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Even after rattling off various positive measures of Donald Trump's health in various press conferences, White House physician Dr. Sean Conley has been adamant about not answering one of the most vital questions facing those exposed to Trump in recent days: When was the last time testing showed Trump was not carrying the pandemic virus that would send him to the hospital only a day after the White House admitted he was sick?

That's important, because it would allow those who came into contact with Trump during last Tuesday's presidential debate to know whether they spent 90 minutes in an enclosed space with a COVID-19 carrier shouting at them for most of that time—one of the precise scenarios that experts warn is most likely to result in pandemic spread.

It's also important because all evidence so far points to the White House knowing of Trump's illness at least as of Monday, before the debate. And it's important because the pattern of infections coming out of the White House do not appear to correlate with people who attended the Rose Garden celebration the previous weekend. They appear to more closely correlate with people known to have spent significant amounts of time in proximity to Donald Trump himself.

On Monday, we were treated to a rare sight at the White House: An outdoor press briefing in which Trump spoke at a podium alone, while all other speakers at the pandemic-related briefing used a podium set up on a separate platform well-distanced from Trump's own.

Tuesday's debate featured another unusual sight: Melania Trump alone, among the Trump family, followed debate venue rules and kept her mask on during the full event—only removing it when approaching Donald at his podium for the usual post-debate family visuals. But the Trump family arrived at the debate venue too late to be given COVID-19 tests at the venue, debate moderator Chris Wallace said afterward. "There was an honor system when it came to people that came into the hall from the two campaigns."

There are reasons to believe the White House is lying about the outbreak timeline, and it is absolutely certain that they are hiding key elements of that timeline, as White House doctor Conley did yet again on Monday. The first known illnesses from the White House outbreak are, for the most part, those immediately surrounding Trump himself.

• White House adviser Hope Hicks and assistant Nicholas Luna

• First lady Melania Trump

• Trump's debate prep team member Chris Christie and Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien

• White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and two assistant press secretaries

But what of the multiple Rose Garden guests who tested positive after the Saturday celebration held for Amy Coney Barrett, including Sen. Thom Tillis, Sen. Mike Lee, pastor Greg Laurie, Notre Dame president John Jenkins, and Kellyanne Conway?

All of them were seen in close proximity to Trump in the Diplomatic Room of the White House, during an indoors reception for Barrett that featured a much smaller group of people. Infections during the Rose Garden event were not, as far as we know, spread evenly throughout the outside crowd. They have appeared predominantly among the most important guests, the ones allowed to sit and the first few rows—and who were invited inside for a more personal meet-and-greet hosted by Trump.

The evidence, then, is that Trump himself may have been the source of infection for most of the COVID-19 cases in his orbit. Whether he was or wasn't, the outbreak was in full swing as of Saturday, during the Diplomatic Room event.

The White House, however, is flatly refusing to tell the public, the Biden campaign, the debate staff and others Trump met with when Trump, who is allegedly as president tested daily or near-daily, was last known to be free of the virus. They either don't know—because they haven't been doing the testing—or they're hiding it because they have a reason to hide it. The White House has also announced that it will not be doing contact tracing of Rose Garden guests, nor will they allow the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention to launch that effort itself.

They are quite insistent on not finding out either the true extent of the White House outbreak, or revealing its origins.

It's reasonable to question whether the White House knew Trump was infected, or suspected it, at least as of Monday, when Trump's press event was set up to have the unusual dual-podium arrangement. It's reasonable to question whether the Trump campaign avoided testing at the venue not out of lateness, but because they did not want testing to be done. It's not just reasonable to assume Trump, a malevolent narcissist, would willingly expose others to his illness for momentary gain: It's proven, both from Trump's pointless but self-celebrating joyride around Walter Reed, unnecessarily putting Secret Service agents in an airtight container with him at the likely height of his own contagiousness, and his immediate removal of his mask upon returning to the White House.

There are very good reasons to suspect that the White House knew or believed Trump to be infected with COVID-19 before the debate with Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden took place, and that the White House covered up his infection to allow the debate to go forward. It is possible that, had Trump not become so physically ill two days afterward as to require public acknowledgement, then hospitalization, the White House intended to hide Trump's infection from the public completely.

This would be unconscionable behavior by itself, but exposing a rival presidential candidate to a deadly disease on purpose brings it past unconscionable and into the realm of the unthinkable. But here we are.

This is not an idle, fringe supposition. Senate Democratic leaders are themselves demanding that the White House explain their secrecy around Trump's initial diagnosis, accusing the White House (correctly) of "deliberately" hiding this information. The press is focusing in on this question as well. It is entirely within the realm of possibility that this White House would cover up a presidential illness even if it caused the possible death of others, and even if it exposed Trump's immediate campaign rival to the same disease. On the contrary, it is the most plausible theory we have as to why the White House is refusing to clarify the timeline of Trump's illness.

White House physician Dr. Sean Conley is explicitly hiding this information—and endangering lives. This is not tenable. If the press cannot scrape an answer from him, Vice President Biden's Secret Service detail might need to go question him directly.

In September 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump proposed an intergovernmental organized that would be called the Board of Peace and led by the United States. And its stated goal was to "promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict" — including Gaza.

Around 60 countries were invited to join, and Trump announced its formation on his Truth Social platform on January 15. But according to Bloomberg News reporters Alex Wickham and Alberto Nardelli, the Board of Peace is "off to a rough start" — as it is being "questioned by Europe, criticized by Israel and celebrated by friends of the Kremlin."

"Trump wants the full constitution and remit of the committee signed in Davos on Thursday, according to people familiar with the matter," Wickham and Nardelli report in an article published on January 19. "But some elements of the small print have left invitees wondering whether to accept."

Trump is demanding that countries pay $1 billion in U.S. currency in order to join — a demand that, according to Wickham and Nardelli "blindsided world leaders and left many bewildered."

"Potential members of the board — conceived last year as a Trump-headed body to oversee the redevelopment of post-war Gaza — began to filter out over the weekend," the Bloomberg News reporters explain. "Invitees include world leaders from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Much of the concern centers on the wording of the peace board's charter, seen by Bloomberg, which appears to place its ultimate decision-making power with Trump."

Wickham and Nardelli continue, "That raises many questions — not least over where the payments for long-term membership would go, the people said…. Argentina's Javier Milei confirmed he'll become a founding member and Italy's Giorgia Meloni has pitched herself as a mediator who is 'ready to do our part.' Former British premier Tony Blair, who was appointed as an executive to the board, is playing a key role behind the scenes along with Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the people familiar with the situation added."

Read the full Bloomberg News article at this link (subscription required).

President Donald Trump has become the butt of the latest joke all across Europe, Global affairs analyst Kimberly Dozier told CNN.

Overnight, Trump sent a letter to the Norwegian prime minister that appeared to link his Greenland aspirations to his failure to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

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

Norway has made it clear that the Nobel committee decides the award, not the Norwegian government.

Separately, Trump told NBC News in a phone interview that “Norway totally controls [the prize] despite what they say.”

Dozier told CNN that in Europe, Trump is being mocked as a child throwing a fit.

"In Europe, this is being seen as one more temper tantrum. There's a meme going around with Trump's letter to the Norwegian prime minister, but written out in crayon," she said.

"It's just one more sign that they think he's acting like a child and they don't know how to reason with the child," she added. "You know, you can't exactly give the president of the United States a time-out, and you can see the Norwegian committee is not likely either to ever give him a prize, no matter what he does, because nobody likes being told what to do."

- YouTubeyoutu.be

On Sunday, January 18, U.S. President Donald Trump sent a letter to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store complaining about two things: (1) European nations, including Norway, opposing U.S. acquisition of Greenland, and (2) Europeans not nominating him for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Trump wrote, "Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a 'right of ownership' anyway? There are no written documents, it's only a boat that landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT."

During a recent visit to the White House, Venezuelan opposition leader and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado gave her medal to Trump. But according to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, this is a blatant violation of Nobel rules — as the award is not transferable.

In an article published on January 19, The Atlantic's Anne Applebaum warns that Trump's letter can only make a bad situation worse and urges GOP lawmakers to speak out before it's too late.

European leaders, from French President Emmanuel Macron to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, are vehemently opposed to Trump's push for U.S. acquisition of Greenland. And Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen is warning that a U.S. attack on the Arctic island would sink the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

"Donald Trump now genuinely lives in a different reality, one in which neither grammar nor history nor the normal rules of human interaction now affect him," Applebaum laments. "Also, he really is maniacally, unhealthily obsessive about the Nobel Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee, not the Norwegian government and certainly not the Danish government, determines the winner of that prize. Yet Trump now not only blames Norway for failing to give it to him, but is using it as a justification for the invasion of Greenland."

Applebaum continues, "Think about where this is leading. One possibility, anticipated this morning by financial markets, is a damaging trade war. Another is an American military occupation of Greenland. Try to imagine it: The U.S. Marines arrive in Nuuk, the island's capital. Perhaps they kill some Danes; perhaps some American soldiers die too. And then what?"

Republicans in Congress, Applebaum stresses, need to speak out against Trump's threats against Greenland before the situation goes from bad to worse.

"The people around Trump could find ways to stop him, as some did in his first term, but they seem too corrupt or too power-hungry to try," Applebaum argues. "That leaves Republicans in Congress as the last barrier. They owe it to the American people, and to the world, to stop Trump from acting out his fantasy in Greenland and doing permanent damage to American interests. He is at risk of alienating friends not only in Europe but also, India, whose leader he also snubbed for failing to nominate him for a Nobel Prize, as well as South Korea, Japan, Australia."

Applebaum adds, "Years of careful diplomacy, billions of dollars in trade, are now at risk because senators and representatives who know better have refused to use the powers they have to block him. Now is the time."

Anne Applebaum's full article for The Atlantic is available at this link (subscription required).

The U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said that President Donald Trump has a plan if the Supreme Court rules that there is no emergency action to justify his trade war.

According to The New York Times, Greer said that Trump will simply replace the tariffs immediately, side-stepping the ruling and using other levies.

In an interview, Greer said the administration would “start the next day” to bring back tariffs should the Supreme Court cancel them. One way or another, they will “respond to the problems the president has identified.”

“The reality is the president is going to have tariffs as part of his trade policy going forward,” Greer said.

Both Greer and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent both believe that the high court will uphold Trump's supremacy as the president.

“I believe that it is very unlikely that the Supreme Court will overrule a president’s signature economic policy,” Bessent said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“They did not overrule Obamacare, I believe that the Supreme Court does not want to create chaos," he added.

Trump's decision to impose tariffs was made under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act. At the time, he claimed that the tariff deficit was a huge problem.

Trump has now extended that emergency power to issue new hefty tariffs on European nations that have agreed to help Denmark protect itself from a U.S. invasion and possible military action.

"Ted Murphy, an attorney at Sidley Austin, said in an emailed response that he believed that Mr. Trump would likely rely on IEEPA, the emergency law being reviewed by the courts, to impose those tariffs," the Times reported.

“I am not aware of any other trade statutes that would cover this situation (e.g., another nation refusing to sell the United States its sovereign territory),” wrote Murphy.

“Emergency powers are for emergencies,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said on "Meet the Press" Sunday. “There’s no emergency with Greenland. That’s ridiculous.”

Georgetown University Law Center Professor Steve Vladeck said that it likely doesn't help the administration's case to be using his emergency powers to try and pressure a country into giving over land.

It's “not exactly a good look for the Trump administration, while trying to persuade the Supreme Court to endorse a novel and atextual interpretation of IEEPA” to then threaten an even more novel use of the same law, explained Vladeck.

“President Trump is doing no favors to his own legal arguments,” he added.

Read the full column here.

After 80 years of peaceful cooperation, President Donald Trump’s tariff threats against countries opposing his efforts to take over Greenland have become the “final straw” for many European governments, which now view a “divorce” from the United States as “inevitable,” according to a Politico report.

“In private, dismayed European officials describe Trump’s rush to annex the sovereign Danish territory as ‘crazy’ and ‘mad,’ asking if he is caught up in his ‘warrior mode’ after his Venezuela adventure — and saying he deserves Europe’s toughest retaliation for what many see as a clear and unprovoked ‘attack’ against allies on the other side of the Atlantic.”

One European diplomat told Politico that Trump’s Greenland threats are being “perceived as one step too far.”

“There is a shift in U.S. policy and in many ways it is permanent,” a senior official with a European government added. “Waiting it out is not a solution. What needs to be done is an orderly and coordinated movement to a new reality.”

Politico reported that the result could be “a radical reshaping of the West that would upend the global balance of power,” which could include transatlantic economic damage and security risks.

And America’s “ability to project hard power into Africa and the Middle East” could also be damaged, “without access to the network of bases, airstrips and logistical support that Europe currently provides.”

That breakup may have already begun.

“National security advisers from 35 governments are in regular contact, meeting frequently online and in person, as well as interacting via less formal text messaging. They are accustomed to seeking multilateral solutions in a world where Trump is a big part of the problem.”

And national leaders across Europe, including those from the U.K., France, Germany, Finland, Italy, and the European Commission, “regularly text with each other — often in the same group chat.”

Their focus had been on Trump’s actions more than his words, but the American president’s “hell-raising over Greenland has now tipped the balance.”

The military might of this new European coalition would be “vast,” Politico noted, especially if Ukraine is included in the burgeoning new security alliance.

The Justice Department is now a month past the deadline Congress set for releasing the Jeffrey Epstein investigation files, and Republican lawmakers appear to have given up.

Politico reported Monday that those who were once so adamant about seeing the files are now "largely shrugging their shoulders."

“I don’t give a rip about Epstein,” said Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) last week. Just a month ago she was pressured by President Donald Trump to take her name off of the discharge petition that mandated a vote on the release of the files.

“Like, there’s so many other things we need to be working on,” Boeberg continued. “I’ve done what I had to do for Epstein. Talk to somebody else about that. It’s no longer in my hands.”

Other Republicans who initially pushed for the files have also backed off. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has abandoned her seat. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), who emerged tearful from a survivors’ hearing, is now focused on her gubernatorial race. That leaves Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) as the only Republican still pressing for the files.

"The public falling out between Greene and Trump was largely over Greene’s support for releasing the Epstein files — Trump called her a 'traitor' — and ultimately culminated in Greene’s resignation from the House earlier this month," Politico reported.

Trump then issued payback, vetoing “a bill that would have supported a water infrastructure project in Boebert’s district,” and administration officials privately warned Mace that her defiance would likely cost her Trump’s endorsement in the South Carolina governor’s race.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) said she has moved on to a campaign to hold former President Bill Clinton and former first lady Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congress.

In the month since the DOJ was supposed to release the files, Trump has invaded Venezuela and seized its leader, threatened war with Cuba, and now targeted Greenland.

House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) told reporters he believes the Justice Department is cooperating with the law mandating release by Dec. 19. Democrats appear to have given up as well.

Democrats appear to have given up as well, however.

Rep. Ro Khanna (R-Calif.) told Politico, “The law has passed. Now it’s for the courts. Now it’s a legal matter.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi is set to testify to the committee in February. Massie said he intends to use his five minutes to question Bondi by asking about the Epstein files.

Read the full report here.

For independents, lack of party loyalty can be a badge of honor. Independents often say that they are focused on issues, not whether one is a Republican or a Democrat. And in a close election, they can make or break a campaign.

But conservative GOP pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson, in an op-ed published by the New York Times on January 19, emphasizes that lack of party affiliation doesn't necessarily mean that one is centrist or moderate.

"In 2004, the percentage of Americans identifying as political independents hit the lowest point since Gallup began regularly tracking party identification in 1988," Anderson explains. "That year, only 31 percent said they were independent, while Republicans and Democrats were evenly matched among those choosing a party. That percentage has risen from that record low in 2004 to a record high today — a whopping 45 percent, according to Gallup."

According to Anderson, it is "important to first remember what the word independent is not."

"These days, it does not necessarily signify moderation or centrism," Anderson notes. "Less than half of independents today consider themselves moderate in the Gallup data, with 27 percent identifying as conservative or very conservative and 24 percent identifying as liberal or very liberal. Plenty of people who are independent declare themselves as such because they find both parties ideologically unsatisfactory, not because they feel they fit somewhere in the middle."

The GOP pollster points out that according to the Pew Research Center, many of the independents who voted in the 2024 presidential election "acknowledged they generally leaned more toward one party or another." And that included both Donald Trump voters and Kamala Harris voters.

"Of those who said they leaned more toward the GOP," Anderson observes, "87 percent voted for Mr. Trump, while 91 percent of Democratic-leaning independents voted for Ms. Harris. Each voter may initially tell a pollster like me that they are an independent, but in truth, they behave much more like their Republican and Democratic brethren when they get to the ballot box."

Anderson adds, "In my own surveys, most voters who identify as independents do go on, when pressed, to say they lean more toward one party than the other. Ultimately, I find only that only 9 percent of voters firmly insist they do not pick one side more often than the other."

Kristen Soltis Anderson's full op-ed for the New York Times is available at this link (subscription required).

The success of the TV show "Heated Rivalry," about two closeted hockey players who fall in love, may be masking the fact that anti-gay bias has "surged particularly sharply" since 2020, say two research psychologists in a New York Times opinion piece.

Five years after the U.S. Supreme Court's 2015 decision that found same-sex couples have the same rights and responsibilities to marriage as their different-sex peers, support for gay people began to "sharply reverse," according to Dr. Tessa E.S. Charlesworth and Dr. Eli J. Finkel.

Perhaps most "surprising" are the groups where anti-gay bias is surging.

Charlesworth and Finkel noted that anti-gay bias trends "were distinctly robust among the youngest American adults — those under 25. This group increased its animus against marginalized groups in general and gay people in particular at a faster rate than older Americans did."

"Also surprising is that although anti-gay bias has risen faster among conservatives, it has also risen among liberals," they noted.

A 2024 Gallup poll found that support for same-sex marriage was dropping, especially among Republicans.

When asked if marriage equality should be legal, Republicans’ support fell to 46% from a high of 55% in 2021 and 2022. But support also fell among Democratic and independent voters who were asked the same question.

The percentage of Americans who think homosexuality is morally acceptable had also fallen since 2022’s record high. In that year, 71% thought it was morally OK to be gay, but that fell to 64% in 2023.

Charlesworth and Finkel acknowledge that they are unsure of why support for gay people has reversed.

They speculate that social instability and anti-establishment sentiment could be to blame.

"Gay and lesbian people, newly woven into the fabric of mainstream society, may have been collateral damage in a broader revolt against a system that felt broken, especially among younger generations grappling most intensely with uncertainty about their future," the researchers wrote.

And they issued a warning.

"At a time when social advances can coexist with backlash, watching queer stories on television can feel comforting. But comfort on the couch is not the same thing as progress."

President Donald Trump bulldozed the East Wing of the White House during the government shutdown, raising questions about whether he was also altering the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC), CNN reported Monday.

The PEOC was built during World War II by President Franklin D. Roosevelt after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Trump is replacing the East Wing with a massive ballroom while updating the PEOC.

According to 2020 reports, Trump went to the bunker during the Black Lives Matter protests following the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. He later said he had visited the bunker two or three times during his first term, quoted The Sun.

A noteworthy use of the bunker happened on Sept. 11, 2001, when then–Vice President Dick Cheney and other Cabinet officials were rushed there for protection. Other presidents have used it for secret meetings, including Richard Nixon, who viewed a “parody film” there that his administration deemed pornographic and wanted suppressed. President Joe Biden’s team used the facility to plan his clandestine trip to Ukraine, CNN noted.

The report described the PEOC as operating like a “submarine," in that it is fully self‑sufficient, has backup power, water, and air filtration, and is designed to survive a major attack or even a nuclear strike on Washington.

When demolition of the East Wing began in October 2025, the PEOC was also torn out. One source told CNN there is a “high degree of confidence” that all previous subterranean structures are now gone, but emphasized that other redundant systems exist to protect the president. Removed elements include ventilation and underground facilities for the White House Military Office and the Secret Service Uniformed Division; a second source said, “all of that seems to be gone.”

Trump initially cited $200 million for the new ballroom, a figure that has since ballooned to $400 million. That amount does not include the underground work. Trump has said the ballroom will be funded by private donors, but any new subterranean security infrastructure will ultimately be paid for by U.S. taxpayers, the report said.

The administration argues that halting construction would “endanger national security,” prompting questions about whether Trump is doing much more than a standard renovation.

Jonathan Wackrow, a former US Secret Service agent and CNN contributor, told the reporter that Americans will likely never know how much is being done five stories below the White House.

“If you think about trying to mitigate the threats today and the threats for tomorrow, you’re really talking about emerging technologies, emerging infrastructure — stuff that may not be commercially available. We’re never going to get the line of sight on how much that costs,” Wackrow said.

In the United States' 2024 presidential election, there were two very different types of Donald Trump voters: MAGA diehards and frustrated independents. And the latter are a lot more flexible, as some of them voted for Democratic Joe Biden in 2020 but, in 2024, were frustrated over inflation and liked Trump's promise to lower prices "on Day 1."

Salon's Amanda Marcotte has written extensively about "low-information" independents who don't necessarily pay close attention to politics but were drawn to Trump's messaging on the economy in 2024. And those independents and swing voters don't have the intense devotion to Trump that his hardcore MAGA base does.

In an article published on January 19, however, Marcotte takes a look at Republicans who were enthusiastically MAGA in 2024 yet are now "quietly" slipping away from the 2024 coalition.

"A decade into our collective Donald Trump nightmare," Marcotte laments, "most of the reality-based population has given up on hoping MAGA voters will wake up and see the light. We've come to realize that he could eat a live kitten on TV and they, unwilling to admit his critics were right all along, would argue that kitten was 'Antifa' and liberals are the ones who are stupid for not seeing the threat the kitten posed to our safety. I predicted this miserable state of affairs back in 2017, after interviewing psychology experts on cognitive dissonance."

Marcotte continues, "For Trump voters, the pain of saying 'I was wrong' is too great. They would rather burn the country to the ground than accept fault. If anything, the worse Trump acts, the harder they cling to him because the psychic price of saying 'liberals were right all along' grows steeper. The situation can feel hopeless, especially in the face of events like the recent killing of Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis."

The Salon journalist notes, however, that "there is a small ray of light in all this darkness."

"Polling suggests that a small but important number of Trump voters are trying to pull an Irish exit, abandoning the coalition quietly rather than continuing the miserable task of pretending what he's doing is OK," Marcotte explains. "On Friday, (January 16), data journalist G. Elliott Morris analyzed and compared the past year's polls to Trump's first term…. . According to Morris, 'Republican identification dropped from 46 percent in 2024 to just 40 percent in Q4 of 2025 — a 6-point decline, triple the 2-point drop during Trump’s first term."

Marcotte adds, "It's still a small number, but it's significant because it suggests people are starting to find it embarrassing to say they are Republicans. They're looking for a way to distance themselves from Trump and the MAGA movement without admitting fault…. Even if most of these quiet defectors aren't going to vote for Democrats, this polling shift — especially taken with Trump's declining approval ratings — suggests that enthusiasm for Republicans is sliding downhill.

Amanda Marcotte's full article for Salon is available at this link.

Alain Berset, secretary general of the Council of Europe, wrote a column in the New York Times in which he stated he never thought he would have to contend with a possible military confrontation between Europe and the United States.

Trump sent a letter to the prime minister of Norway overnight, claiming he no longer feels obligated to support peace in Europe because he did not receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Nobel committee awards the prize, not Norway. Additionally, Greenland is part of Denmark, not Norway.

"His statements about the territory have strained relations between states and called into question the rights, consent and democratic choices of Greenland's people," wrote Berset. "For now, this remains talk. But recent events in Venezuela show how quickly words can harden into action."

Berset recalled that following World War II, the Council of Europe was established to ensure "law, not raw power, must guarantee the dignity and rights of individuals and the sovereign equality of states."

Berset noted that while Trump has claimed he needs Greenland for national security, the United States already has access for such efforts.

Berset described Trump's position as reflecting "an old strategic reflex: a Cold War mind-set." Trump believes that Russia's proximity to Greenland could present a security threat.

"The Council of Europe stands ready to support Denmark and Greenland through concrete legal and institutional cooperation. If Europe fails to articulate a legal and political vision, others will fill the vacuum, shifting security from law to strategic leverage," Berset wrote.

"International law is either universal or meaningless. Greenland will show which one we choose," Berset stated.

Read the full column here.

In a message posted overnight, President Donald Trump said that the reason he wants to take Greenland has to do with Norway not giving him the Nobel Peace Prize.

Nobel Prizes are given for actions done in the previous year and Trump wasn't even in office in 2024.

PBS "News Hour" foreign affairs reporter Nick Schifrin posted the letter text, reading, "Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a 'right of ownership' anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also."

Trump went on to say that he's done more for NATO than any other president.

The status update was then shared by international relations Professor Nicholas Grossman, from the University of Illinois.

"Multi-layered 'look what you made me do' lie," Grossman said. "Because Norway didn’t give a him prize (it doesn’t decide winners) for ending wars (he didn’t end) the US won’t be peaceful anymore (bombing multiple countries) and will take Greenland (part of Denmark, not Norway) to stop Russia (it’d help Russia)."

Lawyer, journalist and podcaster Imani Gandy demanded, "someone ask him to list the 8 wars he's stopped." She also lamented, "everything is just absurd. 10 years of this a--hole is 10 years too many."

Anesthesiologist Dr. Josh Rubin pointed out that Norway not only doesn't give out the peace prize, it doesn't own Greenland either.

"So he doesn’t know the difference between Norway and Denmark," he wrote on BlueSky.

Democratic influencer Harry Sisson called the matter "insane."

"Trump just wrote a letter to the prime minister of Norway essentially saying 'you didn’t give me the Nobel Peace Prize so I’m choosing to invade Greenland because of it.' This is INSANE. It’s about to get a lot worse," he expects.

Norwegian Helsinki Committee human rights worker Aage Borchgrevink threatened, "Dear Trump. Here’s a deal. Back off from Greenland and Norway will not destroy your economy by unloading the 180bn usd of your debt owned by the Norwegian Oil Fund."

Lawyer and commentator David Lurie joked, "Little known fact, Hitler invaded Poland because he didn't get the Nobel Peace Prize. Will Norway ever learn?"

However, ‪Dmitry Grozoubinski, negotiations and trade policy expert, wrote on BlueSky, "I'm honestly less mad at the President, who is clearly not well, that I am at his outriders and enablers. They see messages like this and then, with straight faces, go on television or write op-eds retroactively constructing grand strategy justifications. Pathetic."

The United States 2024 presidential election was a real horserace, with GOP nominee Donald Trump ultimately defeating the Democratic nominee, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, by roughly 1.5 percent in the national popular vote. And according to polls, the economy — especially frustration over inflation — was the thing that did the most to give him a narrow victory in the end.

But a new CBS News/YouGov poll shows that what was Trump's greatest strength in 2024 is now a major weakness.

The poll, released on Sunday, January 18, found that 74 percent of Americans believe that Trump isn't focused enough on inflation.

NJ Advance Media/NJ.com reporter Lauren Sforza explains, "Despite Trump's promises to bring down costs, 76 percent of Americans said their income is not keeping up with inflation. Just 24 percent reported that their income was keeping up with inflation, according to the poll. Trump repeatedly pledged throughout his 2024 campaign to end inflation and lower the cost of living for Americans. However, Trump's widespread tariffs on imported goods have increased prices for U.S. consumers despite Trump claiming that it was boosting revenue for the country."

CBS News/YouGov found that only 39 percent of Americans approve of Trump's handling of the economy, while his overall approval is at 41 percent.

The poll comes almost a year after Trump's return to the White House and nine and one-half months before the 2026 midterms.

Since returning to the White House almost a year ago, U.S. President Donald Trump has imposed travel restrictions on a long list of countries. And on January 14, the U.S. State Department announced that it will suspend immigrant visa applications for citizens of 75 countries.

In an article published on January 19, the New York Times' Ben Sisario examines the problems that the Trump Administration's travel policies are having for musicians who want to perform in the United States.

For example, the African band Tinariwen — whose members are mostly from Mali — canceled a U.S. tour because of the difficulties.

Tinariwen's manager, Patrick Votan, told the Times, "It's completely hopeless now to tour in the U.S. There's not really any solution to come back again."

The Under the Radar theater festival in New York City, according to Sisario, canceled a scheduled performance by the British troupe Quarantine because of the visa difficulties, and the festival's co-producer, Tommy Kriegsmann, estimates that Under the Radar is losing at least $150,000 — or possibly, as much as $200,000 — because of it.

Kriegsmann told the Times, "It's an unbelievable mess, and no one can provide an answer."

"Problems like these were the talk of the Association of Performing Arts Professionals conference in New York last week," Sisario explains. "Each January, thousands of agents and presenters gather there to book their annual calendars and share intelligence about the climate, which has been shaky for years but is now, many said, in a state of crisis. Matthew Covey, a lawyer who specializes in immigration applications for performing artists, told attendees in a speech that he expects a 30 percent decline this year of international performers coming to the United States, compared to 2024."

Sisario adds, "In a subsequent interview, Covey called that figure a rough estimate based on information from his firm, CoveyLaw."

Read Ben Sisario's full New York Times article at this link (subscription required).

“They didn’t ask very many questions.” Independent journalist and U.S. military veteran Laura Jedeed recounts how she was hired as a deportation officer by Immigration and Customs Enforcement after a six-minute interview at a job fair in Texas, despite never signing any paperwork, not having completed a background check, likely failing a drug test, and publicly sharing her opposition to the Trump administration and its anti-immigrant crackdown. “It seems like the answer to the question, 'Who are they hiring?' is: They don’t know.”

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: What happens when ICE hires agents with minimal screening, then sends them into the streets masked and armed? We look now at the agency’s hiring practices as it surges agents to Minneapolis and other cities.

We begin with an independent journalist who applied for an ICE job and was offered it without even a background check. Laura Jedeed wrote about her experience in a piece published Tuesday by Slate magazine headlined “You’ve Heard About Who ICE Is Recruiting. The Truth Is Far Worse. I’m the Proof.” — was the headline.

She begins her piece, “The plan was never to become an ICE agent. The plan, when I went to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Career Expo in Texas last August, was to learn what it was like to apply to be an ICE agent. Who wouldn’t be curious?” she said.

Laura Jedeed joins us now from Portland, Oregon.

Laura, would you take it from there? Explain what exactly you did, what this fair was, and then how you applied to work for ICE, and what happened.

LAURA JEDEED: Absolutely. So, the hiring event, basically, you brought your résumé in, you handed it over. They were going to do an interview, and they were promising on-the-spot hiring, to where you could, in fact, walk out with your $50,000 bonus that day, possibly.

I went in. I handed in my résumé, which was a — I did a skills-based résumé. I’m a veteran. I served two tours in Afghanistan. So, on the surface, the résumé looked pretty good. Had a very brief interview, took all of six minutes. They didn’t ask very many questions. And then I left, assuming I would never hear back, because I’m a very googleable person. I have an unusual name. I’m the only Laura Jedeed on the internet. And I make no secret of how I feel about ICE and Trump and all of it.

So I was not expecting several days later to receive a tentative offer. I missed it in my inbox, and it sunk to the bottom, which means that I never filled out the paperwork they requested. I never accepted the tentative offer. I never filled out my background check paperwork. I never signed the affidavit saying I committed no domestic violence crimes. None of it.

A few weeks later, I got a message from Labcorp saying that ICE wanted me to do a drug test, and I went ahead and did that. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t pass. I had partaken in legal cannabis six days before the test. But why not waste some of their money, right? And then, nine days after that, I decided I wanted to — you know, I was curious. Had they processed the drug test yet?

So I logged on to the ICE hiring portal. And what I found was that not only did the drug test not seem to be relevant, I had been — I was listed as having joined ICE as of three days earlier. I had listed that I had accepted the offer. They had offered me a final position as a deportation officer. My background check was listed as completed three days in the future from when I was looking at it. So, it seems like the answer to the question, “Who are they hiring?” is: They don’t know.

AMY GOODMAN: Wow. You write in the piece, “At first glance, my résumé has enough to tantalize a recruiter for America’s Gestapo-in-waiting.” You’re likening ICE to the Gestapo?

LAURA JEDEED: Absolutely, and I don’t think that’s in any way hyperbole. We have armed, masked thugs on our street right now who are brutalizing, detaining and murdering people with apparent impunity, a carte blanche, a license to kill from our government. And they can’t even keep track of who’s behind the masks. I don’t believe for a second they’re keeping track of who’s a U.S. citizen, who needs to be deported, where these people even are. These disappearances, where people vanish into the system, is it on purpose, or are they really that sloppy with paperwork? Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. This constitutes a national emergency. We have unknown, armed thugs in masks who are terrorizing citizens.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you have served in the military. You deployed twice. Can you talk about what that experience taught you? And also, you did do an interview with an agent, and I’m wondering if you could tell us what that agent said to you and where that went.

LAURA JEDEED: Absolutely. So, I joined the military right out of high school. I really believed in the whole “war on terror” thing. I really thought we were going over to spread freedom and democracy, and what have you. And when I got there, it became very evident very quickly that that was not the case, and that we were doing very — it was a bad war, and we should not have been there —

AMY GOODMAN: Where were you?

LAURA JEDEED: — telling people what to do. I was in eastern Afghanistan for the first deployment, western Afghanistan for the second. So, I did not see combat, but as a military intelligence collector, I saw plenty of the decisions that got people killed on both sides that didn’t need to happen.

So I came back very disillusioned, like a lot of people, and actually like the ICE agent that I spoke to, which, by the way, this interview wasn’t actually part of the hiring process. It was an optional step to see if I wanted to join up. But he told me that he was — also joined right out of high school. He also deployed. And when he got back, he also got out as soon as he could. He didn’t want anything to do with the military. But he had a lot of trouble assimilating, as a lot of veterans do. And so, about six months later, he decided to go for law enforcement, and the rest is history. He’s been an ICE agent, he said, for about a decade. He likes the work. He feels like he’s getting instant results.

And this is very sad to me and also emblematic of a problem we have, where we use this language of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction and freedom and democracy at the barrel of a gun. We did this overseas, and it’s come home in every conceivable way.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about your concerns about them not doing a background check. I mean, what does this mean for people who are documented to — well, wife beaters, people who kill women?

LAURA JEDEED: Yeah, I mean, it’s very funny that they hired a lefty journalist with a profile on AntifaWatch. That’s hilarious. But what’s not funny is they didn’t make me sign a domestic violence waiver. So, how many people with domestic violence convictions are running around with guns in our cities terrorizing people? How many people who have been committed of sex crimes or crimes against children are in charge of detention centers where there’s no oversight, where people won’t be missed and won’t be believed? The horror, it just — it boggles the mind how bad this really is.

AMY GOODMAN: And you were hired to be a deportation officer. What exactly is that? Where would you serve?

LAURA JEDEED: Yeah, so, yes, deportation officer. Basically, the agent was very keen on letting me know that I wouldn’t be given a badge and a gun right away. I wouldn’t be out in the street messing people up. I would probably have to push paperwork for about six months before I got there. And when I expressed that that was fine with me, with my analyst background, he — actually, the atmosphere changed. He was like, “No, listen, we want everyone on the street with guns eventually.” And I had to reassure him that that was also fine. It seems like the focus is very much getting people out on the street with guns, and the focus of the people applying, apparently, is to get out on the street as quickly as possible to brutalize people.

AMY GOODMAN: I’ll just end by asking you — you said you signed up to fight the war on terror, and you served twice in Afghanistan. You call what’s happening here in the United States “the war on terror come home.”

LAURA JEDEED: Yes, this is — it is very sad. It is not surprising, but it is very sad. This is a national emergency. This is a state emergency. And frankly, it’s past time that governors called up the National Guard to protect the citizens, who elected them to keep them safe from the people actually terrorizing us in the streets.

AMY GOODMAN: Laura Jedeed, I want to thank you for being with us, freelance journalist who writes regularly on her Substack at FirewalledMedia.com. We’ll link to your new piece for Slate, which is headlined “You’ve Heard About Who ICE Is Recruiting. The Truth Is Far Worse. I’m the Proof.” We’ll link to it at democracynow.org.

Regrets — we’ve all had a few. One of President Donald Trump’s, apparently, is not directing the National Guard to seize voting machines after the 2020 election in search of evidence of fraud.

This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.

That revelation, part of a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times on Jan. 7, commands particular attention in a world where Trump has already sought to push the boundaries of his power, deploying the National Guard to multiple U.S. cities to crack down on protests and crime. The November midterms will be the first federal general election with Trump as president since that 2020 contest, and even before his comments to the Times, plenty of people were already worried that Trump would attempt to deploy the National Guard around the 2026 election.

The National Guard isn’t necessarily the problem here; the Guard actually has a history of helping with election administration, such as when troops in civilian clothing helped fill in for absent poll workers during the pandemic in 2020. But many Democrats and election officials are worried that Trump could, say, send them to polling places to interfere with voting on Election Day. If troops were to take possession of voting machines or other equipment, it could break the chain of custody and invalidate scads of ballots. And if troops just show up outside polling places, even if they don’t try to impede the administration of the election, their presence could still intimidate voters.

That’s a worst-case scenario. However, there are significant legal and practical barriers to Trump doing this.

First, it’s clearly illegal: Federal law prohibits stationing “troops or armed men at any place where a general or special election is held, unless such force be necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States.” It’s also illegal for members of the military to prevent, or attempt to prevent, an eligible voter from voting and to interfere “in any manner with an election officer’s discharge of his duties.” That could include taking possession of voting machines.

Even the Insurrection Act — which grants the president wide leeway to use the military for domestic law enforcement in emergencies, and which Trump threatened to invoke just last week in Minneapolis — wouldn’t give troops the right to break these laws, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

Second, courts have so far significantly reined in Trump’s existing National Guard deployments — raising questions about whether he’d even have control of the Guard in key states. In December, the Supreme Court signed off on a temporary restraining order preventing the Trump administration from deploying troops to Illinois, whose Democratic governor had challenged his authority to do so. (National Guard troops are usually under the command of their state’s governor.)

The Supreme Court’s order for now functionally limits Trump to deploying the National Guard in states where he has the governor’s consent. And the 2026 midterm elections are likely to be decided in states whose governors mostly aren’t the type to let Trump deploy troops there. Of the 60 U.S. House seats currently listed as “in play” by Inside Elections, an election handicapping website, 38 are in states with Democratic governors.

And while the path to the U.S. Senate majority does mostly run through red states, and Republicans have, on the whole, not shown much interest in standing up to Trump, it’s not a given that every Republican governor would acquiesce to Trump sending in troops — especially for as norm-shattering a reason as to police an election.

The New York Times also reported this week that multiple Republican politicians privately criticized Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. And plenty of sitting Republican governors have had their differences with Trump publicly as well:

• Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio (home to three competitive House seats and a pivotal Senate race) is very much an old guard Republican who has objected to Trump’s most controversial behavior.
• Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa (also home to three competitive House seats and a potentially interesting Senate race) endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over Trump in the 2024 Republican presidential primaries and is not running for reelection this year.
• Gov. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire (home to two competitive House seats and a vulnerable Democratic-held Senate seat) is a moderate Republican who disavowed Trump in 2016 and waited a conspicuously long time to endorse him in 2024.
• Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia (home to another vulnerable Democratic Senate seat) famously rebuffed Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election result in his state.

The Trump administration has thrown cold water all over the idea that it will mobilize the National Guard this November. A White House spokesperson told NPR in November that concerns about troops at polling places were “baseless conspiracy theories and Democrat talking points.” And in an interview with Vanity Fair late last year, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles said that “it is categorically false, will not happen.”

But given Trump’s avowed interest in using the National Guard to subvert an election, many officials aren’t taking any chances. At a conference of local election administrators earlier this month in Virginia, attendees were already gaming out what to do in a scenario where armed troops arrive at a polling place.

Any attempt to use the military to influence the election — even if it’s quickly extinguished by a court — would be one of the most brazen acts of election interference in modern times. Whether or not it ultimately affected the outcome of the election, it could still shatter many Americans’ belief in the sanctity of the voting booth.

Nathaniel Rakich is Votebeat’s managing editor and is based in Washington, D.C. Contact Nathaniel at nrakich@votebeat.org.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for their newsletters here.

As President Donald Trump’s dictatorial grip over America worsens, his violations of our Constitution, federal laws, and international treaties become more brazen. Only the organized people can stop this assault on our democracy by firing him, through impeachment, the power accorded to Congress by our Founders. This is one of the few things that he cannot control.

According to a PRRI’s (Public Religion Research Institute) poll, “a majority of Americans (56%) agree that ‘President Trump is a dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy’ up from 52% in March 2025.” Trump’s recent actions will only further increase this number.

In earlier columns, I discussed the potential power of

1. The Contented Classes;
2. The small minority of progressive billionaires; and
3. The huge potential of the four ex-presidents–George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, who detest Trump but are mostly silent, and are not organizing their tens of millions of angry voters in all Congressional Districts.

A fourth formidable constituency, if organized, is retired military officers who have their own reasons for dumping Trump. Start with the ex-generals whom Trump named as Secretary of Defense (James Mattis); John Kelly, as US Secretary of Homeland Security and White House Chief of Staff; and Mark Milley, who headed the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

High military brass have sworn to uphold the Constitution, which does not allow for monarchs or dictators.

Trump introduced many nominees with sky-high praise. When they tried to do their job and restrain Trump’s lawlessness, slanders, and chronic lies to the public, his attitude toward them cooled, and then he savaged them. Ultimately, he fired several of them in his first term.

During a November 2018 trip to France to mark the WWI armistice centennial, Trump canceled a planned visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, where many Americans killed at Belleau Wood are buried. Trump said he canceled the visit to the cemetery because of the rain. The Atlantic magazine reported that Trump claimed that “'the helicopter couldn’t fly’ and that the Secret Service wouldn’t drive him there. Neither claim was true.” Trump especially disliked Kelly saying about Trump that “a person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’” This sentiment, coming from Trump, a serial draft dodger, rankled Kelly. (Of course, the persistent prevaricator Trump denied saying these words.)

The retired military officers’ case against Trump is too long to list fully. They were, however, summarized by one retiree, who cited the military code of justice and declared that were he to be tried under that code, Trump would be court-martialed and jailed many times over. Consider some of the would-be charges: constant lying about serious matters, including his own illegal acts; using his office to enrich himself; unconstitutionally and illegally bombing countries that do not threaten the United States; using federal troops inside our country; and escalating piracy on the high seas, with misuse of the US Coast Guard.

Moreover, they resent deeply how Trump came into his second term, enabled by the feeble Democratic Party, and fired career generals for no cause other than to replace them with his cronies and sycophants. This includes firing the highly regarded first woman to head the Coast Guard. He has discarded the policy aimed at ensuring the military reflects America’s diversity by providing equal opportunities for women and minorities to serve.

Retired military officers despise Pete Hegseth, the incompetent, foul-mouthed puppet secretary of defense, for his mindless aggressions, misogyny, and mistreatment or forcing out of long-time public servants in the Pentagon. They find it appalling that Trump’s statement that the six ex-military members of Congress who reminded US soldiers not to obey an illegal order (long part of the Military Code of Justice and other laws) should be executed. This impeachable outburst was followed by Hegseth moving to punish Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), one of the signers, by seeking to lower his reserve rank and reduce his pension.

They also resent Trump reducing services at the VA due to mass layoffs.

What could be keeping these officers on the sidelines? Many of the very top brass have become consultants to the weapons manufacturers. Others fear retribution affecting their retirement. Others want to avoid the Trumpian incitement to his extreme loyalists to use the internet anonymously to attack any critics.

None of the above should be controlling factors. After all, these officers were expected to face the dangers of any military battle courageously.

Retired Colonel Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff of Secretary of State Colin Powell, has been outspoken in the media against Trump’s dangerous policies for years. There are others who have taken on Trump, the White House Bully-in-Chief.

Besides, the Republic’s existence is urgently at stake here. Trump is overthrowing the federal government, invading America’s cities with his growing corps of storm troopers, while threatening to go much further with his mantra, “This is just the beginning.” High military brass have sworn to uphold the Constitution, which does not allow for monarchs or dictators.

Once these former generals and admirals and other high officers take a united stand, they will receive great mass media attention. They will give great credibility to the expanding peaceful opposition to Trump. They will provide the needed backbone to the Democrats in Congress to hold shadow hearings to press for impeachment and removal from office Fuhrer Trump, who daily provides Congress with openly boastful impeachable actions.

For example, he told the New York Times on January 9, 2026, that only “my own morality. My own mind.” restrains him. Not the Constitution, not federal laws and regulations, not treaties we have signed under Republican and Democratic presidents.

He took an oath to obey the Constitution and violated it from Day One.

Stepping forward with an adequate staff, funds that would be raised instantly, the fired generals would bring out retired officers and veterans down the ranking ladder all over the country. Already, Veterans for Peace, with over 100 chapters, is ready for rapid expansion. (See, https://www.veteransforpeace.org/).

Remember this: TRUMP’S DICTATORIAL RAMPAGE IS ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE, MUCH WORSE. Venezuela, Cuba, Panama, Greenland, Nigeria, and Iran are on the growing list for Trump’s endless warmongering. He has openly declared more than once, “Nothing can stop me.” Those words should be sufficient for enough top retired military officers to exert their special legacy of patriotism for the “United States of America and the Republic for which it stands…”

Police and federal agents arrested 66-year-old retired peace studies professor Barbara Wien after a judge approved a warrant alleging she had a "coordinated plan to intimidate and harass" senior adviser Stephen Miller. Wien suspected she was being watched after spotting strangers near her Virginia home.

Investigators found a message in a group chat where Wien vowed to make "his life hell," according to reports.

Wien's father fled the Nazis, which influenced her decision to continue protesting. Federal agents took her cell phone to search for evidence.

Wien and her husband visited the neighborhood where Miller was staying and left "manila envelopes stuffed with printouts on porches." Inside were comic drawings of Miller, a photo of him with a circle and slash through it, and instructions for how to help immigrants with food bank donations.

One flier stated "Wanted for crimes against humanity" with Miller's address and "No Nazis in NOVA," referring to Northern Virginia.

"Wien said she doesn't know who made the flier and didn't realize it included his address," according to reports.

Wien was in a cul-de-sac when she saw a blacked-out SUV in front of a large white house. On the porch was Miller's wife, podcaster Katie Miller. Wien pointed at her eyes and then back at Miller as if to say "I'm watching you."

Wien and others created the Arlington Neighbors United for Humanity. The group worked together to draft a letter to the Millers stating, "Your efforts to dismantle our democracy and destroy our safety net will not be tolerated here."

They also collected signatures for a petition asking Congress to investigate Miller outside local metro stations.

Chalk messages including "Stephen Miller is destroying democracy!" began appearing on sidewalks. The White House complained about the fliers, petitions, and chalk messages, characterizing them as part of a "highly sophisticated and organized doxing campaign" accompanied by threats under state and federal review. Wien stated she did not participate in the chalking or flier distribution. Police deemed the chalk messages nonthreatening, but Katie Miller told Fox News that protesters outside her home were inciting violence and demanded more arrests.

"If we don't step up and start putting people in cuffs for these actions, what comes next?" Miller said.

A White House spokesperson stated, "There's been constant death threats against Stephen and his family, as well as a highly sophisticated and organized doxing campaign, tied with extremely violent and threatening rhetoric that is now the subject of ongoing state and federal inquiries."

Wien's lawyer, Bradley R. Haywood, said, "Sometimes the ability to speak truth to power is all you have left. That's all my client was doing."

The Millers put their house up for sale and moved into taxpayer-funded military housing at Fort McNair.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is investigating local officials for alleged "political bias" in failing to protect the Millers.

Wien has been branded a domestic terrorist online. A judge ordered her phone returned, but she fears it carries spyware. Miller allies have posted Wien's address and urged people to show up at her home.

Wien and her husband's answering machine has captured threats, including one caller stating, "We're going to do to you what Barbara did to the Miller family… that's what happens to Nazis like you. So saddle up."

Read the full report here.Read the full report here.

Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Sheriff Danny Ceisler canceled his office's coordination with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after it became clear that it increased public safety problems.

"So what we saw in Bucks County, and really across the country, is when you mix local law enforcement with immigration enforcement, that torches the relationship between immigrant communities and law enforcement," said Ceisler."And we rely on those communities to call 911 to report crime, to come into the courthouse and testify," he noted.

"And we saw a decrease in all of that cooperation, which isn't just a public safety problem for those immigrants. That's a public safety problem for the entire community."

Despite law enforcement cutting cooperation, Bucks County is not a sanctuary county in the state.The sheriff is an elected post, he noted, and while campaigning, what he witnessed was that the overwhelming majority on both sides wanted the same thing.

"They want a secure border. They want actual, bona fide criminals who have received due process to be deported, but they don't want the people who are here because they want the same quality of life as us, who are paying taxes, who are really lifting up the community in ways that we don't even see," he added.

Sheriff Ceisler added that he has no concerns that the county will become less safe after this move."So we have had this kind of level of cooperation with ICE for decades, where ICE does its work. And if we have people in our custody, we turn them over," he said. "But when you're a law enforcement executive like I am, you have limited resources. I only have so many deputies, and we have our office's mission. We have our responsibilities. So I need my deputies focused on their work."

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

The Trump administration is directing employees at the U.S. Department of Agriculture to investigate foreign scientists who collaborate with the agency on research papers for evidence of “subversive or criminal activity.”

The new directive, part of a broader effort to increase scrutiny of research done with foreign partners, asks workers in the agency’s research arm to use Google to check the backgrounds of all foreign nationals collaborating with its scientists. The names of flagged scientists are being sent to national security experts at the agency, according to records reviewed by ProPublica.

At a meeting last month, USDA supervisors pushed back against the instructions, with one calling it “dystopic” and others expressing shock and confusion, according to an audio recording reviewed by ProPublica.

The USDA frequently collaborates with scientists based at universities in the U.S. and abroad. Some agency workers told ProPublica they were uncomfortable with the new requirement because they felt it could put those scientists in the crosshairs of the administration. Students and postdocs are particularly vulnerable as many are in the U.S. on temporary visas and green cards, the employees said.

Jennifer Jones, director for the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, called the directive a “throwback to McCarthyism” that could encourage scientists to avoid working with the “best and brightest” researchers from around the world.

“Asking scientists to spy on and report on their fellow co-authors” is a “classic hallmark of authoritarianism,” Jones said. The Union of Concerned Scientists is an organization that advocates for scientific integrity.

Jones, who hadn’t heard of the instructions until contacted by ProPublica, said she had never witnessed policies so extreme during prior administrations or in her former career as an academic scientist.

The new policy applies to pending scientific publications co-authored by employees in the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service, which conducts research on crop yields, invasive species, plant genetics and other agricultural issues.

The USDA instructed employees to stop agency researchers from collaborating on or publishing papers with scientists from “countries of concern,” including China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela.

But the agency is also vetting scientists from nations not considered “countries of concern” before deciding whether USDA researchers can publish papers with them. Employees are including the names of foreign co-authors from nations such as Canada and Germany on lists shared with the department’s Office of Homeland Security, according to records reviewed by ProPublica. That office leads the USDA’s security initiatives and includes a division that works with federal intelligence agencies. The records don’t say what the office plans to do with the lists of names.

Asked about the changes, the USDA sent a statement noting that in his first term, President Donald Trump signed a memorandum designed to strengthen protections of U.S.-funded research across the federal government against foreign government interference. “USDA under the Biden Administration spent four years failing to implement this directive,” the statement said. The agency said Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins last year rolled out “long-needed changes within USDA’s research enterprise, including a prohibition on authoring a publication with a foreign national from a country of concern.”

International research has been essential to the Agricultural Research Service’s work, according to a page of the USDA website last updated in 2024: “From learning how to mitigate diseases before they reach the United States, to testing models and crops in diverse growing conditions, to accessing resources not available in the United States, cooperation with international partners provides solutions to current and future agricultural challenges.”

Still, the U.S. government has long been worried about agricultural researchers acting as spies, sometimes with good reason. In 2016, the Chinese scientist Mo Hailong was sentenced to three years in prison for conspiring to steal patented corn seeds. And in 2022, Xiang Haitao, admitted to stealing a trade secret from Monsanto.

National security questions have also been raised about recent increases in foreign ownership of agricultural land. In 2022, Congress allocated money for a center to educate U.S. researchers about how to safeguard their data in international collaborations.

Since Trump took office last year, foreign researchers have faced increased obstacles. In March, a French researcher traveling to a conference was denied entry to the U.S. after a search of his phone at the airport turned up messages critical of Trump. The National Institutes of Health blocked researchers from China, Russia and other “countries of concern” from accessing various biomedical databases last spring. And in August, the Department of Homeland Security proposed shortening the length of time foreign students could remain in the country.

But the latest USDA instructions represent a significant escalation, casting suspicion on all researchers from outside the U.S. and asking agency staff to vet the foreign nationals they collaborate with. It’s unclear if employees at other federal agencies have been given similar directions.

The new USDA policy was announced internally in November and followed a July memo from Rollins that highlighted the national security risks of working with scientists who are not U.S. citizens.

“Foreign competitors benefit from USDA-funded projects, receiving loans that support overseas businesses, and grants that enable foreign competitors to undermine U.S. economic and strategic interests,” Rollins wrote in the memo. “Preventing this is the responsibility of every USDA employee.” The memo called for the department to “place America First” by taking a number of steps, including scrutinizing and making lists of the agency’s arrangements to work with foreign researchers and prohibiting USDA employees from participating in foreign programs to recruit scientists, “malign or otherwise.”

Rollins, a lawyer who studied agricultural development, co-founded the pro-Trump America First Policy Institute before being tapped to head the agency.

There have long been restrictions on collaborating with researchers from certain countries, such as Iran and China. But these new instructions create blanket bans on working with scientists from “countries of concern.”

In a late November email to staff members of the Agricultural Research Service at one area office, a research leader instructed managers to immediately stop all research with scientists who come from — or collaborate with institutions in — “countries of concern.”

The email also instructed employees to reject papers with foreign authors if they deal with “sensitive subjects” such as “diversity” or “climate change.” National security concerns were listed as another cause for rejection, with USDA research service employees instructed to ask if a foreigner could use the research against American farmers.

In the audio recording of the December meeting, some employees expressed alarm about the instructions to investigate their fellow scientists. The “part of figuring out if they are foreign … by Googling is very dystopic,” said one person at the meeting, which involved leadership from the Agricultural Research Service.

Faced with questions about how to ascertain the citizenship of a co-author, another person at the meeting said researchers should do their best with a Google search, then put the name on the list “and let Homeland Security do their behind the scenes search.”

Rollins’ July memo specifies that, within 60 days of receiving a list of “current arrangements” that involve foreign people or entities, the USDA’s Office of Homeland Security along with its offices of Chief Scientist and General Counsel should decide which arrangements to terminate. The USDA laid off 70 employees from “countries of concern” last summer as a result of the policy change laid out in the memo, NPR reported.

The USDA and Department of Homeland Security declined to answer questions about what happens to the foreign researchers flagged by the staff beyond potentially having their research papers rejected.

The documents also suggested new guidance would be issued on Jan. 1, but the USDA employees ProPublica interviewed said that the vetting work was continuing and that they had not received any written updates. The staff spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to talk publicly.

Scientists are often evaluated based on their output of new scientific research. Delaying or denying publication of pending papers could derail a researcher’s career. Over the past 40 years, the number of international collaborations among scientists has increased across the board, according to Caroline Wagner, an emeritus professor of public policy at the Ohio State University. “The more elite the researcher, the more likely they’re working at the international level,” said Wagner, who has spent more than 25 years researching international collaboration in science and technology.

The changes in how the USDA is approaching collaboration with foreign researchers, she said, “will certainly reduce the novelty, the innovative nature of science and decrease these flows of knowledge that have been extremely productive for science over the last years.”