former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Michigan state senator Mallory McMorrow (who noted, “I don’t think that Republicans have religion on lock”) also talk openly about their faith traditions and debunk the notion that Democrats are anti-religion — making clear White Christian nationalism is about using faith as a political cudgel. As James Talarico said in his now-viral interview with Stephen Colbert, “There is nothing Christian about Christian nationalism. It is the worship of power in the name of Christ.” He and Colbert discussed how truly faithful people should not seek to put a “big thing” (God) into a “small thing” (politics).
Speaking at the Center for American Progress on Thursday, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear echoed this message. “Christianity is being hijacked by those celebrating ICE raids, undercutting diversity, cutting SNAP and rural health care, and bullying and demonizing our LGTBQ community in order to win elections,” Beshear said. “Faith is being used to justify doing harm when it should be used to be doing good. And we should be calling this out and reclaiming it as a force for kindness.”
In that same spirit, Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro and more than 40 Catholic Democratic colleagues released a letter on Feb. 13 affirming that “[a]s Catholic Democrats in Congress, we are guided by a living Catholic tradition that affirms the dignity of every human life, advances the common good, and demands that we protect the most vulnerable in our society through a strong and compassionate safety net.”
The letter continued:
We adhere to the three basic principles of Catholic Social Teaching on Immigration. First, we affirm that people have the right to migrate to sustain their lives and the lives of their families. Sacred Scripture consistently reminds us of our obligation toward the vulnerable and displaced. Jesus himself identifies with the migrant when he says, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (Mt 25:35. . . .
Second, we believe every nation has the right to regulate its borders and to control immigration. …
Finally, while regulating borders is consistent with Catholic social teaching, it is never a license for cruelty, indifference, or dehumanization. Border enforcement must be governed by justice and mercy.
Speaking up to denounce the constitutionally and morally abhorrent practices and rhetoric of those cloaking themselves in the trappings of religious virtue, Warnock and faith-inspired Democrats provide a critical counterweight to MAGA’s religious sanctimony. This is not to diminish the voices and views of non-believers who correctly point out that the Constitution protects those of any religion or no religion at all (hence, the prohibition on religious tests for office). However, outspoken religious believers do provide an essential service in reminding the country that no party or movement — let alone one enveloped in a cult of personality, spouting xenophobia and racism, rationalizing violence, and demonizing fellow Americans — has a monopoly on faith.
Warnock, along with other outspoken Democrats of faith, remain undaunted in the face of attacks from religious hypocrites. Reclaiming the language of faith (which is an essential part of many Americans’ lives) helps rebut MAGA’s offensive accusation that Democrats are not part of “real America.” Those willing to call out with humor and humanity the toxicity of white Christian nationalism deserve the gratitude of all Americans.
Morning Shots via The Bulwark, Political Opinion: The Season of Light and Darkness, William Kristol, right, Feb. 20, 2026. “It is safer,” the political philosopher Leo Strauss wrote in 1965, “to try to understand the low in the light of the high than the high in the light of the low. In doing the latter one necessarily distorts the high, whereas in doing the former one does not deprive the low of the freedom to reveal itself fully as what it is.”
I’ll follow Strauss’s guidance and begin with the high.
Here in Minneapolis yesterday, some of us from The Bulwark spoke with local citizens who mobilized over the past months to try to deter and monitor assaults on civil liberties. We met with others who had organized themselves to help their neighbors under assault.
We also paid our respects at their unofficial memorial sites to the memories of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. At the Pretti memorial, I was particularly moved by a hand-made placard with the words of the Lord to Joshua (Joshua 1:9): “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”
We will not soon forget the examples we saw of Minnesota strong, and Minnesota courage.
When I got back to the hotel, I caught up on the news of the arrest in London of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, and on announcements in other European countries of criminal probes into the complicity of their nationals in the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. I thought of the heroic efforts of the Epstein survivors and of those who stood with them in pursuit of justice and accountability and the truth. Finally, at least in some countries, they may see some modicum of justice.
And then I read up a bit on the situation in Ukraine as we approach the fourth anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion. The Ukrainian people continue to fight heroically and with amazing success, despite the abandonment by their largest arms supplier and most powerful ally, the government of the United States.
The people of Minnesota. The Epstein survivors. The citizens of Ukraine. Three remarkable examples for all of us of resistance, persistence, and courage in dark times.
We do not lack today for examples of the impressive, of the admirable, of the high—yes, of the heroic.
Meanwhile in Washington, D.C., by striking contrast, we see the low revealing itself fully as what it is. Some adjustments in tactics notwithstanding, the Trump administration remains all in on its commitment to mass deportation, mass intimidation, and mass brutalization. Needless to say, the Republican party in Congress remains unwilling to curb this effort in any meaningful way. And it remains clear that no one engaged in the atrocities we’ve seen will be held accountable by this administration. How could they be? They were following orders from the most senior officials.
And the Trump administration’s Epstein cover-up continues. Yesterday, President Trump was asked by Peter Doocy of Fox News, in light of the arrest of Mountbatten-Windsor, “Do you think people in this country at some point, associates of Jeffrey Epstein, will wind up in handcuffs, too?” Needless to say, Trump expressed no compassion for the victims and no desire to see justice done. There was not even any acknowledgement that something awful had happened. Instead Trump said: “I think it’s a shame. I think it’s very sad. I think it’s so bad for the royal family. It’s very, very sad to me. It’s a very sad thing. When I see that, it’s a very sad thing. . . . So I think it’s a very sad thing.”
Trump is saddened by any embarrassment to the royal family. He’s not outraged by anything Mountbatten-Windsor or Jeffrey Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell did. And there is no evidence the Trump administration has any interest in seeing justice done, or any intention of having the truth come out. We have an executive branch that is on the side of the Epstein class, not the Epstein survivors.
Earlier this week, Trump was asked about peace prospects in Ukraine. Needless to say, there was no condemnation of Putin’s brutal aggression. Instead he blamed Kyiv for failing to achieve peace, and indeed threatened Ukraine. “Ukraine better come to the table fast. That’s all I’m telling you.”
We have an administration in power here in the United States that is hostile to the rule of law at home and to the fight for freedom abroad. We citizens cannot look away from or wish away that reality. But we can also understand the reality of the admirable actions of Minnesotans and Epstein survivors and Ukrainian freedom fighters. We can insist on understanding the low in light of the high. In doing so, we increase the chances that the high prevails over the low.
Morning Shots via The Bulwark, Political Opinion: Brazening Through It All, Andrew Egger, Feb. 20, 2026. For months now, it’s been perhaps the most horrible and tragic congressional scandal you’ve barely heard of.
Last September, Regina Santos-Aviles, a staffer for Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas), died after dousing herself in gasoline and setting herself on fire outside her Uvalde, Texas home. Although several outlets reported Santos-Aviles and Gonzales had been having an affair, Gonzales flatly denied it: “People throwing rocks at me, saying I’m doing nasty things, I totally get that,” he told a reporter in November. “But the rumors are completely untruthful.”
This week, Gonzales’s story got a lot less tenable. The San Antonio Express-News reported that Santos-Aviles had confessed the affair to another staffer, and that she had “spiraled into a depression after her husband discovered the relationship and Gonzales, right, abruptly cut her off.” That staffer also shared a text message in which Santos-Aviles confirmed the affair to them.
Meanwhile, Santos-Aviles’s widowed husband Adrian Aviles has broken his silence too, confirming the affair in an interview of his own. “I said the truth would come to light when it’s time, and the time is now,” he told the Express-News on Wednesday. “Tony abused his power. . . . I hope that Tony will stand up and be accountable for his actions.” He added that Gonzales, a father of six, “pushes, you know, family values and Christian morals . . . denying the fact that he’s ruined somebody’s life.”
How has Gonzales responded to all this? By going on the attack. “I WILL NOT BE BLACKMAILED,” he wrote in an X post yesterday, sharing a screenshot that appeared to be a partial email from a lawyer discussing an unspecified non-disclosure agreement proposal. “Disgusting to see people profit politically and financially off a tragic death. The public should IMMEDIATELY have full access to the Uvalde Police report. I will keep fighting for #TX23.”
Adrian Aviles quickly responded: “We have never blackmailed anyone. What we’ve seen instead is a constant pattern of evasion, refusal to take accountability, and outright lies to protect your image.”
“We chose to hold back the full police report and body cam footage for one reason only,” he added. “It shows my wife suffering severe burns in horrific detail. . . . Nothing in that police report protects you, that decision is about protecting our child’s well-being.”
You get the idea. It’s a horrible, stomach-churning story, the kind that would send any politician with the tiniest ounce of shame immediately out of the public eye and perhaps into monastic life. Instead, Gonzales is fighting for re-election, with early primary voting getting underway as he tries to stave off a challenger from further to the right, gun-nut Youtuber Brandon Herrera.
Meanwhile, cold hard political realities mean the disgraced incumbent may still have a shot. Trump has yet to withdraw his endorsement of Gonzales, and as recently as last month his political operation was actively working to enforce it: Campaign lawyers for Trump sent a cease-and-desist letter to Herrera in January demanding he stop using Trump’s image and likeness in campaign materials. In a Truth Social post Monday morning—just before the latest revelations started dropping—Trump called Gonzales a “terrific Representative” who “has my Complete and Total Endorsement for Re-Election” and “WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN!”
At the same time, Gonzales has faced basically zero pressure from other Republicans in Congress to resign—an unsurprising fact given Republicans’ razor-thin majority in the House. (Also unsurprising: My requests for comment to the White House, House Speaker Mike Johnson’s office, and Gonzales’s campaign went unanswered.)
It’s hard to imagine a bleaker vignette of Republican politics today: A thoroughly disgraced lawmaker trying to brazen his way through personal scandal by heaping up allegations of witch hunts and plots, all while the more powerful allies whose coattails he hopes to ride to victory look uncomfortably the other way—and, if he fails, a somehow even crazier future lawmaker waiting in the wings. What a time to be alive.
AROUND THE BULWARK
Quick Hits
A LITTLE SPENDING MONEY: More and more voters may be deserting him every day, but Donald Trump still wields one enormous weapon to keep his party in line going into the midterm elections: a staggeringly large war chest totaling somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.5 billion. Per PBS News:
Trump’s stockpile—which dwarfs any amounts raised by his predecessors in their second terms—is not easy to precisely calculate given that much of it is being collected by groups that aren’t required to file regular financial disclosures. . . .
But what is not in question is that it represents a mountain of cash that could reshape Republican politics for years to come—if he chooses. He’s been reluctant to spend money on other people’s races in the past, and he’s even found ways to funnel some cash to his own businesses.
The money quote (so to speak) comes from the Campaign Legal Center’s Saurav Ghosh: “I think a lot of people are asking, ‘What’s it all for?’” What, indeed! Read the whole thing.
THE BALLROOM APPROACHETH: Like it or not, the One Big Beautiful Ballroom is going forward. To the shock of no one, the White House’s Commission of Fine Arts—which is constituted entirely of Trump appointees after he fired every sitting commissioner last October—moved speedily and enthusiastically to approve Trump’s East Wing construction project Thursday. Politico reports:
Moving with unusual speed, six members of a key advisory panel approved in one fell swoop both the concept and the final plan after receiving an updated briefing on the project to build a $400 million ballroom in place of the East Wing abruptly torn down last year. The hearing wrapped up the commission’s review process, which normally would include a wait between conceptual and final approvals.
“The president has actually designed a very beautiful structure,” commission Chair Rodney Mims Cook Jr. declared, adding that “the United States just should not be entertaining the world in tents. It is really outrageous that we do that, and no president has really stepped up to the plate to require that be corrected, until President Trump.”
If you think about it, it’s really a miracle we made it this long without an enormous ballroom dominating the White House complex. Maybe now we finally have a chance at being a great and good country.
U.S. Media, Education, Culture
Media Matters, Commentary: Fox News has largely ignored the Epstein story, Jason Campbell, Feb. 20, 2026. Sean Hannity is demanding military action against Iran to obliterate the nation’s nuclear program, which he had previously declared dead. Paramount is mangling CBS — and CNN may be next.
MAGA “prophet” Julie Green delivered “prophetic word” about martial law and the 2026 midterms, saying, “My children, I have warned you of martial law. This must take place to overthrow those who are in political seats that don’t belong, not just federal seats, but state seats as well. … Your military will see to it new elections will take place.” A TPUSA spokesperson linked diversity efforts in Washington, D.C., utilities management with the sewage leak into the Potomac River: “White men created Western civilization.”
SEE MORECompared to other cable channels, Fox News is hiding the latest Epstein revelations from their audience An image showing Rob Finnerty and three other men speaking, each in their own panel. Below it, it says "Fox News Avoids the Epstein Story".
This week, Newsmax host Rob Finnerty called out Fox News for not covering the Jeffrey Epstein story. And it seems like Finnerty may be on to something. If you’re exclusively watching Fox News, you might not know that the growing fallout from the latest batch of released files about Epstein is one of the biggest stories in America.
We found that in a multi-week period following the Department of Justice’s release of the Epstein documents, Fox News only mentioned “Epstein” 239 times. In the same period, MS Now and CNN mentioned “Epstein” 3,321 and 2,304 times, respectively. Newsmax, for its part, mentioned Epstein 1,464 times during the time period we looked at — over 1,000 more times than Fox. A graph showing mentions of Epstein on Fox, CNN and MS Now
The latest documents shed more light on the relationships between Epstein and various figures associated with the MAGA world, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and President Donald Trump himself. One other figure implicated is former Trump aide Steve Bannon. We've been covering the blowback Bannon is receiving in MAGA media - which has been intense. Now, Bannon is getting blowback from his own audience, which is demanding answers from him. One Rumble user wrote, "I'm still a fan, but Steve MUST address this Epstein fire. You know that in politics you have to get in front of it. Hiding, stonewalling makes it worse every time."
As the fallout from the Epstein documents continues to rattle the nation, Fox is plugging its ears and trying to pretend nothing is happening. We’ll see how long they can keep it up.
Global News
New York Times, A New U.S. Blockade Is Strangling Cuba, Jack Nicas and Christiaan Triebert, Feb. 20, 2026. An analysis of ship movements shows that the Trump administration is isolating the island at one of its most vulnerable moments.
Cuba is confronting the United States’ first effective blockade since the Cuban Missile Crisis and running out of fuel fast, pushing the nation toward a humanitarian crisis and its government to the edge of collapse, according to a New York Times analysis of shipping data and satellite images.
Cuban tankers have hardly left the island’s shores for months. Oil-rich allies have halted shipments or declined to come to the rescue. The U.S. military has seized ships that have supported Cuba. And in recent days, vessels roaming the Caribbean Sea in search of fuel for Cuba have come up empty or been intercepted by the U.S. authorities.
Last week, a tanker linked to Cuba burned fuel for five days to get to the port in Curaçao but then left without cargo, according to ship-tracking data. Three days later, the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted a tanker full of Colombian fuel oil en route to Cuba that had gotten within 70 miles of the island, the data showed.
While President Trump has pledged to halt any oil headed to Cuba, the Trump administration has stopped short of calling its policy a blockade.
But it is functioning as one.
Mr. Trump signed an executive order last month threatening to impose tariffs on countries that provide oil to Cuba. That has succeeded at scaring other nations, like Mexico, into sitting on the sidelines despite their desire to help Cuba.
At the same time, the largest U.S. military presence in the Caribbean in decades is policing the waters around the island, fresh off its work blocking oil shipments to and from Venezuela ahead of the U.S. capture of the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, last month.
Feb. 19
Top Stories
Prince Andrew, before being stripped of his British royal titles, at the funeral of his father, Prince Philip, on April 17, 2021 (Pool photo by Chris Jackson of Reuters).
Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: February 18, 2026, Heather Cox Richardson, right, Feb. 19, 2026. Today Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker delivered the State of the State address. The underlying purpose of the address is to explain the state budget, but Pritzker, a Democrat, used the occasion to talk far more broadly about the state of Illinois and the nation.More On Epstein Revelations, Reactions
More Global News
More On U.S. Politics, Elections
U.S. Media, Culture, Education
Feb. 19, 2026. One morning, when I woke from troubled dreams, I found myself transformed into an … influencer. [/end Franz Kafka]Technology Group (TMTG), the parent company of Truth Social, has an unrivaled free source of publicity. President Trump, who is also TMTG’s largest shareholder, posts extensively on the Truth Social platform, sometimes dozens of times in a single day. He is essentially leveraging the full weight of the presidency, the world’s most powerful office, to drive awareness of TMTG’s offerings.Feb. 19, 2026. By Trump’s assault on the First Amendment continues.
Prince Andrew, before being stripped of his British royal titles, at the funeral of his father, Prince Philip, on April 17, 2021 (Pool photo by Chris Jackson of Reuters).
Top Stories
New York Times, Live Updates: Former Prince Andrew Arrested in Britain Over Epstein Ties, Megan Specia and Michael D. Shear, Feb. 19, 2026. King Charles III said he supported a “full, fair and proper process” regarding the investigation of his brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, adding that he backed the authorities involved.
Here’s the latest.
British police on Thursday arrested Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, over suspicions of misconduct in public office after accusations that he shared confidential information with Jeffrey Epstein while serving as a British trade envoy.
The arrest was a stunning blow to the British monarchy, which has been rocked by scandals for decades and is now having to endure the spectacle of having one of its members arrested. The move escalated the long-running crisis for Buckingham Palace over the former prince’s ties to Mr. Epstein and allegations of sexual abuse of a young woman.
His brother, King Charles III, in a statement confirmed the arrest. The Thames Valley Police said in a statement that it had “arrested a man in his sixties from Norfolk on suspicion of misconduct in public office and are carrying out searches at addresses in Berkshire and Norfolk.”
As is policy under British law, the police did not name the suspect, but the details provided in the police report match what is known about the public misconduct allegations. The police were seen on Thursday morning at the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, England, where Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor is living.
The arrest underscored a striking contrast in the official responses to the Epstein files. The British authorities have moved aggressively to investigate the possibility of crimes emerging from the three million pages of correspondence with Mr. Epstein, while police in the United States have not.
While Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor’s links to Mr. Epstein, the convicted sex offender, have been known for years, his arrest marks a new chapter in his public fall from grace. Last year, he was stripped of his royal titles and evicted from his sprawling residence.
Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor has consistently denied wrongdoing. His representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Here’s what else to know.
Royal response: King Charles said he supported a “full, fair and proper process” regarding the investigation of his brother, adding that he backs the authorities involved: “In this, as I have said before, they have our full and wholehearted support and cooperation.” He added: “Let me state clearly: the law must take its course.”
New York Times, The Epstein Files and the Hidden World of an Unaccountable Elite, Robert Draper, Reported Feb. 12, 2026, featured Feb. 19. The search continues in the documents for ironclad criminal conduct, but the story of a sexual predator given a free ride by the ruling class has already emerged.Journalists and researchers will spend the next months ferreting through the Epstein files in search of further criminal conduct or a new conspiratorial wrinkle. But one truth has already emerged.
In unsparing detail, the documents lay bare the once-furtive activities of an unaccountable elite, largely made up of rich and powerful men from business, politics, academia and show business. The pages tell a story of a heinous criminal given a free ride by the ruling class in which he dwelled, all because he had things to offer them: money, connections, sumptuous dinner parties, a private plane, a secluded island and, in some cases, sex.
That story of impunity is all the more outrageous now in the midst of rising populist anger and ever-growing inequality. The Caligula-like antics of Jeffrey Epstein and friends occurred over two decades that saw the decline of America’s manufacturing sector and the subprime mortgage crisis, in which millions of Americans lost their homes.
If Mr. Epstein’s goal was to build a wall of protection around his abuse by surrounding himself with the well connected, he failed in the end. But both before and after he was first prosecuted for abusing girls, his correspondence described a network of people whose high-flying lives belied the struggles of ordinary Americans. And at the center of that network was a sexual predator seemingly on top of the world.
Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: February 18, 2026, Heather Cox Richardson, right, Feb. 19, 2026. Today Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker delivered the State of the State address. The underlying purpose of the address is to explain the state budget, but Pritzker, a Democrat, used the occasion to talk far more broadly about the state of Illinois and the nation.
Pritzker anchored his speech by reaching back to the days of John Peter Altgeld, a German-born American who helped to lead the Progressive movement and served as governor of Illinois from 1893 to 1897. Altgeld oversaw passage of some of the strongest laws in the country for workplace safety and protection of child workers, invested heavily in education, and appointed women to important positions in state government despite the fact that women could not yet vote.
Pritzker noted that in his State of the State speech in January 1895, Altgeld talked about “the need to ensure that science would govern the practice of medicine in Illinois; the high cost of insurance; the condition of Illinois prisons; the funding of state universities; a needed revision of election laws; the concentration of wealth in large businesses.” Altgeld expressed pride for appointing women to office and his statement that “[j]ustice requires that the same rewards and honors that encourage and incite men should be equally in reach of women in every field and activity.”
Pritzker said he brought up Altgeld’s defense of equal rights “to highlight one enduring human truth—injustice can become a genetic condition we bequeath on future generations if we fail to face it forthrightly.”
Pritzker then turned to the year that has passed since President Donald J. Trump took office. “To be perfectly candid,” Pritzker said, “as Illinois is one of the states whose taxpayers send more dollars to the federal government than we receive back in services, I was hoping that his threats to gut programs that support working families [were] the kind of unrealistic hyperbole that fuels a presidential campaign but then is abandoned when cooler heads prevail.” But, he said, “Unfortunately, there are no cooler heads at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue these days.”
The Trump administration has cost Illinois $8.4 billion, Pritzker said, “illegally confiscating money that has already been promised and appropriated by the Congress to the people of Illinois.” Pritzker was clear that this money is not handouts but “dollars that real Illinoisans paid in federal taxes and that have been constitutionally approved by our elected Democratic and Republican representatives in Washington.”
Unlike the federal government, states must balance their budgets every year. Trump’s billions in illegally withheld funds inflict a cost on the state’s residents, while Illinois has been “forced to spend enormous time and taxpayer money going to court and fighting to get what is rightfully ours.” Pritzker said: “It is impossible to tally the hours, days, and weeks our state government has spent chasing news of Presidential executive orders, letters, and edicts that read like proclamations from the Lollipop Guild.”
Pritzker noted that Trump is making life harder for everyday Americans with tariffs that raise costs for working families and small businesses; trade wars that are devastating farmers; cuts to healthcare, nutritional assistance, and education; increased bureaucratic demands on states; and low job creation. The good news, Pritzker said, is that Illinois had managed such crises before and had found a way forward.
He noted the growth of Illinois’s economy and economic stability over the past eight years even as the state had balanced its budget every year and made historic investments in education, child welfare, disability services, and job creation in the private sector. In the past year, Illinois’s gross domestic product was more than $1.2 trillion, up from $881 billion when Pritzker took office.
Looking forward, Pritzker outlined plans to address the top three economic issues on the mind of most Americans: the cost of housing, electricity, and healthcare. He promised to reduce the cost of housing by cutting local regulations and providing more options for financing. He promised to address the skyrocketing cost of electricity first by pausing the authorization of new data center tax credits and then by investing in renewable energy and nuclear power. Finally, he announced that, as of this week, the state had eliminated $1 billion in medical debt for more than 500,000 people in the state by purchasing and erasing it for pennies on the dollar.
Pritzker warned that the benefits of our changing world are increasingly “reaped by a smaller and smaller group of people while middle and working class Americans pay for it. Special interests and large corporations seem to delight in finding ever more insidious ways to extract money from everyday people. Those same companies then react with a mixture of surprise and outrage when they’re asked to rein in their worst abuses.”
“I’m committed to doing everything government can to rein in the worst of the price gouging and profiteering we are seeing,” Pritzker said. “But I implore the titans of industry who regularly ask government to make their lives easier—what are you doing to make your employers’ and your customers’ lives easier?”
Then Pritzker turned to the crisis federal agents created on the streets of Chicago. “A year ago, I stood before you and asked a provocative question: After we have discriminated against, disparaged, and deported all our immigrant neighbors—and the problems we started with still remained—what comes next?” Pritzker said. He recalled that when he asked that question, some people walked out.
“But a year later, we have an answer—don’t we?” he said. “Masked, unaccountable federal agents—with little training—occupied our streets, brutalized our people, tear-gassed kids and cops, kidnapped parents in front of their children, detained and arrested and at times attempted to deport U.S. citizens, and killed innocent Americans in the streets.”
Pritzker identified Trump and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller as the architects of that plan to “drip authoritarianism…into our veins.”
But, he noted, people in Illinois did not accept that authoritarianism.
Pritzker reminded the audience that President Grover Cleveland had similarly tried to “subdue the Illinois population with hired thugs” during the 1894 Pullman strike after the Pullman Company, which made railroad cars, cut workers’ wages by about 25%. When workers struck, Cleveland deputized U.S. Marshals to end the strike. They fired into crowds of bystanders and, according to a Chicago paper, “seemed to be hunting trouble.” Twenty-five people died and more were wounded before the strike ended.
Altgeld had opposed the arrival of federal troops, and his fury at their intrusion still smoldered when he gave his State of the State speech almost six months later. “If the President can, at his pleasure, send troops into any city, town, or hamlet…whenever and wherever he pleases, under pretense of enforcing some law,” Altgeld wrote, “his judgment, which means his pleasure being the sole criterion—then there can be no difference whatever in this respect between the powers of the President and those of...the Czar of Russia.”
Pritzker joked that he wished he “could spend just one year of my governorship presiding over precedented times. I yearn for normal problems,” he said. But these are not normal times.
“I’ve been thinking a lot lately about love—about loving people and loving your country and the power involved in both,” the governor said. “I know, right now, there are a lot of people out there who love their country and feel like their country is not loving them back. I know that.” But he told those people that “your country is loving you back—just not in the way you are used to hearing.”
“It’s not speaking in anthems or flags or ostentatious displays of patriotism. It will never come from the people who say the only way to love America is to hate Americans. Love is found in every act of courage—large and small—taken to preserve the country we once knew. You will find it in homes and schools and churches and art. It is there; it has not been squashed.”
Pritzker called out the love shown by “the bicyclers who showed up in Little Village every day during Operation Midway Blitz to buy out tamale carts so the vendors could return to the safety of their homes,” “the parishioners who formed human chains around churches so that immigrants could worship,” and “the moms in the school pickup line who whipped out their cameras and their whistles,” and in “the face of every Midwesterner who put on their heaviest coat and protested outside on the coldest day.”
That love for one’s neighbor, he suggested, is the country’s most powerful tool against the rise of authoritarianism.
“I am begging my fellow politicians, my fellow Illinoisans, my fellow Americans to realize that right now in this country we are not fighting over policy or political party,” Pritzker said. “We are fighting over whether we are going to be a civilization rooted in empathy and kindness—or one rooted in cruelty and rage.”
“I love my country,” Pritzker said. “I refuse to stop. The hope I have found in a very difficult year is that love is the light that gets you through a long night.”
New York Times, Trump Mulls a North American Trade Pact Without Canada, Ana Swanson, Tyler Pager and Matina Stevis-Gridneff, Feb. 19, 2026. U.S. officials are threatening major changes to a trade agreement with Mexico and Canada that could upend the way business is done and leave Canada on the outs.
Earlier this month, President Trump found the latest pressure point to extend his leverage over Canada: a new bridge connecting the country to the United States that is expected to open this year.
Mr. Trump threatened to block the opening, just hours after the billionaire owner of a competing U.S.-Canada bridge met with Howard Lutnick, Mr. Trump’s commerce secretary. It wasn’t that the president was particularly passionate about the new bridge. What excited him, officials familiar with his thinking said, was the opportunity to use the bridge to force Canada to make trade concessions.
“I will not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them, and also, importantly, Canada treats the United States with the Fairness and Respect that we deserve,” Mr. Trump said on social media on Feb. 9.
The threat was a preview of the high-pressure tactics the president is expected to deploy when his administration renegotiates a trade deal with Canada and Mexico. The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which Mr. Trump signed into law during his first term, is set to be reviewed by the summer.
U.S. officials have been raising pressure on Canada to get it to concede to their demands over trade and other issues. Mr. Trump’s threat to block the Detroit-to-Windsor bridge was the latest in a series of flash points that Mr. Trump has capitalized on to needle Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada. In October, Mr. Trump suspended trade talks over an advertisement featuring a historical address by President Ronald Reagan decrying tariffs, which was paid for by the Province of Ontario and aired in the United States. Mr. Carney apologized.
The Trump administration has a list of things it wants Mr. Carney to concede, including longstanding grievances about protected industries in Canada, including the dairy sector. Another pressing issue for the U.S. administration is the fact that liquor distributors controlled by Ontario and other provincial governments in Canada pulled U.S. liquor off their shelves last year, in retaliation against Mr. Trump’s tariffs on Canada.
New York Times, The Three Conflicts Witkoff and Kushner Are Trying to Solve This Week, Steven Erlanger, Feb. 19, 2026. Iran, Ukraine and Gaza are in play as the Trump envoys conduct talks on all of them. But progress in each conflict is scant.
President Trump’s special envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, are racing between Europe and Washington to try to resolve three of the world’s most intractable conflicts.
This week alone, Mr. Witkoff, a businessman and close friend of Mr. Trump, and Mr. Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, were in Geneva to conduct talks on the Iranian nuclear program, even as an American armada builds up near Tehran. They then turned to two days of talks on Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Then they fly to Washington for the first meeting on Thursday of Mr. Trump’s “Board of Peace,” set up to try to resolve the war in Gaza and the larger issue of an Israeli-Palestinian settlement.
Marco Rubio, who is both secretary of state and national security adviser — the first person since Henry Kissinger to hold both roles — seems reduced to a bystander.
New York Times, As ICE Buys Up Warehouses, Even Some Trump Voters Say No, Madeleine Ngo, Hamed Aleaziz and Allison McCann, Feb. 19, 2026 (print ed.). The agency is ramping up arrests, but local pushback is complicating efforts to expand detention capacity and prevent overcrowding.
Stacy Bradley voted for President Trump because of his border policies, and she likes that he has restored “law and order.” But she is unsettled by one aspect of his immigration agenda.
Last month, the federal government bought a warehouse next to her cheerleading gym in Surprise, Ariz., which the administration plans to convert into a detention center for up to 1,500 immigrants.
Ms. Bradley, the co-owner of Woodlands Elite Cheer, said she worried that a detainee could escape, or that protests could break out. The children who train at her gym are as young as 3 and could see “people in shackles” next door, she said.
“That’s a scary thing for a little kid to process,” Ms. Bradley said.
Across the country, the Department of Homeland Security’s plans to buy industrial warehouses and turn them into detention centers for immigrants are running into local resistance, including in communities like Surprise that voted for Mr. Trump in the last presidential election.
The pushback is complicating efforts to expand detention capacity to accommodate the tens of thousands of additional immigrants the administration expects to confine, to deliver on its mass deportation drive.
Local officials and residents in at least a dozen areas have voiced opposition to the facilities, packing town hall meetings and expressing fears that the protests that recently shook Minneapolis could be unleashed in their backyards.
New York Times, How Trump Is Making Sure His Ballroom Plans Sail Through, Luke Broadwater, Feb. 19, 2026. President Trump has installed allies — including his former receptionist — on the boards and commissions tasked with overseeing the project.
When President Harry S. Truman sought to add a balcony to White House in the 1940s, he faced opposition from the Commission of Fine Arts, which asserted that he was disfiguring a national monument.
Mr. Truman pushed past that advice, built the balcony and, for good measure, later fired members of the commission who opposed him.
Don’t expect any such fight this time.
As President Trump seeks to build a $400 million White House ballroom, he has taken several steps to eliminate any pocket of resistance to his plans from within his administration, stacking the boards and commissions tasked with overseeing the project with allies, including several people who work directly for him and some with no notable background in the arts.
Mr. Trump’s latest appointee to the Commission of Fine Arts, for instance, is his former receptionist Chamberlain Harris.
The panel provides advice on the project, but cannot block Mr. Trump.
The Cultural Landscape Foundation, an education and advocacy nonprofit based in Washington, objected to the new makeup of the panel this week, pointing out that the Commission of Fine Arts is supposed to include “experts in relevant disciplines, including art, architecture, landscape architecture and urban design.”
But there are no landscape architects on the panel, which the cultural landscape organization says is a “monumental deficit since the commissioners will be making decisions about one of the nation’s most important and visible designed landscapes.”
The White House has defended Mr. Trump’s picks, maintaining that they are more aligned with the president’s America First agenda.
“President Trump has an incredible eye and appreciation for the arts, and only selects the most talented people possible,” said Davis Ingle, a White House spokesman. “These individuals possess a wealth of experience that reflects the values of everyday Americans and President Trump’s vision to make America great again.”
New York Times, Trump Administration Live Updates: President Says U.S. Will Commit $10 Billion to His Board of Peace, David E. Sanger, Feb. 19, 2026. What We’re Covering Today.
Trump described the Board of Peace as an institution that would “strengthen up the United Nations,” perhaps answering those who questioned whether he was trying to set up a competitor to the U.N. But he also described the Board as a group that is “going to almost be looking over the United Nations and making sure it runs properly.”
Trump just said the United States would pay $10 billion into the Board of Peace, which he created and leads.
He gave no details on where the money would come from or if the administration had even requested it from Congress, which would have to approve the funds.Shawn McCreeshFeb. 19, 2026, 10:27 a.m. ET4 hours ago
New York Times, U.S. Military Moves Into Place for Possible Strikes in Iran, Helene Cooper, Eric Schmitt and Ronen Bergman, Feb. 19, 2026 (print ed.). President Trump has given no indication that he has made a decision about how to proceed, as diplomatic talks continue.
The rapid buildup of U.S. forces in the Middle East has progressed to the point that President Trump has the option to take military action against Iran as soon as this weekend, administration and Pentagon officials said, leaving the White House with high-stakes choices about pursuing diplomacy or war.
Mr. Trump has given no indication that he has made a decision about how to proceed. But the drive to assemble a military force capable of striking Iran’s nuclear program, its ballistic missiles and accompanying launch sites has continued this week despite indirect talks between the two nations on Tuesday, with Iran seeking two weeks to come back with fleshed out proposals for a diplomatic resolution.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly demanded that Iran give up its nuclear program, including agreeing not to enrich any more uranium. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, whose country would potentially take part in an attack, has been pushing for action to weaken Iran’s ability to launch missiles at Israel.
Israeli forces, which have been on heightened alert for weeks, have been making more preparations for a possible war, and a meeting of Israel’s security cabinet was moved to Sunday from Thursday, according to two Israeli defense officials.
Many administration officials have expressed skepticism about the prospects of reaching a diplomatic deal with Tehran. The indirect talks on Tuesday in Geneva ended with what Iran’s foreign minister said was agreement on a “set of guiding principles.” U.S. officials said the two sides made progress but added that big gaps remain.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly threatened that Iran must meet his terms or face severe consequences. But another attack, eight months after a 12-day war in which Israel and the United States assaulted military and nuclear sites across Iran, would potentially carry substantial risks, including that Iran would respond with a ferocious barrage of missile strikes on Israel and on U.S. forces in the region.
For a president who ran for office promising to keep the United States out of wars, Mr. Trump is now considering what would be at least the seventh American military attack in another country in the past year, and his second on Iran. Last June, after striking three Iranian nuclear sites, Mr. Trump declared that Iran’s nuclear program had been “obliterated.” But now he is considering sending U.S. military back to continue the job.Want to stay updated on what’s happening in Iran and Israel? Sign u
But unlike the U.S.-Israeli assault last June, Mr. Trump’s objectives now are less clear.
The U.S. military buildup includes dozens of refueling tankers, rushed to the region by United States Central Command, more than 50 additional fighter jets, and two aircraft carrier strike groups, complete with their accompanying destroyers, cruisers and submarines, U.S. officials said.
The aircraft carrier U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford, fresh from the Caribbean where it was part of the naval fleet pressuring the Venezuelan government of President Nicolás Maduro, was approaching Gibraltar on Wednesday as it made its way to join the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln in the region.Editors’ PicksTeen Tiny Memoirs: The Winners of Our 4th Annual 100-Word Narrative ContestI Receive So Many Angry Text Messages! How Can I Make Them Stop?In Cynthia Erivo’s ‘Dracula,’ There’s Mirth Amid the Horror
“The president has always been very clear, though, with respect to Iran or any country around the world, diplomacy is always his first option, and Iran would be very wise to make a deal with President Trump and with this administration,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said on Wednesday.
More On Epstein Revelations, Reactions
New York Times, Bill Gates Cancels a Keynote Speech Amid the Epstein Controversy, Nicholas Kulish, Feb. 19, 2026. The philanthropist made the announcement on Thursday, after having earlier confirmed his participation in a prominent artificial intelligence summit in India.
The philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates canceled a high-profile speech at an artificial intelligence summit in India amid fresh scrutiny of public figures who maintained relationships with Jeffrey Epstein.
Shortly before Mr. Gates was scheduled to deliver the speech on Thursday, the Gates Foundation issued a brief statement. “After careful consideration, and to ensure the focus remains on the AI Summit’s key priorities, Mr. Gates will not be delivering his keynote address,” the Gates Foundation announced via X.
The statement did not specifically mention Mr. Epstein, but the Justice Department’s recent release of millions of pages of emails, text messages and photographs has brought renewed attention to Mr. Gates. In two newly released documents, Mr. Epstein wrote notes to himself suggesting that Mr. Gates had engaged in extramarital sex and had to acquire drugs “in order to deal with consequences of sex with Russian girls.”
“These claims — from a proven, disgruntled liar — are absolutely absurd and completely false,” a representative for Mr. Gates has said of those missives.
The fact that Mr. Gates and Mr. Epstein, a convicted sex offender, met on numerous occasions and worked together on a potential charitable fund has been public knowledge since shortly after Mr. Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while in custody in the Metropolitan Correctional Center. The volume of messages between Mr. Gates and his representatives and Mr. Epstein, as well as photographs of Mr. Gates released by the Justice Department with women’s faces blacked out to protect their identities, raised new questions about the depth of their ties.
The Epstein files’ release has brought consequences for powerful figures enmeshed in the disgraced financier’s affairs. On Thursday, the British police arrested Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, over accusations that he shared confidential information with Mr. Epstein while serving as a British trade envoy. A former prime minister of Norway, Thorbjorn Jagland, was charged with “gross corruption” in connection with gifts, travel and loans he may have received from Mr. Epstein.
The files show that Mr. Gates met Mr. Jagland, then the head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, through Mr. Epstein. To Mr. Epstein’s dismay, Mr. Gates cut off contact with him, a decision that Mr. Epstein attributed to the influence of Mr. Gates’s wife at the time, Melinda French Gates. Mr. Epstein discussed having Kathryn Ruemmler, a former Obama White House counsel, plead his case to Ms. French Gates.
New York Times, Why Is Trump Dumping East Wing Rubble in a Public Park? Shawn McCreesh, Feb. 19, 2026. The East Potomac Golf Links is a municipal course that has been a fixture in Washington for decades. President Trump is turning it into something else.
This is a story about mud and power in Washington.
It begins at the turn of the 20th century, when this was a smaller, swampier place. Back then, there were great mud flats clogging up the Potomac River, just south of where the Washington Monument stood. Ships could not pass over the shallows. Sewage collected there. A plan was made to build them up into something pretty. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers got to work, dredging the river, piling mud atop the marsh.
The crescent-shaped island that appeared became an important piece of Washington’s modern geography. The Jefferson Memorial was built on the island’s western lip, which backs up to the Tidal Basin and the National Mall. The rest of the man-made island was turned into a public park called East Potomac.
It’s a neat place. There are hundreds of cherry blossom trees, a road for cycling that wraps around the perimeter of the island, and a primo picnic area at its eastern tip. Most of the park is taken up by an affordable golf course that has been there in some form since the beginning. The course, East Potomac Golf Links, is a bit shabby, but the prices are unbeatable: $42 for 18 holes.ImageA black-and-white aerial view of a crescent-shaped island, with the Washington Monument in the backgroundEast Potomac Golf Links in the 1930s, built on an island formed as part of an Army Corps of Engineers project.Credit...Library of Congress
Not much had changed about East Potomac over the decades until one day last October when some dump trucks showed up. The trucks were sent by the White House. They were carrying mud.
The trucks drove onto the golf course and, somewhere between the fourth and ninth holes, began dumping mounds and mounds of the stuff. Tiny bits of rebar, wiring and specks of white plaster poked out from the piles. Word quickly spread among the golfers about the mystery mud. Turned out it was the remains of the East Wing, which President Trump had demolished days earlier.
More Global News
New York Times, Dueling Protests at South Korean Ex-Leader’s Sentencing Highlight Political Rift, Max Kim and Jin Yu Young, Feb. 19, 2026. As a judge reprimanded former President Yoon Suk Yeol for amplifying political tribalism, demonstrators from warring camps blared slogans outside the courtroom
The dueling protests outside the Seoul courthouse where former President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea was sentenced to life imprisonment on Thursday were heavy on bitterness and retributive fervor — familiar sentiments in a country with deep political polarization.
The court found Mr. Yoon guilty of leading an insurrection in 2024, when he declared martial law and sent special forces into the National Assembly to arrest his political opponents. The presiding judge said he had pushed South Korean society into an “extreme state of conflict” between warring political camps.
On Thursday, those tensions were on display outside the courthouse, where pro- and anti-Yoon groups blared their respective slogans — and calls for Mr. Yoon and his political nemesis, President Lee Jae Myung, to receive the death penalty — through loudspeakers.
In one camp, hundreds of Yoon supporters gathered in front of a makeshift stage with a screen playing a live broadcast of the trial. Some waved American flags, a symbol commonly used by South Korea’s far-right movement. One man stood atop a van wearing a jacket that said “MKGA,” short for Make Korea Great Again. Mr. Yoon has enthusiastically courted such crowds ever since his impeachment.
Several blocks away, a smaller cluster of anti-Yoon protesters chanted for the death penalty, the punishment that prosecutors had sought for the ex-president.
One demonstrator, Choi Jaejic, said he had spent nearly every weekend over the past year joining rallies calling for a conviction. “Martial law threw the country into chaos,” said Mr. Choi, a translator. “He took away precious time away from my children.”
“Even the death sentence wouldn’t be enough,” said Kim Mo-geun, a college student in his 20s.
Mr. Yoon himself showed little emotion in court. After his sentence was read aloud, a television camera showed him averting his gaze from the judge.
But his supporters and political adversaries were clearly not satisfied with the verdict.
Mr. Yoon’s lawyers called the sentence political theater, saying in a statement that the judges had ignored the truth and “knelt before the political force that wanted to purge its enemy.” They also vowed to “fight to the end.”Editors’ PicksTeen Tiny Memoirs: The Winners of Our 4th Annual 100-Word Narrative ContestI Receive So Many Angry Text Messages! How Can I Make Them Stop?In Cynthia Erivo’s ‘Dracula,’ There’s Mirth Amid the Horror
“It’s unbelievable,” Kim Sook-min, a Yoon supporter in her 60s, said outside the courthouse as she held a South Korean flag in support of the former president. “I am at a loss for words.”
On the other side of the political divide, Jung Chung-rae, the leader of the governing Democratic Party, expressed disappointment that the sentence had fallen short of the death penalty. He described the outcome as “a ruling that defied the South Korean public’s sense of justice.”
New York Times, Europe Worries About Another Trump Blowup, This One on Tech, Jeanna Smialek, Feb. 19, 2026. Even as trade tensions between the United States and the European Union seem to calm, officials are concerned that a showdown is brewing over the bloc’s digital rules.
After a year filled with trade-related drama between the United States and the European Union, one outstanding gripe still has potential to fuel the fire: how the bloc regulates technology.
At the heart of that dispute is the bloc’s Digital Services Act, which requires big technology companies to take steps to prevent illegal or dangerous content on their platforms. The Trump administration, arguing that the regulations impede free speech and put up unfair barriers to American firms, has warned repeatedly that it could retaliate.
Now, European officials are beginning to fret, privately and in public, that this is merely the calm before the next Trump-created storm.
“The U.S. will in the coming months — that’s certain — attack us over digital regulation,” President Emmanuel Macron of France told several European news outlets in an interview this month, suggesting that the United States could hit the European Union with tariffs related to the Digital Services Act.
The Trump administration has recently echoed that prediction.
Europe’s online services regulation “has become almost like a digital speed trap to try and fine American companies,” David Sacks, a White House official, said on his All-In podcast last month.
“You could argue that it’s effectively like a tariff on American tech companies operating in Europe,” he added. “If that’s the case, well, I mean, I guess Europe is allowed to have tariffs — but then that’s going to change the tariffs that we set.”
Sarah B. Rogers, the under secretary of state for public diplomacy at the State Department and a guest on that podcast episode, agreed that “a lot of Americans see this as a tax.”
Bill White, the U.S. ambassador to Belgium, said in an interview that Michael J. Rigas, a top State Department official, would come to Brussels in early March in part to discuss free speech and digital regulation with European Union officials. The State Department press office confirmed that he would make the trip and would discuss E.U. digital regulations.New York Times, In Devastated Gaza, Grandiose Peace Plans Clash With Reality, Isabel Kershner,Adam Rasgon, Aaron Boxerman and Natan Odenheimer, Photographs by Saher Alghorra, Feb. 19, 2026. Israeli strikes on Gaza have killed about 600 people since a cease-fire began, according to health officials in the territory. Many displaced Palestinians are still living in tents. And there are some 60 million tons of war debris to be cleared.
As President Trump prepares for the inaugural gathering of his “Board of Peace” in Washington on Thursday, there are detailed proposals encompassing hopes and dreams for a gleaming new postwar Gaza.
Then there is reality.
“Trump is trying to make things rosy, but as a matter of fact, the situation is still catastrophic,” said Prof. Mkhaimar Abusada, a Palestinian political analyst from Gaza City who was displaced from his home during the Israel-Hamas war and now resides in Cairo.
A fragile cease-fire came into force in October, two years after the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel that ignited the war. But the path forward is uncharted, labyrinthine and strewed with obstacles.
“The Trump cease-fire plan is struggling to succeed,” Professor Abusada said, blaming both Hamas and Israel.
Member states of the new international body tasked with rebuilding Gaza have pledged more than $5 billion for humanitarian and reconstruction efforts in the enclave, according to Mr. Trump. But that is only a fraction of what is needed. The United Nations has estimated the cost of rebuilding the territory at more than $50 billion.
Countries have also committed thousands of troops and personnel, laying the ground work for an International Stabilization Force meant to “maintain Security,” Mr. Trump said.
More On U.S. Politics, Elections
New York Times, Ohio’s Covid Czar Hopes to Be the State’s Democratic Governor, Kate Zernike, Feb. 19, 2026. Amy Acton’s service to retiring Gov. Mike DeWine gives her bipartisan credibility in a Republican state, but that service, leading Ohio’s pandemic response, also stirs charged emotions.
In her bid to be Ohio’s next governor, Amy Acton sometimes warns audiences that her voice may trigger feelings.
It’s the voice millions of Ohioans heard live from their televisions every afternoon at 2 p.m. during the earliest, darkest days of the coronavirus pandemic, as Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, and Dr. Acton, serving as his health director, delivered daily briefings on the virus.
Now Dr. Acton is the presumptive Democratic nominee to succeed Mr. DeWine, and her voice provides a test for the political moment, six years postpandemic. Her service to Mr. DeWine, who is term-limited, could be a perfect calling card in an increasingly Republican state, marking her as a pragmatic moderate willing to work across party lines.
But that service — running the Covid response — provokes intense emotions. In her race against the presumptive Republican nominee, Vivek Ramaswamy, a billionaire entrepreneur and one-time presidential candidate, the question is, which feelings will prevail?
To many, Dr. Acton’s voice in the daily briefings was firm but reassuring. She inspired bobblehead dolls, little girls dressing up like her in white lab coats and admiring profiles in national publications. An animated tribute video substituted “DeWine and Amy” for the stars in the opening sequence of “Laverne & Shirley.” (“We’re gonna make our state pull through/Doin’ it our way!”)
To many others, hers was the crushingly cautious voice of Dr. Doom. She issued a stay-at-home order to the state’s 11 million residents after three people had died. The state was the first to close its schools. As lockdown orders continued, angry small-business owners, anti-vaccine activists and men brandishing handguns demonstrated outside her house. Legislators tried to impeach her and called her antisemitic slurs (she is Jewish) at the same time they likened her orders to Nazism.
Ohio, once a swing state, is challenging enough for any Democrat: It voted twice for Barack Obama, but no Democrat has won statewide since 2018. The state has elected only one Democrat as governor in the last 35 years.
And running as the person who ran Covid response is a decidedly mixed blessing. Dr. Acton has wide name recognition and offers herself as a public servant — a doctor, not a politician. But for some people in Ohio and across the nation, the pandemic turned public health officials into public enemies, accused of misinformation, killing businesses and causing long-lasting damage to children shut out of school.
“People hate that time in their life, they absolutely hated it,” said Jai Chabria, Mr. Ramaswamy’s chief strategist. “They also don’t want to talk about it, they don’t want to be reminded of it. The problem for her is, that’s who she is.”
Dr. Acton said she believed her experience with Covid gave her the kind of deep connection with Ohioans that is forged in trying times.
“Talking to them honestly, doing the things we did in that moment, created this bond,” she said.
“Even hearing my voice brings back that sense” with voters, she added.
Ohio showed success during Dr. Acton’s time in the Covid hot seat; a month in, the state had 193 deaths, while neighboring Michigan, with a smaller population, had 959. But in a preview of a campaign that promises to be ugly and the most expensive in state history, Mr. Ramaswamy has accused Dr. Acton of lying about death rates to justify lockdowns that damaged the state’s economy.
He has mocked her for tearing up in briefings as the death toll rose, and for quitting her position three months into the pandemic — Dr. Acton says she stepped down because the Republican-led legislature was asking her to sign reopening orders that would have violated her Hippocratic oath to do no harm.
314 Action, an organization that works to elect scientists and doctors, counts 35 doctors, nurses, or public health professionals who are not incumbents and are running as Democrats for the House, Senate or governor. They are inspired in part by the Trump administrations cuts to health care and scientific research budgets, and the anti-science, anti-vaccine bent of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Mr. Trump’s top health official.
Dr. Acton is betting that the nation is ready to shake off its political long Covid and vote instead on the rising costs of health care, heat and housing, and the turmoil of the Trump presidency.
New York Times, Texas Congressman’s Aide Told Co-Worker of Affair Before Killing Herself, J. David Goodman and Edgar Sandoval, Updated Feb. 19, 2026. The co-worker, who no longer works for Representative Tony Gonzales, shared screenshots of the text exchange with The New York Times. Mr. Gonzales accused his Republican primary challenger of being behind the revelation.
An aide to Representative Tony Gonzales of Texas sent a text message to a co-worker last April saying that she had an affair with the Republican congressman, according to the co-worker who shared the text exchange with The New York Times.
The text message, first reported on Tuesday by The San Antonio Express-News, and then obtained on Wednesday by The Times, has thrown Mr. Gonzales’s re-election fight into turmoil just as voters in Texas have begun casting primary ballots.
The aide who said she had the affair died by suicide five months after sending the text, when she lit herself on fire in the backyard of her home.
“I had affair with our boss and I’m fine,” the aide, Regina Ann Santos-Aviles, wrote last April 27, referring to Mr. Gonzales, a married father of six.
Mr. Gonzales would not comment on allegations of an affair. The congressman, who has at times broken with President Trump but has the president’s endorsement, is locked in a tough primary fight with a challenger to his right, Brandon Herrera. Mr. Gonzales accused Mr. Herrera on Wednesday of being behind the release of the text message.
The staff member who received the text is no longer working for Mr. Gonzales. The former aide said in an interview on Wednesday that he did not agree with Mr. Herrera’s hard-right politics, but decided to share screenshots of the text exchange with The Times because Ms. Santos-Aviles had been a friend and had been wronged by Mr. Gonzales.
Mr. Gonzales said in the statement on Wednesday that Ms. Santos-Aviles had been a “kind soul who devoted her life to making the community a better place” but that he would not respond to the allegation of an affair.
“I am not going to engage in these personal smears,” the congressman said, adding that he would instead “remain focused on helping President Trump secure the border and improve the lives of all Texans.”
But on Wednesday evening, Bobby Barrera, an attorney for Ms. Santos-Aviles’ husband, Adrian Aviles, corroborated that Ms. Santos-Aviles confessed to her husband in June of 2024 that she had been having an affair with Mr. Gonzales for about a month. Mr. Aviles had come home and noticed his wife was texting someone.Editors’ PicksTeen Tiny Memoirs: The Winners of Our 4th Annual 100-Word Narrative ContestI Receive So Many Angry Text Messages! How Can I Make Them Stop?In Cynthia Erivo’s ‘Dracula,’ There’s Mirth Amid the Horror
After he asked to see the phone, Mr. Barrera said he saw texts of Mr. Gonzales asking for a meeting with his wife and requesting photos of her.
“She made the admission that she was having an affair with Tony Gonzales,” Mr. Barrera said.
Mr. Barrera said she broke off the affair and lived apart from her husband. Marriage counseling failed. Ms. Santos-Aviles struggled mentally and felt ostracized at her work, the lawyer said. The night of her death, she told a friend that she wanted to harm herself and took a video of the incident.
U.S. Media, Culture, Education
Paul Krugman via Substack, Political-Economy Commentary: A Pause to Refresh, Paul Krugman, right, Feb. 19, 2026. One morning, when I woke from troubled dreams, I found myself transformed into an … influencer. [/end Franz Kafka]
I’m taking a semi-break. I won’t do a full post today, just offer a note on where things stand with this Substack.
When I left the New York Times I wasn’t looking for a new job, but I also didn’t want to go silent. I reactivated this newsletter as a way to stay in the discourse, weighing in on and, I hoped, influencing for the better the way some issues were discussed.
As it turns out, however, Substack has become a job — a full-time job for two people, because Robin Wells, my wife and textbook co-author, is deeply involved in researching and editing. That’s fine. What am I going to do, spend my days golfing? (I don’t play golf.) I should, however, take more breaks, which I am sort of doing today.
Along the way, the newsletter has become a tool for informing as well as influencing, with subscribers telling me that they read this Substack to find out what’s going on — which is great. But influence is still my main goal. How’s it going?
At the time I’m writing this, I have >500K subscribers — 528,842, but who’s counting? Weekday posts, which are free, typically get around 500K views. So people are reading what I write.
Substack also has bestseller lists, which as I understand it are based on paid subscribers. Here’s the top of the US politics list:
Popular Information, Accountability Journalism: How Trump Media collapsed, Judd Legum, right, Feb. 19, 2026. Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), the parent company of Truth Social, has an unrivaled free source of publicity. President Trump, who is also TMTG’s largest shareholder, posts extensively on the Truth Social platform, sometimes dozens of times in a single day. He is essentially leveraging the full weight of the presidency, the world’s most powerful office, to drive awareness of TMTG’s offerings.
Yet, by all objective metrics, TMTG is failing.
The stock price, which trades under the ticker symbol DJT, peaked at nearly $62 in March 2024, shortly after the company went public through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). On February 17, DJT stock closed below $10 per share, an all-time low. (It rallied modestly on Wednesday, closing at $10.48.)
What happened?
First, the fundamentals of the business are poor. In the three months ending September 2025, the most recent quarterly data available, TMTG reported $972,000 in revenue and a net loss of $58.4 million. The business is burning money at an alarming rate and has done so since its inception. It has never brought in more than $4 million per year while losing hundreds of millions of dollars.
TMTG’s core business, Truth Social, has remained tiny despite Trump’s frequent promotion. SimilarWeb estimated Truth Social had around 359,000 daily active users in 2025. Its top competitors, X and Threads, each have more than 100 million daily active users.
In its 2021 pitch deck to investors, TMTG projected it would have $1.8 billion in revenue in 2025 and 69 million users on Truth Social. It also estimated that it would have 23 million paid users of its TMTG+ video streaming service.
TMTG has launched a video streaming service, Truth+, but most content is available for free. The company has not disclosed how many people have subscribed to its $9.99 premium service. The same pitch deck projected 2026 revenue would double to $3.67 billion
With its core business stagnant, TMTG has sought to diversify its business to prop up its stock price. Its biggest swing came in May 2025 when TMTG announced it was raising $2.5 billion to buy Bitcoin and Bitcoin related securities. The goal was to transform TMTG into a bitcoin treasury company, tying DJT stock to the price of bitcoin, rather than the performance of Truth Social and other business activities.
TMTG executed this strategy by issuing 55.8 million new DJT shares, which diluted the value of existing stock, and issuing $1 billion in zero interest convertible notes.
This turned out to be a massive mistake. By December 2025, TMTG had purchased 11,542 Bitcoin at an average price of $108,000. The price of Bitcoin has since collapsed to about $67,000, generating an unrealized loss of about $472 million.
Beyond buying Bitcoin, TMTG has expanded into a number of other industries with little or no connection to social media.“America First” investment products
In January 2025, TMTG announced the launch of Truth.Fi, through which it would offer various financial services. Through Truth.Fi, TMTG has created exchange traded funds (ETFs) with themes that match Trump’s political agenda — “Made in America,” “America First,” and “Bitcoin Plus.” It has also offered separately managed accounts (SMAs), a more bespoke investment vehicle for high-net worth individuals. These were pitched by TMTG and its partners as not just as an investment vehicle but as “a declaration of support for businesses essential to our economy, national security, and enduring freedoms” and an endorsement of “America First principles.”
Whether Truth.Fi’s ETFs and SMAs will meaningfully contribute to TMTG’s revenue remains to be seen. The ETFs only launched in 2026 and face competition from countless other investment vehicles.
The Crypto.com partnership
In September 2025, TMTG announced that it would offer Crypto.com’s Cronos tokens (CRO) as rewards for engagement on Truth Social. As part of the announcement, TMTG purchased 684.4 million CRO at a price of 15.3 cents per token. CRO tokens now trade at about 7.8 cents, creating an unrealized loss of over $51 million.
Crypto.com and TMTG also announced a plan to create a separate company, Trump Media Group CRO Strategy, Inc., that would hold billions in CRO tokens. With the price of CRO collapsing, the new company has not yet come to fruition. TMTG is also partnering with Crypto.com to create a prediction market, similar to Kalshi and Polymarket, called Truth Predict. It has not yet launched.
Under the Biden administration, Crypto.com was under SEC investigation. The Trump administration dropped the inquiry, and shortly thereafter Crypto.com became TMTG’s most important business partner.The nuclear fusion tie-up
TMTG’s wildest move came in December 2025, when it announced a merger with TAE Technologies, a nuclear fusion company. The deal is valued at $6 billion and is expected to close later in 2026.
After an initial bump in the share price, investors appear to have cooled on the idea of merging a failing social media company with an energy company focused on speculative technology. The deal has raised practical concerns — no one has successfully produced energy using nuclear fusion at scale — and ethical ones. Nuclear fusion will likely need extensive support from the federal government to become viable.Trading at an all-time low, TMTG still has an absurdly high valuation
Even at around $10 per share, TMTG still has a market capitalization of $2.9 billion. DJT stock is buoyed by retail investors who view it as a proxy for support for Trump himself. It also benefits from investor conviction that TMTG, given its relationship with Trump, will find a way to succeed. Its performance to date, however, has done little to validate that conviction.
The Contrarian, Opinion: Orwell Would Cringe, Jennifer Rubin, right, Feb. 19, 2026. By Trump’s assault on the First Amendment continues.
MAGA bad faith attacks on “wokeness” and left-wing “censorship” have obscured their thinly veiled effort to eradicate the history of non-whites, normalize racism, silence critics, and demand that white Christian nationalism be foisted on the rest of us. A year into Donald Trump’s autocratic rule, no one should doubt what the regime is up to.
Unabashed racism and antisemitism are part and parcel of MAGA’s verbiage and ideology. The vendetta against progressive academics; the movement to establish religion (and anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry) in public schools; and the assault on DEI (going as far as eliminating grants designed to combat certain population’s health issues) underscore the game-plan to insulate their own repulsive speech and falsehoods from any adverse consequences (social, political, economic or professional), while demolishing facts and crushing everyone else’s free speech rights.
The Trump regime enforces this double standard with authoritarian venom. From punishing foreign students for pro-Palestinian demonstrations to physically assaulting and threatening peaceful anti-ICE protests to frivolous lawsuits bullying media outlets and clamping down on late night talk show hosts, the MAGA regime has undertaken a censorship campaign not experienced since the Red Scare. Two recent cases highlight Trump’s dual threat to free speech: enforced conformity to a MAGA worldview, and punishment for dissent. (Credit: Feverpitched)
False history
In a decision this week, U.S. District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania held that the Trump regime’s removal of an educational display about enslaved people from “The President’s House” exhibit at the Independence National Historical Park impermissibly attempted to rewrite history, warranting a TRO on behalf of the city of Philadelphia to stop further desecration of the site.
Rufe began powerfully:
As if the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984 now existed, with its motto ‘Ignorance is Strength,’ this Court is now asked to determine whether the federal government has the power it claims—to dissemble and disassemble historical truths when it has some domain over historical facts. It does not.
This was an easy case based on a simple reading of the relevant statute and undisputed historical fact. The legislation at issue authorized the Interior Department “to enter into cooperative agreements with the city of Philadelphia to assist in the preservation and interpretation of the property.” It specified that “no changes or alterations shall be made in the property within the Independence Hall including its buildings and grounds . . . except by mutual agreement.” The Trump regime acted unilaterally, and hence, illegally.
After dismissing specious claims that the court lacked jurisdiction to review the matter, Rufe held that the cooperative agreement authorizing such displays “clearly emphasizes the role of slavery and the importance of recognizing paradoxes at Independence National Historical Park.” Rufe slammed the government’s argument that “truth is no longer self-evident, but rather the property of the elected chief magistrate and his appointees and delegees, at his whim to be scraped clean, hidden, or overwritten. . . . [s]olely because, as Defendants state, it has the power.”
The court knocked down the Trump regime’s argument that it alone could determine facts (just as courts have refused to buy into the regime’s lies concerning an “invasion” from Venezuela or a “rebellion” allowing national guard to occupy cities). “An agency, whether the Department of the Interior, NPS, or any other agency, cannot arbitrarily decide what is true, based on its own whims or the whims of the new leadership, regardless of the evidence before it,” Rufe concluded.
In sum, Rufe upheld the proposition that the Trump regime, so long as district courts have the will to enforce the Constitution, does not have the power to override statutes, disregard history, or exercise dictatorial control over our national narrative. “Each person who visits the President’s House and does not learn of the realities of founding-era slavery receives a false account of this country’s history.” This principle is essential to preserving the true history of America while staving off dictatorship.Subscribed
Crushing dissent
In another recent holding, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon for the District of Columbia blasted Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s effort to punish retired Navy officer Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) for a video with five House and Senate colleagues reminding armed services personnel to follow the Constitution. (The utterly dimwitted and constitutional ignoramus Jeanine Pirro failed to obtain an indictment against Kelly and his colleagues.)
Leon declared that while current service members have less robust First Amendment rights, “no court has ever extended those principles to retired service members, much less a retired service member serving in Congress and exercising oversight responsibility over the military. This Court will not be the first to do so!”
The judge, showing a preference for exclamation marks and fondness for folk lyrics, also rebuked Hegseth’s claim that the court lacked sufficient facts to decide the case:
This Court has all it needs to conclude that Defendants have trampled on Senator Kelly’s First Amendment freedoms and threatened the constitutional liberties of millions of military retirees. After all, as Bob Dylan famously said, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” To say the least, our retired veterans deserve more respect from their Government, and our Constitution demands they receive it!
Leon concluded that rather “than trying to shrink the First Amendment liberties of retired service members, Secretary Hegseth and his fellow Defendants might reflect and be grateful for the wisdom and expertise that retired service members have brought to public discussions and debate on military matters in our Nation over the past 250 years.” He added, “If so, they will more fully appreciate why the Founding Fathers made free speech the first Amendment in the Bill of Rights!”
These cases illustrate well-established features of Trump’s lawless regime that either utterly lacks any understanding of the First Amendment, American history, and basic legislative interpretation, or (more likely) chooses to disregard all three. It aims to harass, chill speech, and penalize its opponents for daring to object to the frightful MAGA worldview.
Trump’s bludgeoning of opponents about inarguable facts (e.g., George Washington owned slaves, military personnel are obligated to follow the Constitution — not the whims of one mad king) is as much intended for his adherents’ consumption. His insistence on blatant falsehoods (e.g., election denial) forces allies to debase themselves by embracing obvious falsehoods. Forcing his own side to comply with absurd and easily disprovable assertions is a telltale sign of an aspiring strongman.
Finally, the regime’s lawyers’ incessant refrain that courts have no role in controlling the executive shows Trump’s utter contempt for checks and balances. Increasingly, however, courts appear to be growing impatient with this arrogant assumption of executive supremacy. If they want to deter further overreach and deter disobedience to court orders, judges should start sanctioning government lawyers for speciously arguing that the courts are irrelevant.
We need not indulge MAGA cultists who insist they are virtuous victims, muzzled by the left. The only ones muzzling critics are the historical and constitutional know-nothings who repeatedly try to rewrite history to comport with their goal of establishing a white supremacist autocracy. Such maneuvers are un-American — and cannot stand if our democracy is to survive.
Feb. 18
Top Stories
Humanity as Trump Advisors Call Critical Meeting Ahead of November, Aaron Parnas, right, Feb. 18, 2026. Today marks a pivotal moment in the Epstein files. United Nations experts say the newly released records may meet the legal threshold for crimes against humanity, signaling that the fallout is no longer just national but global.Emptywheel, Analysis: John Roberts Wrote the Permission Slip for the Fulton County Fiasco, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler), Feb. 18, 2026. I’ve been deliberately waiting to comment on FBI’s seizure of Fulton County’s 2020 election records. There was so much going on, and I was pretty sure we’d get further clarity on what FBI did. That proved out.More On U.S. Governance, Politics, Elections
Feb. 18, 2026. Understanding the oligarchs’ power grab and the dire threat to American democracy. Global News
Feb. 18, 2026. Trump’s White House website welcomes visitors with a pop-up that reads: “WELCOME TO THE GOLDEN AGE!”U.S. Media, Propaganda, Education, Culture
right, Rebecca Crosby and Noel Sims, Feb. 18, 2026. CBS forbade Late Show host Stephen Colbert from interviewing Texas State Representative James Talarico, a Democrat running to unseat Republican Senator John Cornyn. The incident is a chilling example of how the Trump administration and allied media organizations are colluding to suppress critical coverage of the administration.U.S. Crime, Courts, Law, Rights
Top Stories
The Parnas Perspective, News and Commentary: UN Review Finds Epstein Files Likely Amount to Crimes Against Humanity as Trump Advisors Call Critical Meeting Ahead of November, Aaron Parnas, right, Feb. 18, 2026. Today marks a pivotal moment in the Epstein files. United Nations experts say the newly released records may meet the legal threshold for crimes against humanity, signaling that the fallout is no longer just national but global.
At the same time, a key alleged co-conspirator is being placed under oath in the United States. The Pope has formally rejected Trump’s invitation to join the proposed “Board of Peace.” And in another striking development, Trump arranged for a pardoned drug trafficker to be sent to a luxury New York hotel after his release. There is far more unfolding.
Here’s the news:
According to Reuters, a panel of independent experts appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council said that millions of newly released U.S. Justice Department files related to Jeffrey Epstein point to what they described as a “global criminal enterprise.” They said the systematic and transnational abuse of women and girls outlined in the documents—allegedly carried out amid racism, corruption and extreme misogyny—could meet the legal threshold for crimes against humanity.
The experts called for an independent and thorough investigation and criticized compliance failures and botched redactions that exposed sensitive information about more than 1,200 identified victims. They also noted that Epstein, who had ties to prominent figures and pleaded guilty to prostitution charges in 2008, was found dead in jail in 2019 after being charged with sex trafficking.
Les Wexner, right, is set to give hours of closed-door testimony before the House Oversight Committee as part of a bipartisan investigation into his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, with questioning to take place at his New Albany, Ohio, residence rather than in Washington. Legal experts say the sworn deposition will allow lawmakers from both parties to question him in multiple rounds, and Wexner may invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, though details of the session will not be made public.
Rep. Ted Lieu, left, said the recently released Epstein files reference Donald Trump numerous times and contain what he 
described as highly disturbing allegations, including claims that Trump raped and threatened children, though he characterized them as allegations.
After President Trump pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who had been serving a 45-year sentence for drug trafficking, federal prison officials removed his immigration detainer late at night so he would not be transferred to ICE custody and instead allowed him to walk free, per ProPublica.
Rather than being released with a bus or plane ticket like most inmates, Hernández was permitted to use a government phone to speak with a senior Bureau of Prisons official, and a specialized tactical team was paid overtime to drive him from a high-security West Virginia prison to a luxury hotel in New York, treatment that staff described as unprecedented and far different from standard release procedures .
Susie Wiles and other political advisers discussed having Cabinet members travel to targeted congressional districts to support vulnerable lawmakers, coordinating closely with the White House on where to deploy them. They plan to emphasize an affordability-focused message and strategize how to divide messaging responsibilities with Trump, marking their first major gathering ahead of next week’s State of the Union in an election year.
Axios has confirmed that the Trump administration is edging closer to possible military action against Iran as nuclear negotiations show little sign of success, with officials warning that if talks collapse, a large-scale, potentially joint U.S.-Israeli campaign could follow. The U.S. has significantly expanded its military presence in the region, deploying aircraft carriers, warships, fighter jets and moving large quantities of weapons and ammunition, while advisers signal that Trump may be unwilling to back down without major nuclear concessions from Tehran, raising the prospect of imminent strikes if diplomacy fails.
Overnight, a massive airlift of American aircraft began to the Middle East in preparation of what could be a large-scale war.
The Vatican said it will not participate in President Trump’s proposed “Board of Peace,” with Cardinal Pietro Parolin stating that international crises should be managed primarily by the United Nations rather than a state-led initiative. The board was initially created to oversee Gaza’s temporary governance following a fragile ceasefire and is set to hold its first meeting in Washington to discuss reconstruction, but it has drawn criticism for resembling a colonial structure and for not including Palestinian representation.
A new Reuters/Ipsos poll found that a strong majority of Americans believe wealthy and powerful people are rarely held accountable, following the release of millions of records detailing Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to elite business and political figures. Sixty-nine percent of respondents said that view described their thinking very or extremely well, with another 17% saying it fit somewhat well, and more than 80% of both Republicans and Democrats agreeing at least to some extent.
FCC Commissioner Anna M. Gomez criticized CBS for what she described as “corporate capitulation” to the Trump administration, accusing the government of attempting to censor and control speech after Stephen Colbert said the network told him not to air an interview with a Texas Democratic Senate candidate. Gomez, the only Democrat on the FCC, said the agency has no authority to pressure broadcasters for political reasons and emphasized that CBS is protected under the First Amendment to decide its programming, making its reported decision to yield to political pressure especially concerning.
More than a dozen health and environmental groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency in federal court over its repeal of the landmark 2009 “endangerment finding,” arguing that the rollback undermines the Clean Air Act and weakens the legal basis for regulating greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles and power plants, while the Trump administration defended the move as a major deregulatory action and dismissed concerns about public health impacts.
Federal and Minnesota authorities are investigating an ICE arrest in which Alberto Castañeda Mondragón, a Mexican citizen, suffered eight skull fractures and a brain hemorrhage after agents took him into custody in January. He alleges officers beat him with a baton, while ICE claims he injured himself by falling while trying to flee in handcuffs, a version doctors say is inconsistent with his injuries. Investigators are seeking surveillance footage as scrutiny grows over ICE conduct in Minnesota, and Castañeda Mondragón faces a pending immigration appointment that could result in renewed detention.
NBC has confirmed that Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker plans to propose a two-year suspension of tax incentives for new data centers, citing concerns about their impact on the state’s energy grid, rising utility costs and community backlash, while directing agencies to study their economic and environmental effects; the proposal, which requires legislative approval, comes as other states weigh increased oversight amid the rapid expansion of AI-driven facilities
A Pennsylvania man whose murder conviction was overturned after 43 years in prison was denied bail as he fights deportation, with an immigration judge ruling that his past felony drug conviction makes detention mandatory, while his attorney argues he would likely have become a U.S. citizen if not for the wrongful conviction and maintains he poses no danger to the community.
NBC News has confirmed that a senior U.S. official said seismic data suggests China conducted a low-yield underground nuclear test in June 2020, though international monitors said the data was insufficient to confirm this, and China denied the allegation, calling it political manipulation amid rising tensions over nuclear arms control.
A federal judge in Florida has scheduled a trial date of February 15, 2027, for President Donald Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC over a Panorama program, with a calendar call set for February 9, 2027, and proceedings to take place at the Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. U.S. Courthouse in Miami.
The FDA will review Moderna’s application for a new mRNA flu vaccine after previously declining to evaluate it, following amendments to the proposal and discussions with regulators. The updated application seeks full approval for adults ages 50 to 64 and accelerated approval for those 65 and older, with a required follow-up study, easing concerns in the drug industry that the earlier rejection signaled broader resistance to new vaccine development under the Trump administration.
Fifteen members of Congress wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio seeking information on what actions the U.S. has taken in response to the alleged mistreatment of Mohammed Ibrahim, a Palestinian American teenager from Florida who spent nine months in Israeli detention after being arrested at age 15 in the West Bank. Lawmakers cited reports that he was severely underweight, suffered a skin infection, and described beatings, threats and inadequate food and medical care while detained, urging a thorough investigation and accountability, particularly given that he is a U.S. citizen.
A new study found that chikungunya, a painful mosquito-borne tropical disease, can now be transmitted across most of Europe due to rising temperatures and the spread of the invasive Asian tiger mosquito, lowering the minimum temperature threshold for transmission and expanding the number of countries and months at risk, with scientists warning that continued climate warming could drive the disease further north and lead to larger outbreaks.
New York Times, Opinion: Netanyahu Plays Trump and American Jews for Fools — Again, Thomas L. Friedman, right,
Feb. 18, 2026 (print ed.). Let’s stop beating around the bush: Israel’s far-right government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is spitting in America’s face and telling us it’s raining. It’s not raining. Bibi is playing both President Trump and American Jews for fools. And if the U.S. lets him get away with it, we are fools.
While keeping Trump focused on the Iranian missile and nuclear threat — which, though reduced, is still very real and will have to be dealt with diplomatically or militarily — Bibi is fundamentally threatening broader U.S. interests in the Middle East, not to mention the security of Jews all over the world. In what way? I cannot put it any more succinctly than Ehud Olmert, the former Israeli prime minister, did.
“A violent and criminal effort is underway to ethnically cleanse territories in the West Bank,” he wrote in an essay in Haaretz this month. “Gangs of armed settlers persecute, harm, wound and even kill Palestinians living there. The rampages include burning olive groves, houses and cars; breaking into homes; and physically assaulting people.” He continued: “The rioters, the Jewish terrorists, storm Palestinians with hate and violence with one objective: to force them to flee from their homes. All this is done in the hopes that the land will then be prepared for Jewish settlement, en route to realizing the dream of annexing all the territories.”
Israel’s accelerating attempts toward annexation of the West Bank and to permanently remain in Gaza — and deny Palestinians political rights in both areas — are as morally reckless and demographically insane as would be the U.S. annexing Mexico.
If it were just Israelis who were going to be hurt by the crazy fantasy that some seven million Israeli Jews can control about seven million Palestinian Arabs in perpetuity, I might be tempted to say that if Israel’s leaders want to commit national suicide, I can’t stop them.
But the effects will not be confined to Israel. I believe that this messianically driven endeavor will make today’s Israel permanently indistinguishable from apartheid South Africa and will have seriously detrimental implications for both American interests and the interests and security of Jews all over the world.
If Netanyahu’s government stays on this course, it will rip apart Jewish institutions everywhere as members of the Jewish diaspora are forced to decide whether to stand with or against an apartheidlike Israel. It will also accelerate the trend begun by Israel’s devastation of Gaza wherein growing numbers of young Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. are turning against Israel and, at the fringes, against Jews in general.
New York Times, U.S. Military Moves Into Place for Possible Strikes in Iran, Helene Cooper, Eric Schmitt and Ronen Bergman, Feb. 18, 2026. President Trump has given no indication that he has made a decision about how to proceed, as diplomatic talks continue.
The rapid buildup of U.S. forces in the Middle East has progressed to the point that President Trump has the option to take military action against Iran as soon as this weekend, administration and Pentagon officials said, leaving the White House with high-stakes choices about pursuing diplomacy or war.
Mr. Trump has given no indication that he has made a decision about how to proceed. But the drive to assemble a military force capable of striking Iran’s nuclear program, its ballistic missiles and accompanying launch sites has continued this week despite indirect talks between the two nations on Tuesday, with Iran seeking two weeks to come back with fleshed out proposals for a diplomatic resolution.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly demanded that Iran give up its nuclear program, including agreeing not to enrich any more uranium. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, whose country would potentially take part in an attack, has been pushing for action to weaken Iran’s ability to launch missiles at Israel.
Israeli forces, which have been on heightened alert for weeks, have been making more preparations for a possible war, and a meeting of Israel’s security cabinet was moved to Sunday from Thursday, according to two Israeli defense officials.
Many administration officials have expressed skepticism about the prospects of reaching a diplomatic deal with Tehran. The indirect talks on Tuesday in Geneva ended with what Iran’s foreign minister said was agreement on a “set of guiding principles.” U.S. officials said the two sides made progress but added that big gaps remain.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly threatened that Iran must meet his terms or face severe consequences. But another attack, eight months after a 12-day war in which Israel and the United States assaulted military and nuclear sites across Iran, would potentially carry substantial risks, including that Iran would respond with a ferocious barrage of missile strikes on Israel and on U.S. forces in the region.
For a president who ran for office promising to keep the United States out of wars, Mr. Trump is now considering what would be at least the seventh American military attack in another country in the past year, and his second on Iran. Last June, after striking three Iranian nuclear sites, Mr. Trump declared that Iran’s nuclear program had been “obliterated.” But now he is considering sending U.S. military back to continue the job.Want to stay updated on what’s happening in Iran and Israel? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update, and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.
But unlike the U.S.-Israeli assault last June, Mr. Trump’s objectives now are less clear.
The U.S. military buildup includes dozens of refueling tankers, rushed to the region by United States Central Command, more than 50 additional fighter jets, and two aircraft carrier strike groups, complete with their accompanying destroyers, cruisers and submarines, U.S. officials said.
The aircraft carrier U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford, fresh from the Caribbean where it was part of the naval fleet pressuring the Venezuelan government of President Nicolás Maduro, was approaching Gibraltar on Wednesday as it made its way to join the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln in the region.
Drop Site Daily, Global News Updates: U.S. kills 11 in triple vessel strike; U.S. sells over $1 billion in Venezuelan oil, Staff and wire reports, Feb. 18, 2026. U.S. military kills 11 in triple vessel strike: The U.S. military conducted strikes on three boats in the Eastern Pacific and the Caribbean on Monday night, killing 11 people, according to U.S. Southern Command.
SOUTHCOM posted video of the strikes and claimed without evidence they were engaged in narco-trafficking. It continued, “Eleven male narco-terrorists were killed during these actions, 4 on the first vessel in the Eastern Pacific, 4 on the second vessel in the Eastern Pacific, and 3 on the third vessel in the Caribbean.” The Trump administration’s targeting of vessels has killed at least 145 people in dozens of strikes on boats in the Pacific and Caribbean since September.
U.S. sells over $1 billion in Venezuelan oil and projects expanded production: U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Fox News that the United States has sold more than $1 billion worth of Venezuelan crude since the removal of President Nicolás Maduro in January, with short-term agreements expected to generate an additional $5 billion in sales in the coming months. Much of the oil is slated to be processed in American refineries, though the profits are supposed to be returned to Venezuela’s interim government. Wright estimated that annual revenues could exceed $10 billion if production and exports stabilize, projecting that Venezuela’s output—currently around 1 million barrels per day—could rise 30–40 percent within a year and quintuple over five years.
As Ramadan begins, Israeli attacks continue across Gaza and Israel imposes restrictions on access to Al-Aqsa mosque. Mexico and the Vatican decline Trump peace board invitation; UN humanitarian official may not attend the first meeting on Thursday.
Settler attacks, military raids and arrests across the West Bank. Palestinian child killed by unexploded Israeli ordnance in Jordan Valley. Chief Israeli ministers push for “emigration” and continued occupation in discussions of the West Bank, Gaza, and Lebanon.
New York Times, News Analysis: Trump Bets on Diplomacy Without Diplomats, David E. Sanger and Anton Troianovski,.Feb. 18, 2026 (print ed.). President Trump’s most trusted envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, are at the center of the Iran and Ukraine negotiations.
Over the past year, the Trump administration has engaged in unconventional diplomacy, gunboat diplomacy and, in the most sensitive crises, diplomacy without diplomats.
On Tuesday, the administration tried all three tactics at once. In Geneva, President Trump’s most trusted envoys — his real estate friend Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner — engaged the Iranians in the morning, then the Russians and the Ukrainians in the afternoon.
It was a stark example of Mr. Trump’s conviction that the State Department and the National Security Council, the two institutions that have coordinated negotiations over global crises for nearly 80 years, are best left on the sidelines. And so, the Witkoff-Kushner duo has been at the center of recent efforts to end a nuclear crisis in Iran that has stretched over two decades, and a war in Ukraine that is days away from entering its fifth year.
By all accounts, Mr. Trump has confidence in their approach, reinforced by their negotiations last year to win a cease-fire in Gaza and the return of all Israeli hostages held by Hamas. And countries like Russia, Turkey and the Gulf Arab states have welcomed the arrival of the two men, with their transactional approach born of New York property negotiations, especially given the greater flexibility offered by Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner.
They talk the language of deal makers, and do not spend much time lecturing on human rights or democracy building. And not infrequently, their interlocutors on diplomatic issues are closely linked to the business deals that the Trump and Witkoff families are negotiating.
“Some countries really welcome this informal structure at the Trump White House,” said Asli Aydintasbas, a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. But, she added, “I have not seen anyone hugely impressed with the diplomatic skills of the current team.”
One person close to the Kremlin said that Russian officials appreciated Mr. Witkoff’s warmth and enthusiasm for the negotiations, even as they sometimes doubted his reliability as a messenger. But he was clearly new to the issues dividing Washington and Moscow, and at first brought no other American experts into his negotiations.
New York Times, News Analysis: Republicans, Braced for Losses, Push More Voting Restrictions in Congress, Annie Karni, Feb. 17, 2026. Legislation that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote was only the beginning as the G.O.P. presses to sharply limit voting in line with President Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud.
The strict voter identification measure that Republicans have pushed through the House is just their opening salvo in a broader legislative effort aimed at keeping control of Congress this fall and helping to amplify the president’s false claims of mass voter fraud in the event that they lose.
The G.O.P.’s relentless focus on the bill and an even more restrictive measure making its way through the House — both of which face a steep uphill path to becoming law — is aimed chiefly at intensifying pressure within their own ranks to muscle through new voting restrictions and seek to reshape the electorate in their favor.
But it also allows Republicans to hammer President Trump’s falsehoods about widespread illegal voting particularly by undocumented immigrants, helping them build a case, however groundless, that any Democratic victories in November will be a result of cheating.
“As President Trump told me last week, it really will save America,” Representative Tim Burchett, Republican of Tennessee, recently told a right-leaning media outlet in Florida, of the push to enact the measure that passed the House. “If we don’t, we lose the midterms and we lose the country.”
Next up is a measure from Representative Bryan Steil of Wisconsin, the chairman of the Committee on House Administration, whose “Make Elections Great Again Act” would go even further in imposing federal control over elections than the Save America Act, which squeaked through on a near-party-line vote last week. That bill would require proof of American citizenship to register to vote and allow the Department of Homeland Security to have access to voter rolls.
Republican proponents of Mr. Steil’s legislation have begun referring to it as the Save America Act, but on steroids.
Mr. Steil’s bill would ban universal voting by mail and prohibit the counting of ballots received after Election Day. It would ban ranked-choice voting for federal elections and would prohibit voters from giving sealed mail ballot packets to someone else for delivery, a practice currently allowed in 18 states.
It also would grant far more authority to the Department of Homeland Security to obtain information about voters from states. And it would reinforce the House-passed bill’s voter ID requirements, including establishing citizenship by requiring people to show a passport or a birth certificate to register and identification to vote.
“Elections should end on Election Day,” Mr. Steil said at a hearing last week, echoing an assertion Mr. Trump made repeatedly after his 2020 election loss.
At the hearing, Mr. Steil brought in three election deniers to make the case for the changes: Chuck Gray, the secretary of state of Wyoming, who claimed the 2020 presidential race was “illegitimate”; Ann Bollin, a state representative from Michigan who in 2020 signed a letter requesting an audit and investigation of election results in her state; and a senior lawyer with Judicial Watch, a conservative organization that has represented individuals challenging state election laws.
Democrats fear the bill could get fast-tracked to the floor, depending on what Mr. Trump tells House Republicans he wants them to do. And Speaker Mike Johnson, right, has already stated that questioning the security of the upcoming elections is an issue he does not plan to let fade from voters’ minds.
“That is something that’s going to be a continuing theme here; it’s something we’ll continue to push,” Mr. Johnson told reporters earlier this month.
Mr. Johnson, who played a lead role in the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, has raised questions in recent days about three House Republican candidates from California who held leads on Election Day in 2024. He said they saw their advantages “magically whittled away,” when more mail-in ballots came in and were counted.
“It looks on its face to be fraudulent,” Mr. Johnson said without offering any evidence, even though none of those Republicans leveled any accusations of fraud when they conceded their races.
Mr. Johnson did not mention that Republicans also won districts in 2024 in part because of ballots that came in after Election Day. Representative Gabe Evans, Republican of Colorado, for instance, won his seat in Colorado’s Eighth District in 2024 in a tight race that wasn’t called for days as votes continued to come in and be counted.ImageRepresentative Gabe Evans, a Republican, campaigning in Greeley, Colo., in 2024. Mr. Evans’s race wasn’t called for days as vote counting continued.Credit...Rachel Woolf for The New York Times
Other Republicans in tight races in swing districts, like Representative Young Kim of California, saw their leads grow substantially with votes tallied after Election Day.
Democrats argue the bills would disenfranchise millions of Americans by making it more difficult for some of their key constituencies — including women, legal immigrants, lower-income Americans and others who may lack the necessary documentation to meet the new requirements — to vote.
“The Make Elections Great Again Act is one strand of spaghetti, the Save America Act is another strand,” Representative Joseph D. Morelle of New York, the ranking Democrat on the House Administration panel, said in an interview. “They’re going to throw the whole bowl at the wall.”
Mr. Morelle noted that the number of noncitizens who cast ballots in elections is so small — almost nonexistent — as to be statistically insignificant. He said the real problem was that there are 80 million U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote and did not do so in the 2024 presidential election.
“If you were concerned about our elections, you would be encouraging them to vote,” Mr. Morelle said. “The larger point is this: They are doing anything they can to disrupt the elections.”
Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, said he saw the congressional efforts as part of a larger pattern that has included the president’s recent talk of nationalizing elections and his regret about not seizing voting machines in swing states after his loss in 2020. He said those efforts also included intimidating poll workers and most recently, dispatching Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, to Fulton County, Ga., to elevate false claims of voter fraud.
“We need just to face it head on,” Mr. Blumenthal said. “There’s no trick solution here. We have to tell voters that the way to overcome it is to turn out massively and make majorities large enough that he has no credible argument.”ImageSenator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, believes efforts to legislate on the issue of voter fraud will be stymied in the Senate.Credit...Eric Lee for The New York Times
New York Times, Other Democracies Don’t Redraw Voting Maps Quite Like the U.S. Here’s Why, Christina Morales, Feb. 18, 2026. In the battle for Congress, redistricting has become all the rage in America. Other nations have guardrails in place to avoid the same situation.
This year’s midterm elections, which will determine control of the U.S. House of Representatives, have ignited a redistricting war across the nation, with several states redrawing their voting maps to give Republicans or Democrats a greater edge.
Partisan redistricting is hardly new in the United States — the term gerrymandering dates to 1812 — but in modern history, it traditionally has not been done in the middle of a decade, and not to this degree.
America often views itself as a model of democracy for the rest of the world. But other democracies have tried to put in more safeguards in place to prevent the kind of redistricting fever taking hold in the United States.
Here’s a quick look at a few things that make other democracies different on this issue — and one country with similarities to the United States.
PoliticusUSA, Trump May Have Lost The Senate By Trying To Censor James Talarico, Jason Easley, Feb. 18, 2026. Trump and his administration attempted to deny state Rep. James Talarico a platform on CBS, but instead, they turned him into a massive star.
The Texas U.S. Senate primaries have become the most fascinating election in America. On the Democratic side, the contest between Rep. Jasmine Crockett and state Rep. James Talarico was viewed as a showdown between two younger Democrats with incredibly bright futures.
Crockett is running for the Democratic Senate nomination because her House district was gerrymandered out of existence by Republicans, but the two candidates are running vastly different-styled campaigns.
Rep. Crockett got into the race late, so she has less of a campaign operation and is relying on her national high profile with Democrats to get her over the top in the primary.
Talarico was less famous than Crockett, but he had built a very traditional campaign operation in Texas, and so the question for political scientists was whether fame would defeat traditional campaigning.
This question got turned on its head when the Trump administration, through FCC Chair Brandon Carr, decided to get CBS to pull a Stephen Colbert interview with Talarico.
If the point was to stop Talarico, the decision was a disaster.
The interview has been exponentially more viewed online than Colbert's show on television.
The high viewership has turned Talarico into an instant national star that both the Crockett campaign and Republicans are trying to neutralize.
The numbers for Talarico are eye-popping.
Emptywheel, Analysis: John Roberts Wrote the Permission Slip for the Fulton County Fiasco, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler), right, Feb. 18, 2026. I’ve been deliberately waiting to comment on FBI’s seizure of Fulton County’s 2020 election records. There was so much going on, and I was pretty sure we’d get further clarity on what FBI did. That proved out.
As expected, Fulton County challenged the search. Last week they won release of the affidavits (one, two). As expected, media outlets were soon able to show the search was based on rewarmed conspiracy theories that had been rejected in 2020:
Then, yesterday, Fulton County (now seriously lawyered up) filed an amended motion to throw out the warrants, accompanied by a 178-page declaration with exhibits from Ryan Macias, arguing that the search warrant was not supported by probable cause.
First, the Fourth Amendment demands “probable cause”—not “possible cause.” The Affidavit fails that constitutional requirement. Despite years of investigations of the 2020 election, the Affidavit does not identify facts that establish probable cause that anyone committed a crime. Instead, FBI Special Agent Evans (the “Affiant”) all but admits that the seizure will yield evidence of a crime only if certain hypotheticals are true. See, e.g., Aff. ¶ 10 (“If these deficiencies were the result of intentional action, it would be a violation of federal law[.]”); ¶ 85 (“If these deficiencies were the result of intentional action, the election records . . . are evidence of violations[.]”). Unsupported by probable cause and dependent on unsubstantiated hypotheticals, Respondent’s seizure violated the Fourth Amendment.
Second, instead of alleging probable cause to believe a crime has been committed, the Affidavit does nothing more than describe the types of human errors that its own sources confirm occur in almost every election—without any intentional wrongdoing whatsoever. Mislabeling an expected margin of error as “deficiencies” or “defects” cannot establish probable cause, let alone for a seizure of this magnitude.
Third, the Affidavit omits numerous material facts—including from the very reports and publicly-disclosed investigations that the Affiant cites—that confirm the alleged conduct was previously investigated and found to be unintentional. Moreover, the Affidavit not only fails to allege that any particular witness is reliable or credible; it omits discrediting information about those witnesses that was obviously available to the Affiant. These omissions are serious. The ex parte warrant process would be rendered a nullity if the government were permitted to hide material and probative facts that refute probable cause from a magistrate judge and nevertheless retain the fruits of its misconduct.
Fourth, even if the Affidavit established probable cause, the seizure of original election materials would be unreasonable and in callous disregard of the Fourth Amendment because (1) the statutes of limitation have lapsed on the only crimes under investigation; (2) the warrant violates Georgia’s state sovereignty by effectively enjoining a pending state court proceeding and preventing Georgia from performing its constitutionally-mandated role in administering its elections; and (3) the Respondent improperly used the criminal warrant process to circumvent a pending civil lawsuit in which it requested the same records. [emphasis original]
Meanwhile, the concerns about the personnel behind this seizure continue to snowball. The affidavit focuses on the debunked claims of Kurt Olsen, a key player in the Big Lie in 2020 whom Trump appointed to oversee “election security,” and Clay Parikh, working as a Special Government Employee. The top FBI Agent in Georgia got fired for (justifiably, it is now clear) questioning the search. The White House and DOJ spent days dodging responsibility for Tulsi Gabbard’s presence at the raid, but they always tied it to DNI’s role in election security. The centrality of Missouri Republicans, who had been key players in the 2020 Big Lie, including St. Louis US Attorney Thomas Albus and the heretofore largely unseen Deputy Director Andrew Bailey (who was with Tulsi the day of the seizure) became clear.
In the wake of the seizure, Trump has made more noise about stealing the election in November. Notably, after ICE head Todd Lyons gave a caveated denial that ICE would not get involved in the election, Kristi Noem asserted to the contrary at a heavily staged press conference in Arizona (where the FBI was also sniffing around voting circumstances), suggesting DHS would pick and choose who got to vote.
Reporter: Why choose to do this press conference this way? Your agency is about to run out of funding. You were just here in Arizona last week at the border, and obviously, you bussed all of us to a secure facility, and I’m curious as to why choose to do this press conference this way on something that doesn’t seem top secret?
Noem: Oh my goodness. This is our critical infrastructure. So, one of the things I think is good for all of you to know is that the Department of Homeland Security’s mission is to defend the homeland, which means that even on our worst day, should we have an attack, a terrorist threat, if something disastrous happened to our country, the agency of FEMA under the Department of Homeland Security is responsible for running our government, which means that, according to law, the authorities that are under this department is maintaining our critical infrastructure, which means it’s my job to make sure that our electrical grid is sustained and intact and operational, that we ensure that we protect our cybersecurity. Any kind of manipulation or threats we face on anything that’s said or done on the internet is my responsibility. Our water systems, making sure that people have the water that they need for their communities to live and take care of their families. And elections is another one of those critical infrastructure responsibilities that I have as well.
And I would say that many people believe that it may be one of the most important things that we need to make sure we trust is reliable, and that, when it gets to election day, that we’ve been proactive to make sure that we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country through the days that we have, knowing the people can trust it. That’s why you’re here for me. I do press conferences because I want to be transparent and let you ask questions and have conversations, but I hope that you do recognize that, in the past, your state has been an absolute disaster on elections, that your leaders have failed you dramatically by not having systems that work, by disenfranchising the Americans who wanted to vote that had to stand in lines for hours because machines failed or software failed.
One woman who will take over as DHS propagandist for Tricia McLaughlin, Katie Zacharia, has a solid history as an election denier.
The latter bit — Noem’s yapping about picking who gets to vote in November — has justifiably raised concerns about election interference, followed by debates about how much damage Noem’s ICE (and CBP, though people often forget they’re worse) goons could do given the broadly dispersed elections of the US and the legal basis for transition between Congressional terms. Those discussions often forget that DHS does have a role in election security. Lyons caveated his answer to Elissa Slotkin that there would be no reason for his ICE goons to invade election locations by noting that Homeland Security Investigations has investigated election fraud. And Noem’s comments explicitly described her jurisdiction as pertaining to critical infrastructure. Remember — Trump fired Chris Krebs in 2020 after the head of CISA declared the elections free and fair. Noem now oversees that function.
Both Tulsi and Noem — or at least their positions — have a role in election security; it’s just that they’re claiming those historic roles are broader than they traditionally have been.
As I was when I warned of a coup attempt in November 2020, I’m with those who are worried. But I think the feasibility analysis is working, in this instance, in the wrong direction, from precinct to the Oval Office. I suspect it should work in the opposite direction.
Given what we know about the Fulton raid — given the evidence that it simply repackaged debunked claims, including those of Olsen, from 2020 — I want to suggest that the Fulton raid will have the effect of, may even have been intended as, a test drive of the impact of John Roberts’ opinion in Trump v US in 2024.
Remember, as initially drafted, the allegations in the January 6 Trump indictment pertaining to Jeffrey Clark involved his efforts to bypass DOJ’s judgments about fraud claims, including claims about Georgia.
75. On December 28, Co-Conspirator 4 sent a draft letter to the Acting Attorney General and Acting Deputy Attorney General, which he proposed they alJ sign. The draft was addressed to state officials in Georgia, and Co-Conspirator 4 proposed sending versions of the letter to elected officials in other targeted states. The proposed letter contained numerous knowingly false claims about the election and the Justice Department, including that:
a. The Justice Department had “identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple States[.]”
[snip]
76. The Acting Deputy Attorney General promptly responded to Co-Conspirator 4 by email and told him that his proposed letter was false, writing, “Despite dramatic claims to the contrary, we have not seen the type of fraud that calls into question the reported (and certified) results of the election.” In a meeting shortly thereafter, the Acting Attorney General and Acting Deputy Attorney Genera] again directed Co-Conspirator 4 not to have unauthorized contact with the White House.
[snip]
79. The next morning, on January 3, despite having uncovered no additional evidence of election fraud, Co-Conspirator 4 sent to a Justice Department colleague an edited version of his draft letter to the states, which included a change from its previous claim that the Justice Department had “concerns” to a stronger false claim that “[a]s of today, there is evidence of significant irregularities that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple States …. “
Trump’s demands on DOJ included efforts to improperly insert DOJ into state election matters via bogus claims floated by Olsen.
The next day, Rosen, Donoghue, and Engel had a meeting with Mark Meadows, Pat Cipollone, and Cipollone’s deputy, Pat Philbin, in the White HouseChief of Staff’s office.222 While the meeting dealt primarily with the Presidential transition, the group discussed a draft civil complaint modeled afterTexas v. Pennsylvania that the President wanted the Department of Justice tofile challenging the results of the Presidential election, tentatively calledUnited States v. Pennsylvania.223 The DOJ officials said that they had not hadtime to thoroughly review the proposed suit, but initially indicated that it appeared to be flawed and did not seem “viable” for DOJ to file.224 Meadowssuggested that the DOJ leadership meet with William Olson and Kurt Olsen the two attorneys affiliated with the Trump Campaign that had been working on the proposed suit, and added that Eastman and a retired judge fromNorth Carolina named Mark Martin both had views about the lawsuit.225
But none of these efforts to hijack DOJ for Trump’s personal election interests concerned John Roberts.+
In his opinion granting Trump presumptive immunity for official acts, Chief Justice Roberts threw out everything that had to do with DOJ based on an expansive definition of the President’s personal role in prosecutorial discretion, a statement that Trump now obliquely cites all the time when demanding politicized prosecutions.
The Government does not dispute that the indictment’s allegations regarding the Justice Department involve Trump’s “use of official power.” Brief for United States 46; see id., at 10–11; Tr. of Oral Arg. 125. The allegations in fact plainly implicate Trump’s “conclusive and preclusive” authority. “[I]nvestigation and prosecution of crimes is a quintessentially executive function.” Brief for United States 19 (quoting Morrison v. Olson, 487 U. S. 654, 706 (1988) (Scalia, J., dissenting)). And the Executive Branch has “exclusive authority and absolute discretion” to decide which crimes to investigate and prosecute, including with respect to allegations of election crime. Nixon, 418 U. S., at 693; see United States v. Texas, 599 U. S. 670, 678–679 (2023) (“Under Article II, the Executive Branch possesses authority to decide ‘how to prioritize and how aggressively to pursue legal actions against defendants who violate the law.’” (quoting TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U. S. 413, 429 (2021))). The President may discuss potential investigations and prosecutions with his Attorney General and other Justice Department officials to carry out his constitutional duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” Art. II, §3. And the Attorney General, as head of the Justice Department, acts as the President’s “chief law enforcement officer” who “provides vital assistance to [him] in the performance of [his] constitutional duty to ‘preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.’” Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U. S. 511, 520 (1985) (quoting Art. II, §1, cl. 8).
Investigative and prosecutorial decisionmaking is “the special province of the Executive Branch,” Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U. S. 821, 832 (1985), and the Constitution vests the entirety of the executive power in the President, Art. II, §1. For that reason, Trump’s threatened removal of the Acting Attorney General likewise implicates “conclusive and preclusive” Presidential authority. As we have explained, the President’s power to remove “executive officers of the United States whom he has appointed” may not be regulated by Congress or reviewed by the courts. Myers, 272 U. S., at 106, 176; see supra, at 8. The President’s “management of the Executive Branch” requires him to have “unrestricted power to remove the most important of his subordinates”—such as the Attorney General—“in their most important duties.” Fitzgerald, 457 U. S., at 750 (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted).
The indictment’s allegations that the requested investigations were “sham[s]” or proposed for an improper purpose do not divest the President of exclusive authority over the investigative and prosecutorial functions of the Justice Department and its officials. App. 186–187, Indictment ¶10(c). And the President cannot be prosecuted for conduct within his exclusive constitutional authority. Trump is therefore absolutely immune from prosecution for the alleged conduct involving his discussions with Justice Department officials. [my emphasis]
Based on that passage alone, the Supreme Court sanctioned anything — up to and including improperly seizing all of Atlanta’s ballots — that Trump did under color of criminal prosecution, as the Fulton affidavit was. All DOJ did with that affidavit was take Olsen’s speculative bullshit from 2020 and get an FBI agent to file it, turning it into precisely the kind of sham investigation John Roberts blessed.
But that’s not all Roberts did. Even while acknowledging that elections are one area where the President doesn’t have a defined role, he still included language lumping federal elections under the Take Care Clause, effectively flipping that principle on its head.
On Trump’s view, the alleged conduct qualifies as official because it was undertaken to ensure the integrity and proper administration of the federal election. Of course, the President’s duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” plainly encompasses enforcement of federal election laws passed by Congress. Art. II, §3. And the President’s broad power to speak on matters of public concern does not exclude his public communications regarding the fairness and integrity of federal elections simply because he is running for re-election. Cf. Hawaii, 585 U. S., at 701. Similarly, the President may speak on and discuss such matters with state officials—even when no specific federal responsibility requires his communication—to encourage them to act in a manner that promotes the President’s view of the public good.
[snip]
The President, meanwhile, plays no direct role in the process, nor does he have authority to control the state officials who do. And the Framers, wary of “cabal, intrigue and corruption,” specifically excluded from service as electors “all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the president in office.” The Federalist No. 68, at 459 (A. Hamilton); see Art. II, §1, cl. 2.
Determining whose characterization may be correct, and with respect to which conduct, requires a close analysis of the indictment’s extensive and interrelated allegations. See App. 192–215, Indictment ¶¶13–69. Unlike Trump’s alleged interactions with the Justice Department, this alleged conduct cannot be neatly categorized as falling within a particular Presidential function.
While both Tulsi and Noem are claiming the role of their agencies extends well beyond the defined limits of those roles, both do have a role in election security, which roles, in turn, have been lumped under national security. That’s an area where SCOTUS has always been permissive, even before John Roberts coined broad new immunities.
Fulton County has a very good argument that the seizure of its ballots was totally unsupported by the evidence or the law, particularly given the statutes of limitations.
But I fear that’s not the point.
I fear that this is a dry run, testing what 2020 would have looked like if Trump had replaced Jeffrey Rosen with Jeffrey Clark, if Trump had turned DOJ into his own election theft organization.
What DOJ did in seizing those ballots fit squarely under the newly expanded powers that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and Solicitor General John Sauer wrote for President Trump while serving as his defense attorneys. And the seizure has already set off a legal fight that may reinforce the expansive powers John Roberts invented two years ago.
Morning Shots via The Bulwark, Political Opinion: We’re All Minnesotans Now, Bill Kristol, Andrew Egger and Jim Swift, Feb. 18, 2026. Let the North Star State give us direction.
How committed is the Trump administration to erasing the history of slavery? Last month, the National Park Service removed exhibits about slavery from the Philadelphia site where George Washington—and some of the people he enslaved—and John Adams lived before the capital moved to D.C. A judge ordered them to restore the exhibits. And now the administration has appealed the ruling.
“The National Park Service routinely updates exhibits across the park system to ensure historical accuracy and completeness,” the Department of the Interior said in a statement. “Completeness” is doing some interesting work there.
Happy Wednesday.
More On U.S. Governance, Politics, Elections
Elon Musk, who has rapidly achieved the status as the world's richest man, delivers what appears to have been a Hitler-era Nazi salute at a convention of so-called conservatives. Why people are arguing Nazi salutes are just a joke.
Paul Krugman via Substack, Political-Economy Commentary: Billionaires Gone Wild, Paul Krugman, right,Feb. 18, 2026. Understanding the oligarchs’ power grab and the dire threat to American democracy.
A few stories about centibillionaires — men whose net worth exceeds $100 billion — and their role in our society:
Furthermore, standard measures of political spending show an explosion of billionaire money seeking to influence American elections. Since the Roberts Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” ruling the percentage of total contributions accounted for by billionaire money has skyrocketed: A graph with numbers and lines AI-generated content may be incorrect.
For those who need a refresher, Citizens United was a 2010 ruling by a narrow majority on the Supreme Court that effectively removed all restrictions on political spending by wealthy individuals and corporations. Such spending must be undertaken by nominally independent organizations, but in practice so-called Super PACs (political action committees) coordinate closely with candidates and parties. The result of the ruling, which you can see in the chart, was an explosion of political spending by billionaires as well as industry lobbying groups. Citizens United is what enabled both Elon Musk and the crypto industry to play huge roles in the 2024 election.
Some of the rise in billionaire spending can be explained by growth in the number of billionaires — but not much. The number of U.S. billionaires rose 85 percent between 2010 and 2023, from 404 to 748. But billionaires’ share of political contributions rose by 1700 percent.
In short, we are in the midst of an unprecedented power grab by America’s oligarchs. This power grab is arguably the most important fact about contemporary U.S. politics. In many ways MAGA is just a symptom.
What lies behind this power grab? An extraordinary concentration of wealth at the very top.
Last month I interviewed Gabriel Zucman, one of the world’s leading experts on wealth inequality (among other things.) Zucman has been producing charts on wealth at the very top — the 0.00001 percent, which currently means 19 people. He shared his latest data with me; it looks like this: A graph showing a line AI-generated content may be incorrect.
Wealth in America is now more concentrated in a few hands than it was during the Gilded Age of the late 19th and early 20th century. Money has always been a potent source of political influence, so this vast increase in concentrated wealth at the top inevitably translates into increased power.
However, after Citizens United America experienced an increase in oligarchic power far surpassing even what one might have expected given soaring wealth at the top. At this point it’s clear that we have experienced a fundamental change in the way our society works. Everything that is downstream of the American political system – federal and state governments, the courts, regulatory power, economic policy, health policy, media independence – and of course democracy itself – is under extreme threat from the tidal wave of billionaire influence.
Let me offer three reasons surging wealth at the top has caused a lurch away from democracy.
The first reason is a bit wonkish, but here goes: Political scientists and economists have long argued that highly concentrated interest groups are more politically effective than diffuse groups, an argument that goes back to Mancur Olson’s classic 1965 book The Logic of Collective Action.
Here’s a hypothetical example: Suppose that spending $1 billion on political influence would enrich a plutocrat by 1 percent of their wealth. Someone with “only” $30 billion in assets wouldn’t find this spending worth it: $1 billion in outlays produces only $300 million in capital gains – a loss of 70%. But someone with $300 billion in assets would gain $3 billion by spending $1 billion on political influence – a profit of 200%. In other words, because buying political influence is expensive, we would expect that the growing concentration of wealth within the plutocrat class will increase that class’s political spending and, therefore, its power.
Second, some forms of de facto political action – such as buying your own global media platform — can only be undertaken by men of truly immense personal wealth. Musk spent $44 billion to buy Twitter; 20 years earlier there were no individuals with that much money.
Finally, and crucially, billionaires haven’t just spent money to influence policy. They have also spent money to change the rules in ways that make money more powerful. Years of plutocratic investment in institutions from the Heritage Foundation to the Federalist Society prepared the ground for the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which then opened the floodgates for vastly increased plutocratic influence.
Something comparably transformative has happened in the past year. Billionaires didn’t just help Donald Trump regain the White House, they helped create new de facto ground rules under which he can use his office for personal enrichment — which hugely expands the influence of those with the means to make him richer.
What are the ultra-wealthy doing with their vastly increased power? They are, of course, twisting policy in ways that will make them even richer, at the expense of everyone else. Anyone who imagines that the unthinkably rich aren’t greedy, because they can already afford to buy whatever they want, doesn’t understand human nature.
That said, even billionaires care about more than their own personal wealth. Unfortunately, their non-monetary goals are often worse than their greed.
Put it this way: Elon Musk hasn’t turned X, the former Twitter, into a platform promoting white supremacy and a safe space for Nazis as part of a strategy to enlarge his fortune. He has done it because it serves his personal agenda and reflects his values.
Today’s post is more about understanding where we are than about a call to action. Still, the obvious question is what can be done in the face of billionaires gone wild. The answer, clearly, is that any project to save American democracy must include a push to reduce the extreme concentration of wealth at the top.
We know that this can be done, because it has been done. In his famous Madison Garden speech of 1936 FDR declared war on “Government by organized money,” and he won that war. Progressive taxation and mass unionization drastically reduced the wealth and even more drastically diminished the power of big money.
To say that a comparable project is impossible today is to say that democracy can’t be saved. And I’m not willing to accept that. Are you?
Morning Shots via The Bulwark, Political Opinion: The Minnesota Model, William Kristol, right, Feb. 18, 2026. I’ve always been pro-Minnesota.
When I was a kid, New York baseball fans were divided into Yankee lovers (boring power-worshippers) and Yankee haters (daring fans of scrappy underdogs). As you’ve perhaps guessed, I was firmly in the latter group. And so I was pleased when the Minnesota Twins won the American League pennant in 1965, deposing the mighty Yankees, who’d been AL champs for fifteen of the preceding eighteen seasons.
My affection for the Twins only increased when they lost a dramatic seven-game World Series to the Dodgers and Sandy Koufax, who pitched complete-game shutouts in the fifth and seventh games, the latter on two days’ rest. So I was grateful to the Minnesotans both for winning the regular season and losing in the Series.
Three years later, in 1968, Minnesotans reappeared on my horizon. I spent part of my summer between tenth and eleventh grade as a volunteer for Hubert Humphrey’s presidential campaign. I admired Humphrey both for his leadership on civil rights and his liberal anti-communism, and some of that admiration spilled over to the state that elevated him to public office. And I’ll add that though I didn’t support him, I rather admired Humphrey’s rival and fellow Minnesotan, Eugene McCarthy, as well.
Then, a decade later, in the winter of 1978, as I was finishing up grad school, I visited Minneapolis for the first time for my first job interview. I remember only three things about that visit: It was really cold; I was nervous; and the University of Minnesota political scientists were nice to me. (I didn’t end up with the job—it would have been too much of a shock to my system to leave the East Coast.)
I can’t say I was excessively preoccupied with goings-on in the North Star State for the next several decades. But, over the past couple of months, who hasn’t been focused on events here? And who hasn’t admired the example of civic courage and citizen responsibility Minnesotans have provided for the rest of us?
I’m in Minneapolis now for Bulwark events tonight and tomorrow night. A friend arranged a dinner last night with a group of locals, some of them traditional liberals and some ex-Republicans. None of them seemed by career or disposition to have been long-time take-to-the-streets activists. But all of them have been very involved in the recent anti-authoritarian activism. And as they described what they and their friends and acquaintances have been doing to help immigrants and to try to check ICE’s depredations, as they explained the Signal text chains and the modes of cooperation among both neighbors and strangers, as they detailed the bottom-up, spontaneous character of the overall effort, I came away even more impressed than I expected.
These proud Minnesotans gave a lot of credit for their success to the state’s strong network of civic organizations and to its culture and tradition of public-spiritedness. Perhaps the people of Minnesota were especially suited to organize themselves for this moment. But surely this state isn’t that different from many others. My main takeaway was less the specialness of Minnesota, and more that the rest of us need to follow in Minnesota’s footsteps.
And we need to do so not just when DHS launches a surge in the streets of a particular city. We need the grass-roots, spontaneous exercise of civic leadership in the fight against authoritarianism on every front for the next three years.
After all, if you look at the overall balance of power between the Trumpist authoritarians and the pro-democracy resistance, it’s not great. The federal government generally has more power than state and local governments, and especially a federal government ruthless and relatively united in the service of its aims. Big business and many other powerful institutions are mostly going along to get along. Congress can’t be counted on to provide much resistance over the next year, and even if Democrats take both houses this November, a weaponized executive branch will remain powerful. The situation with big media is problematic.
The elites and the establishment, the big organizations and the august institutions, are unlikely to save us. Widespread citizen activism and resistance could make the difference, though.
And we need to be imaginative about what that would look like. We need citizens acting in many ways and at all levels. We need protests and organizing, but we also need more forms of resistance from within big organizations, sometimes publicly, sometimes privately, and yes, sometimes surreptitiously. We need internal dissidence and help for dissidents. We need leaks and exposés, and support for leakers and truth-tellers. We need to get beyond thinking about politics as usual—though conventional politics remains critically important. We need to think not only of election campaigns but of popular campaigns. We need to learn lessons from the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and from Eastern European dissidents in the 1970s and 1980s.
The Trumpists, like the Southern segregationists and the Soviet-bloc communists before them, have been pretty effective in mobilizing the executive branch and associated organizations behind their deplorable actions, their crude propaganda, and their efforts at intimidation. And so we need an all-of-society resistance to defeat the all-of-government conspiracy against our liberties and democracy.
That’s why it’s important that Minnesota be not just a shining example of what can be done. It needs to be a harbinger of what’s going to be done. It needs to be a model not just admired but emulated. We should all be Minnesotans now.
Besides the civil rights movement and the Soviet-bloc anti-communist movements, what other models should we draw inspiration from? Who else has fought authoritarianism and won? Share your ideas in the comments.
AROUND THE BULWARK
Quick Hits
ADIOS, TRICIA: The Trump administration is losing one of its loudest megaphones. Tricia McLaughlin, the hard-charging Department of Homeland Security spox who over the past year became the leading proponent for many of the government’s least trustworthy claims, is leaving DHS next week. After Politico reported McLaughlin’s impending departure, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem praised her “exceptional dedication, tenacity, and professionalism” and said she had “played an important role in advancing our mission to secure the homeland and keep Americans safe.”
It’s not clear why McLaughlin is leaving. But her departure comes at an unusually vulnerable moment for her department, which has come under heavy scrutiny following the killings of two Minneapolis protesters by DHS agents and mounting reports of horrible treatment of migrants in DHS custody (see, for example, Adrian Carrasquillo’s latest Huddled Masses newsletter about the families with children being detained in Dilley, Texas). Rather than risk another broad government shutdown, congressional Republicans this month allowed Democrats to pry DHS funding out of a larger government spending package; funding for the department has partially lapsed while the Senate hammers out a package of reforms. McLaughlin—with her pedal-to-the-metal, incendiary style and richly earned reputation as a whole-hog propagandist—may not be the best fit for a department suddenly trying for a new PR strategy.Subscribed
ELECTION DENIERS IN CONTROL: If you don’t like the Save America Act—the bill currently before the Senate which would require Americans in every state to produce a birth certificate or passport to register to vote—you ain’t seen nothing yet. The next election bill on the GOP docket is the Make Elections Great Again Act, a true election-denier fever-dream in bill form, being pushed by Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.). The New York Times reports:
Mr. Steil’s bill would ban universal voting by mail and prohibit the counting of ballots received after Election Day. It would ban ranked-choice voting for federal elections and would prohibit voters from giving sealed mail ballot packets to someone else for delivery, a practice currently allowed in 18 states.
It also would grant far more authority to the Department of Homeland Security to obtain information about voters from states. And it would reinforce the House-passed bill’s voter ID requirements, including establishing citizenship by requiring people to show a passport or a birth certificate to register and identification to vote.
“Elections should end on Election Day,” Mr. Steil said at a hearing last week, echoing an assertion Mr. Trump made repeatedly after his 2020 election loss.
How trustworthy a character is Rep. Steil when it comes to elections? He doesn’t “just” believe that Donald Trump won Georgia in 2020, as your baseline vanilla election deniers do. During last week’s hearing, he refused even to admit that Kamala Harris had won Minnesota in 2024—a state that Harris won by more than four points (about 138,000 votes) and that hasn’t voted for a Republican for president since 1972.
NOT GOING QUIETLY: President Trump has declared a political fatwa against Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), the oddball libertarian congressman who led the fight to release the Epstein files. But if anything, Massie seems to be enjoying his status as persona non MAGA. “He called me a moron at the prayer breakfast,” Massie told Politico in an interview yesterday. “I’m glad to know I’m in his prayers.”
Trump and his operation are trying their best to squash Massie: Trump hand-picked a Republican challenger, former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein, for the district, and his political allies are pouring millions into the race ahead of the May 19 primary. What has incensed Trump isn’t just Massie’s independent streak, which has caused the White House repeated legislative headaches. It’s also Massie’s status as a cocky, almost goofily defiant exception to the prevailing GOP orthodoxy that only bad things happen to those who cross Trump.
Whether Massie can survive Gallrein’s challenge remains to be seen. But at least for now, he seems happy with the gains he’s made during his maverick turn. “The [Republican] margin is razor-thin, so on any given day, I would need just one or two of my own co-conspirators to get something done,” he said. “And what’s happening is that the retirement caucus is growing and primary days are coming up and passing. Once we get past March, April and May, which contain a large portion of their Republican primaries, I think you’re going to see more defections.”
Irish Star, RFK Jr ridiculed as he promotes strange fitness initiative topless with Kid Rock, Julianna Salinas, Feb. 17, 2026. Social media users were convinced that a bizarre and new video shared by RFK Jr. , in background, featuring Kid Rock, on stationary bike, promoting Make America Healthy Again was AI-generated.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has teamed up with Kid Rock in a bizarre video campaign promoting the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services' Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, initiative.
The 72-year-old Health Secretary shared the video, titled Secretary Kennedy and Kid Rock's Rock Out Work Out, on X with the caption, "I’ve teamed up with @KidRock to deliver two simple messages to the American people: GET ACTIVE + EAT REAL FOOD."
The video, which sparked suspicions of AI, shows RFK Jr. and the 55-year-old controversial Detroit rocker working out shirtless and drinking whole milk while soaking in a hot tub to his song Bawitdaba.READ MORE: Angelina Jolie set to become latest celebrity to flee Donald Trump's America.
The official Department of Health and Human Services account reposted the video, captioned "BawitMAHA." RFK Jr., who recently admitted to snorting drugs off of toilet seats in the past, can be seen in the bizarre campaign working out shirtless in jeans alongside Kid Rock, real name Robert James Ritchie.
The duo uses various workout equipment, including a stationary bike that, for some reason, is inside a sauna. RFK Jr. does a cold plunge while wearing jeans after Kid Rock flashes a middle finger at the camera. They also appear to play pickleball with flame and lightning effects added.
Perhaps the strangest part of the video was when the two men sat together in an indoor hot tub, drinking glasses of what appears to be milk, as a graphic reading 'WHOLE MILK' was splashed across the screen.
Social media users were convinced the video had to be AI-generated due to its cringey content. "It's... not ... A.I. this time. WOW," one person commented. "I feel like I just took mushrooms. What is going on?" another replied.
"In what alternate reality did they think anyone would want to see this? Bizarre!" a third commenter wrote, as another chimed in, "How are they not embarrassed?" A fourth simply wrote, "Cringe."RFK Jr. and Kid RockView 2 Images
Viewers were convinced the video was AI(Image: @X)
Another fumed, "We have a cabinet full of social media influencers who care more about creating content than doing their job," as one user wrote, "I am embarrassed for them. Now I have to go throw bleach in my eyes."
One person commented on Kid Rock showing his middle finger in the strange ad, writing, "Since when did somebody flipping off the camera become acceptable? This is strange and gross." Others agreed, with some noting the song's inappropriate lyrics that reference drug use.
"And they were worried about the Super Bowl? Unreal!" one person commented. Another echoed, "And Republicans are losing their minds over Bad Bunny?"
Global News
Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: February 17, 2026 [Trump Isolating, Weakening United States], Heather Cox Richardson, right, Feb. 18, 2026. Trump’s White House website welcomes visitors with a pop-up that reads: “WELCOME TO THE GOLDEN AGE!”
But on this heavy news day a year into Trump’s second term, it is increasingly clear that as his regime focuses on committing the United States to white Christian nationalism, the country is becoming increasingly isolated from the rest of the world, and its own economy is weakening.
At the Munich Security Conference over the weekend, Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s endorsement of white Christian nationalism does not appear to have swayed European countries to abandon their defense of democracy and join the U.S.’s slide toward authoritarianism. Instead, as retired lieutenant general and former commander of U.S. Army Europe Mark Hertling wrote, it squandered the strategic advantage its partnership with Europe has given the U.S.
Foreign affairs journalist Anne Applebaum noted that the word in Munich was that “Europe needs to emancipate itself from the U.S. as fast as possible.” In Germany, Der Spiegel reports plans to bring Ukrainian veterans to teach German armed forces drone use and counter-drone practices the Ukrainians are perfecting in their war against Russian occupation. Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney is working to reduce Canada’s defense dependence on the U.S., ramping up domestic defense production.
Carney has advanced a foreign policy that centers “middle powers” and operates without the U.S. That global reorientation has profound consequences for the U.S. economy, as well. Canada is leading discussions between the European Union and a 12-nation Indo-Pacific bloc to form one of the globe’s largest economic alliances. A new agreement would enable the countries to share supply chains and to share a low-tariff system. Canada also announced it is renewing its partnership with China. As of this week, Canadians can travel to China without a visa.
Today France’s president Emmanuel Macron and India’s prime minister Narendra Modi upgraded Indian-French relations to a “Special Strategic Partnership” during a three-day visit of Macron to Mumbai. They have promised to increase cooperation between the two countries in defense, trade, and critical materials.
Trump insisted that abandoning the free trade principles under which the U.S. economy had boomed since World War II would enable the U.S. to leverage its extraordinary economic might through tariffs, but it appears, as economist Scott Lincicome of the Cato Institute wrote today for Bloomberg, that the rest of the world is simply moving on without the U.S.
While Trump boasts about the U.S. stock market, which is indeed up, U.S. markets have underperformed markets in other countries. Today, Carl Quintanilla of CNBC reported that the S&P 500, which measures 500 of the largest publicly traded companies in the U.S., is off to its worst year of performance since 1995 when compared to the All Country World Index (ACWI), an index that measures global stocks.
In May 2023 the Florida legislature passed a law requiring employers with 25 or more employees to confirm that their workers are in the U.S. legally. The new law prompted foreign farmworkers and construction workers to leave the state. Now, the Wall Street Journal reported in a February 6 editorial, employers “are struggling to find workers they can employ legally.”
The newspaper continued: “There’s little evidence that undocumented migrants are taking jobs from Americans. The reality is that employers can’t find enough Americans willing to work in the fields or hang drywall, even at attractive wages. Farm hands in Florida who work year-round earn roughly $47,000, which is more than what some young college graduates earn.” “The lesson for President Trump is that businesses can’t grow if government takes away their workers,” the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board concluded.
Today Florida attorney general James Uthmeier reacted to the Wall Street Journal editorial, explaining on Fox Business that the Republican Party expects to replace undocumented workers with young Americans: “We need to focus on our state college program, our trade schools, getting people into the workforce even earlier. We passed legislation last year to help high school students get their hands dirty and get on job sites more quickly. So I think there’s a lot more we can do with apprenticeships, rolling out, beefing up our workforce, and trying to address the demand that is undoubtedly here in the state.”
Steve Kopack of NBC News reported on February 11 that while the U.S. added 1.46 million jobs in 2024, the last year of former president Joe Biden’s administration, it added just 181,000 jobs in 2025. That makes 2025 the worst year for hiring since 2003, aside from the worst year of the coronavirus pandemic. Manufacturing lost 108,000 jobs in 2025.
Peter Grant of the Wall Street Journal reported today that banks that have loaned money to finance the purchase of commercial real estate are requiring borrowers to pay back tens of billions of dollars as the delinquency rate for such loans has climbed to a high not seen since just after the 2008 financial crisis. About $100 billion in commercial real estate loans that have been packaged into securities will come due this year and probably won’t repay when they should. More than half of the loans are likely headed for foreclosure or liquidation.
Trump vowed that he would cut “waste, fraud, and abuse” out of the country’s government programs, but cuts to social programs have been overwhelmed by spending on federal arrest, detention, and deportation programs, as well as Trump’s expansion of military strikes and threats against other countries. In his first year back in office, Trump launched at least 658 air and drone strikes against Iraq, Somalia, Iran, Yemen, Syria, Nigeria, and Venezuela.
Just today, U.S. Southern Command announced it struck three boats in the eastern Pacific and the Caribbean yesterday and killed 11 people it claims were smuggling drugs, bringing the total of such strikes to more than 40 and the number of dead to more than 130. Now Trump is moving American forces toward Iran, threatening to target the regime there.
The administration is simply tacking the cost of these military adventures onto government expenditures, apparently still maintaining that the tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations Republicans extended in their July “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” and tariffs will address the growing deficit and national debt by increasing economic growth.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) last week projected that the deficit for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2026, will be $1.85 trillion. Richard Rubin of the Wall Street Journal notes that for every dollar the U.S. collects this year, it will spend $1.33. The CBO explained that the Republican tax cuts will increase budget deficits by $4.7 trillion through 2035.
If the American people have suffered from Trump’s reign, the Trump family continues to cash in. Today Trump’s chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Michael Selig, announced he will try to block states from regulating prediction markets, saying they “provide useful functions for society by allowing everyday Americans to hedge commercial risks like increases in temperature and energy price spikes.”
Republicans insist that prediction markets are more like stock trading than like betting, but a group of over 20 Democratic senators warned last week in a letter to Selig that prediction market platforms, where hundreds of millions of dollars are wagered every week, “are offering contracts that mirror sportsbook wagers and, in some cases, contracts tied to war and armed conflict.” They added that the platforms “evade state and tribal consumer protections, generate no public revenue, and undermine sovereign regulatory regimes,” and urged Selig to support regulations Congress has already put into law.
Prediction markets also cover the actions of President Trump, whose son Don Jr. is both an advisor to and an investor in Polymarket and a paid advisor to Kalshi. Polymarket and Kalshi are the two biggest prediction markets, and both are less regulated than betting sites. The Trump family has announced it is starting its own “Truth Predict.”
David Uberti of the Wall Street Journal reported that Eric Trump is investing heavily in drones, particularly in Israeli drone maker Xtend, which has a $1.5 billion deal to merge with a small Florida construction company to take the company public. The Defense Department has invited Xtend to be part of its drone expansion program.
And yet it is clear the administration fears the American people. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), a statewide program that specializes in police shootings, said yesterday that it has received formal notice that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) will not allow it any “access to information or evidence that it has collected” related to the shooting death of Minneapolis intensive care nurse Alex Pretti. The BCA says it will continue to investigate and to pursue legal avenues to get access to the FBI files.
Fury at ICE continues to mount, with voices from inside the government complaining about Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Gordon Lubold, Courtney Kube, Jonathan Allen, and Julia Ainsley of NBC News reported today on her alienation of senior officials at the Coast Guard as she has shifted their primary mission of search and rescue to flying deportation flights. Noem’s abrupt removal of Coast Guard commandant Linda Fagan only to move into her vacated housing at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling herself also rankled, along with Noem’s lavish use of expensive Coast Guard planes.
Daniel Lippman and Adam Wren of Politico reported today that Noem’s spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, is resigning.
Marissa Payne of the Des Moines Register reported today that in Iowa, Republican state lawmakers are working to rein in the power of the state governor before the 2026 elections, a sure sign that they are worried that a Democrat is going to win the election.
That fear appears to be part of a larger concern that the American people have turned against the Republicans more generally. Last night, late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert told viewers he had been unable to air an interview he did with a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate from Texas, James Talarico. “I was told…that not only could I not have him on, I could not mention me not having him on,” Colbert said. “And because my network clearly doesn’t want us to talk about this, let’s talk about this.”
Talarico is a Texas state lawmaker studying to be a minister, who criticizes the Republican use of Christianity as a political weapon. Such politicization of Christianity both distorts politics and cheapens faith, he says. The true way to practice Christianity is simple but not easy, he says: it is to love your neighbor. Political positions should grow out of that to feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, and heal the sick. “[T]here is nothing Christian about Christian nationalism,” he told Colbert. “It is the worship of power in the name of Christ, and it is a betrayal of Jesus of Nazareth.”
Although Talarico is locked in a tight primary battle with Representative Jasmine Crockett, his message offers a powerful off-ramp for evangelicals uncomfortable with the administration, especially its cover-up of the Epstein files. Without evangelical support, MAGA Republicans cannot win elections.
Talarico has the administration nervous enough that Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chair Brendan Carr opened an investigation of the morning talk show The View after Talarico appeared on the show earlier this month. Lawyer Adam Bonin explained that Carr changed the FCC’s enforcement of the Equal Time Rule (which is not the Fairness Doctrine). It says that when broadcast networks (not cable) give air time to someone running for office, they have to give the same time to any other candidate for that office. The obvious exception is when a candidate does something newsworthy outside the race, in which case a network can interview that person without interviewing everyone else.
For 20 years, that rule has applied to talk shows, but Carr announced last month that if a non-news talk show seems to be “motivated by partisan purposes,” then it will not be exempt. For Colbert’s show, it would have meant that after interviewing Talarico, the network would have had to give equal time to all other Democrats and Republicans running for the Senate seat. CBS could have challenged the rule but chose not to.
Why is the administration worried about Talarico in a state Trump won in 2024 by 14%? “I think that Donald Trump is worried that we’re about to flip Texas,” Talarico said. “Across the state there is a backlash growing to the extremism and the corruption in our politics…. It’s a people-powered movement to take back our state and take back our country.”
As of 10:00 tonight, Colbert’s 15-minute interview with Talarico has been viewed on YouTube 3.8 million times. Forbes says it is Colbert’s most watched interview in months.
Irish Star, Irish leader turns down White House St. Patrick's Day invitation: 'I cannot and will not look away,' Alana Loftus, Feb. 17, 2026. The first minister of Northern Ireland announced that she will be declining an invitation to visit the White House for St. Patrick's Day events due to the ongoing situation in Gaza.
First Minister Michelle O'Neill said that despite turning down the invitation, she "deeply values" the relationship between the U.S. and Ireland(Image: Liam McBurney/PA Wire)
The first minister of Northern Ireland, Michelle O’Neill, announced that she will not accept an invitation to attend St. Patrick’s Day celebrations at the White House this year.
The vice president of Sinn Féin wrote on social media on Tuesday morning, “I have taken the decision not to attend this year's St. Patrick's Day events at the White House due to the situation in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.”
“I deeply value the historic relationship between Ireland and the United States, and I remain committed to working with U.S. figures to strengthen our peace and grow our economy,” she continued.READ MORE: Trump struggles to walk in a straight line as he waves to White House TV camerasREAD MORE: Melania Trump offers rare show of support for husband Donald with simple Presidents' Day post
“However, despite the hopes and promise offered by the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, horrific Israeli military attacks continue. I cannot and will not look away from systematic human rights abuses and flagrant breaches of international law by Israel. It is my responsibility as a political leader to stand firmly on the side of humanity.”
New York Times, Live Updates: 8 Skiers Are Dead in Sierra Nevada Avalanche, Jill Cowan, Feb. 18, 2026. A final missing skier was also presumed dead, the authorities said. Six survivors were rescued. The avalanche is the deadliest in modern California history.
The bodies of eight of the nine skiers overcome by an avalanche on Tuesday near Lake Tahoe had been found, Nevada County officials said in a news conference on Wednesday. One member of the group remains missing and presumed dead, in what is already the deadliest avalanche in modern California history.
U.S. Media, Propaganda, Education, Culture
Popular Information, Accountability Journalism: CBS censors Colbert, bowing to pressure from Trump’s FCC, Judd Legum, right, Rebecca Crosby and Noel Sims, Feb. 18, 2026. CBS forbade Late Show host Stephen Colbert from interviewing Texas State Representative James Talarico, a Democrat running to unseat Republican Senator John Cornyn. The incident is a chilling example of how the Trump administration and allied media organizations are colluding to suppress critical coverage of the administration.
Addressing the incident on Monday night’s show, Colbert, shown above at center, said he was also told by CBS’ lawyers not to discuss the decision to spike the Talarico interview. But Colbert, whose show is being canceled in May, ignored that directive.
At issue was the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) “equal time rule,” which states that if a broadcast radio or television station provides time to a candidate for political office, it must provide equal time to all other candidates. (The rule does not apply to cable, streaming, or other non-broadcast platforms.) There is, however, an exception to the rule for news coverage and interviews. And, for decades, that exception has also applied to interviews of politicians by talk show hosts.
In a January 21 “Public Notice,” the FCC declared that interviews of political candidates on late night and daytime talk shows would no longer have a blanket exemption. Rather, the FCC would make a case-by-case determination of whether a program was conducting interviews for “bona fide” news purposes or for “partisan purposes, such as an intention to advance or harm an individual’s candidacy.” The notice did not provide any guidance as to what makes a show “partisan.”
Without the exception, airing political interviews would be effectively impossible. For example, there are 15 declared candidates running for U.S. Senate in Texas. Without the exemption, if the Late Show interviewed Talarico for 10 minutes, every CBS affiliate in the country would need to provide 10 minutes of primetime airtime to the other 14 candidates — including those with little support and no chance of victory. Recent polls show Talarico in a virtual dead heat with Cornyn in a hypothetical general election matchup.
“Let’s just call this what it is,” Colbert said Monday. “Trump’s administration wants to silence anyone who says anything bad about Trump on TV because all Trump does is watch TV.” At a January 29 press conference, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr (R), a Trump loyalis (shown above in an inset with Colbert)t, said the Commission would not grant an exception to the equal time rule for broadcasts it considers “fake news.”
In a Fox News interview, Carr made clear that the rule was targeting Colbert and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel. Carr said that if Colbert or Kimmel did not want to comply with the new requirements, they could move to cable or a podcast, which are outside the FCC’s jurisdiction.
FCC Commissioner Anna M. Gomez (D, shown above at center) noted that the FCC “has not adopted any new regulation, interpretation, or Commission-level policy altering the long-standing news exemption or equal time framework.” She called the Public Notice “misleading” and “an escalation in this FCC’s ongoing campaign to censor and control speech.” She urged broadcasters to “not feel pressured to water down, sanitize, or avoid critical coverage out of fear of regulatory retaliation.”
CBS, however, is using the Public Notice as justification to censor the broadcast of an interview with a Democratic political candidate. Notably, the network was recently sold to a new owner in a transaction financed by billionaire Larry Ellison, a major Trump supporter. The CEO of CBS’ new parent organization, Paramount Skydance, is David Ellison, Larry Ellison’s son. In October, David Ellison installed Bari Weiss, a conservative pundit, as the new Editor-in-Chief of CBS News.
In a statement issued Tuesday afternoon, CBS denied that it prohibited Colbert from airing the interview.
Not every broadcast network is falling in line. ABC’s The View interviewed Talarico on February 2. An anonymous FCC source then leaked to Fox News that the Commission had launched an investigation into the interview. “Fake news is not getting a free pass anymore,” the FCC source said.Carr turns a blind eye to right-wing talk radio
While the equal time rule applies to broadcast radio as well as television, the FCC’s January 21 Public Notice only mentions broadcast television. Talk radio shows typically lean more conservative, and would likely be forced to include more Democratic guests if the equal time rule was also enforced in radio.
Carr was asked in the January 29 press conference if the new guidance applied to “political talk radio.” Carr noted that while the equal time rule “applies to broadcast radio and TV,” the new guidance “was focused on those TV precedents.”
Carr argued that the FCC “wanted to be very clear” about the precedents for broadcast television because “there had been some broadcast television-related decisions by the FCC over the years, and it had appeared that some in [the] industry had misread, overread, or misconstrued those decisions.” Carr argued that the guidance was not necessary for radio, as “there wasn’t a relevant precedent that we saw that was being misconstrued on the radio side.”
Later in the press conference, however, Gomez reiterated that the equal time rule applies to radio as well. “And I also want to note what the administration is not focusing on, that these rules apply to all broadcasters, television and radio,” Gomez said. Gomez argued that the rules “must be applied evenly to the administration’s friends and critics alike.”How Carr has weaponized the FCC
Since the start of the second Trump administration, Carr has used the FCC as a cudgel to intimidate news organizations and advance the Trump agenda.
On January 22, 2025, Carr reopened an investigation into whether CBS had deceptively edited an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris on 60 Minutes in October 2024. Carr’s investigation was launched as Paramount, CBS’s owner, faced a defamation lawsuit from Trump over the Harris interview. Paramount was also seeking FCC approval for its merger with Skydance.
In February 2025, the New York Times reported that Paramount executives hoped that settling the lawsuit with Trump would pave the way for the FCC to approve the merger. Ultimately, the lawsuit was settled on July 1 for $16 million, and the FCC approved the merger three weeks later. The approval was granted on the condition that CBS hire an ombudsman to review bias in news coverage and that Paramount and Skydance shut down all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.
A few weeks after Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to “combat illegal private-sector DEI preferences,” Carr sent a letter to Comcast, which owns NBC, saying that the FCC was investigating its DEI policies. The letter said, “the FCC will be taking fresh action to ensure that every entity the FCC regulates complies with the civil rights protections enshrined in the Communications Act and the agency’s EEO rules, including by shutting down any programs that promote invidious forms of DEI discrimination.”
Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T have also caved to Carr’s threats and ended DEI programs to secure FCC approval for proposed mergers.
In the last year, Carr has also threatened several other media companies for unfavorable coverage of the Trump administration. For example, early in Trump’s term, the FCC launched an investigation into San Francisco radio station KCBS over its coverage of ICE operations in San Jose. According to the AP, the station’s news directors told employees to ensure that the station’s coverage did not anger the FCC.
Carr’s most high-profile threat came in September when he implied that ABC could face punishment after Kimmel made a comment about the murder of Charlie Kirk. On a podcast with MAGA influencer Benny Johnson, Carr said, “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.” Within hours, Kimmel was suspended by ABC, although it was reinstated about a week later.
New York Times, Stephen Colbert Finds a Place to File CBS’s Surprise Statement, Trish Bendix, Feb. 18, 2026. “I don’t even know what to do with this,” Colbert said about the network’s news release on a scrapped interview with a Democratic politician, before putting the paper in a dog waste bag.
Stephen Colbert addressed the fervor around Monday’s “Late Show” on Tuesday, remarking that he’d said his piece after CBS wouldn’t air his interview with James Talarico, a Democratic Texas state representative.
“We made some jokes — that’s what they pay me for — and I was ready to let it go, until a few hours ago, when my group chat blowed up because, without ever talking to me, the corporation put out this press release,” Colbert said. He pulled out a statement issued by CBS on Tuesday, which he called “a surprisingly small piece of paper considering how many butts it’s trying to cover.”
“Now, clearly, this statement was written by and, I’m guessing, for lawyers. Now, I’m not a lawyer, and I don’t want to tell them how to do their jobs. But since they seem intent on telling me how to do mine, here we go.” — STEPHEN COLBERT
“Fellas, fellas, I am well aware that we can book other guests. I didn’t need to be presented with that option. I’ve had Jasmine Crockett on my show twice. I could prove that to you — I could prove that to you, but the network won’t let me show you her picture without including her opponents. So I guess just … I’ll have to show you this picture of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein instead. They made me do it! I didn’t want to.” — STEPHEN COLBERT
“So, we obeyed our network and put the interview on YouTube, where it’s gotten millions of views. And I can see why. Talarico is an interesting guy. I don’t know if he should be the senator, but it was a good discussion. I wish we could have put it on the show, where no one would’ve watched it.” — STEPHEN COLBERT
“For the record, I’m not even mad. I really don’t want an adversarial relationship with the network. I’ve never had one. As I said last night, in my interview with James Talarico — check it out, it’s on YouTube, it’s pretty good — I said, I said to him I’m grateful to have worked for CBS for the last seven years and worked with George and David and Amy and everyone at the network; the Sheldons of every age, the Matlocks of every sex. I’m just so surprised that this giant global corporation would not stand up to these bullies. Come on, you’re Paramount! No. No! No, you’re more than that. You’re Paramount+. Plus what? I guess we’re all going to find out pretty soon.” — STEPHEN COLBERT
“And for the lawyers to release this without even talking to me is really surprising. I don’t even know what to do with this crap.” — STEPHEN COLBERT, before putting the paper statement in a dog waste bag.
BIG, Analysis of Too Big: Paramount Has a Secret Plan to Buy Hollywood Before the Cops Arrive, Matt Stoller, right, 
Feb. 18, 2026. Paramount consigliere Makan Delrahim has plans to close the Paramount-Warner deal and do mass layoffs before antitrust enforcers can even file a case.Matt StollerFeb 18 READ IN APP
For a few months now, there’s been a bidding war between Paramount and Netflix to buy Warner Bros Discovery. Netflix seemed to have clinched the deal when the board of WBD accepted their offer. Paramount, which is owned by the billionaire Ellison family, got very nasty about the situation, suing on procedural grounds and trying to get shareholders to revolt. Ultimately, they are going to do what they had to do from the very beginning to win the bidding war - offer more money.
But a contact let me on to something odd about the Paramount approach: the company says it has mostly completed the extensive legal paperwork necessary to acquire WBD. And that’s both very weird and very important, for reasons I’ll get into, because it suggests Paramount’s people believe the fix is in, on their behalf.
First, let’s discuss the bidding war itself. Both the Paramount and Netflix offers are legally problematic, for slightly different reasons. If Netflix wins, it will likely end up killing the theatrical release business, and entrenching its dominance in streaming. European antitrust enforcers are wary of Netflix, as is the Trump DOJ. Paramount has a different legal problem. The case is much simpler, because it’s a combination of two direct rivals going head-to-head in a concentrated market. A merger of Paramount and WBD would include two out of five movie studios and distributors, two major TV studios, two big sports distributors, and so forth. This chart is from TD Cowan.
We know what happened when Disney bought Fox - the number of released movies by 44%. The same thing will happen here, especially considering how many people Paramount is likely to fire. That violates all sorts of merger guidelines, which are the way enforcers think about how the Clayton Act works.
There’s an additional problem for Paramount, and that’s the obvious censorship and cronyism. The Ellison’s are new to owning Paramount, having bought it last year. And in that time, they have taken a number of steps, including firing Stephen Colbert, that are obvious attempts to please Trump. Then this Monday night, Colbert, in his last few months on the job, claimed that CBS, which is owned by Paramount, would not allow him to interview a Democratic Senate candidate, James Talarico. As former FTC commissioner Alvaro Bedoya notes, the conspiracy is pretty open.
Now, it’s not an antitrust problem that CBS censored this interview, but it is a media consolidation issue. As I’ve noted, we should repeal the Telecom Act of 1996 and break up these conglomerates, restoring vertical separation between distribution and production of video content and update that for the streaming world. Otherwise, we’re living in a censorship machine.
The way this behavior intersects with antitrust law is that it will change who might want to challenge each merger. A Netflix acquisition brings Trump enforcers and anti-big tech Europeans into play, while a Paramount acquisition likely puts them on the sidelines. At the same time, Democratic state officials will be more likely to challenge a Paramount deal, because of the obvious partisan cronyism going on.
And that’s where the legal strategy of Paramount comes in. The company’s main antitrust lawyer is a savvy and cynical operator named Makan Delrahim. Delrahim is a close confidante of David Ellison, the son of Oracle founder and billionaire Larry Ellison, who is financing the deal. And Delrahim’s goal is to get the deal through before enforcers know what hit them.
To understand how requires a bit of a detour into the technical details of merger law. When two big companies announce a merger, they don’t immediately combine operations. They can’t just start moving the furniture, firing people, reordering business lines, and redesigning org charts. Both companies must remain independent, with two CEOs, two CFOs, two marketing departments, and so forth, in case the merger falls apart and they have to go their separate ways. That remains the case until the companies sign a deal, line up financing, get permission from their shareholders, and clear antitrust hurdles.
There are a number of steps to overcoming potential antitrust objections. A merger of big companies must go through what’s called the Hart-Scott-Rodino process. Both companies file a form with the antitrust enforcers offering “such documentary material and information” that would help the Federal Trade Commission or Department of Justice figure out whether the combination is a violation of antitrust laws.
Once they file that form, there’s an automatic delay of 30 days, during which time the companies can’t merge operations. If enforcers decide to investigate further, they can send a bunch of questions, known as a “second request,” to the two parties. The merger then gets delayed until they parties answer those questions.
Fulfilling that second request is time-consuming and expensive. Corporations will negotiate with the government over the extent of the document requests and search terms, trying to limit the amount of information they have to hand over to minimize exposure to legal risk. There’s a reason for that, monopolization cases can come out of information acquired in the merger process. Once enforcers start poking around in your dirty laundry, they are apt to notice things you didn’t want them to see. So second requests take between a year or two, costing millions or tens of millions in legal fees.
Once a second request is done, the shot clock for the government starts ticking again. At that point, enforcers have to actually file a case and ask a judge to keep the operations of the company separate until the litigation is over. If they don’t, the deal closes and the companies can combine operations. Layoffs start, people get moved around, new projects get green lit.
That doesn’t mean challenging a deal that has already closed is impossible. Technically, there’s no legal difference between undoing a deal rather than preemptively stopping one. But the incentives for the merging parties change once a deal closes. If they are still separate, time works against the merging parties. They will cooperate with the government on document requests so as to to get the process over, get their deal bonuses, and so forth. But once a deal closes, there’s no more incentive to do anything but delay, as they already have what they want, aka a completed merger. In fact, they will work hard to mingle the assets immediately to make it hard to untangle them, and even shut things down.
Delrahim knows how this process works, and so he’s had Paramount do something unusual for an acquiring party. His company has filed an HSR form without signing a merger deal or even winning the bid for the company with whom it is trying to combine. And not only has Paramount filed an HSR form, it has already “substantially” fulfilled the second request for information from the DOJ. That’s astonishing. It means Paramount paid tens of millions to lawyers to comb through documents on a rush job. It also likely implies they did no negotiations whatsoever with the government, and just gave them everything they asked for. I’m told that is unheard of.
Why take such cumbersome and risky steps if Paramount is not even assured victory in the bidding war? Well, there’s a specific timeline involved if they make a cash tender offer. If the Netflix deal falls apart and Paramount wins the bidding war, then the antitrust enforcers have just fifteen days to rush a complaint out to a court to ask to pause the merger.
Now, the DOJ Antitrust Division may still be able to file a case. They have hundreds of lawyers and they know how to challenge mergers. They examined the Disney-Fox deal, the Warner-Discovery deal, they are antitrust enforcers first and foremost. But Delrahim believes, not without reason, that the Trump Antitrust Division will be fine with Paramount buying WBD. He is also likely banking on enforcers being unable/unwilling to comb through all of their documents and put a case together on time, because DOGE slashed the number of capable antitrust lawyers there.
Of course, I’ve never been particularly optimistic about this administration challenging mergers. But there are other possible litigators - state attorneys general, particularly from Democratic states. State enforcement lawyers are not experienced at challenging mergers, especially big ones, they rely on the DOJ to do that for them. There are opportunities here - a savvy state AG could send a civil demand to Paramount and get all the second request data sent over to the Federal government, which is a treasure trove of sensitive information.
Still, a fifteen day crunch to challenge a $90 billion deal is difficult. And while there is a broad anger in Hollywood over the deal, it’s not clear the institutions representing creatives are prioritizing a merger challenge over more prosaic things like bargaining with studios over health care. And so far, key industry leaders, a generally cautious and wealthy bunch, are still weighing on whether to engage. That’s why we’re mostly not seeing Hollywood stars speaking out.
So if the Trump enforcers refuse to challenge the merger, or do some sort of consent decree where Paramount makes promises to release a certain number of films, that erects an additional hurdle to state enforcers. At that point, if the states don’t prepare and file a case very quickly, the deal closes. Then Paramount will own WBD. It will start layoffs, renegotiating terms with theaters and sports leagues, combining streaming properties, and restructuring entities like CNN.
Even if state enforcers bring a case, it will be much harder to win. It could take many years, and in that time, Paramount will effectively have consolidated the industry. Enforcers won’t be asking for a judge to halt a merger, but to break up a company. And judges get very nervous about that.
Moreover, states will have to prove to a judge not only that the deal is illegal, but also that the Federal government was wrong in its analysis of the deal. The last time they attempted such a challenge was in 2019-2020, during the first Trump administration, when states brought a case against the Sprint-T-Mobile merger even as the Federal antitrust enforcers did a consent decree. The judge let the merger happen because he believed the Federal government was more credible than the states.
Oh, and who was the Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust when that Sprint-T-Mobile merger happened over state objections? It was a guy named… Makan Delrahim. So that’s the plan. Buy off the Feds, overwhelm and intimidate the states, roll-up Hollywood.
Of course, that plan relies on a number of things to fall into place, including Paramount winning the bidding war and sustaining its financing. If that happens, then what’s standing in the way of a combination of Paramount and WBD is Hollywood power players and Democratic state attorneys general. Now, there are reasons they could challenge, and I know they are paying close attention. But… it’s the Democrats. There are moments when they could actually change their brand to a party willing to take risks for working people, instead of box-checking bureaucrats using tired rhetoric about fighting. This could be one of them.
Thanks for reading! Your tips make this newsletter what it is, so please send me tips on weird monopolies, stories I’ve missed, or other thoughts. And if you liked this issue of BIG, you can sign up here for more issues, a newsletter on how to restore fair commerce, innovation, and democracy. Consider becoming a paying subscriber to support this work, or if you are a paying subscriber, giving a gift subscription to a friend, colleague, or family member. If you really liked it, read my book, Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy.
U.S. Crime, Courts, Law, Rights
New York Post, News and Commentary: Trans dad Robert Dorgan shoots wife, 3 kids in horrid ‘family dispute’ at crowded RI hockey arena as players and fans are seen scrambling to safety, Chris Nesi and Caitlin McCormack, Feb. 17, 2026 (print ed.). A twisted trans father shot his wife, three kids 
and a family friend in the stands at a high school hockey tournament in Rhode Island on Monday — sending the panicked crowd screaming and fleeing for the exits.
Two people were killed and three others are in critical condition at a hospital after the gunfire erupted at Lynch Arena in Pawtucket around 2:30 p.m., according to cops, who described the incident as a targeted family dispute.
The shooter, identified as 56-year-old Robert Dorgan — who also went by Roberta Esposito — died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.
The shooter, identified as 56-year-old transgender father Robert Dorgan — who also went by Roberta Esposito — died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.
Dorgan gunned down his son’s mother, their three children and a family friend who were all watching the game.
Dorgan was the father of a senior at North Providence High School, one of the six schools participating in the co-op games, WPRI reported.
He shot his son’s mother, their three children and a family friend who were all spectators at the game, according to reports.
The mother died at the scene, and one of the children died at the hospital, the local outlet reported.
A woman who was seen leaving the Pawtucket Police Department following the deadly rampage told reporters, “My father was the shooter” and claimed that he was plagued by “mental health issues.” “He shot my family, and he’s dead now,” she said, adding that he was “very sick.”
Feb. 17
Top Stories
Shown above: A collage of photos illustrating the decades-long relationship of Donald Trump and the high-flying, well-connected global strategists and sex traffickers Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell who hobnobbed with royalty, billionairres and foreign dictators for purposes whose decades-long national secuity threats to the United States and traditional NATO allies are only now coming into public view.
So much attention has been paid to Epstein's serial sex crimes that we've spent too little time asking whether Trump owes his political career to a dead pedophilic rapist he can’t stop lying about. More On U.S. Governace, Politics, Elections
More Trump, Trump Team Corruption Exposed
right, Feb. 17, 2026. Corruption is a germ’s best friend.More On Epstein Files
Global News
U.S. Law, Courts, Crime, Justice, Rights
Top Stories
Shown above: A collage of photos illustrating the decades-long relationship of Donald Trump and the high-flying, well-connected global strategists and sex traffickers Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell who hobnobbed with royalty, billionairres and foreign dictators for purposes whose decades-long national secuity threats to the United States and traditional NATO allies are only now coming into public view.
Wayne Madsen Report via Substack, Investigative Commentary: Epstein scandal has revealed that fascism and pedophilia are partners in crime, Wayne Madsen, left, author of 28 books, and former Navy intelligence officer and NSA analyst, Feb. 17, 2026. There have been political and criminal consequences in Norway, UK, France, Czechia, UAE, Latvia, etc. but not the U.S.
The political, business, and criminal consequences of the Jeffrey Epstein files scandal have seen criminal indictments and probes, corporate resignations (including in top American companies), and law enforcement and intelligence investigations in scores of countries.
There’s one major exception. It’s nothing but crickets in the White House, where the president whose name is in the Epstein files over a million times is claiming “exoneration.”
Donald Trump has been closely linked to a global cabal of pedophiles who engaged in child rape, producing snuff films, and even cannibalism on the corpses of infants.
So, it’s not merely a case of Trump being credibly accused of raping underage girls but something far more evil. The Epstein files, of which only 2 percent have been released by the Justice Department, should be a regime-ending event.
There are at least a dozen members of the current and first Trump administration shown to have had close ties to Epstein and his inner circle. The DOJ’s redactions are masking the identities of others in the administration and in MAGA Republican politics.
Czechia is among the latest countries to open a criminal probe of Epstein’s trafficking of Czech, Lithuanian, Slovak, Hungarian, Ukrainian, and other eastern European girls to the United States and other countries. Czech authorities have discovered that many of the Eastern European women trafficked by Epstein did not speak English, which made them vulnerable to exploitation.
Czech authorities are looking into Epstein’s business dealings in Czechia, which included a desire to purchase property in Prague. The Czechs are looking into Epstein’s connection with Ronald Eppinger.
On August 22, 2001, Eppinger pleaded guilty in federal court in Miami to charges of smuggling Eastern European girls into the U.S. “for purposes of prostitution, facilitating interstate prostitution, and money laundering.”
Eppinger’s indictment stated that he promised to find the girls work as models if they would move to the United States from Eastern Europe. On their arrival, Eppinger quickly put them to work as prostitutes. Eppinger’s smuggling activities in Eastern Europe coincided with those of Epstein 
associates Ghislaine Maxwell and Jean-Luc Brunel, left.
While awaiting trial in Paris on charges of sex trafficking, Brunel is said to have committed suicide in his cell in 2022. French authorities have opened a criminal case on Epstein’s operation and the involvement of French nationals.
The FBI’s Eppinger case files are as heavily redacted as those on Epstein and his colleagues. Some of those colleagues have resigned their corporate positions. They include Brad Karp, right, the chairman of the white shoe law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison; Tom Pritzker, chairman of the Hyatt Corporation; and Casey Wasserman, owner of Wasserman sports talent 
agency, sold it as a result of Epstein blowback. Wasserman is currently under pressure to step down as chairman of the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics.
Zorro Ranch, now owned by a Texas MAGA politicianTexas Republican candidate for Comptroller, Don Huffines, has been discovered as the 2023 purchaser of Epstein’s 7600-acre Zorro Ranch in New Mexico. Huffines’s son currently works for the Trump White House. The New Mexico Legislature has unanimously voted to set up an investigatory subcommittee — known as the Epstein Truth Commission — to probe all aspects of the Zorro Ranch, which could be a major crime scene with the revelation that at least two foreign girls were buried on the ranch. Huffines claims he will turn the ranch into a “Christian retreat,” which will do nothing to deter New Mexico’s probe.
Colorado authorities are examining two of Epstein’s Western Union wire transfers sent in October 2005 from the Publix supermarket in Palm Beach, Florida to Wells Fargo Bank in Grand Junction, Colorado
Don Huffines, recently-disclosed owner of Epstein’s Zorro Ranch in New Mexico
There are now calls for Police Scotland and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service are investigating Epstein’s operations in Scotland. From 2004 to 2005, phone calls involving Epstein were made from a number of towns and small Scottish villages. They include Port of Menteith, Dumfries, Ardwell, Galloway, Buchan in Aberdeenshire, the Stuartfield area, Strichen, New Pitsligo, the Isle of Benbecula in the Hebrides, Bannockburn, and Pitlochry. It is noteworthy that Buchan, Strichen, New Pitsligo, and Stuartfield are all in the vicinity of the Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeenshire, near the village of Balmedie. Dumfries, Ardwell, and Galloway are in southwest Scotland, near the Trump Turnberry Golf Course.
Several calls involved Epstein and small villages around the Trump golf course in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
India’s opposition Indian National Congress (INC) is stepping up pressure on the Narendra Modi government to fire Epstein friend, the current Petroleum Minister and former Indian ambassador to the UN Hardeep Singh Puri over his 62 email exchanges and 14 meetings with Epstein between 2014 and 2018. INC spokesman Pawan Khera stated, “Between 2014 and 2017, there were 62 email exchanges between Hardeep Puri and Epstein.
Apart from that, what was discussed in the meetings on June 5, 6, 8, and 9; September 19, 23, and 24; and October 9 and 10 in 2014?
Khera added, “Why was Hardeep Puri sharing government policies with Epstein in his capacity as a private citizen? He should first resign and 
then clarify this matter.”
Khera also criticized Microsoft founder and Epstein friend Bill Gates’s participation in the current AI Impact Summit in Delhi. There was some confusion over Gates’s keynote address being canceled due to the Epstein scandal. Prior to the summit, Gates, left, visited Andhra Pradesh, where he met with his friend Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and his ministers. The state is governed by the pro-business Telugu Desam Party, which is in coalition with the governing Modi government led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Madhya Pradesh Kisan Congress party Anup Dhote castigated the Andhra Pradesh government for welcoming Gates, saying of Gates, “His name has appeared multiple times in the Epstein files along with photos. After knowing all this, anyone should avoid meeting him.”
Proof, Investigative Commentary: Evidence Indicates Jeffrey Epstein Was Key to 2016 Pro-Trump Election Meddling, Seth Abramson, left, Feb. 16-17, 2026. So much attention has been paid to Epstein's serial sex crimes that we've spent too little time asking whether Trump owes his political career to a dead 
pedophilic rapist he can’t stop lying about.
The longest and by far most complicated book in the bestselling Proof Series is the 2019 New York Times bestseller Proof of Conspiracy (Macmillan), which chronicles the Fall 2015-born “Red Sea Conspiracy”—an agreement by the leaders of Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Bahrain, and Israel to illegally interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to ensure that Donald Trump won it.
You can find Proof of Conspiracy here, and a seminal report on the Red Sea Conspiracy here.
The short version of the story—admittedly, a story so complex and encompassing that there really is no proper “short version”—is that the 
autocratic leaders of these six nations correctly ascertained in 2015 that a Trump administration would benefit them materially.
Why did these nations’ authoritarian strongmen believe this?
Because the 2016 Republican Party presidential nominee and his most trusted agents (some formal campaign staffers, others just close friends of the nominee) assured them of it before Election Day 2016. They assured these foreign nationals—with interests divergent from and hostile to the interests of the United States—that Trump would please them to no end, and they did it not just once but over and over and over again.
No American presidential campaign had ever acted this way before, and one prays that none ever will again. It was a course of Bribery so audacious that—and this author writes this as an attorney—the American criminal justice system actually has no means as yet to properly investigate it or punish it. Rather, treachery this historic is deemed the province of America’s intelligence agencies, which are trained to keep what they learn to themselves rather than to warn voters (or even, candidly, Congress) about all they know. No special counsel or independent counsel named by DOJ was ever likely to be given sufficient leash to uncover this form of pre-election horse-trading, and as we’ve seen in recent years, congressional oversight committees find it nearly impossible to get the truth from our intelligence agencies—which fall under the federal executive branch—if a POTUS elected via a course of astounding Bribery and betrayal of his nation doesn’t want that evidence supplied to any other branch.
Indeed, recent discoveries confirming that Trump’s intelligence apparatus internally polices itself to ensure no intelligence that harms the president’s agenda will ever be given to Congress or anyone else was no more than a one-day news story in America.
In any case, the assurances agents of the Trump campaign privately gave to the Red Sea Conspiracy states in 2015 and 2016 induced them to interfere in the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf. Nor did the Trump campaign, seeing this interference, move to stop it; rather, having confirmed that it was inciting major, transnational election-tampering crimes, the campaign doubled and tripled down on its unprecedented graft.
And not only did the 2016 Trump presidential campaign increase the frequency and intensity of its promises to foreign actors as it saw the grotesque election tampering such promises had wrought—promises, we must recall, that were being given to only the most dangerous and lawless autocratic leaders on Earth—but in some cases the campaign even greenlit this tampering expressly, thereafter lying to American voters and to Congress about it. In fact, between 2015 and 2016 the Trump campaign told the truth about its scores of policy-oriented private meetings with foreign nationals not once; it was the policy of the campaign, like its leader, to admit nothing and to deny everything, including under oath. Perhaps especially when its agents were under oath.
All of the foregoing is non-controversial as a matter of journalism. It was all proven through the thousands and thousands of reliable major-media citations included in Proof of Conspiracy, in this outlet writ large, and in federal reports released by DOJ, the U.S. Senate, and even the oft-mum United States Intelligence Community (USIC).
But no one cared.
The story of Trump and his agents’ collusion with foreign powers pre-election in 2016 was to be assessed as significant only if it led to criminal convictions—which as it happens it did, but not ones that prevented Donald Trump from ascending to the office of the presidency after he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by 2.9 million votes but won in the Electoral College by approximately 77,500 votes in three states (Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania). All three states were explicitly targeted by the Kremlin for illegal election interference after known Kremlin agents Konstantin Kilimnik and Oleg Deripaska received proprietary Trump 2016 campaign polling data directly from the hands of Trump’s handpicked campaign manager—another known Kremlin agent, Paul Manafort—in August 2016.
Among these domestic and foreign assets and (in a few cases) foreign agents were:
FOR RUSSIA: Sergey Kislyak, Sergey Lavrov, Josef Mifsud, Maria Butina, Igor Sechin, Natalia Veselnitskaya, Rinat Akhmetshin, Irakly Kaveladze, Anatoli Samochornov, Emin Agalarov, Aras Agalarov, Vitaly Churkin, Maxim Churkin, Oleg Deripaska, Dmitry Rybolovlev, Dimitri Simes, Viktor Orbán, Rick Gates, Andrii Artemenko, Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, Kirill Dmitriev, Dmytro Firtash, Felix Sater, Sergey Gorkov, George Nader, Konstantin Kilimnik, Julian Assange, Natalia Veselnitskaya, Viktor Vekselberg, Alexander Torshin, Ivan Timofeev, Yuri Soloviev, Alexander Shosterovich, Konstantin Rykov, Yulia Alferova, Artem Klyushin, Giorgi Rtskhiladze, Paul Erickson, Andrey Rozov, Alexander Rovt, Alexey Repik, Yevgeny Prigozhin, Andrii Derkach, Sergei Prikhodko, Olga Polonskaya, Victor Pinchuk, Dmitry Peskov, Gleb Pavlovsky, Viktor Boyarkin, Georgiy Oganov, Lev Leviev, Dmitry Klokov, Serhiy Lyovochkin, Aleksandr Kogan, Panos Kammenos, Sergey Ivanov, and Sergei Millian.
FOR THE UAE: George Nader, Erik Prince, Elliott Broidy, Thomas Barrack, Jeffrey Epstein, Jared Kushner, Yousef al-Otaiba, Abdullah bin Zayed, and Hussain Sajwani.
FOR SAUDI ARABIA: George Nader, Jeffrey Epstein, Jared Kushner, Joseph Schmitz, Yasir Rummayyan, Saud al-Qahtani, David Pecker, Abdel al-Jubeir, and Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb.
FOR ISRAEL: Jared Kushner, Ron Dermer, George Birnbaum, George Papadopoulos, Jeffrey Epstein, Eli Groner, Rick Gerson, Joel Zamel, Charles Tawil, Erik Prince, Vincent Tchenguiz, Arthur Finkelstein, Ronald Lauder, Sheldon Adelson, Lev Leviev, and Tony Fabrizio.
FOR TRUMP: Steve Bannon, Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Jeff Sessions, George Papadopoulos, Erik Prince, Michael Cohen, Roger Stone, Carter Page, Sam Clovis, Alexander Nix, Sam Nunberg, Devin Nunes, Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Keith Kellogg, Walid Phares, Michael Flynn, J.D. Gordon, Rick Dearborn, Keith Schiller, Rudy Giuliani, Boris Epshteyn, Corey Lewandowski, Derek Harvey, Marc Kasowitz, and Tony Fabrizio.
This is not, of course, a complete list of the assets (and in a few cases, agents) critical to the Red Sea Conspiracy. Indeed, it represents perhaps only a third or so of the total list. And even that list would leave off those who likely had some fealty to one or more of the countries above, or even countries at the outskirts of this narrative like Turkey, but whose utilities and/or fealties remain unclear (e.g., Imaad Zuberi, Bijan Kian, and Kamil Ekim Alptekin).
But the above lists are sufficient, for now, to give a general sense of the size and scope of the Red Sea Conspiracy operation, and also to highlight certain names that appear on more than one list:
Without making things too complicated, we should also note that during the period of highest activity for the Red Sea Conspiracy co-conspirators—2015 through 2017—plans were underway for all of the Muslim nations involved (Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, and Bahrain) to invade by ground their neighbor Qatar, which at the time and still housed the largest American military base in the region. This situation was so central to the Conspiracy that below we see Epstein (EFTA02383863) discussing the fact (much later reported by The Intercept) that opposition to this ground invasion was going to cost Trump’s first Secretary of State Rex Tillerson his job, on the orders of MBS:
To the extent Russia was part of the Conspiracy because it wanted U.S. sanctions on it dropped by Trump and believed (correctly) that Trump would give it free reign to re-invade Ukraine on whatever timeline it wished; to the extent Israel was part of the Conspiracy because it believed (correctly) that Trump would allow it to commit genocide in Gaza and the West Bank, move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, and work toward normalization of relations between Israel and its Muslim neighbors (even if it meant giving those regimes the most dangerous spying and assassination tech ever devised by humankind); what these four Muslim countries wanted—and more than anything else besides Israeli tech—was American nuclear secrets and a commitment to go to war with Iran on their behalf (even as they themselves invaded and conquered Qatar in a resource-theft gambit reminiscent of Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait in the 1990s, a clear war crime the United States Armed Forces went to war to remedy).
Of course, for an American president to give in to any of these demands amounted to an act of treachery against the United States that was inconceivable back in mid-2015.
Give nuclear secrets to murderous autocrats who have sponsored global terror and are a risk to start World War III? End sanctions on Russia for invading Europe and—to boot—plotting a Ukrainian genocide there? Allow four nations to do to our ally Qatar what America twice went to war to keep Iraq from doing to its neighbor Kuwait? Allow the most dangerous technology held by our ally Israel to fall into the hands of the most contemptible dictatorships in the world, knowing that such tech would soon be used inside America against our residents and abroad against our diplomats (as it now has)?
Only a presidential candidate with no love or fealty for America would have gone along with any of this—and much more that we cannot cover in a single report—but that’s exactly what Donald Trump did. And he did it, even inciting election-tampering to do it, so that he could cut a few business deals in Russia, build a few golf courses in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and build a few hotels in Egypt, Russia, and former Soviet republics still under Putin’s thumb (as well as shake down Qatar in exchange for convincing The Arab League to stay its invasion). The Proof Series lists these deals, their names, their principals, their locations, and how they were negotiated; none of this is any mystery or any secret. Of course, what Trump wanted more than anything was for the Conspiracy to take the illegal actions necessary to make him President of the United States—a status that by 2015 had been Trump’s dream for over forty years.
The degree to which Donald Trump allowed the agents of the Red Sea Conspiracy into his inner circle was almost comical. Vladimir Putin friend Dimitri Simes became his Russia adviser; MBZ adviser Erik Prince sent him national security white papers through Steve Bannon; George Nader and Elliott Broidy lobbied him on geopolitical matters face-to-face and met with his family members and top campaign staffers at Trump Tower and elsewhere; Kremlin agents Paul Manafort and Rick Gates became Trump’s campaign manager and deputy campaign manager, respectively; his son-in-law Jared Kushner, reported out in the Epstein Files as a Russian and Israeli agent, would take a secret meeting with any hostile foreign national pre-campaign or post-campaign who’d offer him money or a chance at future investments; his best friend Thomas Barrack was up to his eyeballs in meetings with Qatar and certain Red Sea Conspiracy-state foreign nationals, even as Trump’s top “shadow” national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was having secret calls and meetings with the Russians and helping Barrack devise a plan to get American nuclear technology to the Red Sea Conspiracy co-conspirators who wanted it. Carter Page went to Moscow to meet with Kremlin agent Igor Sechin.
Future Trump Attorney General and head of Trump’s mid-campaign National Security Advisory Committee Jeff Sessions met with Kremlin agents in DC. Steve Bannon and George Papadopoulos worked to get an improper campaign endorsement from Egypt’s tyrant Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as the latter was dealing also with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Israelis. Countless Trump staffers had dealings with Israeli intelligence and its agents, as detailed in Proof of Conspiracy.
As noted above, Flynn and some friends of his were tasked with getting emails stolen from Clinton by Russian hackers, and Manafort gave proprietary polling data to one of Putin’s top lieutenants through a Kremlin-agent intermediary. Trump himself publicly asked the Kremlin to hack Clinton and DNC emails and release them. Trump’s son Don Jr. met secretly with a female Russian spy (Maria Butina) at an NRA event and then secretly with three more male Kremlin agents. Trump had his historically pro-Kremlin foreign policy written for him by Manafort, Papadopoulous, and pro-Kremlin lobbyist Richard Burt—all men willing to make Kremlin policy America’s as well.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson speaks at the National Press Club in 2017, surrounded by other civil rights leaders (Marta Steele photo).
New York Times, Jesse Jackson, Civil Rights Leader Who Sought the Presidency, Dies at 84, Peter Applebome, Feb. 17, 2026. An impassioned orator, he was a moral and political force who formed a “rainbow coalition” of poor and working-class people. His mission, he said, was “to transform the mind of America.”
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, whose impassioned oratory and populist vision of a “rainbow coalition” of the poor and forgotten made him the nation’smost influential Black figure in the years between the civil rights crusades of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the election of Barack Obama, died on Tuesday. He was 84.
His death was confirmed by his family in a statement, which said that Mr. Jackson “died peacefully,” but did not give a cause.
Mr. Jackson was hospitalized in November for treatment of a rare and particularly severe neurodegenerative condition, progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), according to the advocacy organization he founded, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. In 2017, he announced that he had Parkinson’s disease, which in its early stages can produce similar effects on bodily movements and speech.
Mr. Jackson picked up the mantle of Dr. King after his assassination in 1968 and ran for president twice, long before Mr. Obama’s election in 2008. But he never achieved either the commanding moral stature of Dr. King or the ultimate political triumph attained by Mr. Obama.
Instead, through the power of his language and his preternatural energy and ambition, he became a moral and political force in a racially ambiguous era, when Jim Crow was still a vivid memory and Black political power more an aspiration than a reality.
With his gospel of seeking common ground, his pleas to “keep hope alive” and his demands for respect for those seldom accorded it, Mr. Jackson, particularly in his galvanizing speeches at the Democratic conventions in 1984 and 1988, enunciated a progressive vision that defined the soul of the Democratic Party, if not necessarily its policies, in the last decades of the 20th century.
It was a vision, animated by the civil rights era, in which an inclusive coalition of people of color and others who had been at the periphery of American life would now move to the forefront and transform it.
New York Times, Trump Sought Vast Budget Cuts. Congress Granted Few, Tony Romm, Feb. 17, 2026. In a series of deals over the past three months, lawmakers rejected some of the president’s most aggressive attempts to whittle down the government.
Shortly after returning to office, President Trump embarked on an aggressive campaign to pare back the core functions of the federal government, unveiling a budget that proposed some of the steepest spending reductions in U.S. history.
Nearly one year later, Congress has rejected much of that vision.
In a little-noticed development, lawmakers have systematically brushed off many of Mr. Trump’s most severe cuts for this fiscal year, leaving intact a vast set of federal education, health, housing and research programs that the White House had tried to slash or eliminate.
For Mr. Trump, the result is a set of annual government expenses that do not appear radically different on paper compared with what he inherited in January 2025. Overall, Congress is on track to approve more than $1.6 trillion in discretionary spending for 2026, amounting to little change from the previous fiscal year, according to a preliminary analysis of federal budget records by the Penn Wharton Budget Model, a nonpartisan research organization.
The finer details are apparent in the complicated legislation that Congress enacted between November and February. Targeting primarily domestic programs, Mr. Trump had originally recommended about $163 billion in deep spending cuts. But lawmakers often did not abide, and in the end, some of the funding that the president had tried to erase — including for medical research, college aid and benefits for poor people — instead changed only slightly, the data show.
Mr. Trump still prevailed in other ways, most notably in his efforts to scale back the size and reach of government by ousting thousands of federal workers. Still, the outcome on Capitol Hill underscores the complex and fraught politics of austerity: Where the president sees evidence of spending that is woke, weaponized or wasteful, his critics in both parties see money that is essential to their communities and the broader economy.
At times, the difficult dynamic has put the White House at odds with some congressional Republicans, many of whom are up for re-election this November. That has only reinforced Mr. Trump’s desire to circumvent lawmakers altogether, using a series of contested and potentially illegal maneuvers to revoke billions in congressionally approved spending that the president disfavors.
The Parnas Perspective, News Roundup: Trump Lashes Out as Protests Grow on Presidents' Day and More Key Trump Officials Revealed in Epstein Files, Aaron Parnas, right, Feb. 16-17, 2026. We have new details about the Epstein files, including a key Trump official named in them, as well as the confirmed identity of the family that purchased the New Mexico ranch where the abuse of children occurred.
At the same time, a horrific mass shooting has shaken a Rhode Island community. Congressman Dan Goldman tells me impeachment must remain firmly on the table, and that he intends to lead investigative efforts into the Trump presidency next year if Democrats retake the House of Representatives. All of this unfolds as Trump spends Presidents’ Day lashing out at critics and political opponents.
Here’s the news:
Newly released Justice Department files reveal that Tom Barrack, a longtime Trump confidant and current U.S. ambassador to Turkey, maintained regular contact with Jeffrey Epstein for years after Epstein’s 2008 conviction, exchanging emails and texts, arranging high-levelintroductions to global political and business figures, and communicating during the 2016 presidential campaign and early Trump administration. The records show Epstein sought to leverage Barrack’s proximity to Trump and encouraged encrypted communications, though there is no evidence Barrack relayed information to Trump or had knowledge of Epstein’s criminal conduct.
New documents show the family of Donald Huffines, a Texas businessman and self-described “Trump Republican” running for state comptroller, bought Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro ranch in New Mexico (shown above) at a public auction in 2023 for a reassessed value of $13.4 million; the property was the site where Epstein abused teenage girls and was purchased through an LLC linked to the Huffines family, and the campaign has not explained the purpose of the acquisition. To this day, the Zorro ranch has not been searched by state or federal authorities.
Major Update: New Mexico Launches First Ever Probe of Epstein Ranch as Trump Falsely Claims he is "Totally Exonerated."
Major developments unfolded this evening in the ongoing controversy surrounding the release of files connected to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, intensifying political tensions and renewing calls for transparency. I am working around the clock to get you the truth about what’s happening, and right now, it really does feel like the tide is turning (slowly, but it is happening). Subscribe to support my around the clock work today.Subscribed
This evening, President Donald Trump publicly denied any involvement with Epstein, stating, “I have nothing to hide. I have been exonerated. I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. I have been totally exonerated on Epstein.” Trump has repeatedly insisted that investigations have cleared him of wrongdoing.
That’s not true, however. As I reported yesterday, there is at least one instance where FBI investigators believed there to be sufficient, credible allegations to interview a accuser of the President. What materialized from that investigation remains unclear to this day.
Meanwhile, at the state level, New Mexico lawmakers this evening passed legislation to launch what they describe as the first full investigation into activities at Zorro Ranch, Epstein’s sprawling property located roughly 30 miles south of Santa Fe. Epstein was accused of trafficking and sexually assaulting girls and women at multiple properties, including the New Mexico ranch.
The bipartisan initiative will seek testimony from survivors of alleged abuse at the ranch and is urging local residents to come forward. Lawmakers say the goal is to establish a comprehensive record of what occurred there and to ensure accountability where possible. To this day, the Zorro Ranch has never been searched by federal or state authorities. As I describe in this video, state authorities can prosecute individuals in New Mexico, even if the federal government will not:
Adding a new layer of controversy, the Guardian has reported that the Zorro Ranch property was purchased in 2023 by the family of Donald Huffines, a Texas businessman and self-described “Trump Republican” who is currently running for state comptroller. Through an LLC called San Rafael Ranch, the Huffines family acquired the nearly 10,000-acre property after it was put up for auction, with proceeds directed toward Epstein’s victims.
The ranch, initially valued at $21.1 million for tax purposes, was later reassessed at $13.4 million following an appeal that cited the property’s notoriety. A spokesperson for the family stated they had never visited the ranch prior to its auction listing and declined to answer questions about the purpose of the purchase. Huffines, who has campaigned on a platform aligned with prominent MAGA figures, is currently leading in the Republican primary race for comptroller, according to recent polling.
Meanwhile, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sharply criticized the Trump administration’s handling of Epstein-related files, accusing it of a “cover-up.” Speaking to the BBC in Berlin during the annual World Forum, Clinton called for full transparency.
“Get the files out. They are slow-walking it,” she said.
Clinton emphasized that all individuals connected to the case should be subject to equal scrutiny. When asked whether Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor should testify before Congress, she responded, “I think everyone should testify who is asked to testify.”
She also expressed support for public proceedings. “We will show up, but we think it would be better to have it in public,” Clinton told the BBC.
Republican committee chair James Comer accused the Clintons of delay, claiming they “caved” as a contempt vote approached. Clinton rejected the suggestion of preferential treatment and framed her position as a matter of fairness.
“I just want it to be fair. I want everybody treated the same way,” she said. “We have nothing to hide. We have called for the full release of these files repeatedly. We think sunlight is the best disinfectant.”
Clinton further argued that attention on her and former President Bill Clinton was being used to distract from scrutiny of Trump.
“Look at this shiny object. We’re going to have the Clintons, even Hillary Clinton, who never met the guy,” she said.
Clinton acknowledged that she had met Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s convicted associate, “on a few occasions.”
As investigations advance at both the state and federal levels, the political stakes continue to rise. Survivors, lawmakers, and the public are now pressing for greater transparency, with bipartisan calls for testimony and full disclosure signaling that the Epstein files remain a flashpoint in American politics.
Billionaire Tom Pritzker, right, announced he is stepping down as executive chairman of Hyatt and will not seek re-election to the board after newly 
released Justice Department files detailed his past association with Jeffrey Epstein, prompting him to admit he exercised “terrible judgment” in maintaining contact.
Two victims were killed and three others hospitalized after a shooting broke out during a high school hockey game at Lynch Arena in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, with at least 14 shots heard on a livestream before panic spread through the rink; police said the violence appears to stem from a family dispute and described it as an isolated incident, while students from multiple schools were accounted for and authorities continue investigating.
Speaking at a university event in Berlin, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for Attorney General Pam Bondi to resign or face impeachment, criticizing her handling of the Epstein files and accusing her of failing to hold alleged offenders accountable.
Donald Trump lashed out at a new green energy agreement between UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and California Governor Gavin Newsom, calling it inappropriate for the UK to work directly with Newsom, after the two signed a memorandum in London to expand cooperation on clean energy, climate resilience and technology ties between Britain and California.
A large protest took place outside Trump Tower in New York City during a “President’s Day Flip Off” demonstration, where participants gathered to express opposition to Donald Trump.
According to WFAA, the owner of a Hutchins, Texas warehouse said it will not sell or lease the property to the Department of Homeland Security for use as a proposed ICE detention facility that could hold up to 9,500 people, following strong opposition from local officials, residents and a state lawmaker, while federal authorities have not confirmed any plans for the site.
Donald Trump said the federal government will intervene to coordinate the response to a massive sewage spill into the Potomac River after a collapsed sewer pipe in Montgomery County, Maryland, released more than 200 million gallons of wastewater, with FEMA tasked to help manage the cleanup amid public health concerns over elevated bacteria levels, while local officials say drinking water remains safe and are working to contain and repair the damage.
Donald Trump reiterated his opposition to the $16 billion Gateway tunnel project connecting New York and New Jersey, said the federal government would not cover any cost overruns, and denied that he had pushed to rename Penn Station or Dulles International Airport after himself in exchange for releasing federal funding, stating the idea was raised by others.
A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration acted improperly in removing exhibits about slavery from the President’s House historic site in Philadelphia, which commemorates the residence of George Washington and John Adams, finding that the decision to eliminate the slavery-related displays was unlawful.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said the FBI has refused to share evidence from its investigation into the Jan. 24 shooting death of Alex Pretti by Department of Homeland Security agents during immigration raid protests in Minneapolis, calling the lack of cooperation unprecedented and pledging to pursue legal avenues to obtain information while the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division conducts a separate review.
According to the Guardian, John Paulson, a billionaire hedge fund manager and early Trump donor who has publicly criticized offshoring and promoted domestic manufacturing, is planning to close Conn Selmer’s brass instrument plant in Eastlake, Ohio, by June 2026 and shift most production to China, eliminating 150 union jobs; workers represented by UAW Local 2359 say the decision contradicts his public stance, describe it as a betrayal and an attack on the union, and are rallying to reverse the closure amid concerns about economic harm to the local community.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the FDA will consider revoking the “Generally Recognized as Safe” status of corn syrup and dozens of processed sweeteners and starches unless companies prove they are safe, backing a petition from former FDA Commissioner David Kessler and signaling a potential crackdown on ultraprocessed food ingredients while stopping short of calling for new regulations.
Civil rights groups including the NAACP have sued to block the Trump administration from using voter data seized by the FBI during a January raid on the Fulton county, Georgia, elections office, arguing the sweep of nearly 700 boxes of ballots, voter rolls and election materials is part of Trump’s continued effort to relitigate his 2020 election loss and threatens voting and privacy rights, while county officials also seek the return of the materials.
A federal judge ordered ICE to release Greggy Sorio, a Filipino lawful permanent resident detained in Tacoma, Washington, ruling that a pattern of inadequate and unreasonable medical care at the facility likely led to extreme pain, permanent disability and two partial foot amputations, finding his constitutional rights were violated after delayed hospital treatment and unfilled prescriptions contributed to serious health complications.
Savannah Guthrie made a new public appeal for information about her missing 84-year-old mother, Nancy Guthrie, who disappeared 15 days ago in Tucson, Arizona, saying “it’s never too late to do the right thing,” as investigators examine a glove found near the home that carries an unknown man’s DNA; authorities believe she is alive, have made no arrests, are pursuing forensic and database leads, and have cautioned against speculation about family members while the FBI and local sheriff continue the search.
Robert Duvall, the Oscar-winning actor known for iconic roles in films such as Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, MASH, and To Kill a Mockingbird, has died at 95; over a career spanning more than six decades he earned seven Oscar nominations, won best actor for Tender Mercies in 1984, delivered legendary performances including Lt Col Kilgore and Tom Hagen, directed several films, and received a late-career nomination for The Judge.
NBC News has confirmed that about 100 U.S. troops and equipment have arrived in Nigeria to train and support Nigerian forces in intelligence and technical operations as the country battles Islamic militant groups and armed bandits, with officials emphasizing the Americans will not engage in combat and that Nigerian forces retain full command authority amid ongoing security challenges and recent U.S. airstrikes against ISIS-affiliated militants.
More On U.S. Governance, Politics, Elections, Media
Popular Information, Accountability Journalism: Major corporations bankroll political ad featuring white supremacist slogan, Judd Legum, right, Feb. 17, 2026. Congressman Andy Barr (R-KY), above, who is running to replace Mitch McConnell in the United States Senate, released his first television ad earlier this month. In the ad, Barr speaks directly to the camera and declares, “It’s not a sin to be white.”
The language used by Barr is a variation of the phrase “It’s OK to be white,” which has been adopted by white supremacists. It has been designated as a “hate slogan“ by the Anti-Defamation League.
According to campaign finance records reviewed by Popular Information, Barr’s campaign ad is being bankrolled by dozens of major corporations, including General Motors, State Farm, JPMorgan Chase, Delta, and Microsoft.
“It’s OK to be white,” sometimes abbreviated as IOTBW, was popularized on the notoriously racist message board 4chan in 2017. It was then adopted by neo-Nazis and white supremacists, who plastered schools and other public spaces with flyersfeaturing the slogan. Former KKK grand wizard David Duke, a prominent white supremacist, promoted the campaign:
It was also championed by the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer.
IOTBW “has a fairly long history in the white supremacist movement,” according to Mark Pitcavage, a researcher who studies extremism. In 2001, the phrase was used as the title of a song by the “white power music band Aggressive Force.” ADL has been tracking it since at least 2005 and, in 2012, a Ku Klux Klan group, United Klans of America, used the hashtag #IOTBW on Twitter.
The purpose of the 2017 campaign was to “trigger“ liberals and journalists with a purportedly innocuous phrase to prove that they are motivated by a hatred toward white people.
The Barr campaign appears to have similar goals. Barr concludes the ad by stating, “I’m Andy Barr, and I approve this message to give woke liberals something else to cry about.” In a press release, the Barr campaign bragged that the ad had already “inflamed woke leftists.” The campaign gleefully reported that it “prompted unhinged tweets from woke liberals across [Kentucky] and the country.” The press release includes a sampling of “woke liberal meltdowns” in response to the ad.
The ad also lambastes Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, saying the acronym really stands for “Dumb, Evil, Indoctrination.” According to Barr, “Woke liberals spew it, corporate losers fall for it.” As Barr decries “woke liberals,” the ad features a still image of a Black man in a Martin Luther King Jr. t-shirt, holding a sign that reads “Stay Woke America.”
Barr’s campaign announced it would spend $1 million to promote the ad across Kentucky on broadcast, cable, and digital platforms. Former Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who is Black, is Barr’s top Republican primary opponent. The two were virtually tied in two polls conducted before Barr released the ad.
The ad has drawn comparisons to an infamous ad, “Hands,” aired by the campaign of the late Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) in 1990. “You needed that job, and you were the best qualified. But they had to give it to a minority because of a racial quota. Is that really fair?” the narrator in the ad asked as a pair of white hands crumpled a piece of paper.
Barr is not a stranger to racial controversy in his campaigns. When Barr first ran for Congress in 2010, it was reported that he was a life-long member of a country club, Idle Hour, that was all-white until 2009. Barr’s campaign responded by saying the news was the result of dirty politics by his opponent and did not apologize for his association with the club.Corporate PAC donors to Barr’s campaign
Barr’s Senate campaign has raised nearly $1.4 million from PACs, including dozens of PACs representing corporations and trade associations. A Popular Information review of Barr’s filings with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) revealed contributions from at least 67 major corporations.
Some companies that donated to Barr appear to be the “corporate losers” that he attacks in the new ad. In 2022, for example, MetLife CEO Michel Khalaf said:
MetLife’s purpose calls on us to build a more inclusive and equitable world for all our stakeholders. The breadth of these commitments demonstrates that we are significantly advancing our DEI efforts on every front. Setting clear expectations for our progress will hold us accountable and sustain our momentum.
In 2025, MetLife’s PAC donated $5,000 to Barr’s Senate campaign.
A top Delta executive said last year that, despite pressure from the Trump administration, it remained steadfast in its commitment to diversity. “DEI is about talent, and that’s been our focus,” Delta Chief External Affairs Officer Peter Carter said. “And, of course, the key differentiator at Delta is our people.” A few months later, Delta donated $5,000 to Barr’s Senate campaign.
In other cases, corporations have supported Barr as they scaled back efforts to promote diversity. Microsoft, for example, ceased publication of its annual diversity and inclusion report in 2025 and donated $5,000 to Barr. Last year, Wells Fargo “discreetly deleted its 
DEI page detailing a long history of diversity and inclusion work dating back to the early 1800s” and donated $5,000 to Barr’s campaign. It was a dramatic about-face for Wells Fargo, which pledged $50 million to the NAACP in 2023.
Other corporate donors to Barr’s Senate campaign that recently donated to the NAACP include JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Nationwide, and UPS. Meanwhile, Comcast, Bank of America, and TD Bank donated to Barr and are listed as the ADL’s Corporate Partners Against Hate.
Popular Information contacted all 67 corporate PAC donors to Barr’s Senate campaign for comment. All of the corporations either did not respond or declined to comment.
PoliticusUSA, Opinion: The Banning Of James Talarico's Stephen Colbert Interview Has Backfired On Republicans, Jason Easley, right, Feb. 17, 2026. Republicans are so afraid of Democratic Texas US Senate candidate James Talarico that CBS banned his interview from airing on Late Night With Stephen Colbert. and the gambit backfired.
Republicans in Texas and increasingly across the country have been very clear about who they don’t want to see win the Texas US Senate Democratic primary. State Rep. James Talarico is the candidate that they fear facing in a general election more than Rep. Jasmine Crockett.
Trump and his party have spent years attacking and demonizing Rep. Crockett, who will have a bright future in politics no matter the outcome of the Democratic US Senate primary in Texas.
Crockett got into the Senate primary and doesn’t have much of an established campaign organization. Crockett’s campaign plan is to lure new voters to the polls. However, in a state like Texas, where Republicans have spent decades suppressing the vote, bringing new voters into the process is likely easier said than done.
Trump’s FCC issued guidance that all daytime and late-night talk shows must provide equal time to political candidates, which, as Colbert explained on his show, meant that he was told by CBS that his interview with Talarico could not air.
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Colbert said that Talarico:
was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast. Then I was told in some uncertain terms that not only could I not have him on, I could not mention me not having him on. And because my network clearly doesn’t want us to talk about this, let’s talk about this.
Video of the Colbert segment:
The effort to silence Talarico has backfired on CBS, the Trump administration, and the Republican Party in a massive way.
The problem with banning any form of media or not airing an interview is that it usually makes people more interested and creates more attention for the item that the network or outlet is attempting to bury.
This is exactly what has happened in the case of the James Talarico interview.
Colbert’s segment explaining why CBS banned the interview from airing has 1.4 million views at the time of publication of this story.
After The Late Show aired, the Talarico interview was uploaded to the show's Yos YouTube channel and has piled up 1.2 million views and counting.
Without CBS and the Trump FCC attempting to silence Talarico and Colbert, the interview would have never gotten so much attention.
Talarico offered up why he thought that CBS did the bidding of the Trump administration and would not air the interview:
I think that Donald Trump is worried that we're about to flip Texas, and Stephen, this is the party that ran against cancel culture, and now they're trying to control what we watch, what we say, what we read. And this is the most dangerous kind of cancel culture. The kind that comes from the top. They went after The View because I went on there. They went after Jimmy Kimmel for telling a joke they didn't like. They went after you for telling the truth about Paramount's bribe to Donald Trump.
Corporate media executives are selling out the First Amendment to curry favor with corrupt politicians, and a threat to any of our First Amendment rights is a threat to all of our First Amendment rights
Watch the interview:
Colbert fact-checked Talarico on the stated reason for his cancellation, “My network said our cancellation was a purely financial decision. And I remain very grateful for the last 11 years.”
Talarico showed why Republicans in Texas are so worried about facing him in a general election by talking about Christianity and condemning Christian nationalism:
We are called to love all of our neighbors, including our Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, seek, agnostic, atheist neighbors. And forcing our religion down their throats is not love.
And it's why I have fought. It's why I fought so hard for that sacred separation in our First Amendment. Because my granddad, he raised me to believe that that boundary between church and state doesn't just benefit the state or our democracy, although it certainly does, but it also benefits the church. Because when the church gets too cozy with political power, it loses its prophetic voice, its ability to speak truth to power, its ability to imagine a completely different world.
And so this separation between church and state is something we have to safeguard. It's something we have to fight for. And I think we need someone in the US Senate who is going to confront Christian nationalism and say and tell the truth which is that there is nothing Christian about Christian nationalism.
It is the it is it is the the worship it is the worship of power in the name of Christ. And it is a betrayal of Jesus of Nazareth. And I just want to thank you, Stephen, because I know you're not a politician, but you have really shown people in this country what Christianity should be and what it means to actually live out the teachings of Jesus, even in a talk show.
Republicans don’t want James Talarico to be the Democratic nominee for the Senate seat in Texas, but their attempts to silence his message will only help him win the nomination.
Incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, according to the polling of the Republican US Senate primary, could finish third to Rep. Wesley Hunt and scandal-plagued Texas AG Ken Paxton.
AG Paxton is viewed as a weak candidate who could lose to Talarico in November.
Republicans are worried about Texas, and they made their problems worse by getting CBS not to air the Stephen Colbert interview with Rep. James Talarico.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., with President Trump and Mehmet Oz, the Medicaid and Medicare services administrator, in the White House in September (New York Times photo by Tierney L. Cross)
New York Times, Vaccine Makers Curtail Research and Cut Jobs, Rebecca Robbins, Feb. 16, 2026. Federal policies under Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that are hostile to vaccines have “sent a chill through the entire industry,” one scientist said.
In Massachusetts, Moderna is pulling back on vaccine studies. In Texas, a small company canceled plans to build a factory that would have created new jobs manufacturing a technology used in vaccines. In San Diego, another manufacturing company laid off workers.
When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was picked in November 2024 to become the next health secretary, public health experts worried that the longtime vaccine skeptic would wreak havoc on the fragile business of vaccine development.
Those fears are beginning to come true, according to executives and investors involved with companies that develop and sell vaccines and the technology that is best known for the Covid vaccines.
At conferences and in interviews, they described the emerging consequences of the Trump administration’s dismantling of the longstanding federal support for vaccines.
“There will be less invention, investment and innovation in vaccines generally, across all the companies,” Dr. Stephen Hoge, the president of Moderna, said in an interview.
The Trump administration said it was not discouraging innovation.
But investors have grown hesitant to bet on a field that has fallen out of favor in Washington. Major manufacturers are reporting declining sales of their shots. Smaller companies are taking the brunt of the impact, with some stocks whipsawing in response to the changes.
Perhaps no vaccine maker has been hit harder by the federal policy changes than Moderna. Mr. Kennedy has repeatedly questioned the safety and effectiveness of the technology around which the company has built its business. The technology, known as messenger RNA, or mRNA, instructs the body to produce a fragment of a virus that then sets off an immune response. It can be more quickly tailored and manufactured compared to traditional approaches.
Last week, the Food and Drug Administration refused to review Moderna’s mRNA flu vaccine, saying its research design was flawed.The health officials’ decisions are a striking departure from President Trump’s first term, when the federal government funded and shepherded Moderna’s Covid vaccine. The company’s stock price has plummeted more than 90 percent since its peak in August 2021, erasing about $180 billion in market value.ImageA torn box that reads "influenza vaccine" is on a table along with other medical supplies.Distribution of the flu vaccine in the United States is on pace for its lowest level in 12 years.Credit...Laila Stevens for The New York Times
Pharmaceutical companies have dodged several of Mr. Trump’s threats, reaching favorable deals with the administration to avoid tariffs and keep prices high for most of the drugs they currently sell. But they have been unable to find common ground on vaccines.
“It’s a different world when you start discussing vaccines,” Albert Bourla, Pfizer’s chief executive, said last month. “There is almost like a religion there.” Asked what needs to change, Mr. Bourla said, “the health secretary.” Mr. Bourla also characterized Mr. Kennedy’s rhetoric as “anti-science.”
Mr. Bourla talks about the president with a different tone. He once said Mr. Trump deserved a Nobel Prize for championing the Covid vaccines.
Mr. Nixon said, “We reject the claim that our approach to vaccines is anti-science or hostile to innovation.”
Mr. Kennedy has argued that Covid shots using mRNA are not effective because they do not prevent infection. He also once called them “the deadliest vaccine ever made.” Like all shots, mRNA vaccines sometimes cause side effects, but extensive research has found the shots are safe overall and that serious reactions occur rarely.
Under Mr. Kennedy’s leadership, the department has canceled contracts for mRNA technology, limited the use of Covid shots and remade a crucial committee that recommends which vaccines Americans should take and when.
Last month, federal health officials overhauled the childhood vaccination schedule, reducing the number of recommended immunizations to 11 from 17, deciding that that the six vaccines that were dropped should now be given only in consultation with a clinician.ImageRobert F. Kennedy stands at a podium and speaks in front of a row of people and two flags.Fears that Mr. Kennedy’s tenure would wreak havoc on the business of vaccine development are beginning to come true, according to executives and investors.Credit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times
The changes “sent a chill through the entire industry,” said Jeff Coller, a scientist who works on mRNA at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Coller advises several small mRNA companies and is on the executive committee of the Alliance for mRNA Medicines, a trade group.
Morning Shots via The Bulwark, Political Opinion: American Principles in the Age of MAGA Nihilism, Bill Kristol, Andrew Egger and Jim Swift, Feb. 17, 2026. Why the Trump administration fears authentic patriotism.
We haven’t heard too much from FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr since his abortive attempt last year to get Jimmy Kimmel off the air. But Carr’s back in the news this morning amid a tangle with another late-night comedian: The Late Show’s Stephen Colbert. On his show last night, Colbert said CBS News had forbidden him from airing an interview with Texas Democrat and Senate candidate James Talerico, citing Carr’s threat last month to go after late-night programs for supposed violations of the FCC’s Equal Time rule.
“He was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast,” Colbert said of the interview, which was later posted online. “Let’s just call this what it is: Donald Trump’s administration wants to silence anyone who says anything bad about Trump on TV, because all Trump does is watch TV, okay?”
One quick programming note: Bill and Andrew will be going live on Substack and YouTube at 10 a.m. EST this morning, trying out something new: a video version of Morning Shots. (Morning Chaser, maybe?) The suits are talking about making this a recurring thing on Tuesdays—we’ll see if we scare them off that today. Happy Tuesday.
Morning Shots via The Bulwark, Political Opinion: Why We Fight, William Kristol, right, Feb. 17, 2026. Last weekend, Marco Rubio, the secretary of state of the United States, spoke at the annual Munich Security Conference. He didn’t deign to discuss in his prepared remarks actual security challenges to the United States from, say, Putin’s Russia or Xi’s China. Instead, he lectured world leaders about the Trump administration’s general view of the nature of politics, war, and patriotism. One of Rubio’s most striking statements was that “armies do not fight for abstractions.”
Rubio made this statement in the year in which we’ll celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. That Declaration was also a declaration of war. The war for independence that the Continental Army fought was in defense of and on behalf of certain principles. You might even call them “abstractions.”
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
Most Americans—and much of the world—at the time and since, have understood the American Revolution to have been more than just another dispute over power and privilege. Here’s Abraham Lincoln in a public letter he wrote in April 1859 to be read at a celebration in Boston of the birthday of Thomas Jefferson.
All honor to Jefferson—to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression.
Jefferson was able “to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth.” The administration in which Rubio serves pretends to celebrate that revolution, but hates the abstract truth which animated that revolution and which elevates it above merely another mundane struggle for power or profit. The Trump administration hates that fact because it is a reminder that there is more to life than power and profit. And it hates that truth precisely because it remains a stumbling block to tyranny and oppression.
Two years after his encomium to Jefferson, Lincoln became president. Our single people were about to be divided in two by a great civil war fought over the competing principles of equality and slavery. Minnesota—then the newest member of the Union, admitted in 1858—was the first state to promise President Lincoln a regiment of volunteer soldiers to fight for the United States. And at the climactic battle of the war, Gettysburg, it was the 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment that famously suffered terrible casualties in a key action that helped secure the Union’s position on Cemetery Ridge on the battle’s second day, and laid the groundwork for victory.
Why did the Minnesotans volunteer? For what were they fighting? Their own security wasn’t endangered by Southern secession. They weren’t at risk of being conquered by a foreign people or culture. Quite the contrary. They were of similar heritage and spoke the same language and read the same Bible and worshiped the same God as the Virginians they fought, and whose flag they took in battle and have since declined to return.
The Minnesotans fought and died for what Rubio would denigrate as an abstract principle.
The current government of the United States sadly has no understanding of such an elevated patriotism—even though it was this kind of patriotism that also animated the fight in the next century later against fascism, and then against communism.
Fortunately, the American people are better than our current government. Civic spirit and enlightened patriotism are by no means dead in the United States. As the people of Minnesota have again reminded us.
A little over two months ago, on December 4, 2025, Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland of Security announced a surge of immigration enforcement into Minnesota. In early January, DHS announced an expansion of the effort into what it called the largest immigration enforcement operation ever. Now, after two months of disgraceful conduct by agents of our government, the Trump administration is withdrawing from its chosen field of battle.
This has surely been the single greatest setback yet for Trump’s mass-deportation and mass-intimidation agenda. The defeat wasn’t administered by a rival fighting force, but by the voluntary deeds, the civic courage, the enlightened patriotism of the people of Minnesota. The number of Minnesotans who have volunteered to help defend their neighbors’ rights over these past months has been stunning. Their determination, courage, and discipline have been remarkable.
Many observers have said so often in recent years that civic virtue is dead, that community bonds have been destroyed, that we can no longer expect sacrifice for and commitment to the common good. Those commentators have been proven wrong. The people of Minnesota and millions of ordinary Americans across the nation have rallied in opposition to what Jefferson feared, “the harbingers of reappearing tyranny and oppression.”
All honor to Jefferson for his foresight. And all honor to those Americans who are stepping up to the fight.
Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for moreAmerican Principles in the Age of MAGA NihilismWhy the Trump administration fears authentic patriotism.William Kristol, Andrew Egger, and Jim SwiftFeb 17 READ IN APP
We haven’t heard too much from FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr since his abortive attempt last year to get Jimmy Kimmel off the air. But Carr’s back in the news this morning amid a tangle with another late-night comedian: The Late Show’s Stephen Colbert. On his show last night, Colbert said CBS News had forbidden him from airing an interview with Texas Democrat and Senate candidate James Talerico, citing Carr’s threat last month to go after late-night programs for supposed violations of the FCC’s Equal Time rule.
“He was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast,” Colbert said of the interview, which was later posted online. “Let’s just call this what it is: Donald Trump’s administration wants to silence anyone who says anything bad about Trump on TV, because all Trump does is watch TV, okay?”
One quick programming note: Bill and Andrew will be going live on Substack and YouTube at 10 a.m. EST this morning, trying out something new: a video version of Morning Shots. (Morning Chaser, maybe?) The suits are talking about making this a recurring thing on Tuesdays—we’ll see if we scare them off that today. Happy Tuesday. Protestors march as part of a “Nationwide Shutdown” demonstration against ICE enforcement on January 30, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)Why We Fight
AROUND THE BULWARK
The Line That Should Terrify Europe… On Bulwark+ Takes, WILL SALETAN takes on Marco Rubio’s warning to Europe about Chinese “extortion”—and the uncomfortable reality that Donald Trump is using America’s economic and military leverage the same way.Quick Hits
ONE LAST MINNEAPOLIS OUTRAGE: ICE might be winding down its extraordinary enforcement operation in Minneapolis, but the federal government’s stonewalling of state investigations into the death of Alex Pretti is continuing. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension announced yesterday that the FBI is refusing to give state investigators access to its evidence related to Pretti’s death. The BCA added that it remains unclear whether the FBI will hand over evidence related to the earlier killing of Renee Good.
“While this lack of cooperation is concerning and unprecedented, the BCA is committed to thorough, independent and transparent investigations of these incidents, even if hampered by a lack of access to key information and evidence,” BCA Superintendent Drew Evans said in a statement. “We will continue to pursue all legal avenues to gain access to relevant information and evidence.”
We don’t know how many times we’ve had to say it by now: It’s astonishing how effectively this administration’s towering heap of controversies, scandals, and misdeeds actually makes it impossible to pursue accountability for any individual one. The fact that Trump’s federal law and immigration enforcement have deliberately and consistently worked to shut down investigations into the killing of a U.S. citizen by one of their own is an outrage that cries out for justice. And it’ll be lucky to make the front page.
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YES, PUTIN MURDERED NAVALNY: In extremely unsurprising news, a joint statement by the United Kingdom, Sweden, France, Germany, and the Netherlands at the Munich Security Conference confirmed that the death of Russian political prisoner Alexei Navalny two years ago yesterday was a state-engineered murder. Tissue samples smuggled out after Navalny died in an Arctic penal colony showed traces of epibatidine, a very rare, lethal (and synthesizable) toxin from an Ecuadorian dart frog. The chances of such a poisoning without Vladimir Putin’s say-so? Roughly equal to those of an Ecuadorian frog hopping around the Arctic prison. Putin had plenty of motive to eliminate Navalny, whose charisma and anti-corruption populism made him a uniquely effective opposition leader. Excluding a live Navalny from prisoner swaps was becoming unfeasible, while releasing him, for Putin, was unthinkable.
While Russia scoffs and Secretary of State Marco Rubio hedges, the real question is what to do with this finding—besides reporting a breach of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Will it kneecap Russia’s credibility (ha!) in the Ukraine peace talks? Will it bury Donald Trump’s plans for a YUGE business deal with Putin? Russian émigré journalist Viktor Shenderovich thinks “it will be harder for President Trump next time to say what a nice guy Putin is.” Yeah, watch him.
—Cathy Young
REV. JESSE JACKSON, 1941–2026: A mainstay of American politics and the civil rights movement, Rev. Jesse Jackson died yesterday at the age of 84 after a decade-long battle with Parkinson’s disease. A lieutenant of Martin Luther King Jr. at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Jackson became an influential and independent voice in the Democratic party, twice rising to prominence as a presidential candidate. His work on civil rights earned him the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Bill Clinton.
I knew Jesse Jackson only a bit. Though we were of course on opposite sides politically, we had cordial and pleasant conversations when we encountered each other. My last conversation with him was when I ran into him in a hotel lobby a couple of years ago. We had a cup of coffee and talked, though the Parkinson’s made it difficult for him. But I think he enjoyed our reminiscing about days gone by.
I’ll add one thought: In retrospect, I now think I underestimated Jesse Jackson’s importance for many Americans. They saw in his leadership, and in his presidential candidacies, someone who spoke for them powerfully and eloquently at a time when not many did. They admired and respected him for this, and they were not wrong to do so.
THE TOTTERING VACCINE INDUSTRY: On Sunday, Jonathan Cohn reported on the bizarre, infuriating story of the government’s spiking of a new flu-vaccine application from Moderna, one of the companies whose mRNA vaccine technology helped pull the world out of the COVID pandemic. As a technology platform, mRNA has theoretical applications far beyond coronaviruses. Moderna’s second bite of the apple, a flu vaccine, has been in development and early testing for years, in close consultation with the federal government. But when Moderna sent its promising early data to the Food and Drug Administration to seek regulatory approval, the FDA slammed the brakes, arguing in a letter this month that the company had not tested the vaccine rigorously enough.
“The available evidence,” Cohn wrote, “suggests this is a case of the FDA disqualifying a vaccine on questionable grounds, while changing its standards for review late in the process because it was trying to find a way to reject the vaccine.”
Kennedy’s ongoing hostility to vaccines isn’t just keeping new products off the market. It’s having a chilling effect across the whole vaccines industry, as the New York Times reported yesterday:
In Massachusetts, Moderna is pulling back on vaccine studies. In Texas, a small company canceled plans to build a factory that would have created new jobs manufacturing a technology used in vaccines. In San Diego, another manufacturing company laid off workers. . . .
The Trump administration said it was not discouraging innovation.
But investors have grown hesitant to bet on a field that has fallen out of favor in Washington. Major manufacturers are reporting declining sales of their shots. Smaller companies are taking the brunt of the impact, with some stocks whipsawing in response to the changes.
New York Times, Potomac Sewage Spill Becomes Ecological Disaster and Political Fight, Scott Dance and Maxine Joselow, Feb. 17, 2026. A D.C. utility had been working for weeks to repair a collapsed sewer line when the president blamed Maryland’s governor for the contamination on Monday
An enormous sewage spill that sent hundreds of millions of gallons of raw human waste into the Potomac River is threatening the health of the river and the safety of those who use it.
In what appears to be the largest discharge of its kind in the nation’s history, untreated sewage began gushing into the Potomac on Jan. 19, when a section of a sewer line collapsed near the Clara Barton Parkway in Montgomery County, Md., about five miles upstream of Washington. The 72-inch-wide pipe, called the Potomac Interceptor, normally carries up to 60 million gallons of waste a day.
The sewage flooded into the river unencumbered for about a week, until D.C. Water, the utility that owns and operates the sewer line, was able to divert it to a section of pipe downstream that runs to a water treatment facility. But there have been intermittent sewage spills as recently as Feb. 10, and the utility expects it will be four to six weeks before the pipe is repaired.© Mapbox © OpenStreetMapDistrict of Columbia
Drinking water has not been affected. But initial testing found elevated levels of E. coli and Staphylococcus aureus, the bacteria that causes Staph infections, as well as antibiotic-resistant MRSA, prompting concern about the impact on boating, fishing and other recreational activities that have been flourishing in recent years.
On Monday, the disaster became entangled in national politics, when President Trump posted on Truth Social that local officials, including Governor Wes Moore, Democrat of Maryland, had bungled the cleanup efforts and that the Federal Emergency Management Agency would intervene.
On Tuesday, Mr. Trump again posted about the sewage spill and sought to link it to an unrelated partial government shutdown that began on Saturday. “These Democrat caused Disasters, both River and Shutdown, will only get worse,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social, adding, “This is a Radical Left caused Environmental Hazard.”
A spokesman for Governor Moore, who has been critical of the president’s policies, responded that Mr. Trump was at fault.
“The President has his facts wrong — again,” the spokesman, Ammar Moussa, said in a statement. “Since the last century, the federal government has been responsible for the Potomac Interceptor, which is the origin of the sewage leak. For the last four weeks, the Trump Administration has failed to act, shirking its responsibility and putting people’s health at risk.”Editors’ PicksFrom a Best-Selling Novelist, a Memoir Drawn in Blood and Whimsy‘Star Search,’ Plus 7 Things to Watch on TV This WeekIn the East Village, Hiding in Plain Sight: A Secret Passage to the Underground Railroad
The amount of nitrate pollution that has flowed into the river was roughly equivalent to a year’s worth of output from a large sewage treatment facility, said Dean Naujoks of the Potomac Riverkeeper Network, an environmental group. The pollution feeds large algae blooms that can disrupt the river’s ecology and strip its waters of oxygen.ImageBrown, grayish water is seen bubbling up through the ground in a wooded area.Untreated sewage water spilled from the Potomac Interceptor alongside the Clara Barton Parkway in Bethesda, Md., on Jan. 23.Credit...Leah Millis/Reuters
He called on Environmental Protection Agency officials, whom he said he has been unable to reach, and Maryland environmental regulators to intervene and enforce clean water laws. Though the sewer infrastructure is owned by D.C. Water, the contamination is affecting downstream waters in Maryland, where commercial fishing for invasive blue catfish is set to ramp up in the coming weeks.
“There needs to be some accountability,” Mr. Naujoks said.
In response to questions, David L. Gadis, the chief executive of D.C. Water, said in a statement that the utility had been working with the E.P.A. and that the incident “underscores the urgent challenge of aging infrastructure.”
“Continued regional and federal partnership can help restore and strengthen one of the most critical water assets in the region,” Mr. Gadis added.
E.P.A. representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Even before the spill began, it was known that repairs were needed to the Potomac Interceptor, which is more than 60 years old. Mr. Gadis has said that D.C. Water is investing $625 million to “rehabilitate” the sewer system.
D.C. Water has said the spill had resulted in an overflow of roughly 243 million gallons of sewage as of Feb. 6. But some environmental groups have estimated that as much as 300 million gallons entered the river over that period.
“Whether it’s 200 million or 300 million gallons, this is an extraordinary ecological and public health disaster,” said Tom Kiernan, the president and chief executive of the conservation group American Rivers, who often rows on the Potomac, and grew up kayaking on the river.
Authorities have not said when people can safely resume activities on the river. Crews with D.C. Water are currently diverting sewage from the broken pipe through a section of the C&O Canal, which runs along the Potomac from Washington to Cumberland, Md.
“Storing it in the canal is the best alternative for the time being, but it still creates significant health risks,” Mr. Kiernan said.
In recent years, the water quality of the Potomac had seen a remarkable improvement, although it remained too polluted for safe swimming or fish consumption, according to a 2025 report card by Potomac Conservancy, an advocacy group.
“In our last report card, pollution levels were down, shad were doing better and more people were out recreating on the river,” said Hedrick Belin, the president of Potomac Conservancy. “But like any report card, it was a snapshot in time, and grades can change over time.”
Mr. Belin said it was too early to predict how the sewage spill would affect the long-term health of the Potomac. But he said the bacteria could threaten the health of people and pets in the short term. Rowing teams from scores of high schools and colleges use the river; the spring racing season is just weeks away.
“People coming into contact with the impacted water or land are at risk of becoming infected with these bacteria, which can lead to serious health conditions,” Rachel Rosenberg Goldstein, a microbiologist and assistant professor at the University of Maryland, said in a statement. “Although most people are not swimming in the frozen river in February, bacteria can survive in freezing temperatures and become active again when temperatures rise.”
The Potomac River starts from a spring in West Virginia and flows about 400 miles until it empties into the Chesapeake Bay. It forms a natural dividing line between West Virginia and Maryland and between Virginia and the District of Columbia.
In a social media post on Monday, President Trump said that FEMA “would play a key role in coordinating” the federal government’s response to the spill.
FEMA typically steps in to assist state and local governments only when the president declares an emergency or major disaster, but in rare examples has played a role in managing smaller incidents. That was the case after a train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, in 2023, leading to an explosion and concerns of environmental contamination.
Because there has been no presidential emergency or disaster declaration, FEMA has limited authority and cannot use federal disaster response funds on the incident.
A daily update on FEMA operations posted on Tuesday morning said that regional agency staff were monitoring the situation and had teams ready to respond. Otherwise, the document showed that D.C. Water was working to repair the sewer system.
FEMA representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.ImageGov. Wes Moore, Democrat of Maryland, is seen in a white shirt and a fleece vest with the Maryland State Police patch stamped with the words "Governor Wes Moore."Maryland Gov. Wes Moore.Credit...Stephanie Scarbrough/Associated Press
Mr. Trump and Governor Moore, the nation’s only Black governor, have clashed in recent months on other issues. The governor has criticized the president’s immigration policies as well as his deployment of the National Guard to deter crime.
Earlier this month, Mr. Trump hosted an annual meeting of governors at the White House but excluded two Democrats, Mr. Moore and Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado. The snub was notable because Mr. Moore is the vice chairman of the National Governors Association.
More Trump, Trump Team Corruption Exposed
Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: February 16, 2026 [Trump Seeks License Fees From Trump-Named Clothing, Federal Structures], Heather Cox Richardson, right, Feb. 17, 2026. On February 13 and 14, President Donald J. Trump’s representatives filed three applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to trademark his name for future use on an airport.
As trademark lawyer Josh Gerben of Gerben IP noted, the application also covers merchandise branded “President Donald J. Trump International Airport,” “Donald J. Trump International Airport,” and “DJT,” including “clothing, handbags, luggage, jewelry, watches, and tie clips.”
Because of the trademark filing, Gerben notes, any airport adopting the Trump name would have to get a license to use the name, potentially paying a licensing fee. Gerben emphasizes that while it is common for public officials to have landmarks named after them, “never in the history of the United States” has “a sitting president’s private company…sought trademark rights” before such a naming.
In October, Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought withheld billions of dollars Congress appropriated for a tunnel between New York and New Jersey under the Hudson River, saying he wanted “to ensure funding is not flowing based on unconstitutional DEI principles.” Trump told Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) that he would release the funds if Schumer would agree to name Dulles Airport outside Washington, D.C., and New York City’s Penn Station after him.
After a Florida state lawmaker proposed putting Trump’s name on the Palm Beach International Airport, Jason Garcia of Seeking Rents today reported that the Florida legislature is currently pushing through measures to change the name of that airport to the “Donald J. Trump International Airport.” The amount of money proposed in Florida’s budget to make the change is $2,750,000, but Garcia notes this is likely a placeholder: the budget request is for $5.5 million.
The Trump grab for an airport named after him is just the latest grift in a presidential term that experts so far estimate has enriched the Trump family by at least $4 billion. That windfall includes merch, political contributions, and multiple cryptocurrency deals that have led, for example, to Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who manages the United Arab Emirates’ sovereign wealth fund, buying a 49% stake in the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial crypto company for $500 million days before Trump took office. This deal put $187 million immediately into Trump family entities and at least $31 million into entities owned by the family of Steve Witkoff, whom Trump had just named his Middle East envoy.
“President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public—which is why they overwhelmingly re-elected him to this office, despite years of lies and false accusations against him and his businesses from the fake news media,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said of the UAE deal. “President Trump’s assets are in a trust managed by his children. There are no conflicts of interest.”
Earlier this month, Trump, his sons Don Jr. and Eric, and the Trump Organization sued the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Treasury Department for $10 billion in damages after an IRS contractor during Trump’s own first term was convicted of leaking their tax information, along with that of thousands of other Americans who are not suing, to news outlets. Trump has control over the IRS, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says he will write whatever check he is told to cut. This move advances Trump’s use of the presidency to enrich himself into the realm of autocratic rulers who move their country’s money to their own accounts.
In 1789, when George Washington took the oath of office as the first president of the United States of America, no one knew what to expect of leaders in a democratic republic. Washington understood that anything he did would become the standard for anyone who came after him. “I walk on untrodden ground,” he wrote in 1790, the year after he assumed the office of the presidency. “There is scarcely any part of my conduct w[hi]ch may not hereafter be drawn into precedent.”
After watching colonial lawmakers under royal rule demand payoffs before they would approve popular measures, Washington rejected the idea of profiting from the presidency. In his short Inaugural Address, he took the time to state explicitly that he would not accept any payments while in the presidency except for an official salary appropriated by Congress.
Washington noted that the support of the American people for the new government was key to its survival. He hailed the pledges of the new nation’s lawmakers to rule for the good of the whole nation, not for specific regions or partisan groups. He also predicted that the power of the government would come not from military might but from its determination to serve the needs of the public. He promised “that the foundations of our National policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality; and the pre-eminence of a free Government, be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its Citizens, and command the respect of the world.”
Washington put a hopeful spin on human nature to launch the institution of the presidency, but the Framers had no illusions. They constructed the Constitution to pit men’s ambitions against each other so no individual could gain enough power to become a tyrant. Later, the rise of formal political parties in the 1830s guaranteed hawkish oversight of those in power by those out of it, exposing corruption or personal vices before those exhibiting them made it to the height of the government.
As recently as the 1970s, those systems held strongly enough that Republican senators warned Republican president Richard M. Nixon that the House was about to impeach him for obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress for his actions during and after the Watergate break-in during which operatives tried to bug the headquarters of the Democratic National Convention. And, they told him, when the House impeached, the Senate—including Senate Republicans—would convict. They urged him to resign, which he did on August 8, 1974, the only president so far to resign the office of the presidency.
Since then, Republicans have fallen into the trap Washington warned against in his Farewell Address, putting party over country. Such partisanship, he said, would “distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration,” agitate “the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms,” kindle “the animosity of one part against another,” foment “occasionally riot and insurrection,” and open “the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passion. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.”
Fierce partisanship would lead partisans to seek absolute power through an individual who “turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty,” Washington warned. And as Washington predicted, today’s Republicans have replaced the prerogatives of Congress with loyalty to Trump.
They have also ignored the vices of Trump and his loyalists. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. explained to a podcaster on February 12 why he doesn’t worry about Covid. “I’m not scared of a germ,” he said. “I used to snort cocaine off of toilet seats.”
Jonathan Landay and Douglas Gillison of Reuters reported yesterday that Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought took $15 million in unlawfully impounded money that Congress had appropriated for the U.S. Agency for International Development, which fed starving children, for his own security detail. Michelle Hackman, Josh Dawsey, and Tarini Parti of the Wall Street Journal reported that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her affair partner Corey Lewandowski travel in a $70 million luxury 737 MAX jet with a private cabin in the back.
Over all are the horrors of the Epstein files, in which Trump’s name appears so often observers have suggested it is the one place that could legitimately be rebranded with Trump’s name as the Trump-Epstein files.
And so, Washington’s dire warnings have come true.
Profiting off his name is only part of why Trump appears to want to splash it anywhere he can: so far, the U.S. Institute of Peace, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a new class of battleships, and perhaps “The President Donald J. Trump Ballroom” where the East Wing of the White House used to be.
It’s also about his legacy. In a tour of George Washington’s Virginia home, Mount Vernon, in April 2019, Trump expressed surprise that the first president hadn’t named any of his property after himself. “If he was smart, he would’ve put his name on it,” Trump said. “You’ve got to put your name on stuff or no one remembers you.”
In fact, Americans remember and revere Washington because of his reluctance to promote himself, not in spite of it. John Trumbull’s portrait of him resigning his wartime commission after negotiators had signed the Treaty of Paris ending the Revolutionary War hangs in the U.S. Capitol as a moment that defined the United States: a leader voluntarily giving up power rather than becoming a dictator. Then, when voters made him president of the new United States in 1789, he refused a second time to become a king, emphasizing that he was the servant of the people and then, after two terms, voluntarily handing power to a successor chosen not by him but by the people.
As Washington predicted, the presidents Americans revere despite their faults—George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt—are those who used the enormous power of the U.S. government not for their own aggrandizement but to secure and expand the rights and the prosperity of the American people.
Trump has made no secret of wanting his image carved onto Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, where sculptor Gutzon Borglum carved the busts of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln in the Black Hills of the Lakotas. Beginning his sculpture in 1927, Borglum chose President Washington because he had founded the nation, Jefferson because he had launched westward expansion, Lincoln because he had saved the United States from destruction, and Roosevelt because he had protected working men and helped fit democracy to industrial development.
But Trump’s interest in being added to Mount Rushmore does not appear to be related to a desire to advance the interests of the American people. In September 2025 the IRS granted tax-exempt status to the Donald Trump Mount Rushmore Memorial Legacy, making it a charity that can accept tax-free donations.
Happy Presidents Day 2026.
Paul Krugman via Substack, Political-Economy Commentary: How the Kakistocracy Became a Quackistocracy, Paul Krugman, right, Feb. 17, 2026. Corruption is a germ’s best friend.
Childhood vaccination is one of public policy’s greatest success stories. People who view the 1950s through rose-colored glasses, seeing them as an era of American greatness, miss many ways in which life was much worse then than now, ranging from gross racism and sexism to high poverty rates among the elderly. One often-overlooked feature of the “good old days” was that many children contracted, and some died from, infectious diseases that have now been almost eliminated — or had been almost eliminated, until today’s right-wing anti-vaccine agitators set the stage for their comeback.
In many ways the Trump administration’s hostility to vaccines is similar to its hostility to clean energy, which I wrote about yesterday. Both policy swerves will kill Americans. If Trumpists succeed in forcing the U.S. to burn more coal, thousands will die from air pollution. Only a year into the Trump 47 administration, there is already a resurgence in almost conquered diseases due to the anti-vax MAGA crusade. Both these sudden policy serves are economically destructive: A 2024 report from the Centers for Disease Control estimated that each dollar spent on childhood vaccination has saved around $11 in societal costs.
Moreover, the Trumpists aren’t content with just cutting off federal funding — they’re determined to stop anyone else from doing the right thing. The Trump administration has imposed a blockade on privately funded wind and solar projects, while RFK Jr.’s allies are pushing to prevent states from implementing childhood vaccine mandates.
And the damage from the assault on vaccines continues to widen. Last week the Food and Drug Administration refused to review Moderna’s new mRNA-based flu vaccine. They didn’t reject it based on evidence; they wouldn’t even look at it, in line with RFK Jr.’s evidence-free, dogmatic assertion that mRNA technology, which gave us Covid vaccines, is useless and harmful. Pharmaceutical companies, understandably, are retreating from vaccine development.
The motivations behind the crusade against clean energy and the crusade against vaccines are also similar. The conspiracy-theorizing hostility to science and expertise in general that underpins both movements also predisposes people to become right-wing extremists, which means that their movements are now in power. The headline on a 2023 article in The Guardian captured this perfectly: “ ‘Everything you’ve been told is a lie’: Inside the wellness-to-fascism pipeline.”
Last but by no means least, in both cases it’s crucial to follow the money.
It may seem strange to think of the wellness industry as a corrupt and corrupting force comparable to the fossil-fuel sector. But wellness is big business. McKinsey estimates that U.S. spending on wellness is running at around $500 billion a year, while spending on nutritional supplements alone was close to $70 billion last year.
And sellers of nutritional supplements, unlike companies selling pharmaceuticals, are effectively allowed to make false, outlandish claims about what their products do. Here’s how the National Institutes of Health summarized the law:
Dietary supplement labels may include certain types of health-related claims. Manufacturers are permitted to say, for example, that a supplement promotes health or supports a body part or function (like heart health or the immune system). These claims must be followed by the words, “This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.”
In other words, it’s OK to peddle snake oil with false medical claims as long as you mumble some content-freeboilerplate.
And where do the snake-oil salesmen peddle their wares? Largely on right-wing media. After all, that’s where they can find customers who have the right mix of anti-intellectualism and disdain for experts. And the snake-oil purveyors are, in turn, a key part of the extreme right’s financial ecosystem.
I wrote about this almost five years ago. The relationship between quack medicine and right-wing extremism has a long history. As the historian Rick Perlstein has documented, extremists have been marketing medical snake oil, and snake oil purveyors have been financially supporting extremism, since the days when misinformation had to be disseminated through paper newsletters. This mutually beneficial relationship continued through the eras of talk radio, cable TV, and now podcasts.
But now we have entered a new era. As many observers have noted, the Trump administration is a kakistocracy: rule by the worst. A history of personal corruption is no longer a bar to high office — it’s practically a requirement.
Under Trump 47, people who have enriched themselves by peddling medical misinformation are no longer just influencing policymakers. They have become policymakers. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who appears to have made millions in salary and book royalties thanks to his anti-vaccine screeds, is now the secretary of health and human services. Dr. Oz is running Medicare and Medicaid.
In short, the kakistocracy is also a quackistocracy.
And the reign of the quacks will condemn thousands, perhaps millions of Americans — many of them children — to gratuitous illness and in some cases death.
False Flag via The Bulwark, Commentary: Steve Bannon Is in Trouble—and It Has Nothing to Do With Epstein, Will Sommer, above, Feb. 17, 2026. “Worse than I ever imagined”: lawsuit reveals the podcaster’s memecoin woes.
PERPETUAL TRUMPWORLD FIGURE Steve Bannon is taking a lot of heat this month as newly released Jeffrey Epstein files show he maintained close ties with the notorious sex trafficker, even after many of Epstein’s worst crimes were exposed.
But that’s not the only perilous legal matter on Bannon’s plate. The influential conservative podcaster also finds himself in hot water for his management of the disastrous “Fuck Joe Biden” cryptocurrency.
On Thursday, aggrieved Missouri-based investor Andrew Barr filed a lawsuit against Bannon, fellow MAGA bigwig Boris Epshteyn, and others involved in the operation of the “FJB” coin, alleging that he had lost $58,730.98 on the venture.
The lawsuit, which is awaiting certification by a judge to become a class-action case, offers a tantalizing look at the Wild West that is the cryptocurrency industry. It’s the type of stuff that would normally pique the interest of regulators, if not for the fact that the White House has shown a general indifference to regulating this market—and that the Trump family has its own failed memecoins to deal with.
Bannon didn’t respond to a request for comment. And Epshteyn couldn’t be reached for comment.
Problems with the now-defunct “FJB” coin are familiar to cryptocurrency critics. It came with an unusually high 8 percent fee on transactions, with the commitment that it would be divided between 3 percent coin management and promotion and 5 percent going to charitable donations. But after Bannon and Epshteyn purchased ownership of the FJB coin business in December 2021, the coin’s operators could only produce proof of small charitable donations, angering buyers who had thought their money would go to causes like veterans’ care.
Since cryptocurrency wallets are public, the problems became evident fairly quickly. One crypto expert told ABC News in 2023 that some of the money earmarked for “charity” was instead being directed to a wallet that appeared to use the money on “high-risk investments in obscure coins.”
But Barr’s lawsuit offers more details into how “FJB”—whose acronym was re-spelled as “Freedom Jobs Business” under Bannon and Epshteyn’s ownership—sank into oblivion.
Early on, Bannon and Epshteyn billed “FJB” as the basis of an entirely new “uncancelable” MAGA economy. The coin was promoted by other MAGA figures like Jack Posobiec and Benny Johnson.
But according to the lawsuit, Bannon and Epshteyn ran it straight into the ground. Amid a broader decline in memecoins values in 2023, the price of “FJB” price plummeted and both Bannon and Epshteyn distanced themselves from the project. The lawsuit alleges that $2.7 million in transaction fees meant for charity or efforts to promote the coin instead disappeared entirely.
In one direct-message exchange on the Discord platform that is included as an exhibit in the lawsuit, top coin administrator Sarah Abdul and programmer Chase Bailey offered their lament over an alleged $120,000 payment from FJB to Epshteyn’s friends for lackluster services. But, they concluded, it was “drops in the bucket” compared to more serious financial mismanagement, which they didn’t spell out.
Abdul told Bailey the management of the coin’s money was “worse than I ever imagined,” according to the lawsuit.
“This looks sooooo neglegent [sic],” Bailey replied.¹
Investors also fumed as Bannon started to mention the coin less on his podcast, depriving it of the publicity critical to elevating its otherwise very limited value. As that value imploded, FJB operators attempted to rebrand the coin as “Patriot Pay.” But that effort stumbled when Bannon and Epshteyn failed to secure the Patriot Pay trademark because the name was already taken, according to the lawsuit.
In February 2025, according to the lawsuit, the coin’s bedraggled investors were further stunned when their wallets were locked, making it impossible to convert their coin to another currency.
The lawsuit claims that the money is still stuck inside the coin, with payments frozen and no word from the coin’s administrators in a year. FJB no longer exists as a traded coin, making it impossible to know what its remaining value could be. How much promise it ever really possessed is impossible to divine, though it seems quite limited, since it was trading at roughly $0.0015 when Bannon and Epshteyn purchased it.
FJB IS NOT THE FIRST CASE STUDY in why it might not be wise to invest in a Bannon-led venture. The investment-banker-cum-political-operative-cum-podcaster was indicted in 2020 for his role in the fraudulent “We Build the Wall” effort to crowdfund the construction of a southern border wall. He avoided prosecution only after Trump pardoned him.
And then, last February, Bannon pleaded guilty to felony “scheme to defraud” in a state-level case arising from the wall fundraising. Separately, Bannon spent four months in federal prison in 2024 for contempt of Congress.²
Still, Bannon’s a survivor. If those convictions, the Epstein revelations, and this lawsuit don’t scare off future investors, I’m sure we’ll be back again soon talking about Bannon’s latest venture—and potentially, the investors or donors who feel burned by it.
More On Epstein Files
Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Was there an Epstein/Trump link to Bannon and the U.S. Navy in the 1980s? Wayne Madsen, left, author of 28 books, and former Navy intelligence officer and NSA analyst, Feb. 16, 2026. The Epstein files timeline shows an early pedophilia scandal in elite circles in the 1980s
Donald Trump;s and Jeffrey Epstein’s confidante, Steve Bannon, served as an aide to two Chiefs of Naval Operations, Admirals Thomas Hayward and James Watkins, during one of the largest pedophile crimes that ever took place within naval ranks in the then-207 years of the history of the U.S. Navy.
While serving as a Lieutenant (junior grade) aboard the Spruance class destroyer USS Paul F. Foster in the Pacific fleet, Bannon was selected to serve on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations, a highly-coveted billet considered a stepping stone for rapid promotion up the ranks. A February 1, 2017, article in Navy Times referred to Bannon’s unusual assignment while still a Lieutenant JG: “Even in the much larger Navy of the 1980s, billets on the CNO’s staff were not easy to come by.”
So why was Bannon selected for such a position? His Navy awards were what anyone at his rank would have received after sea duty: a Sea Service Deployment Ribbon, a Navy “E” Ribbon, and a Navy Expeditionary Medal.
Bannon reported to the CNO’s staff January 12, 1981, almost a week prior to Ronald Reagan’s inauguration. The previous November, Bannon attended the victory party for Reagan at the Century Plaza hotel. Apparently, Bannon developed an intense dislike of President Jimmy Carter during his time aboard the Foster in the Persian Gulf, a time frame that included the botched 1980 operation to rescue U.S. hostages at the seized U.S. embassy in Tehran.
Bannon’s time aboard the Foster also included the Reagan campaign’s act of treason in negotiating an “arms-for-no-hostages” agreement with Tehran that ensured the hostages would not be released until after Reagan’s election. The hostages were released simultaneous to Reagan’s swearing in as president on January 20, 1981.
While Bannon was a staffer for the CNO in 1982, the FBI identified a key kingpin in child pornography production and distribution in Chicago. The porn distributor admitted, under questioning by FBI agents, that his network of pedophiles included a U.S. naval officer and other influential government employees. It was later discovered that the officer mentioned was the Commanding Officer of the U.S. Naval Facility in Coos Head, Oregon.
The Naval Investigative Service (NIS) was called in and the Operations Officer at the Oregon naval installation was requested by the FBI and NIS to participate as the lead temporary FBI special agent (identified in official government message traffic and other documents simply as “C”) in a carefully prepared sting of the base commander to obtain evidence and the identities of co-conspirators.
On September 14, 1982, UPI filed the following report from Coos Bay, Oregon:
“The commander of the Coos Head Naval Facility was relieved of duty and jailed on charges he promoted an obscene sexual performance by a child.
Lt. Cmdr. Larry William Frawley, 38, was arrested Saturday and accused of promoting an obscene sexual performance by a child and using a child in an obscene sexual performance. Both are felony charges.
Police Sgt. Jack Bushmaker said Frawley was lodged in the Coos County Corrections Facility on $10,000 bail.
Frawley’s alleged role will not be made known until the investigation is completed, Lt. Cmdr. John Marchi, public affairs officer for the naval base in Seattle, said. He said details will not be at present since the investigation is pending, he said.
Lt. Cmdr. Marney Finch, executive officer at the Coos Head station, is now the interim commanding officer, Marchi said.
Frawley had been at the station since 1980.
Officials declined to say how many children were involved in the case or whether additional arrests were expected.”
During the FBI/NIS sting operation, Frawley admitted that his network of pedophiles included senior naval officers, clerics, lawyers, politicians, and judges. He even offered the lead NIS/FBI sting informant the rank of Navy “Commander” or maybe even “Captain” if he were, as the British say, “on side.” Later, in 1983, two NIS and two FBI agents revealed that the Coos Bay scandal “went to the very top” of the Reagan administration. That was later borne out by a headline in The Washington Times. A number of forced retirements of senior naval personnel, including one rear admiral, were announced after Frawley’s arrest. There was also a significant foreign intelligence aspect to the case that involved the Soviet Union, one that the Navy quickly swept under the rug.
After working for Admirals Hayward and Watkins, Bannon left the Navy with the rank of Lieutenant on October 30, 1983. He obtained a master’s degree in international relations at Georgetown University while working for the CNO. Normally, a master’s degree would have been a ticket for Bannon to be promoted to Lieutenant Commander, yet he left the Navy after only seven years. Bannon went to Harvard where he earned an MBA. With his MBA, Bannon clinched a job with Goldman Sachs, where he specialized in media and entertainment finance. Is "Homosexual" Making a Comeback at ...
The Goldman stint served as Bannon’s entrée into Hollywood. He co‑founded Bannon & Co., a boutique investment bank focused on entertainment deals. Bannon’s firm acquired a small stake in Castle Rock Entertainment, which produced Seinfeld. That stake entitled Bannon to a handsome share of syndication royalties, which helped bankroll his future right-wing political ventures. Bannon was also involved in 18 Hollywood films between 1991 and 2016. They included two right-wing documentaries produced with funding from Citizens United: Reagan: In the Face of Evil in 2004 and Border War: The Battle Over Illegal Immigration in 2006, as well as the 1992 Disney movie The Mighty Ducks.
In the mid‑2000s, Steve Bannon became a major player in online gaming through Internet Gaming Entertainment (IGE), a company that made money by “gold farming” in World of Warcraft and other MMOs (Massively Multiplayer Online games) — paying low‑wage players (often in China) to grind virtual loot and then selling it for real money.
IGE had been originally founded by The Mighty Ducks child star Brock Pierce. Pierce was named in a 1999 civil lawsuit alleging he and others provided drugs and showed pornography to underage boys. In 2000, Pierce fled the U.S. with Digital Entertainment Network (DEN) colleagues Marc Collins‑Rector and Chad Shackley after a New Jersey grand jury indicted Collins‑Rector on charges related to sexual assault of minors. In mid-2002, the three were found living in a luxury villa in Marbella, Spain after a 21‑month international search. Spanish police discovered guns, machetes, and, last but not least with associates of Bannon, child pornography.
Hayward was the CNO at the time the Chicago kingpin identified the Coos Head base commander as part of his ring, with Bannon serving as his aide. A few months prior to Frawley’s arrest, Hayward paid an unusual visit to the Coos Bay base, during what would turn out to be Frawley’s few remaining months in command. Watkins succeeded Hayward on June 30, 1982. The official reason for such a high-profile visit by the CNO was that Hayward was visiting his mother in nearby Bandon, Oregon and decided to drop by the Naval Facility.
In September 1982, during Watkins’s watch and with Bannon remaining as his aide that the Navy pedophile scandal broke open with a number of arrests and forced retirements following. Attempts to have further details about the Navy ring publicized by Navy Times and the Eugene (OR) Register-Guard were met with threats against the newspaper editors and publishers by top Navy and Defense Department officials, including members of the CNO’s staff.
Reporters for the local NBC affiliate, KCBY-TV, were told to stay away from Navy property while reporting on the pedophile story. Armed guards were posted at the entrance to the Navy housing area to deter inquisitive reporters. A Bethesda Naval Hospital team of psychiatrists, child counselors, and other medical personnel, who were on stand-by to be flown to Oregon to deal with children and parents traumatized by the Navy pedophile ring, were ordered to “stand down.”
All records bearing the NIS Investigative Files System/Defense Central Index of Investigations (DCII) case number, 08-18-82N12PD 718XNA, were later purged from Navy computer systems on the orders of the CNO and Secretary of the Navy. The FBI disclosed to a high-ranking Navy officer in Pearl Harbor that the “XNA” nomenclature came from the FBI’s filing system, in which “NA” stood for Navy and “X” meant extremely aberrant criminal sexual behavior, including pedophilia. The FBI source confirmed that the case number was only resident in the FBI case system database and had been purged from the NIS and Defense Department file systems.
Sound familiar? This was the same sort of cover-up that has occurred with relation to the Epstein files at the Justice Department.
Some important questions remain about Bannon’s unusual post-sea duty time in the Navy.
Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, Steve Bannon (left to right, file photos).
Was Bannon rewarded with a Georgetown M.A., Harvard Business School MBA, and employment at Goldman Sachs for “services rendered” in helping to suppress from media attention the worst pedophile scandal in the history of the U.S. Navy? Did Bannon use his ongoing influence with Breitbart and other alt.right media operations to push the frivolous “Pizzagate” story? In 2016, the Pizzagate nonsense attempted to tarnish Hillary Clinton’s senior campaign staff and donors in order to keep the public’s attention away from an actual major pedophile scandal involving Epstein.
As it turns out, the word “pizza” was being used as a cover term in email exchanges between Epstein and his co-conspirators.
Some notable postscripts to this story include the fact that although Frawley received a sentence of four years at hard labor at the U.S. Army’s Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, he only served 18 months and it was noy hard labor nut rather attending sex offender sessions with other inmates convicted of similar crimes.
After being released, Frawley moved to Washington, DC, where he became involved with a “Christian Fellowship” organization. Eventually, he remarried and moved to North Carolina, where his career took a troubling turn for a convicted pedophile. These are the highlights mentioned in his 2024 obituary: Founded Learning Systems, Inc. in Wilkes County (1986); Provided tutoring, SAT/ACT prep, and diagnostic testing to over 2,000 students; and Briefly operated Foothills Country Day School (1990–1996).
Now take a look at the late Admiral Hayward’s post-Navy biography (mind the fact that Hayward joined the Navy during World War II, graduated from the Naval Academy (as did Frawley) and became a Navy pilot (as did Frawley).
Hayward could have named his own salary on any number of defense contractor boards of directors. However, as with Frawley, he decided to immediately “devote himself to helping at-risk students as chairman of Ethics Resource Center of America. He co-founded the Voyager Expanded Learning Company in 1994, which served well over one million disadvantaged public school children. He helped found several other companies that focus on reading and math solutions for K–12.”
The Epstein files point to Jeffrey Epstein being involved in the Soviet/Israeli sextortion and blackmail operations in the mid-1980s, a time frame also known as the “Decade of the Spies,” in which a number of Soviet and Israeli agents had been discovered at the highest echelons of the classified operations of the CIA, National Security Agency, and the U.S. Navy.
Two statements to the FBI made by underage minor victims (excerpted above) show that Trump was involved with Epstein in child sexual abuse as early as 1983 to 1985.
One female victim, age 13 to 15, bit Trump’s penis, whereupon he punched her head, knocking her out. The other female victim, age 14, was introduced by Epstein to Trump. Trump asked Epstein, “This is a good one, huh [?],” to which Epstein replied, “Yes.” Jeffrey Epstein, wearing a black shirt and glasses, sitting behind a large wooden desk with a wine glass in front of him. Stephen Bannon is facing him in an upholstered guest chair with a coffee or tea tray in front of him, gesturing.
Bannon was who Epstein reached out to for assistance in papering over his pedophilia record.
Had Epstein’s path crossed with Bannon’s in the 1980s when Epstein was the sorcerer’s apprentice for Robert Maxwell? This possibility opens a huge door into the world of sextortion and espionage that existed in the 1980s and later mushroomed .
Now, if anyone should doubt the details of the Frawley case and its wider ramifications, let the record read that this reporter was the Navy Operations Officer, the government’s only material witness against Frawley -- and a temporary FBI special agent who was duly sworn in as such at the FBI field office at the Federal building in Coos Bay, Oregon.
Recall what four federal law enforcement investigators said in 1983 about the pedophile scandal going to the “very top” of the Reagan administration, and, as it would turn out, the George H.W. Bush administration, none of us would have believed that a future president of the United States, Trump, would be engaged in actually raping children at the same time we were ruminating about high-level pedophiles in Reagan’s White House and Pentagon.
False Flag via The Bulwark, Commentary: Epstein’s Cape Town survivor speaks: ‘I have nothing to hide,.’ Will Sommer, above, Feb. 17, 2026. “Worse than I ever imagined”: lawsuit reveals the podcaster’s memecoin woes.
A Cape Town woman – Juliette Bryant – has spoken out about her experience meeting Bill Clinton and being trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein…
A Cape Town woman has shared her experience of allegedly being trafficked by the late Jeffrey Epstein. The convicted sex offender – who had an apartment in the city – died via suicide in 2019, whilst awaiting trial over charges of sex trafficking of minors.
Last month, the US Department of Justice released over 3 million pages of documents – referred to as the Epstein files – which also implicated his associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
The bombshell documents contained thousands of images, court findings, and email correspondence.J
Speaking to Sky News, Cape Town woman Juliette Bryant shared her experience of allegedly being trafficked and sexually assaulted by the late Jeffrey Epstein.
Bryant claims she was lured at the age of 20 years old in 2002 by a woman who claimed Epstein was wealthy and the “King of America”.
Then, a first-year university student and part-time model, Bryant hoped to make money and assist her family.
Bryant travelled to New York before being diverted on a private jet to the Caribbean’s Little Saint James – also known as Epstein Island – where alleged sexual abuse and trafficking took place.
The South African, The brunette woman claimed that she was sexually assaulted on the plane by Epstein himself.She told the broadcaster: “I freaked out, I realised my family isn’t going to see me again. These people might kill me. “I got such a fright. I realised I had to be nice and friendly as I was in great danger.”
Bryant claimed that the women who had recruited her had “laughed” at her traumatic ordeal. At Epstein Island, she met other girls who had allegedly been trafficked from countries like Brazil, Romania, France, and Spain. She claims she was repeatedly raped over two years. Bryant stated that she was eventually offered money to recruit girls for him, which she denied.
The latest release of the Epstein files revealed that she had been in correspondence with the convicted sex offender up until 2017.
She added, “I have nothing to hide. It’s been upsetting because it confuses people. The man had a terrible grip on my mind. It took me time to heal from the psychological chains. I didnt tell anyone about what happened until he died.”‘
BILL CLINTON WAS THERE’
In a separate interview with Cape Talk last week, Juliette Bryant shared more details about her meeting with Jeffrey Epstein.
She told presenter Lester Kiewit that Epstein dined at a popular Cape Town restaurant alongside other high-profile people, including former US President Bill Clinton and actors Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker. She added that several government officials were there too.
Clinton has denied any knowledge of Epstein’s sexual crimes and has agreed to testify in an ongoing investigation. Meanwhile, Spacey faced sexual misconduct allegations by several young men in 2017.
Bryant claimed that Epstein was interested in her modelling portfolio and she later went to a casting, by herself, at the Cape Grace Hotel. She claims Clinton and Epstein watched the audition.
Thereafter, her travel documents were quickly arranged, and she was “whisked” off to the US, in the hopes of advancing her modelling career.
She later told CBS that it “took me many years to realise I’d been kidnapped.” She claimed that she was “conned” as she was never given any modelling opportunities.
Global News
Occupy Democrats, Advocacy: Trump goes BERSERK over Dems in Germany — attacks AOC and Newsom from Air Force One while screaming that he’s “exonerated” in Epstein scandal, Staff and wire reports, Feb. 17, 2026. Donald Trump boarded Air Force One on Monday and did what he does best: rage-post, rant, and rewrite reality.
After Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and California Gov. Gavin Newsom (shown above in file photos) addressed the Munich Security Conference — warning about runaway inequality, rising authoritarianism, and Trump’s isolationist chaos — the president took to Truth Social in full meltdown mode.
“AOC and Newscum were an embarrassment to our Nation,” Trump fumed, insisting they “shouldn’t be talking badly about the U.S.A., especially on ‘foreign soil.’”
Translation: How dare they criticize him?
Let’s be clear. AOC didn’t attack America — she warned that when working people get squeezed while economic elites hoard growth, far-right populism fills the vacuum. She argued that scapegoating immigrants and vulnerable communities is a distraction from class injustice.In other words, she described Trump’s playbook.Newsom, meanwhile, pointed out the obvious — Trump’s erratic threats against NATO allies and tariff tantrums have pushed Europe closer together, not closer to Washington.
That’s not “anti-American.” It’s reality.
But Trump’s tantrum didn’t stop there.Just minutes later, he posted: “I have nothing to hide, I’ve been exonerated, I have nothing to do with Jeffrey #Epstein.”
And on Air Force One, when pressed by reporters, he repeated it over and over: “I’ve been totally exonerated.”
When asked about Epstein texts, about Democrats being “pulled in,” about AOC potentially testifying, Dementia Don didn’t answer. He pivoted back to shouting “exonerated” like a malfunctioning robot stuck on one line of code.
Because no one mentioned him in Munich. AOC focused on economic inequality and global democratic backsliding. Newsom talked about alliances and tariffs. Yet Trump heard their words and immediately assumed they were about him.
If you’re confident you’re innocent, you don’t usually spend your Monday screaming about it at 35,000 feet.
The real story here isn’t that Democrats spoke overseas. It’s that America’s president can’t handle criticism — even when it’s aimed at structural inequality and authoritarian networks.Instead of defending his policies with facts, Trump lashed out, insulted elected officials, and tried to redirect attention to Clinton and “many other Democrats.”Projection? Panic? Both?One thing’s certain: when leaders discuss inequality and democracy abroad, and the president responds with insults and “I’ve been exonerated!” chants, it says a lot more about him than it does about them.
New York Times, Senators Meet Zelensky With Hopeful Message on Sanctions, Robert Jimison, Feb. 17, 2026 (print ed.). During their visit, a pair of Democratic senators made the case for Congress to impose harsh penalties on Moscow for its continuing offensive.
Two senior Democratic senators traveled to Kyiv on Monday to meet with the war-torn nation’s president and make the case for a long-stalled sanctions bill that could cripple Russia’s main economic engine as its war against Ukraine drags into a fifth year.
Senators Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, left, and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, below right, expressed fresh confidence during their visit that the legislation, which has languished on Capitol Hill as President Trump has resisted congressional action on the matter, could finally move forward. Yet it was still not clear whether Mr. Trump would embrace the legislation, 
allowing it to advance in Congress.
After meeting President Volodymyr Zelensky and touring a children’s hospital and a power plant damaged under the Russian onslaught, Mr. Blumenthal said what he saw only underscored the need for harsh new economic penalties on Russia.
“There is something very tactile and immediate about the suffering and hardship of going without heat, without light, without electricity — which means without water and food,” he said in an interview. “The suffering here is palpable.”
The meetings took place as officials departed for Geneva, where trilateral talks among the United States, Ukraine and Russia to resolve the conflict are set to take place this week.
While lawmakers in Kyiv continued to press for sustained American support for Ukraine, the White House has instead concentrated its pressure on Kyiv, demanding land concessions, particularly on the eastern region known as the Donbas, and urging new elections take place quickly as the administration pushes to bring an end to the war.
Mr. Blumenthal said he was hopeful that stalled legislation he introduced nearly a year ago with Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, to impose sanctions on countries that buy Russian oil, gas and uranium, would soon move ahead.
Their measure quickly drew support from 85 senators, more than enough to both pass and override a presidential veto. But it has languished because of resistance from Mr. Trump, who has signaled he wants to maintain the power to impose or cancel sanctions himself, not leave it up to Congress.
Mr. Graham has said in recent days that Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, promised him a floor vote on the measure “as soon as we have the votes.”
Mr. Blumenthal said Mr. Thune had made the commitment to him and Mr. Graham on the Senate floor last Thursday, “which means he has a green light from President Trump.” He called Mr. Thune’s commitment “highly significant.”
Mr. Graham, who along with a larger bipartisan group of lawmakers met with Mr. Zelensky on Saturday in Munich, said in a statement that the legislation “will be a game changer. President Trump has embraced it. It is time to vote.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its position on the bill.
First introduced last April, the legislation would impose penalties of up to 500 percent on nations buying Russian energy products.
Since the last time Mr. Blumenthal traveled to Ukraine, Mr. Trump imposed his first round of sanctions of his second term on Russia, which was seen at the time as a signal of his heightened frustration with President Vladimir V. Putin.
The administration announced in October that they would apply to Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil.
But as fall gave way to the coldest winter Kyiv has endured since the war began, Mr. Putin has continued to order strikes on energy infrastructure and residential areas. Mr. Blumenthal argued that showed that executive action alone fell short of what could be done through his legislation.
“We want to bring a sledgehammer down on purchasers of Russian energy products and make them pay,” he said.
After enduring rolling blackouts and fearing an intense offensive in the spring, the delays have not gone unnoticed in Ukraine. During a panel discussion in Munich, Svitlana Zalishchuk, Ukraine’s ambassador to Sweden, publicly pressed Mr. Graham.
“Your bill, which I am grateful for your leadership, is not voted,” Ms. Zalishchuk said, noting that he “was talking about this bill last year” during the same conference.
Mr. Graham acknowledged the impatience. “I’m sorry it’s not fast enough,” he replied, citing divisions among Republicans in Washington.
Republican support for backing Ukraine in the war has flagged in recent years. Many G.O.P. lawmakers have argued that prolonged U.S. engagement there and the tens of billions of dollars the United States has already committed conflict with Mr. Trump’s campaign pledges of “America First.”
But Mr. Blumenthal and Mr. Whitehouse, who visited Ohmatdyt Children’s Hospital and toured the Darnytsia power plant, said they hoped the stories they brought back to Washington would sustain the will to intervene in a way that could support Ukrainians without leveraging taxpayer dollars.
“I just want it to be fair. I want everybody treated the same way,” she said. “We have nothing to hide. We have called for the full release of these files repeatedly. We think sunlight is the best disinfectant.”
First Minister Michelle O'Neill,said that despite turning down the invitation, she "deeply values" the relationship between the U.S. and Ireland.
Irish Star, Irish leader turns down White House St. Patrick's Day invitation: 'I cannot and will not look away,' Alana Loftus, The first minister of Northern Ireland announced that she will be declining an invitation to visit the White House for St. Patrick's Day events due to the ongoing situation in Gaza.
The first minister of Northern Ireland, Michelle O’Neill, announced that she will not accept an invitation to attend St. Patrick’s Day celebrations at the White House this year.
The vice president of Sinn Féin wrote on social media on Tuesday morning, “I have taken the decision not to attend this year's St. Patrick's Day events at the White House due to the situation in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.”
“I deeply value the historic relationship between Ireland and the United States, and I remain committed to working with U.S. figures to strengthen our peace and grow our economy,” she continued.READ MORE: Trump struggles to walk in a straight line as he waves to White House TV camerasREAD MORE: Melania Trump offers rare show of support for husband Donald with simple Presidents' Day post
“However, despite the hopes and promise offered by the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, horrific Israeli military attacks continue. I cannot and will not look away from systematic human rights abuses and flagrant breaches of international law by Israel. It is my responsibility as a political leader to stand firmly on the side of humanity.”
At the Munich Security Conference this week, Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed credit for the “fragile truce” in Gaza. He said the U.N. “could not solve the war in Gaza. Instead, it was American leadership that freed captives from barbarians and brought about a fragile truce.
Despite promises made in the ceasefire agreement, Israeli military attacks continue on the severely damaged Gaza strip(Image: 2026 Anadolu)Get More of Our News on GoogleSet Irish Star as a 'Preferred Source' to get quicker access to the news you value.
During his speech, Rubio also mentioned the Irish province of Ulster, highlighting the intertwined history between the U.S. and Europe. He noted, “Our first colonies were built by English settlers, to whom we owe not just the language we speak but the whole of our political and legal system.”
“Our frontiers were shaped by Scots-Irish – that proud, hearty clan from the hills of Ulster that gave us Davy Crockett and Mark Twain and Teddy Roosevelt and Neil Armstrong.”
Minister O’Neill is not the only Irish politician who is not feeling the connection to the U.S. this year. Leader of Sinn Féin, Mary Lou McDonald, also said that she would not be accepting the invitation and cited the ongoing conflict in Gaza as the reason.
"The situation on the ground in Gaza and the West Bank remains dire. Israeli attacks on Gaza have not ended. The genocide continues," McDonald said. "It is important that Sinn Féin uses its voice to demand that international law is upheld and peace and justice prevail."Micheál Martin presents U.S President Donald Trump with a bowl of clover during a St. Patrick’s Day event on March 12, 2025 in Washington, DCView 3 Images
The taoiseach said he will be taking part in the annual White House visit (Image: Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
It is the second year in a row that Sinn Féin — a socialist party largely defined by its bid for reunification of the north and south of Ireland — has boycotted St. Patrick's Day events at the White House. Other Irish leaders have said they will be traveling to Washington, D.C., this year.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin confirmed he will be visiting Donald Trump, who he said has paid tribute to the Irish-American community, who have made such an “enormous contribution” to the United States, and “he believes this is an opportunity to celebrate the special relationship between our two countries.”
“As we negotiate these challenging times, my focus in relations with all countries and especially in our critical relationships, is not on the short term,” he said of his decision. “It is on the long term. On finding points of shared interest rather than opportunities for division.”
Feb. 16
Top Stories
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., with President Trump and Mehmet Oz, the Medicaid and Medicare services administrator, in the White House in September (New York Times photo by Tierney L. Cross)
2026. Mr. Bannon, a MAGA podcaster, developed a seemingly chummy relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, who was accused of sex trafficking. He said it was in the name of getting Mr. Epstein to open up.More On U.S. Governace, Politics, Elections
Advocacy:MAGA ally screams “BLOODY MURDER” over Trump’s massive corrupt foreign paydays, Staff and wire reports, Feb. 16, 2026. When even right-wing political commentator Ben Shapiro is highlighting White House corruption, you know something is seriously wrong.U.S. President's Day Holiday
Opinion: Presidents DayHow to Trump-proof the presidency, Jennifer Rubin, right, Feb. 16, 2026. When we reflect on our great presidents (e.g., George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, the Roosevelts), the good ones (e.g., Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower), and even the poor ones (e.g., Herbert Hoover, James Buchanan), we can at least say they understood our basic constitutional framework.
Feb. 16, 2026. The tide is turning against the most un-American leader America has ever had.Morning Shots via The Bulwark, Political Opinion: All the Presidents’ Monday, William Kristol, Feb. 16, 2026. Today is Presidents’ Day.More On Epstein Files
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Politico, Carney constructs a mega anti-Trump trade alliance, Graham Lanktree, Zi-Ann Lum and Jon Stone, Feb. 12, 2026. Two of the world’s biggest trading blocs are cautiously eyeing closer ties to short-circuit Donald Trump’s tariffs.U.S. Law, Courts, Crime, Justice, Rights
Feb. 16, 2024. On Valentine’s Day, Marco Rubio went to the city where Neville Chamberlain capitulated to evil and lectured “the West” about upholding so-called Christian values, code for Islamophobia and hatred.Top Stories
An undated photograph released by the Justice Department shows Stephen K. Bannon with Jeffrey Epstein. Bannon coached Epstein on how to deal with newly surfaced allegations that he was a serial pedophile, documents suggest.
New York Times, Despite Epstein’s Toxicity, Steve Bannon Stood by Him, Texts Indicate, Sharon LaFraniere and Teresa Mondría Terol, Feb. 16, 2026. Mr. Bannon, a MAGA podcaster, developed a seemingly chummy relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, who was accused of sex trafficking. He said it was in the name of getting Mr. Epstein to open up.
Midafternoon in late June 2019, Stephen K. Bannon sent Jeffrey Epstein an excited series of texts. “Dude!!!!!” he wrote. “Is this real Tell me this is real.”
Mr. Epstein had just texted him a headline from The Miami Herald. It reported that victims of Mr. Epstein’s sexual abuse had lost a court battle to nullify a decade-old agreement that protected him from prosecution for those crimes.
Off and on for months, Mr. Bannon, a leader in the MAGA movement and a former top aide to President Trump, had been advising Mr. Epstein on how to handle resurrected allegations that he was a serial pedophile. Mr. Bannon recommended which lawyers to hire — his own — when to lie low and when he should jump on an opening to push his narrative. He scheduled what the two men called “media training.”
“First we need to push back on the lies; then crush the pedo/trafficking narrative; then rebuild your image as philanthropist,” Mr. Bannon wrote to Mr. Epstein in April 2019. That was five months after a Miami Herald series exposed how prosecutors had ignored evidence of Mr. Epstein’s crimes.
The three million pages of Epstein-related documents released by the Justice Department on Jan. 30 reveal for the first time the extent of Mr. Bannon’s efforts to advise Mr. Epstein when many of his friends were abandoning him. In the six months before Mr. Epstein was arrested and charged with the sex trafficking of minors in July 2019, Mr. Bannon’s name appears nearly every day in the files, often because the two men exchanged texts.
In a statement to The New York Times, Mr. Bannon said his relationship with Mr. Epstein was strictly professional.
“I am a filmmaker and TV host with decades of experience interviewing controversial figures,” he said. “That’s the only lens through which these private communications should be viewed — a documentary filmmaker working, over a period of time, to secure 50 hours of interviews from a reclusive subject.”
He said the film would fully expose Mr. Epstein and “destroy the very myths he created.” A spokesman said Mr. Bannon planned to release the film, now six years in the making, later this year.
Mr. Bannon is one of the biggest political names to be caught up in the latest chapter of the Epstein scandal. Mr. Bannon is a headline speaker at major Republican political events and hosts one of the nation’s top political podcasts. Like many other prominent members of the MAGA movement, he had called for the release of the files pertaining to Mr. Epstein.
A torrent of text and email exchanges show that after Mr. Bannon and Mr. Epstein met in late 2017, Mr. Bannon promised to help Mr. Epstein rehabilitate his reputation. As Mr. Epstein’s legal troubles mounted in 2019, Mr. Bannon helped strategize a defense, the documents indicate.
He told Mr. Epstein several months before his arrest: “we must counter ‘rapist who traffics in female children to be raped by worlds most powerful, richest men’ — that can’t be redeemed.”
A spokesman for Mr. Bannon said his client sought only to ingratiate himself with Mr. Epstein for the documentary. But written communications during the year and a half before Mr. Epstein’s death in custody in August 2019 suggest that far from wary, Mr. Epstein was eager to cater to Mr. Bannon’s wishes and needs.
He shipped Mr. Bannon and his son Apple watches. He offered Mr. Bannon his private jet to fly around Europe, joking: “How does it feel to have the most highly paid travel agent in history?”
He proposed that Mr. Bannon get a full medical work-up in Mr. Epstein’s “private area” at a high-end concierge emergency clinic, telling him that “your medical expenses from a to z have been covered by me.” Mr. Bannon’s spokesman said he never saw Mr. Epstein’s doctor, nor did he fly on his private jet.
As Mr. Bannon promoted himself as a strategist to populist and nationalist political parties abroad, Mr. Epstein tried to help him build connections.
“Whatever you need, I’m in,” he wrote to Mr. Bannon in mid-2018.
A host of prominent figures in the United States and abroad have been tarnished and toppled by the documentation of their contacts with Mr. Epstein in the newly released files. Most recently, Kathryn Ruemmler, a former top Obama administration lawyer, resigned from Goldman Sachs after emails revealed a lengthy friendship with Mr. Epstein.
Mr. Bannon, 72, has faced a string of legal troubles in recent years. The court cases partly explain why the documentary has yet to be released, his spokesman said.
He served four months in prison in 2024 for contempt of Congress after refusing to testify before the committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Mr. Trump’s Justice Department is now seeking to wipe out that conviction.
An effort to fund Mr. Trump’s wall on the border with Mexico led to charges that Mr. Bannon had pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars in funds from contributors. A state court sentenced him to three years’ probation on a fraud charge in February 2025, but Mr. Bannon escaped a trial on related federal charges when Mr. Trump pardoned him just before leaving office in January 2021.
Federal agents had arrested Mr. Bannon the previous year while he was on a yacht owned by a Chinese billionaire, Guo Wengui, who was later convicted in a separate $1 billion fraud scheme. Mr. Bannon was named as a co-conspirator in that case but was not charged.
“Someone has to fund his nonsenses,” Mr. Epstein emailed an associate who asked why Mr. Bannon had allied himself with Mr. Guo.
Mr. Bannon has continued to be a featured speaker at the influential Conservative Political Action Conference and at Turning Point USA, the conservative organization founded by Charlie Kirk. At a Turning Point event last July, he shouted to a crowd, “It’s deeper than Epstein!”
Sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, left, wearing a Harvard sweatshirt illustrating his connections to the university, converses with his close friend and attorney Alan Dershowitz, right, a longtmie and now retired law professor at Harvard Law School whose private clients have included Epstein and Donald Trump.
New York Times, Epstein’s Ties With Academics Show the Seedy Side of College Fund-Raising, Alan Blinder, Feb. 16, 2026. Professors and presidents are often eager to raise outside cash. Some are now facing blowback after connecting with Jeffrey Epstein.
Their buildings can be architectural wonders. The discoveries made in their laboratories can be spellbinding and lifesaving.
But America’s colleges and universities are chronically searching for money, a reality that brought academic leaders and researchers into both 
Jeffrey Epstein’s orbit and his inbox. The schools had the prestige to lend him legitimacy. Mr. Epstein had the money to bankroll projects.
It worked well for some, until it didn’t.
Mr. Epstein, who in 2019 died by suicide in the jail where he was being held on sex trafficking charges, gave money, or simply dangled the prospect of it, before people on a range of campuses, including Harvard, M.I.T., 
Stanford, Bard College and Columbia.
Some schools have spent years trying to distance themselves from Mr. Epstein, donating his contributions and condemning his crimes. But recent document releases from the Justice Department have prompted new recriminations and regrets.
Many academics whose names appear within the Epstein files say they turned to him only because of his money and the possibility that it could underwrite college budgets and research efforts — even if their exchanges came after Mr. Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from a minor.
“As I have said for years, engaging with Jeffrey Epstein was in service of one agenda, which was fund-raising for Bard,” the college’s president, Leon Botstein, said in a statement.
Nicholas Christakis, a professor at Yale, wrote in an email that he had only met Mr. Epstein once, “in the context of fund-raising for my lab.”
“We never got any funding from him,” he said, adding, “Like other academic scientists, I am responsible for the financial support of my lab.”
Antonio Damasio, a neuroscientist at the University of Southern California, said in an email that colleagues had told him about Mr. Epstein, saying that he was interested in science.
“When Epstein invited myself and my wife (who is also a well-known scientist) to have dinner at his New York home with other colleagues, we accepted and we both attended,” said Dr. Damasio, who said he had never received any money from Mr. Epstein
Mr. Epstein’s motives for connecting with college professors and presidents were not always clear. He gathered celebrities and power brokers into his network; a Harvard professor who benefited from the Epstein largess once noted that the financier also collected scientists.
Mr. Epstein rarely followed through with the multimillion-dollar contributions he suggested were on offer, but he drew people in and appeared attentive to academia’s unending quest to pay its bills. Private philanthropy has long been an essential part of higher education’s business model, and some college presidents say they spend at least a quarter of their time fund-raising.
New York Times, Columbia Punishes 2 Who Helped Epstein’s Girlfriend Enter Dental College, Ed Shanahan, Feb. 16, 2026. The release of documents tied to Jeffrey Epstein has sent ripples through the worlds of business, politics and academia, including at Columbia, where he helped his girlfriend gain entry. More details below.
Occupy Democrats, Advocacy: SICK BASTARD! Tech bozo behind Trump’s surveillance regime says he wants to hose his critics with fentanyl-laced pee!, Staff and wire reports, Feb. 16, 2026. Alex Karp, above left, is the CEO of Palantir, a company that provides the Trump team with the mass surveillance equipment that drives the whole ICE deportation machine.
The combative CEO often sits for interviews to espouse his combative, self-aggrandizing, elitist, and downright nutty views. Today it was Andrew Ross Sorkin at 92Y, where paper bag philosopher Karp intoned “You need a higher purpose, and I also think you often need a lower purpose” for motivation.
When Sorkin took the bait and asked “What lower purpose?” it was clear Karp had thought his answer through: “I love the idea of getting a drone and having light fentanyl-laced urine spraying on analysts that tried to screw us.”
He then pivoted to his “higher purpose” of making America the “preeminent power in the world because whatever faults we have are nothing like anyone else’s” and blah-blah-blah. This is the same Alex Karp whose Palantir builds the AI backbone for ICE deportations, predictive policing, and government data fusion, basically upping the government’s ability to track, profile, and target people like us at scale.
He profits billions while daydreaming about chemical revenge on critics with a straight face. The guy who sells dystopian surveillance to the state now fantasizes about weaponizing fentanyl – which is causing a very real drug crisis – against anyone who disagrees with him.
It’s not just unhinged; it’s a peek into the mind of a billionaire who sees enemies everywhere and thinks torture-lite fantasies are motivational. While he pushes rhetoric about how great America is, fondness for his “lower” purpose betrays pure vindictive cruelty.If this kind of deranged revenge talk from a major government contractor chills you, like and share to expose the twisted behind another tech giant.
U.S. Governace, Politics, Elections
New York Times, With Latest Rollback, the U.S. Essentially Has No Clean-Car Rules, Hiroko Tabuchi, Feb. 16, 2026. The E.P.A.’s killing of the “endangerment finding” caps a year of deregulation that is likely to make cars thirstier for gas and less competitive globally, experts say.
The momentous end to the federal government’s legal authority to fight climate change makes it official.
The United States will essentially have no laws on the books that enforce how efficient America’s passenger cars and trucks should be.
That’s the practical result of the Trump administration’s yearlong parade of regulatory rollbacks, capped on Thursday by its killing of the “endangerment finding,” the scientific determination that required the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases because of the threat to human health.
“The U.S. no longer has emission standards of any meaning,” said Margo T. Oge, who served as the E.P.A.’s top vehicle emissions regulator under three presidents and has since advised both automakers and environmental groups.
“Nothing. Zero,” she added. “Not many countries have zero.”
Transportation is the largest single source of greenhouse gases in the United States.
Car buyers could still vote with their wallets, demanding more fuel-efficient cars. California has vowed to sue to maintain stricter standards. And the Department of Transportation still regulates fuel economy under rules meant to conserve oil.
But last year, the Trump administration proposed weakening the fuel economy standards to largely irrelevant levels. The Republican-controlled Congress also set civil penalties for violations at $0, essentially making them voluntary for automakers. In addition, Congress last year blocked California’s clean-car rules.
Occupy Democrats, Advocacy:MAGA ally screams “BLOODY MURDER” over Trump’s massive corrupt foreign paydays, Staff and wire reports, Feb. 16, 2026. When even right-wing political commentator Ben Shapiro is highlighting White House corruption, you know something is seriously wrong.
In a jaw-dropping interview with The New Yorker’s David Remnick, Shapiro, right, was asked a simple question: Is Donald Trump honest? The context?
A Wall Street Journal report detailing “fishy investments” from Abu Dhabi that allegedly helped the Trump family rake in a staggering $4 billion since Trump returned to office in 2024.That’s billion — with a “B.
”Remnick cited conservative estimates showing massive financial gains tied to Middle Eastern investments in Trump-linked ventures.
And Shapiro didn’t dodge.“Of course,” he said when asked if it concerned him. “If the name were Biden instead of Trump, people would be screaming bloody murder.”That’s a level of MAGA self-awareness that we have rarely encountered during the latest Trump administration.
Shapiro — one of Trumpworld’s most reliable defenders — openly admitted that if a Democrat had pulled off this kind of foreign cash windfall, the MAGA machine would be melting down 24/7 on cable news.He went further. When pressed on whether the behavior was simply “not beneficial” to Trump’s agenda or outright corrupt, Shapiro responded: “Both, obviously.”
Both. Obviously…to Trump’s detractors at least.
However, it’s shocking to hear from a person whose political objectives barely deviate from the MAGA party line.Shapiro pointed to politically interested actors investing “massive amounts of money” into questionable digital assets tied to Trump’s orbit and concluded, “that is not a good thing.”
That’s not coming from MSNBC. That’s coming from Ben Shapiro, someone who wants to ban abortion and supports capital punishment.Let’s connect the dots. Billions flowing from foreign interests. Crypto-style “digital assets.” A sitting president whose family fortune explodes while in office. And even conservative commentators are acknowledging the optics — and the ethics — are rotten.For years, Republicans screamed about the Biden family and foreign business ties. Now? When Trump’s wealth reportedly balloons by billions thanks to overseas investors, the outrage is… selective.Shapiro said it himself: If this were Biden, it would be a five-alarm fire.Instead, it’s just another day in Trump’s America — where grift is normalized, foreign money flows freely, and accountability depends on your party affiliation.
New York Times, The Quiet Architect of Trump’s Global Trade War, Ana Swanson, Feb. 16, 2026. Jamieson Greer, a low-key lawyer from a working-class background, is rewriting the rules of the global economy at the president’s behest.
On Jan. 26, 2025, Jamieson Greer was teaching Sunday school to a group of 9-year-olds when one of his phones started blowing up with calls from the White House. Six days into the new administration, President Trump was already deploying his favorite weapon: the threat of crippling tariffs to bend countries to his will.
This time, the president was threatening Colombia, after it refused to accept U.S. military planes of deported immigrants. Mr. Greer would not join the Trump administration for some time yet, but he was already a key adviser on trade, flying to Mar-a-Lago in the weeks before to help plan Mr. Trump’s agenda.
“Why do you have two phones?” a student asked him.
“I have a kind of crazy job,” Mr. Greer replied.
As the United States trade representative, Mr. Greer, 45, has been a powerful but behind-the-scenes force in transforming the global economy. His calm demeanor is often overshadowed in a cabinet filled with outspoken, brash billionaires. Yet few have done more in Mr. Trump’s second term to put into practice the president’s vision of altering the system governing how trillions of dollars of goods move around the world.
Mr. Greer has provided the legal and policy framework to overhaul a global system Mr. Trump slams as unfair. He has helped the president raise tariffs to their highest levels in nearly a century while simultaneously leading negotiations with all of America’s biggest trading partners. So far, he has helped Mr. Trump reach initial trade arrangements with dozens of countries.
Interviews with Mr. Greer make clear that he is a true believer in Mr. Trump’s plan to use tariffs to revitalize the United States manufacturing sector. He and other advisers have ushered in steep import taxes to try to protect manufacturers from foreign competition, coax more factories into the United States and create more good-paying factory jobs.
New York Times, How the Visa Debate for Foreign Workers Fuels Racism Against South Asians, Amy Qin, Feb. 16, 2026. A dispute over the impact of H-1B visas on U.S. workers has been overshadowed by racist rhetoric, with troubling echoes of the great replacement conspiracy theory.
The floor was open at a regular City Council meeting in Frisco, Texas, and several speakers, riled by a recent viral video over visas for specialized foreign workers, wanted to make their views known. They did not mince words about the program.
The visa, called H-1B, had led to an “Indian takeover” of their city. The program, some said without citing proof, was full of “fraudsters” and “low-quality scammers.”
A few people claimed an even broader racist conspiracy theory, accusing Western elites and corporations of seeking to replace and disempower white Americans.
“We must maintain our Rhodesia,” said someone identifying himself as a college student, referring to the former white-ruled colony that later became Zimbabwe.
During the nearly two-hour open floor this month, some opponents of the visas spoke about more typical concerns like job losses and suppressed wages, while South Asian residents expressed their fears over the rhetoric. And the leaders of Frisco, a rapidly growing suburb north of Dallas, emphasized the value and contributions of its population, one-third of whom are of Asian heritage.
In a statement, Jeff Cheney, the Frisco mayor, described many of the speakers as “outside agitators” who did not represent the majority of residents.
But the meeting displayed how the anger over the visa program has helped ignite racist rhetoric targeting the Indian community, not only in Frisco, but across the country.
Created in 1990, the H-1B program allows up to 85,000 foreign workers to fill specialized roles in the United States every year. In 2023, around three-quarters of the 400,000 or so approved H-1B applications were for workers from India, according to Pew Research Center. That same year, Dallas-Ft. Worth ranked fourth among metropolitan areas for approved H-1B applications. Many of these visa holders work as software programmers and computer engineers.
Rules around the H-1B visa are meant to protect American workers. Companies, for instance, are prohibited from paying H-1B workers less than other workers with similar skills and qualifications. But the effectiveness of these rules is hotly disputed.
The tech industry says it needs the program because of a dearth of qualified Americans, and health care associations have said the visas help ease physician shortages. Economists have generally found that H-1B visa holders boost American productivity and raise wages even for American workers.Sign up for the Race/Related Newsletter Join a deep and provocative exploration of race, identity and society with New York Times journalists. Get it sent to your inbox.
Critics of the program, which include many labor unions, argue that it is ripe for abuse and displaces domestic workers. They point to examples like the 2015 decision to lay off 250 technology workers at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla., who were told to train their replacements with H-1B visas. And in 2024, a federal jury found that Cognizant, an information technology outsourcing company that is among the top recipients of H-1B visas, had intentionally discriminated for years against non-Indian employees.
U.S. President's Day Holiday
The Contrarian, Opinion: Presidents DayHow to Trump-proof the presidency, Jennifer Rubin, right, Feb. 16, 2026. When we reflect on our great presidents (e.g., George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, the Roosevelts), the good ones (e.g., Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower), and even the poor ones (e.g., Herbert Hoover, James Buchanan), we can at least say they understood our basic constitutional framework.
Even ones guilty of major legal, policy, or moral transgressions (e.g., Watergate, the Red Scare, Vietnam, the Iraq War) had some redeeming qualities and accomplishments. Until this one.Without sarcasm, many Americans wonder if we can get back to a time when a “merely bad” president was the worst we could expect. In other words, we shudder at the possibility that the floor for presidents been permanently and completely eradicated so that future Donald Trumps are possible if not likely.
Plainly, we cannot rely on the discernment of the American people. They did elect the most despicable, corrupt, cruel, ignorant, and lawless president ever to hold office, knowing a great deal about what he intended to do.
As much as we admire Alexander Hamilton, his observation in Federalist No. 68 turns out to be laughably, tragically wrong:
The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States. It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue.
The Framers did not imagine the sort of restraints necessary to contain a manipulative narcissist wielding an enormous propaganda apparatus and determined to break laws and norms. We need more protection than we have currently to prevent another Trump — or even a mild imitation of him.
Some tools included in the Constitution (e.g., presidents chosen by electors) became a dead letter with the rise of political parties and partisan fervor. Frankly, removal of the president by impeachment or even via the 25th Amendment has become virtually impossible. Other tools have atrophied for lack of attention (e.g., an enforcement mechanism to prevent receipt of foreign emoluments). And an intellectually dishonest and partisan MAGA Supreme Court majority with an anti-originalist view of an all-powerful chief executive has demolished critical constraints on the presidency (e.g., broad criminal immunity).
"Right-sizing” the presidency and putting in additional guardrails therefore should be top priorities. No single solution is going to stop malicious figures from an autocratic putsch, but we can make it much harder for such a figure to do real damage to our democracy,
Ideally (and in keeping with the Framers’ intentions), we want a president, for example, whom foreign governments or domestic donors cannot buy.
There are legislative fixes: Make it a crime to give or receive a foreign emolument of more than $25 in value (or a domestic emolument of any value). Alternatively, pass a law (with an enforcement mechanism) to make such transfers subject to civil forfeiture or a 100% tax.Congress could pass similar laws (with criminal, civil forfeiture, or tax penalties) requiring presidents to sell or put all business operations and investments in a blind trust before taking office — and, no, letting your sons run your company is not a blind trust. (If we are really fed up with financial corruption, constitutional amendments to reestablish presidential criminal liability and ban dark money could be pursued unless a reformed Supreme Court reverses Trump v. U.S. and Citizens United).
Legislation with simple “no dictator stuff” could easily gain traction: No major White House renovations without congressional authorization, no naming any federal or quasi-federal organization or structure for a sitting president (make the Kennedy Center great again!), and no book/movie/rights deals for any president or spouse while in office. (The Framers would be aghast, no doubt, that such things were even contemplated.)
There are many legislative fixes to curtail presidential unilateral power (e.g., war powers, emergency powers, rescission). But allocating the right for lawmakers or others to bring enforcement actions is essential. Likewise, reviving the Bivens Act to allow civil actions for individuals to recoup damages against any executive branch official could put teeth into presidential restraints. In addition, Congress needs a mechanism to enforce contempt findings that does not depend on enforcement by the administration it is holding in contempt.
Moreover, voters, media and political parties need to rethink the way we evaluate presidential candidates. Grilling them on the specifics of policy/legislation is as useless as it is misleading. The issues will change, presidents will compromise when it comes to real legislation, and campaign promises will fade from memory. Instead, much more attention should be paid to foundational issues about democracy and values (e.g., Do immigrants have rights? Are treaties the law of the land?).We still may not get candid answers, but the responses to those sorts of questions (or hypotheticals about pardons, donors, and financial impropriety) would be a whole lot more revealing than asking about a 24-point plan for legislation that is unlikely to pass. It is frankly harder to disguise one’s deeply held beliefs (or lack thereof) than to toss out unrealistic political promises.
No future president should ever have as much power and leeway for corruption and abuse as this one. Generally, shrinking presidential power, building up other branches, and imposing statutory and constitutional restraints on presidents should be no-brainers. Ultimately, getting candidates, parties, and voters to focus on character, judgment, and understanding of our Constitution might be the most helpful means of getting back to an era in which the worse we had to fear was a “C-” president. (And can we all agree no presidents older than 75?)
Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: February 15, 2026 [America's White Nationalism Takes Center Stage], Heather Cox Richardson, right, Feb. 16, 2026 (print ed.). The Trump administration’s white nationalist project was on full display this weekend at the 62nd Munich Security Conference that took place from February 13 to 15, 2026.
The Munich Security Conference is the leading international forum for discussions of security policy. It was begun in 1963, at the height of the Cold War, to be an independent venue for experts and policymakers to discuss the most pressing security issues around the globe.
While the USSR absorbed neighboring countries as satellites, the U.S. and its allies and partners embraced a theory that international relations could achieve permanent peace so long as they emphasized representative democracy, economic interdependence, and international organizations. The equality, shared norms, and costs for wars that this system built, the theory went, along with new mechanisms for negotiation, would prevent global military conflict like those the world had suffered twice in the early twentieth century.
Since World War II, those values have reinforced civil rights and created opportunities for women and people of color, created dramatically higher standards of living around the globe, and prevented global wars. But the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 changed global calculations. Rather than defending the tenets of democracy, American leaders focused on spreading capitalism into the newly accessible states, arguing that democracy and capitalism went hand in hand.
At home, the end of the Cold War meant that the extremist Republicans who hoped to destroy business regulations and slash taxes, as well as halt infrastructure projects and end civil rights protections, no longer had to work with Democrats to stand against the USSR. They focused on getting rid of those they called the American “left,” a term that for them included not just Democrats but also Independents and traditional Republicans in the mold of President George H.W. Bush, who believed the government had a role to play in regulating business, providing a basic social safety net, promoting infrastructure, and protecting civil rights.
Extremist Republicans attacked their opponents as socialists even as their tax cuts and deregulation were moving money dramatically upward: at least $50 trillion moved upward from the bottom 90% to the top 1% between 1975 and 2020. Republican leaders and media figures fed their audiences the story that the middle class was imploding not because of Republican policies but because undeserving Black people, people of color, and feminist women demanded government handouts. This narrative fueled Trump’s political rise. He promised to fix the economic dispossession of those the modern economy left behind, by “draining the swamp,” restoring white men to control, and rebuilding the American middle class.
Once in office, though, Trump continued Republican policies of tax cuts and deregulation, maintaining his hold over his supporters by increasing attacks on racial and gender minorities and on women. As he distanced himself from democratic principles, he cozied up to Arab monarchs and Russia’s president Vladimir Putin. Like right-wing media leaders, he championed Hungarian prime minister Victor Orbán, who had destroyed democracy in Hungary in favor of establishing autocracy.
At the Munich Security Conference last year, just after Trump had taken office for the second time, Vice President J.D. Vance announced the U.S. was switching sides in global affairs. Henceforth, it would work to destroy the values of representative democracy and the global systems of trade and security that the U.S. and partners constructed after World War II.
In their place, officials in the Trump administration and their media allies have embraced the Great Replacement theory that says Brown and Black migration to Europe and the U.S. is destroying “western civilization.” Such migration must be stopped, they argue, and Brown and Black people purged from the U.S. and Europe. The end of equal rights for migrants will enable white Christian men to dominate society and pass laws that reinforce traditional religious and patriarchal hierarchies.
A report the organizers of the Munich Security Conference released before this year’s event named the elephant in the room: “the changing role of the United States in the international system.”
The report looked back to the statement of U.S. secretary of state Dean Acheson, who oversaw the development of the post–World War II global order, that he was “present at the creation.” Now, the report said, we may be present at its destruction. “The world has entered a period of wrecking-ball politics. Sweeping destruction—rather than careful reforms and policy corrections—is the order of the day. The most prominent of those who promise to free their countries from the existing order’s constraints and rebuild stronger, more prosperous nations is the current US administration. As a result, more than 80 years after construction began, the US-led post-1945 international order is now under destruction.”
Trump is leading that destruction, the report says, but it’s not clear that he is clearing the ground for new policies that will secure Americans’ safety, prosperity, or freedom. It warns that Trump is building a world based on private transactions that privilege a global elite and replace international cooperation with a few powerful countries. “Ironically,” it says, “this would be a world that privileges the rich and powerful, not those who have placed their hopes in wrecking-ball politics.”
When he opened this year’s conference, German chancellor Friedrich Merz warned the Trump administration that “[t]he leadership claim of the U.S. is being challenged, perhaps already lost,” and that the world of great-power rivalry the U.S. is trying to set up will leave the U.S. alone and weakened. “We Germans know a world in which might makes right would be a dark place,” he said. “Our country has gone down this path in the 20th century until the bitter and dreadful end.”
“The culture war of the MAGA movement is not ours,” Merz said. “Freedom of speech ends here with us when that speech is turned against human dignity and the constitution. And we don’t believe in tariffs and protectionism, but in free trade. We stand by climate agreements and the World Health Organization.”
In his speech to the conference yesterday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, left, was less confrontational than Vance was last year, but the message was the same. He attacked all three of the pillars on which the U.S. has previously stood in foreign affairs. Global trade has ruined the U.S. economy, he said, while international institutions have undermined sovereignty, and “a climate cult” has imposed energy policies that are “impoverishing our people.”
He focused, though, on “mass migration,” which he claimed “threatens the cohesion of our societies, the continuity of our culture, and the future of our people.” He called for Europe to join with the U.S. in rejecting the tenets of the post–World War II vision, claiming that “[w]e are part of one civilization—Western civilization. We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilization to which we have fallen heir.”
His description of that shared heritage reflected the Trump administration’s fantasy past. It was all white and Christian, quite weirdly erasing the Indigenous Americans who were central to the development of a peculiarly “American” identity in the eastern colonies of North America and the reality that the vast majority of the American West was Indigenous, Spanish, and Mexican for hundreds of years before it became part of the United States in 1848.
Rubio’s version of the U.S. did not include Black Americans at all, even though they were among the first inhabitants of the colonies that became the U.S., and even though he called out the Rolling Stones, who built their body of work on that of Black American blues musicians like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, as part of “western civilization.” Rubio even ignored his own family’s arrival in the U.S. from Cuba in 1956, rooting his own heritage not in the modern migration from Latin America to the U.S. that the administration is criminalizing, but in eighteenth-century Spain.
Entirely ignoring the threat of autocratic Russia against Europe, Rubio pushed Europe to abandon the values of democracy in favor of imperialism. He said the U.S. had “no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the West’s managed decline” and urged Europe to work with the U.S. for a return to western “dominance.”
From Munich, Rubio will travel to Hungary to visit with Orbán, who is facing an election on April 12, following a stop in Slovakia, whose leader is also a Trump ally.
Rubio’s version of history echoes that of the Nazis during World War II and ignores the strength of the real multicultural history of the United States. European leaders wanted no part of it.
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas rejected the ideology behind Rubio’s speech. “Contrary to what some may say, woke, decadent Europe is not facing civilizational erasure,” she said. She noted that other nations want to join the E.U. and those that are already members want the E.U. “to take a stronger role in the world: To defend our values. To take care of our people. To push humanity forwards.”
Kallas disputed the argument that the postwar order is economically backward compared to autocracy, noting that since the fall of the Soviet Union, nations that have joined the E.U. have grown economically more than twice as fast as Russia. She reiterated the value of international trade and security partnerships, and she reminded the audience that “the vast majority of countries also want the same thing: stability, growth, and prosperity for their people. The best way to get there is to go together.”
As Merz had done, Kallas called for Europeans to assert their own agency to protect “not only our excellent living standards, health and happiness, but the lessons we have learnt from our own history.”
Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton said in Munich that Trump “has betrayed the West, he’s betrayed human values, he’s betrayed the NATO charter, the Atlantic Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” and warned he is modeling himself after Putin.
The Trump administration’s attempt to replace the postwar international order with a great-power system driven by autocracy has opened the door for Democrats to suggest a different kind of U.S. foreign policy. A number of elected Democrats traveled to Munich, where they tried to counter administration officials’ message. California governor Gavin Newsom touted his state’s climate policies and signed a memorandum of understanding with Deputy Governor Oleksandr Kulepin of Lviv, Ukraine, to strengthen trade and commercial ties with Lviv Oblast, California’s sister-state.
Representatives Jason Crow (D-CO) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) cut more closely to the heart of the crisis that led to Trump’s rise by calling for a U.S. foreign policy rooted in the working class. “We can’t fall into right-wing populism’s lie that the most vulnerable in society are to blame for wealth inequality in our countries,” Ocasio-Cortez later summarized her argument. “We need to build movements that tell the truth: the story of wealth inequality is not a cultural one, but a class one.” At Munich, she said: “We want to make sure that we dive deeply into shared innovation, investment, strategic priorities, and trade policies that ensure the benefits of that trade actually benefit working-class people and that we restrain ourselves from the military interventions of our past.”
“Our foreign policy is being turned into an extortion ring for Big Oil, for the Trump family, for elites,” Crow said. ‘They’re bullying our partners and allies.… We want strength and peace, but we don’t want to be extorting and bullying our friends. We want to be a force for good.” “We need a national security and foreign policy that looks like America and has the experiences of the American people [with] partnerships that are rooted in fairness and that deliver for working-class folks everywhere.”
Hopium Chronicles, Pro-Democracy Advocacy, Trump On President's Day: Rot, Failure, And Decline, Simon Rosenberg, right, Feb. 16, 2026. The tide is turning against the most un-American leader America has ever had.
Morning all. I was going to write something a bit more breezy today, and let Saturday’s post full of videos and links be the bulk of the content, but I was struck today by the tone of the coverage I encountered this morning, and how much of it had a “Trump is batshit crazy and failing”/Emperor has no clothes vibe.
This vibe matters for next week is the State of the Union, and we will be spending the next few weeks assessing the health of the nation and Trump’s second term. Based on my read of the news vibe right now Trump is entering this consequential period in a bad place.
For the truth is Trump’s first year has been a disaster for him politically and electorally, and for the nation more broadly. He has very, very little that the can sell the to public next week that they will want to buy.
Let’s review: Tthe economy has slowed. Inflation has remained too high. The Fed stopped cutting interest rates. For the first time in history, we no longer have the highest credit rating in any of the top three credit rating agencies. Consumer confidence has been the lowest in sixty years. Crypto is crashing. Our health care system has been badly damaged. We are losing manufacturing jobs. Our world leading research ecosystem has been under a sustained assault.
Trump is the most corrupt politician in our history. He is a 34 times felon, and his time in office has resembled a crime spree far more than an America Presidency. The Epstein coverup is staggering in its immorality and lawlessness, and he has now also clearly failed to contain the extraordinary scandal. The country has rejected mass deportation and his brutal assault on communities across the country. We keep winning and overperforming in elections of all kinds across the country, and are also now likely to win the redistricting war he recklessly, impulsively, initiated. He has alienated our allies, sided with Putin, and is leaving us alone, isolated, and far less safe. He is regularly murdering people on the high seas, and his vaporization of USAID will end up killing tens of millions of the poorest people on Earth, including millions of children. It would be accurate to call him a mass murderer.
The list goes on and on……
Let’s get to his coverage I mentioned. On Friday, Axios ran a big story, written by its two founders, about Trump’s weakening hold on Washington.
Today, another well read insider DC publication, Politico, has a similar story. The article is essentially a long list of his failures, retreats, fuck ups, and batshit craziness. Let’s dive in:
President Donald Trump’s first year back in office was defined by sweeping upheaval that was largely plotted out during his four-year Florida exile. But the president has somehow intensified the volatility in year two with a succession of whiplash-inducing policy swings, several of which have almost immediately withered in the face of Republican opposition and public outcry.
The administration this week finally withdrew the thousands of federal law enforcement officers from Minneapolis, after violent and at times deadly clashes with protesters turned the tide of public opinion against the president’s immigration crackdown.
It came after Trump threatened to decertify Canadian aircraft, a move deemed “unjustified and dangerous” by a Washington-based aerospace trade union that the president soon dropped. Trump said in early January that he’d cap credit card rates at 10 percent, a move that would have upended the banking industry, only to change his mind and ask Congress for legislation.
Also last month, Trump’s administration paused millions in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funding for state public health infrastructure — only to reverse course roughly 24 hours later…..
……The president has made numerous pronouncements with emphatic declarations on social media, sometimes even suggesting he is governing by fiat in cases where legislation is required. But he has quickly moved on from many of them: a cap on credit card interest rates, 50-year mortgages and, according to a new Financial Times report, possibly even the sweeping tariffs on aluminum and steel that have led to higher costs.
While some have come to expect out-of-the-box ideas posted at all hours and others even see a certain gutsiness in Trump’s move-fast-and-break-things approach, the effects can be real and devastating for those caught in the crosshairs of an untested idea……
……the reversals have a way of capturing bigger headlines.
At the start of last week, Trump threatened to halt the opening of a new bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, in a further move against Canada — only to seemingly drop it.
It came after Trump backed off one of his biggest foreign policy moves of the year: his gambit to seize Greenland from NATO ally Denmark, which prompted strong European resistance.
Last April on what he called “Liberation Day,” Trump imposed higher tariffs on nearly every country despite warnings from Wall Street. But he quickly backtracked, lowering them within days following tremors in global bond markets.
Stories like these, written in these skeptical “holy shit the guy is a fuck up” tone would have been unimaginable in DC six months ago. But here we are. A week before the State of the Union. Ugly stuff for our very ugly leader and his rancid regime.
PoliticusUSA, Commentary: Here Is Why Donald Trump Is The Biggest Failure In Presidential History, Jason Easley, right, Feb. 16, 2026. Donald Trump is the biggest failure in presidential history because he designed a fatally flawed administration intended to serve only himself.
Adjectives like best and worst or good and bad are subjective. Every four years, historians gather to release a survey ranking all the presidents in U.S. history. Historians never label the top and bottom of the list as good or bad; they rank presidents based on their achievements, legacy, and historical impact.
Success and failure can also be subjective on the surface, but one of the ways to measure success and failure among presidents is popularity, because the presidency derives its power from the people.
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The American system of governance is set up so that popular presidents have more political capital to get things done. Unpopular presidents struggle to accomplish their agenda because, as the talking heads are fond of saying, the political winds are blowing against them.
Donald Trump has tried to place the presidency above the American people and invert the power dynamic. Instead of the president being responsive to the American people, Trump wants the American people to be responsive to the presidency.
By trying to create what historian Arthur Schlesinger called an imperial presidency, Trump has caused a visceral retaliation by the majority of the American people that has sunk his presidency to historic low points in popular opinion.
The best presidencies set themselves up for success before they assume power. Trump did the opposite and built a presidency that was destined to fail.
Let’s look at some examples of Trump’s failed presidency below.
Elections are won, but presidencies are built. When Donald Trump chose to build his second administration around loyalty rather than competence, most Americans didn’t notice.
They were more worried, and still are, about grocery prices than who is running HHS or Homeland Security, but Trump’s choice meant that there are people in the federal government who have no experience with the departments and agencies that they are managing, and their lack of competence has led to everything from Americans being shot dead in Minneapolis to measles outbreaks around the country.
Trump built an administration that lacked interest in and expertise at governing at a time when the American people wanted specific problems solved.
Instead, Trump senses that he is failing, so he announces ideas off the top of his head that go nowhere.
Politico published a recap of some of his recent reversals:
The administration this week finally withdrew the thousands of federal law enforcement officers from Minneapolis, after violent and at times deadly clashes with protesters turned the tide of public opinion against the president’s immigration crackdown.
It came after Trump threatened to decertify Canadian aircraft, a move deemed “unjustified and dangerous” by a Washington-based aerospace trade union that the president soon dropped. Trump said in early January that he’d cap credit card rates at 10 percent, a move that would have upended the banking industry, only to change his mind and ask Congress for legislation.
Also last month, Trump’s administration paused millions in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funding for state public health infrastructure — only to reverse course roughly 24 hours later.
The constant veering from position to position is a classic characteristic of failed presidents.
Trump says things like lower credit card interest rates to 10% or nationalize elections, and he has no power to unilaterally carry these ideas out.
Donald Trump has so far been the biggest presidential failure in American history because he does what he wants to do, not what those who supported him voted for him to do.
The reason why Trump is a total failure is that this president thinks that he is the United States of America, and that his wishes are more important than those of the American people.
Trump never campaigns to make his policies more popular because he refuses to see that his power comes from the American people.
If Trump doesn’t get the message, the American people will virtually end his failed presidency in November.
Morning Shots via The Bulwark, Political Opinion: All the Presidents’ Monday, William Kristol, right, Feb. 16, 2026. Today is Presidents’ Day.
Well, technically, according to federal law, the holiday we’re celebrating today is still officially Washington’s Birthday. But thanks to the Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1968, it’s now observed on the third Monday in February, rather than on February 22. Partly because the holiday got unmoored from Washington’s actual birthday, partly because there was a general desire to include Lincoln (whose birthday was celebrated by many Northern states but not nationally) in the celebration, and partly because advertisers started to use the term “President’s Day”, we seem to now have a new name for this holiday.
Which is, I’ve come to think, okay. It’s true that, along with many other conservatives, I used to decry the substitution of Presidents’ Day for Washington’s birthday (and Lincoln’s) as a sad example of modern democratic leveling run amok. After all, we’ve had forty-five chief executives. Only a few have been great. Some have been good. Some have been pretty bad. A few have been very bad. When Madison anticipated in Federalist No. 10 that “enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm” of our republic, he was right.
So was I correct that “Presidents’ Day” is an unfortunate innovation? In a way, yes. But in a way, no. As Lincoln said, “This is a world of compensations.” One compensation for the universalism of Presidents’ Day is that it lowers our expectations. It reminds us that we shouldn’t look up too much to whomever our president is.
And I’m encouraged that, in fact, we don’t. In a recent poll, YouGov asked Americans to rate twenty well-known presidents. It’s striking, I think, that only 11 of them received positive net favorability ratings from the American public. We the people know that our presidents have been a mixed bag.
This is a sign of civic health. Hard-headed realism and worldly skepticism are desirable qualities in citizens of a democratic republic. If we resist credulous idolization of our presidents, that’s a good thing. And if an all-purpose designation like “Presidents’ Day” can help us to temper our hopes for the occupants of that office, that can be useful. Not all holidays have to be edifying.
Abraham Lincoln was our greatest president. But perhaps history is quietly teaching us a sober lesson in the fact that his time in office was bracketed by two of our worst presidents: James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson.
Could history now favor us with the reverse, so to speak? Could our very worst president be followed by a very good president?
Who knows? But I do know that it’s our responsibility as citizens to make sure the republic survives the tenure of our current president. We could even try to help the nation come out of this experience stronger in some ways. There are, after all, lessons to be learned from awful presidencies as well as from admirable ones.
Let’s hope we’re putting some of those lessons into effect on Presidents’ Day 2029.
AROUND THE BULWARK
The Real Conflict Is Between Decent and Indecent… On The Mona Charen Show, DAVID FRENCH joins MONA CHAREN to discuss culture wars morphing into hot wars, partisanship, and the idiocy of threatening Greenland.Quick Hits
THE ‘BROOM HANDLE’ STORY FALLS APART: Last month, after ICE officers in Minneapolis shot a Venezuelan immigrant they were trying to arrest in the leg, the DHS propaganda machine surged into action. “What we saw last night . . . was an attempted murder of federal law enforcement,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement. “Our officer was ambushed and attacked by three individuals who beat him with snow shovels and the handles of brooms. Fearing for his life, the officer fired a defensive shot.”
Now that story is disintegrating. Federal prosecutors moved last week to drop with prejudice the charges against the migrants Noem had accused of attacking her officer, writing in a filing that “newly discovered evidence” is “materially inconsistent” with the allegations officers made against them. And on Friday, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons announced that the officers in question appear to have fabricated the excuse: “A joint review by ICE and the Department of Justice of video evidence has revealed that sworn testimony provided by two separate officers appears to have made untruthful statements,” Lyons said. “Both officers have been immediately placed on administrative leave pending the completion of a thorough internal investigation.”
NO LAW SCHOOL FOR YOU: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth keeps opening up new theaters in his war on woke. Military officers who are currently in the process of enrolling for graduate education got an abrupt and unwelcome update last week: The Defense Department is planning to cancel all tuition assistance to a host of schools deemed too leftish—or, in Hegseth’s phrasing, that “diminish critical thinking”—with dozens of top schools listed as “moderate or high risk” for being banned. CNN reports:
A source familiar with Hegseth’s guidance told CNN that the implication is that “graduate programs for highest performing officers and non-commissioned officers are almost certainly at risk.” This source and a military official added that it has created extensive uncertainty within the services about how to proceed with applying for advanced civil schooling, including top law programs, medical programs, and nuclear engineering programs. . . .
The guidance was first mentioned publicly in a video Hegseth posted on social media last week, in which he bashed Harvard and other American universities that have “pervasive institutional bias” saying they “no longer live up to their founding principles, as bastions of free speech, open inquiry, and committed to the American values that make our country great.”
It’s astonishing all on its own that Hegseth thinks the armed forces will be better off without lawyers trained at many of the nation’s top law schools, like Stanford, Yale, Harvard, Duke, and Georgetown—to say nothing of engineers trained at MIT. And then there’s the compounding factor that these announcements are being made in mid-February—extremely late, in other words, in the school-applications game.
Over the weekend, emails purportedly from the Judge Advocate Recruiting Office to this year’s crop of JAG candidates began circulating on X: “The Department of Defense will no longer pay for candidates to attend these moderate or high risk schools,” the email reads. “You will have to apply and be accepted to a law school that is not in the moderate or high risk category, and is not listed below. This needs to be done immediately, particularly as we know that some application deadlines have passed, and that you also have a very short turn to try and submit (or re-submit) applications to other schools.”
AND NOW, A PSA FROM SONNY: Last year, friend of The Bulwark Jake VanKersen came on my podcast, The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood, to talk about getting his micro-budgeted movie made and, more importantly, seen by folks. That’s the tricky part: Shooting a movie is easier than ever, but getting eyeballs on it? Still pretty tough! Lots of competition out there.
Anyway, Jake’s movie, I Agree With You, is playing at his hometown theater in Michigan in two weeks. Which means you can see it! On February 27 and 28 and March 1, his film will be showing at the Cinema Carousel—where he worked as a kid and where his mom worked when she was a kid—in Muskegon. It’s a fun movie: super-indie, just a two-hander featuring a couple in a relationship-defining fight. If you’re a Bulwarker in the area, I’m sure Jake would love to see you there!
—Sonny Bunch
Paul Krugman's Substack, Economic Commentary: Turning Our Back on Clean Energy, Paul Krugman, right,Feb. 16, 2026. Why does MAGA hate the planet?
It has been a brutal winter in much of the United States. Weather is a chaotic system in which extreme events are always happening somewhere. But as I am sure you have noticed, extreme weather events — catastrophic storms and flooding, punishing droughts, and yes, extreme cold snaps — are becoming more common as a result of climate change.
For climate change is not just continuing: it’s accelerating. Multiple estimates find that 2025 was one of the warmest years on record for the planet, exceeded only by 2024 and 2023. Indeed, Berkeley Earth reports that “The warming spike observed in 2023 to 2025 has been extreme and suggests an acceleration in the rate of Earth’s warming.”
In other news, the Trump administration has gone to war against any and all efforts to limit climate change. The administration is also imposing a “blockade” against wind and solar projects, delaying or even revoking permits, whether or not these projects have received federal subsidies.
Now, there isn’t a genuine scientific dispute about the reality of global warming and its causes. There isn’t even a serious dispute about the costs of fighting climate change: the economics of green energy are more favorable than they have ever been.
So what’s going on? The Trump administration hates science and science-based policies in general; look at its war on vaccines, which will end up causing an enormous number of deaths. Its assault on universities threatens the best scientific research centers in the world. Its irrational treatment of immigrants means the best and brightest from the around the world no longer want to come here. But in the case of energy, its destructive policy largely reflects the corrupting influence of big money.
I’ll explain in a minute. First, some background.
Almost 40 years have passed since James Hansen’s landmark Senate testimony warning about global warming. He was right. Climate science has been overwhelmingly vindicated by reality.
However, the economics and politics of climate policy have played out very differently from what almost anyone expected.
As late as the 2010s, many observers — myself included — would have said that the big problem in addressing climate change was who would bear the cost. Policies to limit greenhouse gas emissions, everyone believed, would slow the growth of the economy and of real incomes. True, anti-environmentalists were grossly exaggerating these costs. In 2009 I wrote that
[T]he best available economic analyses suggest that even deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions would impose only modest costs on the average family.
But what we knew at the time nonetheless said that there would be significant costs to slowing global warming. And this was problematic, because the costs of limiting emissions would be incurred right away, while the benefits of reduced warming would accrue decades later — and many of them would go to other countries. So action on climate appeared to require (a) international cooperation (b) persuading voters to accept costs now in exchange for a better world many years in the future.
And it was all too easy to be pessimistic about the prospects both for cooperation and for persuading voters to accept even modest future-oriented sacrifices.
Then came the renewable energy revolution. Solar and wind power have become cost-competitive with fossil fuels — they are, in particular, clearly cheaper than coal. Huge progress in batteries has rapidly reduced the problem of intermittency (the sun doesn’t always shine, the wind doesn’t always blow.) There’s now a clear path for a transition to an “electrotech” economy in which renewable-generated electricity heats our homes, powers our cars, and much more.
This transition would make us richer, not poorer. In fact, nations that for whatever reason fail to take advantage of electrotech will be left behind in global competition.
And at this precise moment — a moment in which acting to accelerate the energy transition would increase, not reduce, economic growth — the U.S. government has been taken over by people who want us to go backward on energy. The Trump administration has even introduced a mascot, “Coalie,” in an attempt to make an extremely dirty fuel cute. But coal isn’t cute. Even if we ignore the role of coal in climate change, coal-burning power plants caused hundreds of thousands of excess U.S. deaths between 1999 and 2020. Why the government is trying to make coal cute | Grist
What explains this extraordinary rejection of progress and embrace of energy know-nothingism?
Money may not be the whole story, but it’s a lot of the story.
Indeed, much of what is happening to American democracy has its origins in the long-term strategy of the billionaire Koch brothers. The Kochs spent decades promoting right-wing politics in general, with a special role in the takeover of the Supreme Court by the Federalist Society. But an important part of their agenda, and hence that of the right-wing movement as a whole, has always been to keep America burning the fossil fuels on which their wealth rested. If you want to know more, read Lisa Graves’ book on the Roberts Supreme Court, “Without precedent”.
At this point, moreover, it’s not just about normal channels of political influence, nor it just about domestic billionaires. We now live in a time in which U.S. policy is shaped by sheer, naked corruption (enabled in part by the Koch takeover of the courts). Notably, Middle Eastern petrostates, which have a strong interest in blocking the energy transition, have played a huge role in enriching the Trump family.
It’s somewhat surprising that other big-money interests haven’t pushed back. After all, crippling the development of renewable energy is bad for business, and especially bad for the electricity-hungry crypto and AI industries, which ordinarily have a great deal of sway with the Trump administration. But maybe they have decided that special treatment, and especially a green light for their own unethical behavior, matters more than affordable energy.
If there’s any good news here, it is that from a global point of view this malignancy may not matter very much. America is not the world. In fact, at this point we’re responsible for only a small fraction of global greenhouse gas emissions:
New York Times, Kamala Harris Sold Her Email List to D.N.C., Then Paid Off Old 2024 Debts, Shane Goldmacher, Updated Feb. 16, 2026. The national party, which is nearly $100 million behind its G.O.P. counterpart, bought the list for $6.5 million.
The Democratic National Committee, which began 2026 in debt and nearly $100 million behind its Republican counterpart, made a $6.5 million bet in the final weeks of 2025 to buy former Vice President Kamala Harris’s old email list of supporters.
That money almost immediately went to help Ms. Harris pay off expenses left over from her 2024 campaign.
Ms. Harris’s new political group, Fight for the People PAC, spent nearly $7 million in the final month of 2025, new federal filings show, overwhelmingly on presidential campaign expenses that had not previously been disclosed as debts. Those payments included $4 million to a media production company, nearly $200,000 to a polling firm and $99,100 to the company that manages events for The Roots, a hip-hop band that performed at Ms. Harris’s final rally in Philadelphia, the filings show.
Officials with the D.N.C. have said the purchase of the vaunted Harris supporter list — which helped the 2024 nominee raise $1.5 billion in 15 weeks — is a valuable investment that would eventually more than pay for itself, helping the strapped party tap into her wide network of small contributors. But the transaction raised questions about the party’s decision to spend money that ultimately went to pay off debts from 2024 at a moment when it is fighting to win back the House and faces an uphill battle to try to reclaim the Senate.
“For me, this really brings questions about the campaign’s finances, how transparent everything has been regarding the 2024 campaign, what has been spent and what are the lessons we need to learn coming from that experience,” said Tim Lim, a D.N.C. member who is set to host a fund-raiser for the party in May.
More On Epstein Files
New York Times, Columbia Punishes 2 Who Helped Epstein’s Girlfriend Enter Dental College, Ed Shanahan, Feb. 16, 2026. The release of documents tied to Jeffrey Epstein has sent ripples through the worlds of business, politics and academia, including at Columbia, where he helped his girlfriend gain entry.
Columbia University has punished two people affiliated with its dental college after documents released by the Justice Department revealed that they had bypassed the normal process to help Jeffrey Epstein’s girlfriend gain admission.
The actions taken against the two people, Dr. Thomas Magnani and Dr. Letty Moss-Salentijn, add to the fallout rippling through the worlds of academia, business, politics and beyond with the release of millions of pages of files related to Mr. Epstein.
The documents shed light on communications between Mr. Epstein and College of Dental Medicine representatives that Columbia officials knew about as of 2019, the university said in a statement on Friday.Epstein Used Cash to Wield His Influence at Columbia and N.Y.U.Feb. 10, 2026
As a result, Columbia said it was cutting all ties to Dr. Magnani and stripping Dr. Moss-Salentijn of her administrative duties at the dental college, where she remains a tenured faculty member. Several other people implicated in the episode had already ended their affiliations with the school, the statement said.
Dr. Magnani and Dr. Moss-Salentijn did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The university also said it had identified $210,000 in donations from “entities related to” Mr. Epstein, and would be donating that amount, split between two New York nonprofit organizations that support survivors of sexual abuse and human trafficking.
“In short,” the university said, “a student was admitted to the dental school through an irregular process, coinciding with fund-raising solicitations by former academic and alumni leadership of the school.”
Although not named in the statement, the student in question was Karyna Shuliak, the last person Mr. Epstein spoke to by phone before his death by suicide in a Manhattan prison cell in 2019 while facing federal sex-trafficking charges. He paid for Ms. Shuliak’s dental school tuition and other courses. In his will, he left her $100 million.
Ms. Shuliak graduated from the dental college in 2015. She is now 36 and believed to be living in New York. A lawyer who has represented her, Maurice H. Sercarz, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. .Editors’ PicksJill Scott and Bisa Butler on Staying the CourseWill 2026 Be the Year of the ‘Soonicorn’?Watch Margot Robbie Take a House Tour in ‘Wuthering Heights’
Ms. Shuliak was 22 when her initial application to the dental college was rejected in 2012. After Mr. Epstein, who had pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution in Florida four years earlier, said he was considering a donation to the school, several influential people there moved to ensure she got in.
The dean of the dental college contacted the medical school in Ms. Shuliak’s native Belarus, where she had nearly finished her dental studies, to ask for her records. The adult dentistry chair sent Ms. Shuliak study guides and an outline for Columbia’s entrance exam. After Ms. Shuliak’s admission, Dr. Moss-Salentijn helped develop a personalized plan of study for Ms. Shuliak because she had joined Columbia later than usual for a dental transfer student.
Mr. Epstein subsequently gave $100,000 to a public health project run by the dean of the dental college at the time, Dr. Ira B. Lamster, and $50,000 to the dental school’s annual fund in Ms. Shuliak’s honor, the Justice Department documents show.
Dr. Magnani, Mr. Epstein’s dentist, was the point person for the effort to secure Ms. Shuliak’s admission, arranging a tour of the college and helping to revive her application, the Justice Department documents show. On the eve of her entrance exam, he resisted when Mr. Epstein suggested delaying the test a week so that he could visit the college first.
“He says not to rock the boat,” Mr. Epstein’s assistant, Lesley Groff, told her boss in an April 2012 email, referring to a call she had just had with Dr. Magnani.
“She is with the most powerful people there who are already meeting halfway and moving things around to accommodate her,” Ms. Groff told Mr. Epstein.
Later, in January 2018, Dr. Magnani encouraged Mr. Epstein to donate to the dental college, the Justice Department files show. He wrote to Mr. Epstein that he had just had dinner with the school’s new dean and Dr. Moss-Salentijn, whom Dr. Magnani said “was Karyna’s mentor and did the most to help her get in and finish up dental school.”
Dr. Magnani said that it would be appreciated if Mr. Epstein would donate $450,000 to a high-tech dental training initiative that Dr. Moss-Salentijn was involved with, the files show. Months later, Dr. Moss-Salentijn sent along a funding proposal, and a dinner with Mr. Epstein was planned, the files show. The donation was never made, Columbia said. (Campus Reform, a conservative news site, first reported the exchange.)
The university said in its statement that Dr. Magnani, a 1980 graduate of the college, had not taught there since 2017 and had previously stepped down from the college’s board of advisers. Because of the revelations in the Justice Department files, the university said it had removed him from the admissions review committee and his volunteer leadership roles, including the presidency of an organization for major donors to the college.
Dr. Magnani’s voluntary faculty appointment and an affiliation agreement with his private dental practice had also been terminated, the university said. On Monday, the website for his practice continued to list him as an assistant clinical professor at the Columbia dental school and a member of the admissions committee.
New York Times, Tom Pritzker, ,Citing Epstein Connection, Steps Down as Hyatt’s Executive Chairman, Rebecca Davis O’Brien, Feb. 16, 2026. Thomas J. Pritzker, a billionaire heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune, stepped down from his role Monday as executive chairman of the Hyatt Hotels Corporation, becoming the latest person felled by an association with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Mr. Pritzker, 75, said in a letter to the Hyatt board that he was retiring, effective immediately, adding: “Good stewardship also means protecting Hyatt, particularly in the context of my association with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell which I deeply regret.”
He added that he “exercised terrible judgment in maintaining contact with them, and there is no excuse for failing to distance myself sooner.”
Recently released files revealed that Mr. Pritzker was in regular contact with Mr. Epstein in the years following Mr. Epstein’s 2008 plea deal on sex crimes charges, with the two frequently corresponding to confirm meals and appointments, including at Mr. Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse.
In one email exchange from 2018, Mr. Epstein asked Mr. Pritzker to help his girlfriend, Karyna Shuliak, arrange a trip to Southeast Asia. Mr. Pritzker agreed, and asked what she planned to do there.
Ms. Shuliak responded: “Going to try to find a new girlfriend for Jeffrey.”
Mr. Pritzker replied with a smiley-face emoticon and said “May the Force be with you.”
In another exchange, from 2015, as the two made arrangements to meet, Mr. Epstein joked to Mr. Pritzker about combining their plans: “would you find it amusing to have dali lama meet woody allen for lunch on sat = could be a memorable event.”
The two men also conferred about invitations to the ceremony for the Pritzker Prizes — a major international architecture award — in Beijing.
A representative for the Pritzker Organization did not respond to a request for comment Monday.
In addition to retiring as chairman, Mr. Pritzker said he would not seek re-election to Hyatt’s board at the annual stockholders meeting in May. The board appointed Hyatt’s president, Mark S. Hoplamazian, to the chairman’s role.Editors’ PicksLunar and Chinese New Year Recipes for Good Times AheadFrom a Best-Selling Novelist, a Memoir Drawn in Blood and WhimsyAbe Lincoln Fans Gather for Mutton Hunks and a Vintage American Flag
“Tom’s leadership has been instrumental in shaping Hyatt’s strategy and long-term growth, and we thank him for his service and dedication to Hyatt,” said Richard Tuttle, chair of the board’s nominating and corporate governance committee, in a release.
Occupy Democrats, Advocacy: Dr. Oz, Trump’s Medicare chief, invited the convicted sex offender to his sordid mansion Valentine’s Day party, Staff and wire reports, Feb. 16, 2026.The Epstein cloud hanging over Trump’s orbit just got darker.
Newly released Justice Department documents reveal that Dr. Mehmet Oz — now running the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services under Donald Trump — appears in the Epstein files after inviting Jeffrey Epstein to a Valentine’s Day party in 2016.
That’s eight years after Epstein was a registered sex offender.According to the documents, an email from “Mehmet & Lisa Oz” landed in Epstein’s inbox on Feb. 1, 2016, with the subject line: “Mehmet & Lisa Oz’s Valentines Celebration.”
The invite reportedly linked to a Paperless Post event at Oz’s 10-bedroom oceanside mansion in Palm Beach, Florida.This wasn’t a one-off.Emails from 2012 and 2014 show Oz and his wife circulating in the same social orbit as Epstein long after his 2008 conviction.
In early 2016, Oz even sent Epstein a separate email with the subject line “Dr. Oz,” from an address tied to his TV production company.And let’s not forget: in 2019, Oz aired episodes on The Dr. Oz Show featuring Epstein accusers — acting shocked at the revelations.
Now he joins Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — who’s already been grilled by senators over his own Epstein ties — and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who reportedly went fossil hunting with Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, in what critics are calling an unsettling pattern inside Trump’s inner circle.
As one lawmaker quipped: at this point, the better question might be who in Trump’s administration wasn’t connected to Epstein?
To be clear: appearing in emails or invitations is not the same as being accused of wrongdoing. But one fact is unavoidable — these connections happened long after Epstein’s crimes were public knowledge.And that raises serious questions. When top officials keep popping up in the orbit of a convicted sex offender, the American people deserve answers — not silence.Please like and share!
Occupy Democrats Advocacy:, Fox News bozos Jesse Watters and Greg Gutfeld casually joke about Jeffrey Epstein as a “sex rabbi” and “fixer” who “helps people with their problems,” because apparently child sex trafficking is just a hilarious joke to these “family values” Republicans! Staff and wire reports, Feb. 16, 2026. While discussing Pam Bondi's hearing on the DOJ's Epstein file handling on Friday’s episode of The Five, the duo turned the dead predator’s crimes into punchlines.
Watters glibly described Epstein as “just a fixer” who advises on “problems” like “You need a girl?” and “if you need it, he’s got it.” Gutfeld attempted to top that schtick with a smirking “He’s a sex rabbi,” drawing laughs from around the table.
They even floated the idea of the dead Epstein performing at the Super Bowl halftime show. Nice one. [eye roll emoji]
After the awkward chuckles subsided, Gutfeld dismissed the entire Bondi hearing, complete with Epstein survivors the AG wouldn’t deign to turn her head to look at, as mere “theater.”
No apology, no seriousness, just more smug ‘both sides' crap while the survivors’ pain gets treated like a comedy bit.
This is state media Fox at its lowest: two alleged professional commentators on a major network platform minimizing the rape and exploitation of children for cheap laughs and partisan points. Let’s not forget the real Epstein was a convicted sex offender who trafficked minors to the powerful, and joking about it normalizes the horror while shielding the elite who enabled him.Watters and Gutfeld aren’t edgy; they’re just callous. When Fox allows these yahoos to turn child exploitation into a punchline, it shows exactly how little they value victims over protecting their own dubious narrative.If this kind of vile, dismissive garbage makes your blood boil, like and share to call it out.Image
Meidas Touch Network, Analysis: DOJ Sends Letter to Congress Explaining Epstein File Redactions, Survivor Says List Is “Missing a Few Names,” Aaron Parnas, Feb. 14, 2026. A Consolidated List Raises New Questions.
The Department of Justice has sent a six-page letter to Congress outlining its rationale for redactions made to the Jeffrey Epstein files and, for the first time, providing lawmakers with a compiled list of “government officials and politically exposed persons” referenced in the records.
MeidasTouch first reported on the existence of the letter and broke the story earlier today. The full letter spans six pages, with the opening section detailing the Department’s legal justification for withholding certain names and identifying information.
According to the DOJ, the redactions were made to protect ongoing investigations, safeguard the privacy of individuals not charged with crimes, and comply with federal disclosure laws. The letter asserts that not every individual named in the Epstein files was accused of wrongdoing and that public release without context could unfairly damage reputations.
However, the Department’s approach has already drawn scrutiny.
In the latter portion of the letter, the DOJ includes a consolidated list of “government officials and politically exposed persons” whose names appear in the files. Critics argue the list creates more confusion than clarity.
The DOJ appears to combine individuals who allegedly had direct involvement with Epstein with those whose names surfaced in incidental or unrelated contexts, such as being mentioned in contact books, flight logs, or peripheral communications. By grouping them together under the umbrella of “politically exposed persons,” the letter risks conflating materially different levels of connection.
Without distinguishing between categories such as alleged participation, documented association, or incidental mention, the list could both overstate and understate involvement at the same time. It may cast suspicion on individuals who were merely referenced while also diluting attention from those who had demonstrable ties to Epstein.
The DOJ frames the letter as an effort toward transparency while maintaining legal guardrails. It emphasizes that redactions were not designed to shield wrongdoing but to protect due process and preserve prosecutorial integrity.
Yet the structure of the disclosure raises questions about whether the Department is clarifying the public record or muddying it.
By releasing a broad, undifferentiated list, the Department provides Congress with names but limited context, a move that may complicate oversight rather than streamline it. Lawmakers now have a roster without a clear breakdown of who was investigated, who was interviewed, who was cleared, and who was merely mentioned.
Adding to the controversy, one Epstein survivor told MeidasTouch this evening that the DOJ’s letter is “missing a few names.”
For many survivors, transparency is not only about disclosure. It is about completeness and accountability.
The letter’s release is likely to intensify calls from members of Congress for further clarification. Lawmakers may press the Department to categorize the listed individuals based on the nature of their involvement, explain the criteria used to determine redactions, and address allegations that key names were omitted.
Whether the DOJ’s letter resolves questions or opens new ones remains to be seen. What is clear is that the handling of the Epstein files continues to generate skepticism, not just among the public but among survivors who believe the full story has yet to be told.
As scrutiny builds, the Department may face increasing pressure to provide greater specificity about who was involved, who was investigated, and why certain information remains withheld.
Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: India, South Africa, Brazil and Epstein fallout, Wayne Madsen, left, Feb. 16, 2026. China is the only BRICS nation not implicated thus far in Epstein scandal.
Four of the five BRICS core partners — Brazil, India, South Africa, and Russia — are dealing with the fallout from the Epstein files. In India, opposition parties are demanding the resignation from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government of Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri over his close links to international underage sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. On February 13, opposition MPs staged a walkout from parliament after demanding that Puri resign. Indian National Congress (INC) Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi stated that Puri’s friendship with Epstein, referenced in the released Epstein files, has been verified.
Gandhi said, “There is a businessman Anil Ambani, I want to ask why is he not in jail? The reason is that his name is in the Epstein Files. I would also like to ask Hardeep Puri, who introduced him to Epstein. I know who introduced him, and Hardeep Puri knows who introduced him.” Ambani is the billionaire chairman of Reliance Group and is a major donor to Modi’s right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Gandhi held open the possibility that Modi is being blackmailed by the Trump administration over his party’s links to Epstein, stating, “There is direct pressure on the Prime Minister. The main thing is that no PM would do this in a normal situation. In a normal situation, no PM would do what has happened in terms of data, farmers, energy security, and defense. Someone would do this only when there is a certain grip on them.”
Puri acknowledged that he had met Epstein “several times” while serving as India’s ambassador to the UN in New York, but only in a “professional capacity.” Another INC leader, Pawan Khera, picked apart Puri’s defense of his interactions with Epstein, questioning why Puri referred to Epstein as a “friend” in a 2014 email and sought “advice” from Epstein. Khera also slammed Puri for trivializing Epstein’s crime as merely “soliciting favors of a woman who was underage.”
So far, Modi is defending Puri, claiming that there is no evidence of wrongdoing. The situation is similar to Trump’s defense of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who is also under pressure to resign over lying about his close friendship of and business ties to Epstein.
There are also demands in Brazil for an investigation of former President Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right friend of Trump who was convicted of launching an insurrection in 2022 after losing the presidential election to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro, who is serving a 27-year prison sentence, is praised in a 2018 email from Epstein to Steve Bannon. Epstein wrote, “Bolsonaro mudou o jogo . . . MASSIVO.” (“Bolsonaro changed the game . . . MASSIVE.”). Epstein also wrote: “Bolsonaro é o cara.” (“Bolsonaro is the guy.”), adding, “No refugee wants to enter. Brussels isn’t telling him what to do. He just needs to reactivate the economy. MASSIVELY.” Epstein and Bannon agreed that Bolsonaro was part of a broader far‑right political realignment.
The Epstein files have also turned into a political headache for South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. The Epstein files have revealed that Ramaphosa’s African National Congress predecessor, Jacob Zuma, was a guest at an intimate March 2010 London Ritz Hotel dinner arranged by Epstein and his associate, Mark Lloyd. The dinner was also attended by a Russian model named “Vera.” Zuma was the incumbent president at the time. The dinner followed Zuma’s final official event at South Africa House in London.
The Jacob Zuma Foundation has strongly rejected any relationship with Epstein. It said reports on the dinner are “speculative narrative‑building disguised as investigative journalism.” Categorical denials have become a hallmark for those implicated by the released files in Epstein’s circle of businessmen, academics, politicians, and celebrities.
Vladimir Putin’s name appears over a thousand times in the Epstein files. Without a functioning independent media in Russia, there is little that Russia’s opposition can do to expose the Putin-Epstein links. The released files show that Epstein attempted to arrange a meeting with Putin as early as 2013. Epstein lobbied high‑level contacts to arrange an introduction with Putin. Epstein wrote to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak about using Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland, now criminally charged with corruption in Norway, as an intermediary. Epstein wanted any meeting with Putin to last “a minimum of two to three hours.”
The files show Epstein pitching himself as someone who could explain U.S. political dynamics to Putin, especially the rise of Donald Trump. Epstein also sought to facilitate Western investment in Russia. Although the Kremlin has dismissed any connection to Epstein, the government of Poland has announced an investigation into Russia–Epstein links.
The Epstein files contain a number of references to Russian young women and girls, as well as Russian modeling agencies, including Shtorm in Krasnodar. There are indications in the Epstein files that he did maintain relationships with individuals close to Russian intelligence, including the FSB (Federal Security Service). Sergei Belyakov, a former deputy minister of economic development and graduate of the FSB Academy in Moscow. In 2015, Epstein contacted Belyakov asking for help in collecting information on a Russian woman who was operating from the Four Seasons Hotel in Manhattan. Epstein claimed that the Russian woman was blackmailing and extorting his business colleagues. Using his FSB contacts, Belyakov informed Epstein that the woman in question was in the “sex and escort” business. Belyakov later became the chairman at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, a Russian rival to the World Economic Forum in Davos. Epstein arranged for Belyakov to meet billionaire businessmen Peter Thiel and Hyatt Corporation heir Thomas Pritzker. The Four Seasons woman later became an FBI informant on Epstein’s trafficking network. She claimed that she had been trafficked from Russia by convicted sexual assaulter Harvey Weinstein and Leon Black, chairman of Apollo Global Management. 57. 57th Street 🇺🇸 Four Seasons New ...
As far as the fifth BRICS partner — China — is involved, Xi Jinping is only mentioned with regard to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former Prince Andrew. The files show Andrew met Xi formally in 2016 and 2018. Epstein tried to leverage Andrew’s China ties for business introductions, however, there is no evidence that Epstein was ever successful in meeting or establishing contact with Xi.
Global News
Morning Shots via The Bulwark, Political Opinion: Trump Shits on Europe. Rubio Applies Perfume, Andrew Egger, Feb. 16, 2026. At least one top Trump administration official isn’t anxious to see the U.S.-led international order crumble overnight, and on Saturday he got his chance to say so.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio took the stage at the Munich Security Conference in an attempt to strike a reassuring tone toward America’s European allies.
“We want Europe to be strong. We believe that Europe must survive,” Rubio said. “Because the two great wars of the last century serve for us as history’s constant reminder that ultimately our destiny is, and will always be, intertwined with yours.”
Rubio wasn’t without his critiques of Europe. But unlike Vice President JD Vance, whose hectoring there’s-a-new-sheriff-in-town speech at the same conference last year scandalized European allies, Rubio couched his critiques as a shared challenge for Europe and America both to overcome. Europe, he said, had at times lost its way in the same manner and for the same reasons that America had: because of a shared “dangerous delusion” that the world had entered “the end of history,” in which the lure of open markets and prosperity would inevitably charm the world’s despotic regimes into embracing liberal democracy.
“We made these mistakes together, and now together we owe it to our people to face those facts and to move forward to rebuild,” Rubio said. “This is why we Americans may sometimes come off as a little direct and urgent in our counsel. This is why President Trump demands seriousness and reciprocity from our friends here in Europe. The reason why, my friends, is because we care deeply. We care deeply about your future and ours.”
Whatever else he is, Rubio remains a talented politician; the whole thing was artfully done. In the world in which he operates—a world in which his boss, the president, opens up about three new lines of antagonism against U.S. allies a week—this was about the most promising rhetorical line available to him: America hits because America cares.
Europe, however, doesn’t appear to be buying it. Nowhere was this clearer than in a remarkable speech delivered the same day by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who opened his remarks with a riff on the theme of the conference: “Under destruction.”
“It probably means that the international order based on rights and rules is currently being destroyed,” Merz said. “But I’m afraid we have to put it in even harsher terms. This order, as flawed as it has been even in its heyday, no longer exists.” Europe, he said, had “just returned from a vacation from world history.”
The era of America as the sole world superpower, in which smaller democracies could bob along comfortably in her wake, is over. “If there had been a unipolar moment after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a unipolar moment in history, it has long passed,” Merz said. “The United States’ claim to leadership has been challenged and possibly lost.”
“We, the Europeans, too, are preparing for this new era,” Merz said. “And we reach different conclusions than, for example, the administration in Washington. Our prime task as Europeans, and, of course, as Germans too, is to accept this new reality today. It does not mean that we accept it as an inevitable fate. We are not at the mercy of the world.”
This isn’t idle talk. Politico Europe reported last week that negotiations are underway among Europe, Canada, Mexico, and a bloc of Indo-Pacific nations to form a new trade bloc, a move explicitly designed to tie the member countries closer together in an economic world now defined by Donald Trump’s harsh tariffs. It’s exactly the sort of middle-power solidarity in response to a world increasingly dominated by two hostile great powers, the United States and China, that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney argued for last month at the World Economic Forum.
Selfishly, as an American, I wish Europe would allow itself to be wooed by Rubio’s you-catch-more-flies-with-honey approach. A future in which America’s erstwhile allies are as willing to freeze us out as we have lately been to freeze them out is one in which America is perpetually lonelier, grimmer, poorer, and less safe. You can bet that Rubio knows this too. You can hope, at least, that it keeps him up at night.
But all the sweet talk in the world can’t change the fundamental truth. It isn’t just that everyone knows Rubio is only authorized to speak up to a point, and that ultimately it’s Trump who will call the relevant shots. In case there was any doubt, Rubio left Munich and immediately met with two of Europe’s most noxious right-wing populists, Hungary’s Victor Orbán and Slovakia’s Robert Fico. As Dalibor Rohac notes on the homepage today, what Rubio offered wasn’t a return to normal transatlantic relations but “Trumpism with a human face.”
Europe has finally learned the lesson that Trump is no aberration or blip, that America is the kind of place that ultimately cannot be trusted to elect reliable stewards for the free world, and that they’re all just going to have to plan accordingly.
Maybe Rubio deludes himself into thinking that he can put it all back together, if only he can find his way into the Oval Office in 2029. It’s plain by now that our allies aren’t waiting around for him.
Morning Shots via The Bulwark, Political Opinion: Rubio to Europe: We Hit You Because We Love You, Bill Kristol, Andrew Egger and Jim Swift, Feb. 16, 2026. But America’s allies aren’t interested in an abusive relationship.
Barack Obama kicked off a minor social media frenzy last week when he told the liberal podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen that aliens are real. “They’re real, but I haven’t seen them,” he said, adding that they’re certainly not “being kept” in “Area 51.”
On Sunday, Obama tried to clean his comments up: “Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there,” he wrote on Instagram. But “I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!” If you ask us, sounds someone’s alien handlers got to him. Happy Monday.
Politico, Carney constructs a mega anti-Trump trade alliance, Graham Lanktree, Zi-Ann Lum and Jon Stone, Feb. 12, 2026. Two of the world’s biggest trading blocs are cautiously eyeing closer ties to short-circuit Donald Trump’s tariffs.
The European Union and a 12-nation Indo-Pacific bloc are opening talks to explore proposals to form one of the largest global economic alliances, multiple people with knowledge of the talks told Politico.
Canada is spearheading the discussions after Prime Minister Mark Carney, above right, called on middle powers to buck trade war coercion last month, days after Trump threatened to raise tariffs on Denmark’s European allies if it didn’t cede Greenland.
Ottawa is “championing efforts to build a bridge between the Trans-Pacific Partnership [CPTPP] and the European Union, which would create a new trading bloc of 1.5 billion people,” Carney told world leaders and the global business elite in Davos.
The Canadian prime minister is spearheading discussions between the EU and a major Indo-Pacific trade bloc after calling on middle powers to join forces.
U.S. Law, Courts, Crime, Justice, Rights
The Hartmann Report, Commentary: Democrats Can Launch Criminal Investigations into DOGE, Today, Thom Hartmann, right, 
Feb. 16, 2024. Dozens of investigations can bring accountability top to bottom, and Democrats have the power right now.
Every state in the country can investigate and criminally prosecute the people who ran DOGE. That's a legal fact, and it fell out of a routine exchange between one of the Existentialist Republic's followers and the Washington State Attorney General's office.
Every state constitution grants its attorney general different authority. Some can prosecute independently; others need a referral from a county prosecutor or a governor. The specifics will vary. But what happened in Washington shows how reaching out and engaging the system teaches you exactly how it works and where to push next. The process is the same everywhere, even if the statutes aren't.
Under Washington state law and the state constitution, the Attorney General can't investigate or prosecute crimes without a referral from a county prosecutor or the governor. The staffer then pivoted to the four dozen civil lawsuits AG Nick Brown has filed against the Trump administration, and Brown deserves credit for that. He's among the most aggressive AGs in the country right now on the civil side. Civil suits and criminal prosecution are two completely different tools, though, and the letter blurs that line.
She asked about criminal prosecution, and the office answered by talking about civil suits. Those lawsuits can slow things down, block specific actions, buy time. They're a necessary but not sufficient part of the equation. The people dismantling federal agencies and looting public funds aren't afraid of injunctions. They're afraid of handcuffs.
Now, I want to be fair here. We don't know what Brown is doing behind the scenes. He may be laying groundwork for criminal referrals that we can't see yet. He may be coordinating with county prosecutors privately. The letter doesn't tell us either way, and I don't want us assuming the worst because it doesn't gain us allies among the officials we hope to persuade. What I can say is that the public posture of the office, based on this letter, doesn't suggest that criminal prosecution is on their radar. And that's the gap we need to close.
The letter tells us what we need to do. The AG needs a referral to prosecute. County prosecutors and the governor can make that referral. That's the lock and the key, described in the same letter. The next step was obvious: contact the county prosecutor and the governor and ask them to refer specific criminal conduct to the AG for investigation.
But "specific" is the word that matters. A vague letter about federal overreach gets a vague response. We needed crimes with names, statutes, and victims who live in Washington.
If you're in Washington, you can use these letters now. Send them today.
If you're in another state, the underlying legal architecture is the same: state identity theft laws, venue provisions that follow the victim, dual sovereignty that makes convictions pardon-proof, and a DOJ court filing where the administration admitted the conduct. The statutes differ, the referral mechanisms depend on each state's constitution, and some AGs can prosecute independently while others need the same kind of referral Brown does. But every state with residents in the SSA database has the raw material to do what we just did in Washington.
Occupy Democrats, Advocacy: A top Republican party chair just got arrested for waterboarding his own daughter because she didn’t clean her room well enough in absolutely horrifying child abuse case! Staff and wire reports, Feb. 16, 2026. Wasatch County GOP Chair David Johnson, 54, is now in custody after his daughter called child protective services to report that her MAGA “family values” father tried to waterboard her!
“She disclosed that David dunked her head under, brought it out, splashed water in her face, then dunked the victim’s head under again. The victim did not know how long the incident lasted from beginning to end,” the Utah court document states.
She told investigators that she couldn’t breathe for 20 to 30 seconds. “David was upset with the victim because she didn’t completely clean her room, and she went out without having it be spotless to his expectations,” the affidavit said. She also told the police that he “backhanded” her and had also waterboarded her brother.
“The victim stated that David removed her brother from the water, splashed water on his face and nose, knocked him down, and repeated the act multiple times.”
In typical Republican fashion, Republican party vice-chair Patty Sprunt told The Park Record that she was aware of the situation and indicated there would be no call for Johnson’s resignation.This man is a sick monster and he needs to be behind bars.
But it is just so on brand that the supposed “family values” conservative turns out to be a child abuser; when Republicans say “family values,” they mean the patriarch gets to exert tyrannical control over the rest of the family and treats them however they like. Battered wives, marital rape, battered kids, psychotic controlling behavior, molestation — the same story keeps playing out over and over again. Like and share to spread his shame!
Emptywheel, Analysis: Psst! L’il Marco Rubio? Don’t Lecture Europe When You’re One Face of a Chaotic Suicide Pact! Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler), right, Feb. 16, 2024. On Valentine’s Day, Marco Rubio went to the city where Neville Chamberlain capitulated to evil and lectured “the West” about upholding so-called Christian values, code for Islamophobia and hatred.
[W]e do not want allies to rationalize the broken status quo rather than reckon with what is necessary to fix it, for we in America have no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the West’s managed decline.
It got a lot of press, some of it positive, some of it merely relieved that last year’s bile from JD Vance this year came packaged with a pretty face. It got a standing ovation, but according to Dan Drezner, that “was partially because [Rubio’s] retinue followed the by-now familiar Trump trope of rising immediately after he his speech ended so that it would induce others to stand up,” It banked on Trump’s well-worn habit of creating the illusion of enthusiasm with the fervor of a pack of trolls.
From there, Rubio, left, hopped on a plane to meet one guy, a Russian pawn, who reportedly warned that Trump is dangerously insane, and then visited an even more unabashed Russian pawn, who could soon lose his seat to a guy promising to reverse Hungary’s decline by restoring closer ties to Western Europe (in Budapest, Rubio warned that Trump will retaliate if Hungary ousts Viktor Orbán). Robert Fico and Orbán, Rubio’s chosen buddies in Europe, are no models of managed greatness; they are, instead, object lessons in how Russian-aligned bigotry has brought only decline.
But you don’t even need Rubio’s poor taste in friends as an object lesson.
That lesson is already playing out in plain sight in the US.
As I watched coverage of Rubio’s speech, I wished that some European, maybe Ursula Van der Leyen, would stand up and point out the obvious fact that Marco Rubio, the scolding shrew, is playing a key role in very messy hegemonic suicide.
No one did. The kind of people who get invited to diplomatic conferences are too polite to do so, I guess.
So I will do it.
I’m the descendant of Irish immigrants to America, who over five generations benefitted incrementally and, finally, enormously from the slowly earned promise of America, but whose ancestors first arrived in a time when we were little more than useful counterbalance to chattel slaves. We were the mass immigration Rubio warns about, though in his racist speech, Rubio addressed only the Scots-Irish, not the far more numerous horde of Catholic Irish who have always provided central threads to “American” culture. I’m now doubly privileged to have returned to the land of my ancestors (I married well) at the moment where the US no longer serves as that beacon of promise, but instead a gulag of hatred and decline.
So I will do it.
There’s no clearer sign of Trump’s suicide pact than his choice to pursue death and disease as a policy choice. RFK Jr has remade “Heath and Human Services,” cutting cancer research while replacing scientists with cranks who refuse consensus medical opinion.
The result of that choice first manifested in measles outbreaks — first Texas, then Utah, then South Carolina, with spread linked to the March for Life in DC.
Experts warn that a mumps surge will soon follow.
More shocking, however, was Vinay Prasad’s decision to reject a Moderna study the design of which it had already approved.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is cancelling development of a new flu vaccine from biotech giant Moderna, with one unnamed senior FDA official calling the clinical trial a “brazen failure.”
In a rare move, the FDA refused to consider the mRNA vaccine, which could be more effective at preventing flu infections, per a press release from Moderna. A letter signed by director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Dr. Vinay Prasad, said the clinical trial was not “adequate and well-controlled” since it did not compare the vaccine to “the best-available standard of care in the United States at the time of the study.”
The issue came down to the study design: control group participants over 65 did not receive the high-dose flu shot; instead, they received a regular flu shot. Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said the FDA approved both the study design and the vaccines used.
“It should not be controversial to conduct a comprehensive review of a flu vaccine submission that uses an FDA-approved vaccine as a comparator in a study that was discussed and agreed on with CBER prior to starting,” Bancel said in the press release.
In response, Moderna is shifting its focus to countries that still let science drive health decisions.
But Rubio, the guy putting a pretty face on Trump’s regressive policies, is personally responsible for far more death than RFK. In cahoots with the richest man in the world, Rubio decided that maybe curing HIV in Elon Musk’s country of birth or keeping young children fed was no longer a priority of the United States. According to this live tracker, hundreds of thousands, mostly children, have already died; 16K are infant deaths normally targeted by PEPFAR, a program Republicans claim to support, 126K are child deaths from diarrhea, over a 150K are child deaths from malnutrition.
At least three people will die from these cuts in the time it takes to read this post.
The Lancet estimates that as many as 5.4 million children may die in the next five years if that funding is not restored or replaced.
You might argue the US can do without all that goodwill from the global South, in a period when America’s chief rival is investing heavily. You might argue (as Trump’s National Security Strategy does) that it has little interest in continents far away. But this catastrophe will only exacerbate the refugee flows that to which Trump is foundationally opposed.
And instead of saving children (including children in Musk’s South Africa), Trump is instead spending the money on a slush fund to pay European far right and a security detail for Russ Vought (who also played a key role in cutting the funding), two expenditures that only make backlash more likely.
It’s not just Rubio and RFK Jr’s and Elon’s direct efforts to sow death. Rubio credits Europe for “[giving] the world the rule of law, the universities, and the scientific revolution.” But Trump’s attacks on universities are returning that heritage; scientists are fleeing the country, often headed to Europe, much as scientists fled Germany during World War II or the Soviet Union in decades after that.
A recent Naturesurvey found that more than 75 percent of U.S.-based scientists are considering leaving the country, most commonly for Europe or Canada. Among early-career researchers, the share was even higher—nearly 80 percent.
Universities outside the United States view this moment as a rare opportunity to attract American scientific talent. The risk is that the United States may lose not just individual scientists, but entire future research agendas and scientific communities that can take decades to build. If this trend continues, the country could face a lasting shortfall in expertise across critical fields—including biology, virology, immunology, and AI-enabled drug discovery—at exactly the moment global competitors are seeking to expand their scientific footprint.
National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Jay Bhattacharya has emphasized that “training future biomedical scientists” remains one of the agency’s top priorities, along with ensuring federal research support reaches institutions across the country—not only elite coastal universities. He has often stressed the importance of early-career researchers, who face a highly creative but high-risk phase of their careers and therefore require sustained support.
Yet several policies now in place run counter to this goal. One example is the Trump administration’s termination of the NIH’s MOSAIC (Maximizing Opportunities for Scientific and Academic Independent Careers) program. The initiative supported postdoctoral researchers from diverse backgrounds as they transitioned into independent research roles due to a broad executive order targeting DEI efforts. Policymakers designed MOSAIC to address two long-standing challenges at the NIH: the lack of diversity among NIH-funded investigators, and the precarious financial and career prospects of postdoctoral researchers. The program’s definition of diversity was intentionally broad, reflecting the NIH’s goal of cultivating scientific talent nationwide, including researchers from rural areas, first-generation college students, and recipients of federal aid programs. MOSAIC was specifically designed to target a point in the training pipeline where academia often loses underrepresented researchers. Beyond the program’s termination, the NIH funded fewer early-career researchers in 2025 than in any similar period since 2016.
Further, NIH issued significantly fewer grants this year—12,588 in 2025 compared to an average of 16,099 per year from 2015 to 2024. This drop of more than 3,500 awards affected virtually every domain of biology and medicine, leaving gaps in research on cancer, diabetes, aging, neurological disorders, and public health.
The brain drain is already having an impact on some of America’s key foci of innovation, like Boston.
The willful destruction of expertise extends elsewhere.
Rubio scolded Europe for its supposed deindustrialization and presented gutter racism as a cornerstone to what he imagines will herald America’s reindustrialization.
That infamous wall that had cleaved this nation into two came down, and with it an evil empire, and the East and West became one again. But the euphoria of this triumph led us to a dangerous delusion: that we had entered, quote, “the end of history;” that every nation would now be a liberal democracy; that the ties formed by trade and by commerce alone would now replace nationhood; that the rules-based global order – an overused term – would now replace the national interest; and that we would now live in a world without borders where everyone became a citizen of the world.
This was a foolish idea that ignored both human nature and it ignored the lessons of over 5,000 years of recorded human history. And it has cost us dearly. In this delusion, we embraced a dogmatic vision of free and unfettered trade, even as some nations protected their economies and subsidized their companies to systematically undercut ours – shuttering our plants, resulting in large parts of our societies being deindustrialized, shipping millions of working and middle-class jobs overseas, and handing control of our critical supply chains to both adversaries and rivals.
[snip]
Deindustrialization was not inevitable. It was a conscious policy choice, a decades-long economic undertaking that stripped our nations of their wealth, of their productive capacity, and of their independence. And the loss of our supply chain sovereignty was not a function of a prosperous and healthy system of global trade. It was foolish. It was a foolish but voluntary transformation of our economy that left us dependent on others for our needs and dangerously vulnerable to crisis.
Mass migration is not, was not, isn’t some fringe concern of little consequence. It was and continues to be a crisis which is transforming and destabilizing societies all across the West. Together we can reindustrialize our economies and rebuild our capacity to defend our people. But the work of this new alliance should not be focused just on military cooperation and reclaiming the industries of the past. It should also be focused on, together, advancing our mutual interests and new frontiers, unshackling our ingenuity, our creativity, and the dynamic spirit to build a new Western century. Commercial space travel and cutting-edge artificial intelligence; industrial automation and flex manufacturing; creating a Western supply chain for critical minerals not vulnerable to extortion from other powers; and a unified effort to compete for market share in the economies of the Global South. Together we can not only take back control of our own industries and supply chains – we can prosper in the areas that will define the 21st century.
Thus far, however, Trump tariffs — a conscious policy choice — have only hurt American manufacturing, the very thing Trump claims his isolationism will solve.
And while the Attorney General tries to distract from her cover-up of sex trafficking by pointing to the Dow Jones, as Justin Wolfers explains, that amounts to a boast that the United States is falling behind the rest of the developed world.
They don’t even realize that their cheers of victory are instead concessions of defeat.
Marco Rubio is in no position to lecture anyone. He is a central part of a policy choice to piss away American greatness.
A decade ago, Marco Rubio warned of the “failures” that result when people embrace the authoritarianism he now champions.
Tapper: You compared Donald Trump to a third world dictator yesterday in an interview with the New York Times. How so?
Rubio: Well, I don’t know about a dictator. I said a third world strongman. He’s running for President so no matter what he won’t be a dictator unless our Republic completely crumbles, which I don’t anticipate it will. But yeah, here’s what happens in many countries around the world, you have a leader that emerges and basically says, “Don’t put your faith in yourselves. Don’t put your faith in society. Put your faith in me. I’m a strong leader and I’m going to make things better all by myself. It’s very typical. You see it a lot in the Third World [sic], you see it a lot in Latin America, for decades. It’s basically the argument he’s making that he singlehandedly is going to turn the country around. We’ve never been that kind of country. We have a President. The President is an American citizen who serves for a period of time, constrained by the Constitution and the powers vested in that office. The President works for the people, not the people for the President. And if you listen to the way he describes himself and what he’s going to do, he’s going to singlehandedly do this and do that, without regard for whether it’s legal or not. …I can tell you this. No matter what happens in this election, for years to come, there are many people on the right, in the media, and voters at large that are going to have to explain to justify how they fell into this trap of supporting Donald Trump. Because this is not going to end well one way or another.
And now, Rubio has traded his dignity away, becoming the mouthpiece for precisely the authoritarianism he warned against. He has become the troll he warned about a decade ago.
And how do you think this ends for you, L’il Marco? While you emphasized your Italian-Spanish ancestry in your screed to Europe, you elided much of Spain’s role (to say nothing of the Dane’s) in founding “the New World,” right along with the Latin American role in America’s cowboy myths, to say nothing of your personal colonial legacy in Cuba, in the Latin America accustomed to strongmen like Donald Trump. You’re the grandson of an “illegal immigrant,” kicking out other Cubans to be shipped off to places like Gitmo, even while you, personally, strangle the island (and in the process result in the withdrawal of Cuban doctors who’ve been keeping other countries healthy, causing yet more death). You are hastening a world in which only continued servitude can keep one safe, whether it’s the Cubans championed in a bid to reclaim the island or the Cuban-American cabinet member performing humiliating obeisance on a daily basis.
If Trump’s whims don’t get you, one of his racist followers might, just as you warned about a decade ago.
Meanwhile, the notion that immigrants have devastated Europe is farcical, especially from my vantage on an Island that was emptied by centuries of poverty. My Irish-born spouse and I joke about the Ireland to which he returned after decades and I after generations.
This is not your mother’s Ireland anymore.
And I, a relative newcomer, get delight from that on a daily basis.
One day after Marco gave his embarrassing lecture, a long-watched Irish rugby player got his first international cap in a green jersey, Edwin Edogbo, the son of Nigerian immigrants to Ireland, raised in Cobh, County Cork. A historic harbor, Cobh is better known for departures, first of indentured servants, then of over a third of the famine refugees (some of my own ancestors were born along the train line to Cobh, and so may have been among them), and finally the Titanic. But as with much of Ireland, it has become an entry point. Edogbo merely subbed into a too-close win over Italy, but almost every 60 seconds he was in the game, he made a tackle. The Irish rugby fans I know thrilled with Edogbo’s debut (they pronounce it “de-boo” here, one Hibernian pronunciation I still struggle with). But a bunch of online trolls, most overseas and many in America, instead slandered the Irish rugger, just as they slandered any American Olympic athlete who publicly criticized the masked invaders Stephen Miller sent to murder other Americans.
It takes real ignorance — or perhaps a comfortable perch too deep inside of a bubble of manufactured ovations — to miss all that. Immigration makes Europe great in the same way it once made America great.
And the fantasy Rubio told to obscure all that, to obscure his own role as an invader in the US who nevertheless made the most of America’s promise, the grandson of “an illegal” joining the ranks of immigrants fleeing authoritarianism, like Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright, as the nation’s top Diplomat, is a confession of insecurity.
And, just as importantly, an abdication of the role as beacon the United States once proudly played.
A death wish, a suicide pact, for the promise of America.
Feb. 15
Top Stories
Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: February 14, 2026 [Teddy Roosevelt's Tragic Valentine's Day -- and History Making Recovery], Heather Cox Richardson, right,Feb. 15, 2026. On Valentine’s Day in 1884, Theodore Roosevelt lost both his wife and his mother.
In Munich, European leaders were also talking about “de-risking” from the United States, citing President Trump’s unpredictability.U.S. Media, High Tech, Propaganda, Culture, Education
U.S. Governance, Politics, Elections
More Global News
, Deep in China’s Mountains, a Nuclear Revival Takes Shape, Chris Buckley and Agnes Chang, Feb. 15, 2026. Satellite imagery of secretive nuclear facilities reveals Beijing’s efforts to expand its arsenal, just as the last global guardrails on nuclear weapons vanish.Top Stories
Photo of Theodore Roosevelt’s 1884 diary, Library of Congress.
Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: February 14, 2026 [Teddy Roosevelt's Tragic Valentine's Day -- and History Making Recovery], Heather Cox Richardson, right, Feb. 15, 2026. On Valentine’s Day in 1884, Theodore Roosevelt, shown above, lost both his wife and his mother.
Four years before, Roosevelt could not have imagined the tragedy that would stun him in 1884. February 14, 1880, marked one of the happiest days of his life. He and the woman he had courted for more than a year, Alice Hathaway Lee, had just announced their engagement. Roosevelt was over the moon: “I can scarcely realize that I can hold her in my arms and kiss her and caress her and love her as much as I choose,” he recorded in his diary. What followed were, according to Roosevelt, “three years of happiness greater and more unalloyed than I have ever known fall to the lot of others.”
After they married in fall 1880, the Roosevelts moved into the home of Theodore’s mother, Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, in New York City. There they lived the life of wealthy young socialites, going to fancy parties and the opera and traveling to Europe. When Roosevelt was elected to the New York State Assembly in 1881, they moved to the bustling town of Albany, where the state’s political wire-pullers worked their magic. Roosevelt’s machine politician colleagues derided the rich, Harvard-educated young man as a “dude,” and they tried to ignore his irritating interest in reforming society.
In the summer of 1883, Alice discovered that she was pregnant, and that fall she moved back to New York City to live with her mother-in-law. There she awaited the birth of the child who Theodore was certain would arrive on February 14.
As headstrong as her father, Roosevelt’s daughter beat her father’s prediction by two days. On February 12, Alice gave birth to the couple’s first child, who would be named after her. Roosevelt was at work in Albany and learned the happy news by telegram. But Alice was only “fairly well,” Roosevelt noted. She soon began sliding downhill. She did not recover from the birth; she was suffering from something at the time called “Bright’s Disease,” an unspecified kidney illness.
Roosevelt rushed back to New York City, but by the time he got there at midnight on February 13, Alice was slipping into a coma. Distraught, he held her until he received word that his mother was dangerously ill downstairs. For more than a week, “Mittie” Roosevelt had been sick with typhoid. Roosevelt ran down to her room, where she died shortly after her son reached her bedside. With his mother gone, Roosevelt hurried back to Alice. Only hours later she, too, died.
On February 14, 1884, Roosevelt slashed a heavy black X in his diary and wrote “The light has gone out of my life.” He refused ever to mention Alice again.
Roosevelt’s profound personal tragedy turned out to have national significance. The diseases that killed his wife and mother were diseases of filth and crowding—the hallmarks of the growing Gilded Age American cities. Mittie contracted typhoid from either food or water that had been contaminated by sewage, since New York City did not yet treat or manage either sewage or drinking water. Alice’s disease was probably caused by a strep infection, which incubated in the teeming city’s tenements, where immigrants, whose wages barely kept food on the table, crowded together.
Roosevelt had been interested in urban reform because he worried that incessant work and unhealthy living conditions threatened the ability of young workers to become good citizens. Now, though, it was clear that he, and other rich New Yorkers, had a personal stake in cleaning up the cities and making sure employers paid workers a living wage.
The tragedy gave him a new political identity that enabled him to do just that. Ridiculed as a “dude” in his early career, Roosevelt changed his image in the wake of the events of February 1884. Desperate to bury his feelings for Alice along with her, Roosevelt escaped to Dakota Territory, to a ranch in which he had invested the previous year. There he rode horses, roped cattle, and toyed with the idea of spending the rest of his life as a western rancher. The brutal winter of 1886–1887 changed his mind. Months of blizzards and temperatures as low as –41 degrees killed off 80% of the Dakota cattle herds. More than half of Roosevelt’s cattle died.
Roosevelt decided to go back to eastern politics, but this time, no one would be able to make fun of him as a dude. In an era when the independent American cowboy dominated the popular imagination, Roosevelt now had credentials as a westerner. He ran for political office as a western cowboy taking on corruption in the East. And, with that cowboy image, he overtook his eastern rivals.
Eventually, Roosevelt’s successes made establishment politicians so nervous they tried to bury him in what was then seen as the graveyard of the vice presidency. Then, in 1901, an unemployed steelworker assassinated President William McKinley and put Roosevelt—“that damned cowboy,” as one of McKinley’s advisers called him—into the White House.
Once there, he worked to clean up the cities and stop the exploitation of workers, backing the urban reforms that were the hallmark of the Progressive Era.
New York Times, Once the Americans Warned of the Russian Threat. Now, It’s the Europeans’ Turn, David E. Sanger, Feb. 15, 2026 (print ed.). In Munich, European leaders were also talking about “de-risking” from the United States, citing President Trump’s unpredictability.
Four years ago American officials arrived at the Munich Security Conference armed with satellite photographs of massing Russian troops and intercepts of conversations among Russian generals, arguing that an invasion of Ukraine was imminent. Most senior European officials dismissed the evidence, declaring that the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, was bluffing.
The war for Ukraine, which next week enters its fifth year, started a few days later.
This year the roles are largely reversed. The few American officials here, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, say only that they are negotiating to stop the killing before moving on to other subjects. And now it is the Europeans who are arguing that even a cease-fire or peace deal will not end Mr. Putin’s campaign of sabotage across Europe, and that his territorial appetites are unlikely to stop at the Ukrainian border.
The disputes this past year between Washington and Europe — over tariffs, Greenland, free speech for right-wing political parties and the Trump administration’s declaration that Europe is headed to “civilizational erasure” unless it controls its borders — have obscured a more fundamental shift. Leaders of several European nations said that after that series of shocks they are talking about “de-risking” from the United States.
It is a term previously reserved for describing a strategy of avoiding over-dependence on China, or fragile supply chains for Russian oil or critical minerals. It is now applied to the United States. The Europeans now warn of threats that the Americans, in their speeches to the conference, never acknowledged. And among them is Mr. Trump’s unpredictability.
In his speech on Saturday, Mr. Rubio tried easing some of Europe’s fears, sounding a far more diplomatic tone than Vice President JD Vance did a year ago from the same stage. “We will always be a child of Europe,’’ he said, focusing on the depth and history of Europe’s settlement of North America rather than lecturing about the repression of far-right groups. While some of Mr. Vance’s themes were sounded, the softer delivery made it a lot easier for the heavily European audience to swallow.
But Mr. Rubio scarcely mentioned Russia, the source of the Europeans’ greatest security concerns, and offered no warnings to Mr. Putin, even though he spoke only hours before several American allies accused the Kremlin of using a banned toxin to kill Aleksei A. Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, in prison two years ago. Several diplomats noted later in the day that the absence of Washington’s imprimatur on the intelligence was telling.
At the same time, evidence of the damage done over the past year was everywhere. The Danes, still stunned by how quickly the prospect of military conflict with the United States flared in December and January, are publicly negotiating with Washington. But here in Munich, they kept asking the Americans whether they think Mr. Trump could suddenly revive his demand that the United States must own, not lease, the 836,000 ice-encased square miles of Greenland. (Very likely, the Danish prime minister, Mette Fredericksen, was told by several Americans.)
Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany chastised his fellow Europeans in a speech on Friday for their over-dependence on the United States for far too long — echoing Washington’s longtime complaint about Europe.
The purest crystallization of Mr. Merz’s concern underlies his yearlong conversation with President Emmanuel Macron of France about whether Germany should be covered under the French nuclear umbrella. Mr. Merz has repeatedly said that any arrangement for France to offer the ultimate protection to Germany would be coordinated with NATO and the United States.
President Trump frequently circulates artificial images of himself in heroic settings, as above, while at the same time overseeing self-promotional displays, such as a banner below at left affixed (along with one of President Teddy Roosevelt) to the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Labor on Pennsylania Avenue in Washington, DC.
New York Times, News Analysis: Trump’s Relentless Self-Promotion Fosters an American Cult of Personality, Peter Baker, Feb. 15, 2026.President Trump has engaged in a spree of self-aggrandizement unlike any of his predecessors, fostering a mythologized superhuman persona and making himself the inescapable force at home and around the world.
The racist online video that President Trump recently shared and then deleted generated a bipartisan furor because of its portrayal of Barack and Michelle Obama as apes. What was little remarked on was how it presented Mr. Trump himself — as the “King of the Jungle.”
After a year back in the White House, Mr. Trump’s efforts to promote himself as the singularly dominant figure in the world have become so commonplace that they no longer seem surprising. He regularly depicts himself in a heroic, almost godly fashion, as a king, as a Superman, as a Jedi knight, as a military hero, even as a pope in a white cassock.
While Mr. Trump has spent a lifetime promoting his personal brand, slapping his name on hotels, casinos, airplanes, even steaks, neckties and bottled water, what he is doing in his second term as president comes closer to building a cult of personality the likes of which has never been seen in American history. Other presidents sought to cultivate their reputations, but none went as far as Mr. Trump has to create a mythologized, superhuman and omnipresent persona leading to idolatry.
His picture has been splashed all over the White House, on multistory banners on the side of federal buildings, on annual passes to national parks and maybe even soon on a one-dollar coin. His name has been etched on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, on the U.S. Institute of Peace, on federal investment accounts, special visas and a discount drug program and, if he has his way, on Washington Dulles International Airport and Penn Station in New York.
U.S. Media, High Tech, Propaganda, Culture, Education
New York Times, More Than Ever, Videos Expose the Truth. And Cloud It, Too, Charles Homans, Feb. 15, 2026. In Minneapolis, videos of the Alex Pretti killing undermined the federal government’s account. But an A.I. video of Brad Pitt shows the dangers ahead.
Is seeing still believing? Based on the evidence of the past week, it is hard to say.
Consider Exhibit A: Rauiri Robinson, an Irish filmmaker and visual effects artist in Los Angeles, posted two short A.I.-generated videos on X, a hyper-realistic action-movie sequence depicting Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting on a rooftop while arguing about Jeffrey Epstein. The clips were created, Mr. Robinson explained, by feeding a two-sentence prompt into Seedance 2.0, an A.I. video-creation tool newly released by the Chinese company ByteDance.
Its convincing imitation of an actual film sparked horror and outrage in Hollywood. “I hate to say it,” Rhett Reese, a screenwriter whose credits include the “Deadpool” films, wrote on X. “It’s likely over for us.”
But consider Exhibit B: The announcement on Thursday morning by Tom Homan, Donald Trump’s border czar, that federal immigration agents would soon withdraw from Minnesota. Although Mr. Homan declared the operation a success, the decision seemed a tacit acknowledgment of the political damage inflicted by bystanders’ videos of two fatal shootings of Minneapolis residents by federal agents last month.
The videos immediately undercut the administration’s false and derogatory claims about the victims, drawing rebukes from even some Republican politicians and conservative commentators. “Escalating the rhetoric doesn’t help, and it actually loses credibility,” Ted Cruz, the Republican senator from Texas, said on his podcast in late January.
It is a paradoxical moment, in which documentary evidence is still able to land a few punches, even as new technologies threaten its credibility like never before.
“It feels deeply contradictory,” said Sam Gregory, the executive director of Witness, a human-rights organization focused on gathering video evidence.
U.S. Governance, Politics, Elections
New York Times, Republican State Legislators Rush to Limit Their Own Regulators, David W. Chen, Feb. 15, 2026. South Carolina’s state legislature is one of 17, mainly in heavily Republican states, that is moving to handcuff state agencies at a moment of tectonic changes in energy, technology and finance.
The state of South Carolina is facing daunting challenges far beyond its growing population. As artificial intelligence advances, data centers are proliferating to support it, and the governor is pushing small nuclear reactors and the revival of a half-built nuclear plant to power those data centers.
Electricity costs could rise, environments could be stressed.
But in the state capital of Columbia, Republicans who dominate the South Carolina legislature are pressing to restrict the agencies that would regulate such changes, arguing for a different imperative — economic growth.
“We do not want to have unelected bureaucrats making rules and laws that are forced upon people,” State Representative G. Murrell Smith Jr., the Republican speaker of the State House, said in an interview.
South Carolina’s Small Business Regulatory Freedom Act is in the vanguard of a broad push by conservative state lawmakers to pass laws this year that would remove state-level controls on business, work places and the environment.
Legislation in South Carolina and at least 16 other statehouses would shift power away from state agencies by subjecting to legislative scrutiny any regulation that would cost at least $1 million to implement. Regulations that do survive would automatically expire after a fixed term unless specifically reauthorized.
A federal deregulation bill that would do the same has failed repeatedly to clear the Senate. So the states are taking up the call.
More Global News
New York Times, Deep in China’s Mountains, a Nuclear Revival Takes Shape, Chris Buckley and Agnes Chang, Feb. 15, 2026. Satellite imagery of secretive nuclear facilities reveals Beijing’s efforts to expand its arsenal, just as the last global guardrails on nuclear weapons vanish.
China’s buildup complicates efforts to revive global arms controls after the expiration of the final remaining nuclear arms treaty between the United States and Russia. Washington argues that any successor agreements must also bind China, but Beijing has shown no interest.
“The changes we see on the ground at these sites align with China’s broader goals of becoming a global superpower. Nuclear weapons are an integral part of that,” said Renny Babiarz, a geospatial intelligence expert who has analyzed satellite images and other visual evidence of the sites and shared his findings with The New York Times.
He likened each nuclear location across China to a piece of a mosaic that, seen as a whole, shows a pattern of rapid growth. “There’s been evolution at all of these sites, but broadly speaking, that change accelerated starting from 2019,” he said.
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