Freedom Writers Collaborative

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Trump’s cruel legislation strips 17 million Americans of health insurance through the largest cuts to Medicaid in history, while making it easier for the wealthy to buy private jets through expanded tax breaks.

Their actions show us who they are. Shame!

Two Trump Cabinet members bail on Melania film screening First Lady Melania Trump's eponymous film is debuting this weekend — but two of her husband's top officials are already giving excuses for not attending a viewing event. The conservative Washington Times reported Thursday that "Melania" will be screening for a select audience at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. The First Couple will be in attendance for tonight's viewing, along with the president's Cabinet — save for two members. "Intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard and Energy Secretary Chris Wright had previous obligations," the Washington Times reported, without details on Gabbard and Wright's prior engagements. Both officials were present at the White House for Thursday's Cabinet meeting. According to the Daily Beast, the screening will also be attended by White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and Second Lady Usha Vance. Other guests include a smattering of celebrities and public figures including Fox host Maria Bartiromo, former New York City Mayor Eric Adams, rapper Waka Flocka Flame, convicted fraudster Jordan Belfort (who inspired the film The Wolf of Wall Street) along with various NFL players and UFC fighters. Melania's film is projected to bomb at the box office, with CNN data analyst Harry Enten observing that the film is only expected to bring in $1 million to $5 million in ticket sales during its opening weekend. Enten also noted that online betting markets put strong odds at the film scoring 20 percent or less on film review site Rotten Tomatoes. This is despite Amazon paying Melania Trump $40 million for the exclusive rights to the film, and spending $35 million on advertising. The first lady recently appeared on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) earlier this week to ring the opening bell – which is often a tradition for celebrities promoting an upcoming project. When she was greeted with a lukewarm reception, NYSE Group President Lynn Martin could be seen on video lifting her arms up to the assembled crowd of traders, encouraging them to clap harder.

Two Trump Cabinet members bail on Melania film screening

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Affordability isn’t a hoax—student debt is crushing families. When Trump's donors/enablers get massive tax benefits, but students are stuck with crushing debt, the system itself is the scam! Terrible for our economy! Vote for Democrats who fight not fold.

'Conservative Hollywood' dream 'in ruins' as eight-figure show staggers out the door In early 2020, Daily Wire CEO Jeremy Boreing found himself inspired by the eagerness with which the MAGA community devoured Daily Wire documentaries, and he decided to build a conservative Hollywood in Nashville, according to Bulwark Editor Will Sommer. “Boreing’s pet project was a Game of Thrones–style take on the King Arthur legend, called The Pendragon Cycle: The Rise of Merlin. And, for a while, the right’s long-running dream of having more influence in entertainment seemed like it just might happen,” said Sommer. But then the series caught the common Hollywood bugs of cost overruns and chaos and Boreing abruptly stepped down and vanished last March, according to Sommer. Then came the layoffs of Boreing’s entertainment division. “The dream of cool Hollywood conservatism,” said Sommer, “lay in ruins.” But, lo and behold, the first two episodes of Boreing’s $14 million Pendragon project have finally broken ground. Or, maybe it cost $67 million, as podcaster Candace Owens claimed. Either way, the money just couldn’t buy a path out of mediocrity. “Production-wise, Pendragon has the look of a quickly forgotten second-tier streaming show—which is . . . not bad, certainly when you consider where it’s coming from,” said Sommer. “Unfortunately for Boreing, he was and is no Ted Sarandos, the Netflix honcho hoovering up the competition. Instead, his dreams of bringing Pendragon to life appear to have deeply complicated his own career and the status of the Daily Wire itself. Investors in the conservative news site long ago began to wonder why they were paying so much to make a fantasy TV show when that money could have gone to, say, another dozen podcasts.” In a “Deadline” interview, Boreing claimed the show cost “eight figures,” with “seven figures” spent on each of the seven episodes, said Sommer — which does not compare with the cheap, self-soothing schmear of Daily Wire’s 2024 documentary Am I Racist? costing just $3 million and then going on to “become the highest-grossing documentary of 2024.” The problem for Pendragon is that Daily Wire’s audience prefers to buttress its beliefs with echo chamber documentaries, not wizards with arcane ties to Atlantis. It’s yet to be seen what kind of return all that money is going to bring, but Sommer notes that Boreing touched on his “apparently soured relationship” with Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro in the “Deadline” interview. “Either way, Boreing seems more focused on the world of movies now,” said Sommer. “He told Deadline he wants to launch ‘a conservative alternative to A24.’ He said Hollywood treats conservative viewers ‘as though they’re anathema. It takes them for granted.’” “… [T]he sky’s the limit for Boreing’s conservative-film ambitions,” said Sommer, “as long as he is willing to cut the check this time.” Read the Bulwark report at this link.

'Conservative Hollywood' dream 'in ruins' as eight-figure show staggers out the door

NATO to Hold Military Exercise Without U.S., Its Largest Member The operation, Steadfast Dart, comes as President Trump has been accused of undermining the alliance and will be watched closely to see how well the allies manage without their most important partner.

NATO to Hold Military Exercise Without U.S., Its Largest Member

An Ethicist ‘in the Scalia Mold’: The Minnesota Judge Blasting ICE Judge Patrick Schiltz, an appointee of George W. Bush, became an unlikely foil for his criticism of the Trump administration’s tactics in Minnesota.

An Ethicist ‘in the Scalia Mold’: The Minnesota Judge Blasting ICE

Trump's Greenland envoy is in for a 'rude awakening': diplomat One of President Donald Trump's ambassadors is trying to downplay his second job, but another former diplomat is issuing a warning. It's rare for the governor of a state to take on a second job, but that's what Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) did when he agreed to be Trump's "Ambassador to Greenland." There is no official position of ambassador to Greenland, as Greenland is a territory of Denmark. Still, Trump wanted it, and Landry was happy to comply as a special envoy. Now he's trying to spell out how he can do both jobs at once. Speaking to The Washington Post, he explained that he's not an ambassador, in that he lives and works in Greenland, as others do. “Look, I think that the titles can somewhat be misleading,” he began. “I look at my job under this as almost like a representative of the United States and the state of Louisiana, to see what kind of economic opportunities there could be with trade in Greenland and Louisiana.” He said in a December episode of "The Will Cain Show" that since summers in Louisiana are so horrible, Greenland is looking like a great tourist destination for those in his home state. Thus far, his side hustle has consisted of talking about the U.S. and Greenland on television. “They tell me they like to hunt, they like to fish, they like to have a good time,” Landry said in a Fox News interview. “I’m like, ‘Y’all belong in Louisiana.’” “We should go to Greenland and say, ‘Hey, what kind of opportunities would you like? What are we doing? What can we offer you that Europe is not?” he added when speaking on CNBC. The Post told a story about a Trump fan from Greenland who attended the inauguration and Turking Point USA inaugural ball. The report described him as the type of person that one would imagine the administration reaching out to. No one has. But neither has Per Berthelsen, a member of Greenland's parliament. Aaja Chemniz, a Greenlandic member of Parliament in Denmark, chairs the Greenland committee. She hasn't heard from Landry either. "As of last week, Sen. James E. Risch (R-Idaho), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, hadn’t heard from Landry, either. Nor had Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), his Democratic counterpart. Nor Jesper Moller Sorensen, the Danish ambassador to the United States. Nor Jacob Isbosethsen, the Greenland representative to the United States and Canada." Landry said he replied to some emails from people in Greenland. But, he told Fox, “I’m not interested in going to an embassy and talking to diplomats." "I haven’t gotten directly on the phone yet,” he told the Post. “There can be a language barrier, me and the U.S., let alone me and Greenlandic or Danish.” He also wasn't at the meeting between Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland. During their hour-long conversation, the Post said that Landry's name never came up once. The day after the meeting, Landry said he went to Washington to meet with Rubio. He also said that he has chatted with the governor of Alaska about going on a trip to Greenland at some point. When the Post asked whether he was still the special envoy, Landry assumed he was. “As far as I know, he hasn’t dismissed me,” Landry said. His plan is to have a kind of “culinary diplomacy,” to win over Greenlanders who have been hostile to the U.S. after Trump's threats. “They catch a lot of fish there,” he said. “Maybe we can teach them how to make a Greenland version of gumbo.” “You think gumbo is going to want to make them be purchased?” asked Rufus Gifford, who was President Barack Obama's ambassador to Denmark. “You’re in for a rude awakening.” Read the full report here.

Trump's Greenland envoy is in for a 'rude awakening': diplomat

Justice Dept. brings federal charge against man accused of attack on Rep. Omar He faces a count alleging that he “forcibly assaulted, opposed, impeded, intimidated an officer and employee of the United States” as Omar was performing her official duties as a member of Congress.

Justice Dept. brings federal charge against man accused of attack on Rep. Omar

BBC News correspondent warns US: 'You are all being incited into civil war' While the idea might once have seemed "far-fetched," the U.S. may now be descending into a second civil war due to Donald Trump's embrace of "anarchy," according to a new analysis from The i Paper. In a piece published on Thursday, veteran BBC News foreign correspondent Paul Wood wrote that the scenes of "mayhem on the streets of Minneapolis" have experts seriously questioning whether or not the U.S. is on track for a civil war. The idea has been floated for years now, typically by members of the party in opposition to the current president, but in light of Trump's aggression towards blue states and his flouting of the constitutional order, the suggestion has taken on a dire urgency. Wood related the story of a 2024 exercise conducted by the University of Pennsylvania to "game out how a conflict within the US might begin," with the involvement of former government officials and military officers. The results, Wood argued, strikingly similar to the events now unfolding in Minneapolis. "In the exercise, a violent confrontation develops between state and federal forces in Philadelphia," Wood explained. "It begins when the president of the day orders a controversial operation to detain undocumented migrants, despite opposition from the mayor and the governor. He attempts to federalise Pennsylvania’s National Guard but the governor resists. The Guard stays loyal to the state and the president then sends in the regular army. The result is an armed conflict between state and federal forces: civil war." Professor Claire Finkelstein, who led the exercise, told Wood that it was becoming increasingly likely that Trump might invoke the Insurrection Act in response to pushback against his deportation agenda. This would allow him to deploy the military within U.S. borders, setting the stage for the outcome reached by her 2024 exercise. Finkelstein compared the prospect to Dwight Eisenhower invoking the act to enforce the desegregation of schools, after the governor of Arkansas had called in the state's national guard to block nine black children from attending an all-white school. In that instance, the president had the backing of a Supreme Court ruling, whereas Trump has "no judicial backing" for his deportation agenda's "hardline tactics." Recently, former GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, once a staunch Trump ally turned critic, warned that the American people were being "incited into civil war" after the killing of Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis. “Both sides need to take off their political blinders,” Greene said. “You are all being incited into civil war, yet none of it solves any of the real problems that we all face, and tragically people are dying.”

BBC News correspondent warns US: 'You are all being incited into civil war'

Groups Back Larson Challenger, Calling for Generational Change Three outside political groups are backing Luke Bronin in his primary challenge to Representative John Larson, the 77-year-old Connecticut Democrat.

Groups Back Larson Challenger, Calling for Generational Change

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Fact: Immigrants—documented and undocumented—commit fewer crimes than U.S.-born citizens.

Fear-mongering ≠ facts.

#ImmigrantsAreNotCriminals

Nevada journalist warns of 'trick' Trump is playing with FBI’s Georgia elections probe During his Wednesday, January 21 speech at the 2026 World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, U.S. President Donald Trump repeated his debunked claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him and promised that "people will soon be prosecuted for what they did." "It was a rigged election," Trump told Davos attendees. "We can't have rigged elections." European reporters were quick to fact-check Trump, noting that one recount after another confirmed that 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden won the election fair and square. But a week later in Georgia, on Wednesday, January 28, FBI agents searched an elections center looking for 2020 election records. Georgia was among the swing states that Trump lost in 2020 but won in 2016 and 2024. In some January 29 posts on X, formerly Twitter, Nevada Independent CEO Jon Ralston stressed that the search is about much more than Georgia and much more than 2020. Ralston said of the FBI search, "Outrageous and frightening. No basis to do this, all court cases Trump filed came to naught in 2020. And don't forget this from Trump in '22: 'Clark County, Nevada, has a corrupt voting system...' Does anyone think he'll stop w/[Georgia]? And still: The silence of the GOP lambs." Referencing the 2026 midterms in a separate tweet, Ralston posted, "This has little to do with 2020. With the likelihood of the GOP losing the House in November and the Senate perhaps in play, this is all about what Trump is planning for this year's election. Calling an election corrupt so you can corrupt an election is quite the trick."

Nevada journalist warns of 'trick' Trump is playing with FBI’s Georgia elections probe

Budget Hotels Become an Immigration Battleground for ICE Protests “No sleep” protests have used noise and other tactics to target ICE agents at hotels, leaving the owners, often immigrants themselves, caught in the middle.

Budget Hotels Become an Immigration Battleground for ICE Protests

Federal judge cites 'constitutional overreach' in Minnesota in ruling against Trump The fallout of Donald Trump's massive deportation operation continues to spread across the legal system, with a judge in a deep-red state citing the situation in Minnesota in an immigration ruling against the Trump administration. On Thursday, Politico's Kyle Cheney highlighted a new ruling from federal Judge Joseph R. Goodwin for the Southern District of West Virginia, calling for a detained immigrant to be released after they filed a habeas petition alleging that they had been held for multiple days without a hearing. Goodwin's ruling compared this to "holding a citizen on a criminal charge without an arraignment or bail hearing," a delay that "the Constitution does not tolerate." In a footnote, Goodwin stressed that petitioners do not only have Constitutional protection while filing a suit, something he felt compelled to note given the current "national, political and legal context." "Of course, the Petitioner does not have constitutional protections only when he files a habeas petition," Goodwin explained. "That distinction — that constitutional rights do not only protect persons when a lawsuit has been filed — is an important one. It is because of the many lawsuits surrounding ICE actions (including arrest, detention, and other enforcement action) that I cannot view this case outside of the national, political, and legal context. Across the country, federal immigration enforcement operations have sparked controversy and concerns about constitutional overreach. In Minneapolis, federal immigration and border agents have been involved in multiple fatal shootings of U.S. citizens. Those events have prompted widespread protest and calls for accountability." "Judges around the country are eyeing what's happening in Minnesota," Cheney wrote in a post to social media about the decision. "In a ruling freeing a detained immigrant here, Judge Goodwin of West Virginia said he couldn't ignore the crises in MN." Goodwin was appointed to his current position in 1995 by former President Bill Clinton. Despite being a Democrat appointee, he has recently ruled in ways favorable to Republicans, such as in 2022, when he ruled that a ban on firearms without serial numbers for tracking was unconstitutional. West Virginia is often considered one of the most conservative states in the U.S., breaking for Trump in the 2024 election by nearly 42 points.Judges around the country are eyeing what's happening in Minnesota. In a ruling freeing a detained immigrant here, Judge Goodwin of West Virginia said he couldn't ignore the crises in MN. "Constitutional rights do not only protect persons when a lawsuit has been filed.… pic.twitter.com/NSGrCKqOvm — Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 29, 2026

Federal judge cites 'constitutional overreach' in Minnesota in ruling against Trump

Democratic Governors Promise Accountability After Alex Pretti Killing The chin-out rhetoric of Democratic governors about holding Trump administration officials responsible for violence in their cities may be more political than practicable.

Democratic Governors Promise Accountability After Alex Pretti Killing

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Trump told his conspiracy believers that he would “drain the swamp” & expose Epstein’s network. Now he claims the Epstein files never existed, triggering a MAGA crisis of faith so deep it's even shaking some of his most loyal insiders. Share the truth.

Democrats negotiating with White House ahead of potential government shutdown Most of the federal government is expected to shut down beginning Saturday as Republicans and Democrats scramble to strike a deal on DHS funding.

Democrats negotiating with White House ahead of potential government shutdown

Trump Moves to Sell Former Home of Capital’s Trump Hotel The Old Post Office, a 19th-century building in the nation’s capital with an iconic clock tower, was once home to the Trump International Hotel.

Trump Moves to Sell Former Home of Capital’s Trump Hotel

Lead 2020 election conspiracy theorist poses with Trump DOJ official after FBI search When Donald Trump won the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, two of the four criminal prosecutions he was facing at the time stemmed from his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results: a federal indictment prosecuted by then-special counsel Jack Smith, and a Georgia indictment prosecuted by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Both of those election interference cases were doomed when Trump defeated Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in 2024's general election, and the president continues to claim, without evidence, that the 2020 election was stolen from him. One of Trump's most aggressive supporters after he lost Georgia to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 was attorney Sidney Powell, who promoted a range of conspiracy theories on the election results in Georgia. And now, Powell is resurfacing after an FBI search in that state. On Wednesday, January 28, FBI agents searched a Georgia election center, looking for records on the 2020 election. And the following day on X, formerly Twitter, Ed Martin (a Trump appointee to the U.S. Department of Justice) posted a photo of him with Powell — writing, "Good morning, America. How are ya?" The Bulwark's Will Sommer, in response to Martin's tweet, posted, "After FBI raid on GA election office for 2020 ballots, top DOJ official posts a picture with leading election conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell." Attorney David Colapinto, responding to the Martin/Powell photo, tweeted, "Are these two in charge of recounting the ballots?" Powell was among Trump's many co-defendants in Willis' election interference case. In October 2023, she pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor charges and avoided jail time but was sentenced to six months of probation.

Lead 2020 election conspiracy theorist poses with Trump DOJ official after FBI search

Handling of Pretti probe prompts prosecutors to consider resignations Federal prosecutors in Minneapolis, deeply frustrated by the response to the shootings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, have suggested they could resign en masse.

Handling of Pretti probe prompts prosecutors to consider resignations

How Trump is creating a 'forever war' in Europe: ex-US Army colonel After Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-fledged invasion of Ukraine in 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden was an aggressive proponent of military aid to President Volodymyr Zelensky's troops. Biden maintained that there would be no American "boots on the ground" in Ukraine, but now-Vice President JD Vance was highly critical of Biden's Ukraine policy and argued that the U.S. had nothing to gain from helping the war-torn country. And some MAGA Republicans even accused Biden of being a neocon. But the isolationist tone that U.S. President Donald Trump had in the past has been replaced by much more interventionist policies, from Venezuela to Greenland. In an op-ed published by The Hill on January 29, retired U.S. Army Col. Jonathan Sweet and national security/foreign policy journalist Mark Toth warn that Trump's policies may be creator a "forever war" in Europe. "A poll conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in December revealed that 75 percent of Ukrainians 'rejected a proposed peace plan that would involve the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from Donbas,'" Sweet and Toth explain. "The harder Russia pushes back, the harder the Trump Administration appears to come back and lean on Ukraine. It is just a matter of time before Trump will again accuse Zelensky of 'not wanting peace' and being an 'obstructionist.' Russia wants to make a deal with the U.S. — only to secure that deal, Trump needs Zelensky to stop resisting." Sweet and Toth continue, "For now, the sticking point is the Donbas. But what if Ukraine agreed to withdraw from the region? Would Russia end the war? Probably not. It will just lead to the next bone of contention." Sweet and Toth warn that Putin is showing no signs of backing down on Ukraine. "Trump has the cards to end the war, but those cards need to be played against Russia and not Ukraine," Sweet and Toth argue. "He must coerce Russia to stop attacking, give up their territorial aspirations for the Donbas, and accept a European military peace-keeping force in Ukraine. That will likely require military force. It begins with a NATO-enforced no-fly zone over western Ukraine, sufficiently arming Kyiv to defeat Russian forces in Ukraine, and destroying Moscow's ability to fund and sustain the war. Anything less equals a Team Trump forever war in Europe." Jonathan Sweet and Mark Toth's full op-ed for The Hill is available at this link.

How Trump is creating a 'forever war' in Europe: ex-US Army colonel

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The corrupt Trump regime uses political violence to try to force states to hand over state voter ID rolls & drop legal challenges.

The regime needs elections that still look real, but are a rigged farce. The outcome already decided before anyone votes.

Critics pounce over push to rename Dulles terminal after Trump Long before he first ran for president — which was in 2000 with a short-lived Reform Party campaign — Donald Trump made a point of putting his name on buildings, from Trump Tower in Manhattan to the Trump Taj Mahal and other hotels and casinos in Atlantic City. During his second president, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. has been renamed the John F. Kennedy and Donald J. Trump Center for the Performing Arts. And now, according to Fast Company, architecture firms are floating ideas for a new terminal at D.C.'s Dulles International Airport that would be named after Trump. Fast Company's Hunter Schwarz, in an article published on January 29, reports, "In December 2025, the Department of Transportation (DOT) put out a call for design concepts for new terminals and concourses at Washington Dulles International Airport…. The agency said it was looking for proposals to either replace the airport's existing main terminal and satellite concourses or build upon them… A number of firms submitted proposals, including Ferrovial, Phoenix Infrastructure Group, and Alvarez & Marshal Infrastructure and Capital Projects." Schwarz adds, "The submission from Bermello Ajamil & Partners and Zaha Hadid Architects included architectural renderings with a prominent feature that appears to be custom designed for a president who is fond of putting his name on things. The firms' proposed terminal design would boast a 'grand arch' made of a transparent facade and lettering that reads 'Donald J. Trump Terminal.' In some renderings, the name is written out in Trajan, a serif font used by the Trump Organization." The proposal to name a Dulles Airport terminal after Trump is drawing a lot of reactions on X, formerly Twitter. Philip Oldfield, director of the architecture program at Australia's University of New South Wales, Sydney, tweeted, "'Make Airports Great Again.' That's what Zaha Hadid Architects promise (they really said it!) with their design of the ‘Donald J Trump Terminal’ at Washington International Airport[.] Desperate much?" San Francisco-based architectural designer Kepa Askenasy commented, "Lame." Journalist Edward Russell noted that "most of" the terminal would be turned into a "ceremonial space." And he also pointed out that one estimated cost for the project is "up to $45 billion." Aden Yacobi, president of the Penn Transportation Club, tweeted, "What is the rationale for needing an entirely new terminal and spending money on that vs other endeavors? I’ve flown out of Dulles a few times and never experienced long lines at check-in or security, albeit I’m not sure if I’ve flown out during peak times." Read Hunter Schwarz's full article for Fast Company at this link.

Critics pounce over push to rename Dulles terminal after Trump

Trump’s Ukraine peace ambitions threatened by stubborn realities Russia’s foreign minister shot down the security guarantees demanded by Ukraine for any deal, once again saying the current regime in Kyiv should end.

Trump’s Ukraine peace ambitions threatened by stubborn realities

MAGA rages against Trump 'betrayal' after Minnesota shift Donald Trump finds himself caught in a tight bind, according to a new analysis from the Washington Post, attempting appease the broader electorate with a retreat in Minnesota that his loyal MAGA base has deemed a "betrayal." Following the deaths of two American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis, public support for ICE, CBP and Trump's overall deportation agenda has been plummeting faster than ever. Acutely sensitive to his declining popularity, the president has responded with an apparent effort to de-escalate the immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota, removing CBP commander Greg Bovino from the field and sidelining DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. In an analysis of the situation published Thursday, the Washington Post argued that Trump was caught in a tough balancing act, trying to signal a de-escalation to voters unhappy with his immigration agenda, while avoiding explicit details. "The conflict has put the normally resolute Trump in an unusual spot, needing to tread carefully on an issue that he has previously plowed ahead on with threats and swagger," the Post explained. "The result has been mixed signals from the White House — and fresh evidence of the difficult task Trump faces in a midterm election year of appeasing both his MAGA base and a broader swath of voters... Yet Trump has not articulated a clear shift in immigration strategy, leaving the public unsure of where he actually stands or what comes next." There is also now a growing wave of criticism from Trump's MAGA base over his handling of the Minnesota situation, with supporters suggesting that a retreat from hardline deportation plans is a "betrayal" of what they voted for. Mark Mitchell, head pollster at the conservative Rasmussen Reports, explained to the Post that wider public approval of ICE and mass deportation is plunging, meaning that the administration must make changes, despite what Republican voters still want to see. “Ten years, this has been the core part of his platform — ‘They all have to go home ... Build the wall,’” Mitchell said, adding that Trump's talk of focusing in on just deporting violent criminals signals to MAGA voters that he "caved on the major campaign promise.” Steve Bannon, once a close adviser to Trump and a prominent MAGA commentator, said on Wednesday that he has urged the administration not to de-escalate its deportation plans. "This is an inflection point — you blink now and you’re going to blink forever," Bannon said. "You bend the knee now, you’ll bend the knee forever."

MAGA rages against Trump 'betrayal' after Minnesota shift

America is burning — and intent on taking everybody else down with us Both of my daughters live in the United Kingdom. That makes me one of the luckiest and unluckiest dads in the world. My girls are married to a pair of blokes from sturdy Northeast England, who I can’t help but love with all my heart. And believe me, I looked for every reason not to, because when a dad’s daughter is to be married, her partner better love her more than he loves himself, or else … I don’t see my daughters, who have dual citizenships, or their top-ranked husbands near as much as I’d like, which is the part that makes me unlucky. That these days, they are safe and far away from one of the most dangerous countries in the world makes me lucky. America is no place for smart, tough, kind-hearted souls like my daughters. My youngest daughter, and her husband I can’t help but love, are due for a visit in April, but we are in the middle of a discussion that I never thought possible before Nov. 8, 2016, when hate blew a hole through America’s shrinking heart, and I saw for myself just how sick we had become. As this hate tries to overwhelm us, we are talking about putting off this visit. I am deeply, deeply depressed, and angry as hell it has gotten to this point. Here is part of what daughter, Kristin, dashed off to me in a missive Tuesday:“… I wouldn’t have visited Germany in 1939, and I don’t really want to give any of my money to America at the moment. It feels weird to visit a country that’s literally murdering their citizens in broad daylight with no repercussions and that has detention centres (concentration camps). It feels morally extremely tricky. It just feels horrific to pop over to an awful place that stands against a lot of the stuff I stand for.” “An awful place that stands against a lot of the stuff I stand for …” She’s right about every bit of that, and it kills me to say it, because I miss her so bad my heart hurts. Maybe if she’d unsubscribe from my work she wouldn’t see things so damn clearly. I’m joking of course, because no matter what I’m banging on about here, there are millions and millions of others around the globe like Kris who see very clearly what is happening in America right now. History is still an important subject in places like Europe and the UK, and history is what should be ringing in our ears right now, because it can instruct where we are and where we must go, or else ... Trump and his fascist Republican Party are soulless, evil ghouls who are setting the stage to break us for good. If you can somehow forget their recent murders, then simply consider their absurd stands against vaccines, science, foreign aid, domestic aid, clean air and water, books, voting rights, human rights, affordable healthcare, NATO, and the truth. The truth is, America deserves to be shunned by anybody with a beating heart. While we’ve never been the great nation many of those GOP ghouls want you to believe, you’d be hard-pressed to point to a time in recent memory that we’ve been this distinctively rotten. And here’s more truth: I can’t stand many of the poisoned people I share this country with. They are dangerous, and sicken me to the core. After the first Trump iteration ended with his violent coup attempt, I hoped there was still a chance we could pick up the broken pieces and glue them together again. I hoped that maybe after the treasonous assault that billions of people across the world witnessed on TV, Republicans would acknowledge their massive mistake, and join the rest of us who believe in the rule of law. I hoped they would join us in doing everything to make sure that kind of high-test evil never happened again. Not only couldn’t they do that much, they doubled down with their endless supply of bile, and now seem intent on finishing us off no matter what. There are no lines left they won’t cross. They are led by a devil, who has never apologized for any one of the thousands of truly gruesome things he has done over the course of his miserable life. I gave up on them when they gave up on decency. There’s no meeting in the middle when one of the two major parties have thrown themselves at the feet of the most dangerous man in the world since Adolph Hitler. While creeping up to this terrible place over the decades with illegal wars for profit, and double-talk on the environment, America has finally officially reached the point where it no longer enjoys the benefit of the doubt from the rest of the world. This is an incredibly sad and dangerous place to be, because isolating ourselves from our neighbors doesn’t make us stronger, it makes us weaker. It doesn’t make us smarter, it makes us dumber. It doesn’t broaden our horizons, it cages us in ignorance. Our longtime allies have had enough of us, and will no longer believe us when we say it can never happen here, because they can so clearly see the worst has already arrived, even if too damn many people who should know better still won’t see it. Through Revolutionary wars, Civil wars, World wars and illegal wars, America still tenuously hung onto its diminishing reputation as a force for good. We used to fight against fascism, not embrace it. Thousands have gone to their graves in our righteous wars fighting for what used to be America’s greatest ideals. You’ll find many of their graves stretched out one after another in proud, uniformed white lines on so many battlefields in Europe … Joe Biden did everything he could to restore order and America’s place among its worldly friends, but there were just too damn many people intent on destroying us from within to allow that to happen. Day after day, Republicans and their slobbery, lifeless billionaires have been attacking America with a vigor, and for the life of me, I can’t understand how the hell everybody here can’t see this. You don’t starve your populace of life-saving medicine, science, and programs that help them, if you really care about them. It’s no wonder South Carolina is now dealing with the largest measles outbreak in the United States since we declared that disease eliminated more than two decades ago. Truly sickening. I won’t turn this column off before acknowledging that Europe and UK are not as pure as wind-driven snow, either. They have bloodthirsty, racist far-Right political elements that hang around those places like the measles. They are beating them back, however, and standing together. These terrible days, however, they are doing that without our help which would be bad enough, except we are also going out of our way to make everything just as hard as possible. Because that’s what fascist, low-class bullies do, while winking at Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who positively delights in all this. I spent many years living overseas for most of George W. Bush’s disastrous presidency, which was punctuated by that damn war in Iraq. I did my best to explain to my friends and colleagues in the Far East and Europe that many Americans opposed that illegal atrocity. Some gave me the benefit of the doubt. Others were rightfully suspicious. When Barack Obama was elected I was finally able to puff out my chest, and get some of the doubters off my back. That was a long time ago now, and things have gotten considerably worse. America is burning, and intent on taking everybody down with us. I am still hoping I will see my daughter in April, but I have a hard time telling her that staying as far away as possible right now isn’t the prudent course. D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

America is burning — and intent on taking everybody else down with us

Amy Klobuchar Announces Run for Minnesota Governor The Democratic senator, who signaled her bid after Gov. Tim Walz said he wouldn’t run again, talked about moving past political divides in a video announcement.

Amy Klobuchar Announces Run for Minnesota Governor

Friction emerges between Trump and Venezuelan opposition over Machado’s return The administration may prefer reliability over democracy in Caracas, worrying advocates for opposition leader María Corina Machado.

Friction emerges between Trump and Venezuelan opposition over Machado’s return

A 'fitting monument to the Trump presidency' In October of 2025, President Donald Trump razed the East Wing of the White House to the ground to make room for a massive new proposed ballroom. As of January 2026, the site remains empty, and construction may never get off the ground before Trump leaves office. Now, one journalist is making the case that the potentially permanently stalled ballroom serves as the ideal metaphor for Trump's second term. In a Wednesday article for The Atlantic, writer David A. Graham observed that Trump has failed to learn the lesson as president that he should have learned as a real estate developer — destruction is always easier than building. He argued that this applies both to his ballroom project and his policy agenda, both of which have caused rampant destruction but have yet to bear fruit. As Graham explained, Trump's ballroom construction has been put on hold following a lawsuit filed by the nonprofit group National Trust for Historic Preservation. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon (an appointee of former President George W. Bush) indicated in a hearing last week that he would likely rule in plaintiffs' favor. He scoffed at arguments from Trump administration attorneys that the ballroom – whose cost has ballooned from $200 million to $400 million in a matter of months – was no different than other modest updates to the White House, like former President Gerald Ford's addition of a swimming pool. The Atlantic author noted that regardless of Judge Leon's decision about whether to allow construction to continue, it will almost certainly be appealed by either plaintiffs or the administration, extending the battle in court for an indefinite period of time while the construction site sits empty. According to Graham, should the demolished East Wing never be anything more than a mound of dirt and a smattering of machinery, it would be a "fitting monument to the Trump presidency." "DOGE found it relatively easy to destroy USAID, but the administration hasn’t been able to create any new way of extending soft power around the globe," Graham wrote. "Leveling threats of tariffs on adversaries and allies alike has been relatively easy, but the result has been a weakening of the economy and American trade ties, and a crumbling of the old global-trade system. He has been unable to bring a huge boom of manufacturing jobs and factories to U.S. shores." "Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement has deported so many people, led so many people to leave the country, and discouraged so many people from coming that U.S. population growth slowed dramatically between June 2024, near the end of the Biden administration, and July 2025, according to numbers released this week by the Census Bureau," he continued. "Yet the right’s hope for pronatalist policies that would try to drive up birth rates have amounted to little." Graham argued that just as Trump's vision of a grand White House ballroom continues to be stymied by cost and complexity, so too are his policy visions. He wrote that while the president teased having "concepts of a plan" to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act during the 2024 campaign, he has so far been unable to "put together anything resembling a real blueprint for improving health insurance." And he posited that the Trump administration's "Make America Healthy Again" agenda has yet to deliver anything other than "undermining the existing institutions and practices of American public health." "Some Democrats have said that any new president who replaces Trump should move promptly to tear down his ballroom," Graham wrote. "If the project never moves forward, though, they’ll have no need."

A 'fitting monument to the Trump presidency'

Red states stand to gain more political power over immigration shift A drop in immigration amid President Donald Trump’s enforcement crackdown led to historically slow population growth in the United States last year. Activity at the southern border is at a historic low. The population change reflects the last months of the Biden administration, when immigration controls began to tighten, and the first months of the Trump administration’s massive anti-immigration and deportation agenda. Five states lost population, according to the new Census Bureau estimates released Jan. 27 covering changes between mid-2024 and mid-2025. The changes suggest Texas and Florida could gain congressional seats at the expense of California, Illinois and New York. States that did gain population were concentrated in the South, where numbers appear to give Republican states in the region a political edge halfway through the decade. An analysis by Jonathan Cervas at Carnegie Mellon University predicted four more seats in Congress after the 2030 census for Texas and Florida, with losses of four seats in California and two each in New York and Illinois. Cervas is an assistant teaching professor who researches representation and redistricting. “We are still a long way off from 2030, so there is a lot of uncertainty in these projections,” Cervas said, adding that California’s loss in the next decade could be only two or three seats. Another expert, redistricting consultant Kimball Brace of Virginia, said he was suspicious of the sudden drop in California’s population. Earlier projections had the state losing only one seat after 2030, he said. “This acceleration in California’s population loss is not something that was in the projections at all,” Brace said. “I’ve got to be a little bit skeptical in terms of the numbers. It shows a significant difference in what we’ve seen in the early part of the decade.” Brace was still working on his own analysis. William Frey, a demographer at The Brookings Institution, said net immigration was about 1.3 million nationally for the year, down by more than half from the year before. “As a result most states showed slower growth or greater declines,” Frey said. California had about 200,000 fewer immigrants than the previous year, similar to Texas and New York, though those two states eked out populations gains anyway because of people moving in and births Texas and North Carolina gained the most people between mid-2024 and mid-2025, while California and Hawaii lost the most. Nationally, the population increased only about 1.7 million, or half a percentage point, to about 341.8 million. It was the lowest increase of the decade and the smallest gain since the pandemic sharply cut growth in 2020 and 2021. Growth was just 1.4 million between mid-2019 and mid-2020, and only about 500,000 between mid-2020 and mid-2021. Before that, national population growth was below 2 million only twice since 1975. Among the states, Texas gained about 391,000 in population, up 1.2%, followed in the top 5 by Florida (197,000, or .8%, North Carolina (146,000, or 1.3%), Georgia (99,000, or .9%) and South Carolina (80,000, or 1.5%). California went from one of the largest increases the previous year to the greatest population loss, about 9,500, less than .1%, followed by Hawaii (down 2,000, or .1%), Vermont (down 1,900 or 0.3%), New Mexico (down 1,300, or 0.1%) and West Virginia (down 1,300 or .1%). Vermont had the largest percentage decrease and South Carolina had the largest increase. Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

Red states stand to gain more political power over immigration shift