Donald Trump has sweeping plans for a second administration. Here’s what he’s proposed

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Yet Another ICE Nightmare Unfolds Miles Away From Fatal Shooting

An account of a seemingly random arrest of a 20-year-old U.S. citizen by ICE agents with weapons drawn occurred just one day after Renee Good’s killing.

The first sign of an impending nightmare for 20-year-old Jose Roberto Ramirez came just after 11 a.m. on Thursday in the suburban town of Robbinsdale, just outside Minneapolis.

According to Ramirez, a U.S. citizen, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents began following his vehicle. What he alleges followed next was a violent, random arrest and detainment.

It happened roughly 10 miles away from where an unarmed mother and U.S. citizen, Renee Nicole Good, 37, was killed the day prior.

Good, who was trying to flee a street where a federal immigration raid was occurring when an ICE agent fatally shot her, was almost immediately labeled a “domestic terrorist” by Kristi Noem and other top Trump administration officials.

Ramirez recounted that, on Thursday, he stopped for a red light behind a Ford Explorer. When the signal turned green, the Explorer did not move.

“It just stood there,” Ramirez told the Daily Beast on Friday. “I just stood there for a while.”

The Explorer had tinted windows, but when Ramirez finally pulled around the other vehicle, he could see that it was occupied by men in tactical gear. He surmised they were with ICE. The shooting of Good, who left behind an orphaned six-year-old, had occupied national headlines for the previous 24 hours.

“We made eye contact,” Ramirez recalled.

Ramirez is American, born of mixed ancestry—part Mexican, part Native American of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa. Ramirez figured ICE agents would view him as a non-white person in a BMW and grew nervous. He saw in his rear-view mirror that the Explorer had begun to move behind him. He called his aunt, Shawntia Sosa-Clara, who lives in the immediate area.

Ramirez was still on the phone with Sosa-Clara, saying he was afraid he was being followed by ICE, when a traffic signal up ahead began to change.

“I make it past the green light, and it turns red for them,” he recalled. Ramirez then saw that the Explorer kept coming, turning on the vehicle’s emergency lights as they passed through the intersection.

“Then they turn their lights off,” Ramirez said. “All of a sudden, I see them right up behind me. Then I see them put their masks up. So I was like, ‘Oh yeah, auntie, they’re gonna stop me.’”

Ramirez and Sosa-Clara quickly agreed to meet in the parking lot of a nearby Hy-Vee supermarket. He pulled in, and the Explorer was right behind him. The agents jumped out and drew their service weapons.

“Pointing their guns,” Ramirez remembers. “They’re screaming.”

Sosa-Clara arrived in her Nissan moments later, and Ramirez said the agents also pointed their weapons at her. She had already called the Robbinsdale police on her way to meet Ramirez to inform the department that her nephew was being followed by ICE. A police car appeared, stopping across the parking lot. The ICE agents approached the police officers and exchanged a few words.

In the meantime, Ramirez hurried into his aunt’s Nissan, its interior all pink, a feather hanging as a sacred object from her rearview mirror. She was recording on Facebook Live as the agents returned. “You got ID?” one of the agents asked.

“Yes, he has an ID,” the aunt said, then she instructed Ramirez, “Get your ID.”

Ramirez had anticipated this. He had taken out his driver’s license as he was getting out of the BMW, but he had misplaced it in the sudden panic. His aunt tried to placate the agents while he searched for it.

“We’re citizens!” she said. “We’re Native!”

She was asserting that her roots long predate the first European arrivals in North America, and that she and Ramirez have ties to the only ethnic group that cannot be called “immigrants.”

“He’s my nephew!” she added.

She went on to express an increasingly common feeling about ICE.

“They’re really mean people,” she said to her nephew about the agents as they surrounded the car. “They have no heart. They aren’t human. They’re not even human.”

The sentiment was rare during the years when President Barack Obama was known as the “Deporter-in-Chief.” The Obama administration deported roughly three million people, a record for a modern president at that time. Under the second Trump administration, the president declared he would beat Obama’s numbers and deliver the largest mass deportations in U.S. history—a promise he has not yet met.

But beyond metrics, even while overseeing a record number of deportations, Obama was not calling immigrants “vermin” and “garbage,” as Trump has frequently done since he first began campaigning for president more than 10 years ago.

And ICE agents were not uniformly wearing masks.

As the encounter continued, one of the agents appeared to use a cellphone to scan Ramirez’s face. ICE has been employing facial recognition software to identify undocumented immigrants.

“Let them scan your face,” Sosa-Clara told Ramirez.

Ramirez had raised his own cell phone to record the agents. He told the Beast that one of them knocked it from his hand, punching him in the face in the process.

“Why did you hit him?” the aunt exclaimed. “No! No! No!”

A captain with the local police later told the Daily Beast that footage either from his officer’s body cameras or a squad car camera shows Ramirez punching an ICE agent. Ramirez and the aunt both insist that the agents were the only ones who punched. The Facebook video does not clearly show any punches. It does show Ramirez being grabbed by the neck as he was being removed from the Nissan.

“Get the f--- out of the car!” an agent can be heard saying.

Ramirez asserts that the agents struck him repeatedly in the head as he was dragged from the car. He said the agents threw him against a Tesla charging station and then handcuffed him. The cuffs dug painfully into his wrists, and he asked the agents to loosen them.

“They made it tighter,” Ramirez remembered.

Ramirez was loaded into the back of the Explorer and was driven at a considerable speed to the Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, the city where Ramirez was born. He told the Daily Beast that during this car ride, the agents in the vehicle made light of the fatal shooting of Renee Good the day before. They said Ramirez was sure to meet family members in detention, that he was going to prison, and that his life was over.

“They are saying, ‘The boys are in town. We’re gonna light the city on fire!’” Ramirez told the Daily Beast. “A whole bunch of that crazy stuff.”

At the facility, the agents scanned Ramirez’s face twice more with no apparent result. He was then shackled, fingerprinted, and photographed. While being booked, Ramirez saw a group of Hispanic men who had been arrested in winter attire. Ramirez assumed they were snow shovelers trying to earn a few bucks in the icy streets.

The Trump administration funneled 2,000 ICE agents into Minnesota after a welfare scandal rocked the state and drew the close attention of the president. In December, Trump posted on Truth Social about the Somali community in Minnesota.

“Lowlifes like this can only be a liability to our Country’s greatness,” Trump, 79, wrote. “Send them back from where they came, Somalia, perhaps the worst, and most corrupt, country on earth.”

While detained, Ramirez overheard an agent say they did not even bother to go after Somalis.

“I heard in the conversation [the agents] were saying like, ‘We’re not even targeting like Black Somalis, we’re going to target Hispanics,’” Ramirez recalled.

Ramirez says he was put in a cell with two other U.S. citizens, protesters accused of assaulting ICE agents. They were packed shoulder to shoulder in an adjacent pen.

“They don’t even have a place to sit,” Ramirez said. “They were just kind of like standing, just people crying, some holding in tears and trying to stay strong.”

After six hours, Ramirez came to what he hopes will be the end of his nightmare run-in with the federal agency. “They gave me my stuff, they took off my shackles, and they said, ‘Oh, you’re getting released on pending charges’,” Ramirez said.

ICE did not respond to a request for comment. Any charges are still pending at the time of this writing.

The agents made a mistake when returning Ramirez’s property. “They gave me somebody else’s car keys,” Ramirez recalled. “I gave them back.”

He had been experiencing an increasingly urgent need to use the restroom, but that was not an option in detention. He asked if he could use one before he left the building. The agents told him to use the Porta-potty outside. It was locked.

Fortunately, his mother, aunt, and several cousins were waiting to give him hugs. They all then went home, in the city where he was born, in a land where their ancestors lived for thousands of years, long before there even was a country called America to be made great.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/yet-another-ice-nightmare-unfolds-miles-away-from-renee-nicole-good-shooting-in-minnesota/?

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Nightmare for Trump as Americans Ditch the Right for the Middle

The president has openly warned that a damaging midterm cycle will see him “get impeached.”

A record number of Americans now say they belong to neither major political party, a warning sign for President Donald Trump as he heads toward a difficult midterm election cycle.

In surveys carried out throughout 2025, 45 percent of U.S. adults identified as political independents, according to Gallup, the highest level ever recorded. That figure surpasses the 43 percent measured in 2014, 2023, and 2024.

The surge in independent affiliation has taken on added significance since Trump’s return to the White House. Independents have consistently expressed lower approval of the president than Republicans and have shown limited patience for extended political conflict, a problem for an incumbent whose electoral success has relied heavily on energizing his core supporters.

Gallup

With midterms often decided by voters who do not reliably align with either party, the shift places new pressure on a Republican Party defending slim congressional margins.

Trump has publicly voiced concern about the upcoming midterms. Speaking to House Republicans last week, he warned that he’d “get impeached” if the GOP loses control of the chamber. He pointed to the historical tendency of the president’s party to lose ground in midterm elections and said promoting his administration’s policies would serve as a “road map to victory.”

Gallup’s 2025 findings are based on interviews with more than 13,000 adults conducted throughout the year. Respondents were asked whether they identify politically as a Republican, a Democrat, or an independent.

Much of the increase in independent affiliation is being driven by younger Americans. Majorities of Generation Z adults and millennials identified as independents in 2025, along with more than four in 10 members of Generation X. By contrast, one-third or fewer of baby boomers and members of the Silent Generation identified as politically independent.

Younger adults are also more likely to identify as independents than young adults in earlier eras. Fifty-six percent of Generation Z adults now identify as independents, compared with 47 percent of millennials in 2012 and 40 percent of Generation X adults in 1992.

Crucially for Trump, independents are not evenly split. Of the 45 percent who identify as independents, 20 percent lean toward the Democratic Party, 15 percent lean Republican, and 10 percent do not lean either way. That marks a shift from 2024, with a three-point drop in those who lean Republican and a three-point increase in those who lean Democratic.

When party identification and leanings are combined, an average of 47 percent of Americans aligned with or leaned toward Democrats in 2025, compared with 42 percent who aligned with or leaned toward Republicans. That reverses a three-year stretch in which Republicans held the advantage and returns party preferences to levels seen during Trump’s first term, when Democrats maintained a consistent edge.

Other polls point to why independents may be drifting away from the president. A YouGov/CBS poll released last month found that more than 61 percent of respondents said Trump was making high prices and inflation sound rosier than reality, while 45 percent said they expected his policies to leave them financially worse off in 2026. An AP-NORC poll released earlier this month showed just 31 percent of respondents holding a positive view of Trump’s handling of the economy.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/nightmare-for-trump-as-americans-ditch-the-right-for-the-middle/?

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Republican Strikes Bombshell Blow Against Trump’s Petty Revenge Plot

The president is getting bipartisan pushback over the probe into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis has said he will oppose any of President Donald Trump’s future nominees to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors after the Department of Justice launched an investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

Tillis, a member of the Senate Banking Committee who is not seeking reelection, issued a damning statement condemning the president in the wake of another federal probe targeting one of Trump’s nemeses.

“If there were any remaining doubt whether advisers within the Trump Administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Federal Reserve, there should now be none. It is now the independence and credibility of the Department of Justice that are in question,” Tillis said.

“I will oppose the confirmation of any nominee for the Fed—including the upcoming Fed Chair vacancy—until this legal matter is fully resolved.”

Powell confirmed that Trump’s DOJ has threatened to indict him over his June 2025 testimony to the Senate Banking Committee regarding plans to renovate the historic Federal Reserve office buildings.

However, in a statement, Powell suggested there were ulterior motivations behind the probe.

“I have deep respect for the rule of law and for accountability in our democracy. No one—certainly not the chair of the Federal Reserve—is above the law. But this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration’s threats and ongoing pressure,” Powell said.

“This new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings. It is not about Congress’s oversight role; the Fed, through testimony and other public disclosures, made every effort to keep Congress informed about the renovation project. Those are pretexts,” he added. “The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President.”

Trump has spent months repeatedly attacking Powell as “stupid,” a “dummy,” and a “knucklehead” for refusing to slash interest rates as quickly as the president would like, while suggesting the nonpartisan central bank is biased against him. Trump has also threatened to remove Powell as Fed chair before his term ends in May.

Federal Reserve Board Governor Kevin Warsh and National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett are among the names Trump is considering as potential replacements, a move that would require Senate confirmation.

Assuming every Democrat votes against Trump’s nominations for positions on the Federal Reserve board, including Powell’s replacement, only four opposing GOP senators would be needed to torpedo any of the president’s picks.

Elsewhere, North Dakota GOP Sen. Kevin Cramer, a vocal critic of Powell, has rejected the basis for the probe.

“Jerome Powell is a bad Fed Chair who has been elusive with Congress, especially regarding the overruns of the elaborate renovations of the building,” Cramer said. “I do not believe however, he is a criminal. I hope this criminal investigation can be put to rest quickly along with the remainder of Jerome Powell’s term. We need to restore confidence in the Fed.”

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a moderate Republican who frequently opposes Trump’s agenda, posted: “After speaking with Chair Powell this morning, it’s clear the administration’s investigation is nothing more than an attempt at coercion.

“If the Department of Justice believes an investigation into Chair Powell is warranted based on project cost overruns—which are not unusual—then Congress needs to investigate the Department of Justice. The stakes are too high to look the other way: if the Federal Reserve loses its independence, the stability of our markets and the broader economy will suffer. My colleague, Senator Tillis, is right in blocking any Federal Reserve nominees until this is resolved."

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Banking Committee, has urged that none of Trump’s Fed picks be confirmed in response to his latest revenge campaign that has also targeted former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.

“Trump wants to nominate a new Fed Chair AND push Powell off the Board for good to complete his corrupt takeover of our central bank,” Warren posted on X. “He is abusing the law like a wannabe dictator so the Fed serves him and his billionaire friends. The Senate must not move ANY Trump Fed nominee.”

Trump claimed he did not “know anything” about the DOJ investigation into Powell—despite repeatedly threatening such action—and denied that it was related to Powell’s refusal to cut interest rates more quickly.

“I wouldn’t even think of doing it that way. What should pressure him is the fact that rates are far too high. That’s the only pressure he’s got,” Trump told NBC News.

“He’s hurt a lot of people,” he added. “I think the public is pressuring him.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/republican-thom-tillis-strikes-bombshell-blow-against-trumps-petty-revenge-plot/?

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Powell Strikes Back

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Jerome Powell isn’t known for his expressiveness. The chair of the Federal Reserve has kept quiet over the past year as President Trump has repeatedly attacked him—often with crude language (think moron, numbskull, dumb, and loser). That changed yesterday, when Powell announced that he is under criminal investigation by Trump’s Justice Department. In a video statement, he responded to the threat of indictment with remarkable clarity. “This unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration's threats and ongoing pressure,” he said. “The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president.”

For the first time, Powell plainly articulated the Fed’s fight to retain independence from a president seeking to sway it. The investigation itself has to do with whether Powell misled Congress last year about the Fed’s renovation project—now estimated to be about $700 million over budget. The White House Office of Management and Budget began looking into those statements last July; Powell has said that under his leadership, the Fed has “made every effort” to keep Congress informed about the project. It’s hard to ignore the irony here: The administration that demolished the White House’s East Wing without congressional approval is now cracking down on construction oversight.

Asked by NBC about the investigation into Powell, Trump said, “I don’t know anything about it, but he’s certainly not very good at the Fed, and he’s not very good at building buildings.” Yet, as Powell notes, evidence suggests that this move is the culmination of Trump’s monthslong campaign to pressure him into lowering interest rates. Lowering rates would boost the economy in the near term but risk a bust in the longer term. It is the job of the Fed’s Board of Governors, with Powell at the helm, not to accede to any pressure here. The governors are meant to carefully raise and lower the cost of borrowing over time according to jobs and inflation data. The Fed makes these decisions based on what it thinks is best for the American money supply—not what the president wants.

Trump seems to disagree. In August, he made the unprecedented (and probably illegal) decision to fire one of the Fed’s governors, Lisa Cook. The stated reason for Cook’s firing was mortgage fraud, although she has not been charged with any crime and has denied the allegation; the Supreme Court will hear arguments in her case next week. He also elevated a new governor, the MAGA loyalist Stephen Miran, who has been pushing for more dramatic rate cuts than his peers.

Cook’s firing was Trump’s most significant attempt to exert control over the Fed until last night. Even if Powell survives this investigation and serves his full term as chair, which is up in just four months, Trump may still gain access by way of a handpicked successor. The smart money is now on Kevin Hassett, whom my colleague Rogé Karma has called a “Trump propagandist.” But the GOP, including some members of Congress whose votes could one day confirm Trump’s pick, has been expressing alarm over the investigation into Powell. Senator Thom Tillis said he would oppose the confirmation of any nominee until “this legal matter is fully resolved.” And markets were mostly calm today, suggesting that traders think Powell—and central bank independence—will ultimately win out, the Columbia Law professor and former New York Fed economist Lev Menand told me.

Powell’s future is uncertain, and the broader erosion of the Department of Justice has made it hard to trust the idea of an objective investigation. But the probe itself is a clear threat to the long-standing independence of the Fed. The past three Fed chairs—Janet Yellen, Ben Bernanke, and Alan Greenspan—alongside a bipartisan coalition of top economic officials released a statement today decrying the move against Powell. “This is how monetary policy is made in emerging markets with weak institutions, with highly negative consequences for inflation and the functioning of their economies more broadly,” it read.

To better understand their concern, look to Turkey, Zimbabwe, or any other country where central-bank credibility has been undermined. When faith in central banks fails, so can faith in the value of money, leading to hyperinflation. But unlike the Turkish lira and the now-defunct Zimbabwean dollar, the U.S. dollar anchors the global economy. Any sense from the international community that the Fed no longer pulls the strings could be catastrophic. “The central bank is critical to the functioning of the entire financial system,” Menand said. The Fed’s powers are essential tools in moments of instability, but in the wrong hands, they could do far more than weaken the dollar. All major banks hold accounts at the Fed, and those accounts can be cut off at its discretion. Anyone who uses an American bank, and who finds themselves on the president’s bad side, could be affected.

Powell’s prerecorded video statement distills our current moment in less than two minutes. The Fed’s freedom from partisanship is at the core of its mission; it was created in service of the country’s long-term interests. Now under siege by a sitting president, it has become an unlikely site of resistance.

Related:

• The respected economist turned Trump propagandist
• Trump almost has a point about the Federal Reserve.

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Powell Probe Backlash

Former Federal Reserve chairs and top economists issued a statement yesterday condemning a federal probe into Fed Chair Jerome Powell as a threat to the central bank’s independence. Read the statement here. The Justice Department launched a criminal investigation into whether Powell misled Congress about the scope of a roughly $2.5B renovation of the Fed’s headquarters. Powell characterized the allegation as a pressure campaign by President Donald Trump to push the central bank to lower interest rates, or the cost of borrowing money (watch video statement). The rates, which influence economic growth, are reviewed about every six weeks by an independent board that Powell leads. Trump has criticized the Fed for not lowering rates faster and, last month, floated suing Powell over the renovation; Trump denies prior knowledge of the probe. Separately, the Supreme Court will hear a case next week on whether Trump can fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook over mortgage fraud allegations. Learn why the Fed doesn't always lower—and sometimes raises—interest rates here.

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?? Trump leans toward Iran strikes

Via Truth Social President Trump is leaning toward striking Iran to punish the regime for killing protesters, but he hasn't made a final decision and is exploring Iranian proposals for negotiations, a White House official with direct knowledge told Axios' Barak Ravid. Why it matters: While Trump threatened the Iranian regime with strikes if protesters were killed, it's far from clear that U.S. bombs would turn the tide in Tehran. Some in the administration believe strikes could be counterproductive. Trump put more pressure on Tehran yesterday by announcing a 25% tariff on countries that do business with Iran. The White House national security team is expected to discuss options in a meeting today, though it's unclear if Trump himself will attend. If Trump orders strikes, they would likely target elements of the regime involved in internal security that are seen as responsible for the crackdown. His envoy Steve Witkoff has also been in touch with Iran's foreign minister about a diplomatic path involving the resumption of nuclear talks.

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? Trump's credit-card shock

Data: Federal Reserve via FRED. Chart: Axios Visuals There's evidence that capping credit card interest rates at 10% — as President Trump wants to do — would save Americans billions of dollars, Axios' Emily Peck writes. Why it matters: Trump is picking up the mantle for an idea popular with progressives and consumer advocates. A 10% cap would save Americans $100 billion, according to an analysis from Vanderbilt University's Policy Accelerator. Credit card interest rates have soared to record levels, hitting 21% on average in the last three months of 2025 — up from around 15% before the pandemic. The other side: Banks warn consumers may lose access to credit — and that rewards programs would likely be cut. Keep reading.

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⚖️ ICE investigation trap

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

The investigation into the killing of 37-year-old Renee Good would likely be going very differently if a local police officer — instead of an ICE agent — had pulled the trigger last week in Minneapolis, Axios' Russell Contreras writes. Why it matters: A local police shooting usually initiates a multi-agency investigation and the threat of prosecution. An ICE agent shooting is handled almost entirely inside the federal government. ICE is a relatively young federal agency — created after the 9/11 attacks with fewer guardrails — and hasn't faced the number of court challenges that forced other agencies to rein in their officers. That's unlikely to change under President Trump. His administration has halted all Justice Department probes known as "pattern-or-practice" investigations into police departments accused of excessive force Keep reading.

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Trump holds off on military action against Iran’s protest crackdown as he ‘explores’ Tehran messages President Donald Trump has arrived at a delicate moment as he weighs whether to order a U.S. military response against the Iranian government as it continues a violent crackdown on protests that have left more than 600 dead and led to the arrests of thousands across the country. Read more.

Why this matters: The U.S. president has repeatedly threatened Tehran with military action if his administration found the Islamic Republic was using deadly force against antigovernment protesters. It’s a red line that Trump has said he believes Iran is “starting to cross” and has left him and his national security team weighing “very strong options.”   But the U.S. military — which Trump has warned Tehran is “locked and loaded” — appears, at least for the moment, to have been placed on standby mode as Trump ponders next steps, saying that Iranian officials want to have talks with the White House.   Trump announced on social media that he would slap 25% tariffs on countries doing business with Tehran “effective immediately” — his first action aimed at penalizing Iran for the protest crackdown, and his latest example of using tariffs as a tool to force friends and foes on the global stage to bend to his will.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ People inside Iran describe heavy security and scattered damage in first calls to outside world   People rally around the world in support of protests in Iran, in photos

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Opportunities to Escalate (Stephen Maturen / Getty)

View in browser After an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis last week, forensic examinations of videos of the incident emerged within hours. These meticulous reconstructions were useful for debunking the lies told by Trump-administration officials in the immediate aftermath of the killing, and they show the power of technology, in an age when nearly everyone has a camera in their pocket, to convey a complicated moment. Sleuths, amateur and professional, pored over each frame to try to guess what Jonathan Ross, the ICE officer who fatally shot Good, might have believed or known in the moment about what she was doing or where her car was heading. But at the core of the tragedy is a larger truth: None of this needed to happen. A series of choices by the administration led to this point—the use of ICE and Border Patrol to menace Democratic-led states and cities; White House pressure on the Department of Homeland Security to make high quotas, which has resulted in shortened training and rushed missions; and the president’s inclination to inflame tensions, all of which created the conditions for the moment that’s now been replayed millions of times. Under Supreme Court precedent, an officer may shoot at someone fleeing if he reasonably believes that his life or the lives of others are in danger. Prosecutors are often slow to charge officers, because they or juries are hesitant to second-guess officers’ determinations. Ross was also reportedly dragged by a car in June during an attempted arrest, which may have made him more likely to assume the worst about a driver. The shooting might ultimately be legally justified. But Ross also placed himself in front of Good’s car. Many policing experts suggest that this wasn’t tactically justified. How about moral justification? Nothing indicated that Good was trying to hurt anyone before officers began running at her; moments before being shot, Good had said that she wasn’t mad at Ross. In the videos, after Ross fires, a man is heard saying, “Fucking bitch.” With the information we have, a moral defense for the killing is nowhere to be found. There was no need for the huge deployment of federal agents—including a reported 1,500 deportation officers—to Minnesota in the first place. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem dispatched ICE agents to the Minneapolis area after the White House, inspired by MAGA media, grabbed onto a sprawling fraud investigation involving Somali immigrants and government aid. By all accounts, this is a real scandal, not a partisan invention; charges were first brought by Joe Biden’s Justice Department. But the scandal also presented an opportunity for political grandstanding (especially because Minnesota Governor Tim Walz was on the ticket against Donald Trump and J. D. Vance in the previous election). The president is using the fraud case as an opportunity to demonize immigrants. “THE DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING!” he posted this morning on Truth Social, referring to immigration enforcement in Minnesota. Although DHS does conduct investigations, less obvious is why tactical experts such as Ross were needed on the scene. Before and after Good’s death, the Trump DHS has sought opportunities to escalate. When citizens called attention to ICE’s presence by making noise and spreading word via social media, DHS falsely claimed that those people were violent rioters. After Good’s death, DHS surged more officers to the area, alleging that the fraud situation merited more agents; officers are now conducting traffic stops and door-to-door operations. But Good’s killing has no obvious connection to fraud, and it does not suggest any elevated threat to officers. Instead, the presence of more officers elevates the threat to civilians, as a Wall Street Journal investigation into ICE traffic stops demonstrates. Pressure from the White House to meet deportation quotas has meant that ICE agents at best are working hastily and at worst feel unshackled to act with brutality, aware that they are unlikely to face discipline. (Six federal prosecutors in Minnesota resigned today, including the leader of the Somali-fraud investigation, because of the Justice Department’s direction to investigate Good’s widow but not Ross.) This, too, increases the likelihood for mistakes and abuses of power. The Minnesota actions are, of course, only the latest in a string of similar Trump-administration actions targeting cities that vote Democratic: Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; Chicago; Portland, Oregon; Memphis; Charlotte, North Carolina; New Orleans. The administration has used DHS personnel, the National Guard, and, in L.A., Marines. Trump and his aides have argued that these raids are essential for controlling crime and illegal immigration, but sometimes enforcement seems incidental to performative brutality. In one midnight raid at a Chicago building, for example, the federal government flew a Black Hawk helicopter and turned people out of bed with flash-bang grenades, yet ProPublica found that not a single one of the people arrested was charged with a crime afterward. Trump ended National Guard deployments in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland late last year, bowing to repeated federal-court rulings, in lawsuits brought by cities and states, that establish that he had exceeded his powers. The first two weeks of January suggest that the administration will simply use DHS to serve the same function of punishing and intimidating cities and states that diverge from Trump politically. Minnesota and Illinois officials sued to block some immigration enforcement yesterday, but because immigration enforcement is a standard federal power, these suits may face longer odds. Even unfettered, however, the White House is unlikely to achieve its goals of deporting all unauthorized immigrants—in part because they are based on wild overestimates of how many people are in the United States illegally. But Trump and the top aide Stephen Miller’s obsession with the issue means more incidents like Renee Good’s killing. A one-off tragedy is horrifying. What’s worse is when policy choices make it likely to happen again. Related: From “I’m not mad at you” to deadly shots in seconds How ICE lost its guardrails

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Judge Jeanine Panics as Her MAGA Revenge Plot Triggers Republican Fury

The former Fox News is said to have gone rogue while probing Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro has issued an ultra-defensive statement after her office’s disputed investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell drew major backlash.

Pirro, a former Fox News host whom Donald Trump handpicked as the top federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C., is leading the investigation into Powell—an inquiry that even Republican lawmakers have blasted as a revenge plot against one of the president’s adversaries that threatens the independence of America’s central bank.

The probe centers on the cost of renovating historic Federal Reserve office buildings and on testimony Powell gave to the Senate Banking Committee in 2025. In a damning statement, Powell said the Fed made “every effort to keep” Congress informed about the project and that the “threat” of criminal charges is rooted in the Federal Reserve’s refusal to bow to Trump’s pressure to cut interest rates when he wanted them to.

In a post on X, Pirro claimed her office contacted the Federal Reserve on “multiple occasions” to discuss cost overruns related to the renovation project and Powell’s congressional testimony but “were ignored, necessitating the use of legal process—which is not a threat.”

“The word ‘indictment’ has come out of Mr. Powell’s mouth, no one else’s. None of this would have happened if they had just responded to our outreach,” said Pirro, who borrowed her nickname from her two-year stint as a judge on New York’s Westchester County Court in 1990.

“This office makes decisions based on the merits, nothing more and nothing less. We agree with the chairman of the Federal Reserve that no one is above the law, and that is why we expect his full cooperation.”

The backtracking come amid reports that Pirro failed to obtain the necessary sign-off from her superiors at the Department of Justice before subpoenaing the Federal Reserve as part of her probe, according to Bloomberg.Sources also told NBC News that Pirro’s office did not contact the White House or the Treasury Department before issuing the subpoenas, and that Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte—who spearheaded the push to investigate the Federal Reserve—was also allegedly left in the dark.GOP lawmakers and Trump administration figures quickly spoke out against the probe, raising concerns about its legal merits and warning that an investigation into the central bank could spook markets amid an already turbulent economy.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the allegations the DOJ has made against Powell “better be real” and “better be serious.”

Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, said he will refuse to support any of Trump’s picks for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors—including a replacement for Powell, whose term as chair ends in May—until the dubious legal matter is “fully resolved.”

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski called the investigation “nothing more than an attempt at coercion,” while backing Tillis’ push to block confirmations. North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer, a vocal critic of Powell, said that even he does not believe the Fed chair is a “criminal” and hopes the issue can be “put to rest quickly.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was reportedly so alarmed by the investigation that he called Trump to warn it had already “made a mess” and could disrupt financial markets. “The secretary isn’t happy, and he let the president know,” a source told Axios.

An unnamed Trump adviser similarly described the immediate fallout from Pirro’s probe to The Wall Street Journal as a “huge cluster.”

Trump claimed to NBC News that he did not “know anything” about the DOJ investigation into Powell—a man the president has spent months openly criticizing and threatening to fire or investigate—and insisted the probe had nothing to do with Powell’s refusal to cut interest rates more quickly.

The Daily Beast has contacted Pirro’s office and the Department of Justice for comment.

A spokesperson for the White House deferred an enquiry to the DoJ.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/judge-jeanine-pirro-panics-as-her-maga-revenge-plot-triggers-republican-fury/?

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Murdoch Paper Lets Rip at Trump’s ‘Dumb’ Plot

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board has precisely zero time for Justice Department officials going after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

A newspaper owned by arch-conservative media tycoon Rupert Murdoch has called for the MAGA administration to ax the Justice Department goons responsible for bringing legal action against a top banking official.

“In the annals of political lawfare there’s dumb, and then there’s the criminal subpoena federal prosecutors delivered Friday to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell,” The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board wrote in a scathing editorial Monday. “President Trump would do himself and the country a big favor by firing those responsible for this fiasco.”

President Donald Trump has consistently railed against Powell as “clueless” and an “enemy” since taking office for the second time last January. Powell, whom the MAGA leader himself appointed in 2017, has riled the president by refusing to follow instructions from the executive, in particular Trump’s insistence on lower interest rates.

Friday’s subpoena seeks information from Powell related to his Congressional testimony last June regarding renovations to the Federal Reserve’s office in D.C., which MAGA says have run over budget.

“Fair enough,” the Journal wrote, “although this is hardly the first government building project to cost more than advertised, and the Fed funds it from the central bank’s own resources rather than sapping tax revenue from Treasury.”

Noting that the MAGA leader has claimed no foreknowledge of the subpoena, the newspaper’s editors chalk the recent action against Powell up to the willingness of Trump’s underlings to “curry favor with the President by doing what they think he would want.”

Sources reportedly told the paper that a report on the renovations was prepared by Bill Pulte, an official with the Federal Housing Finance Agency who’s drawn fire in the past for what critics describe as weaponized mortgage fraud investigations into Trump’s political enemies.

Pulte allegedly passed that report to Jeanine Pirro, a Fox News personality whom Trump appointed U.S. attorney for D.C. last year, whose office in turn filed the subpoena against Powell. “Attorney General Pam Bondi no doubt signed off,” the Journal’s editors added.

Trump’s “saner advisers are worried that Wall Street will view this as an attack on the Fed’s institutional independence, which it is,” the editorial board wrote, adding that “this ploy may backfire” spectacularly on MAGA’s plans for the Federal Reserve.

“Mr Powell’s term as chairman ends in May, but his seat on the Board of Governors doesn’t expire until 2028,” the editors wrote. “Mr. Powell isn’t required to leave the Fed when his chairmanship ends, and Mr. Powell may now feel he needs to stay to avoid the appearance that the White House can bully Fed officials. That would deny Mr. Trump a second appointment to the Fed Board.”

The newspaper stopped short of calling for Trump to ax either Bondi or Pirro, but suggested “a message to Ms Bondi to halt the legal harassment” would go a long way, as would “firing Mr. Pulte before he can cause any more embarrassment.”

It also warned Trump that warring with federal officials over matters most voters will regard as arcane and of little consequence to everyday life likely does not represent a winning strategy ahead of this year’s crucial midterm elections.

“Picking a fight with the Fed—and the bond market—over an issue that voters will find confusing and irrelevant is lawfare for dummies,” the editors concluded.

The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House and Justice Department for comment on this story.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/murdoch-paper-absolutely-tears-into-trump-for-dumb-plot/?

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Pentagon Pete Admits He’ll Follow Musk’s Totally Failed Cuts Plan

But the defense secretary has picked an awkward time to recruit Musk’s problematic AI bot.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth says he’s planning to channel Elon Musk’s failed DOGE experiment to overhaul the Pentagon—“preferably with a chainsaw.”

Hegseth, 45, took his “Arsenal of Freedom” industry tour to Texas on Monday, visiting Musk’s SpaceX Starbase facility.

He has described the month-long nationwide tour as a “call to action to revitalize” America’s defense manufacturing industry and its workforce.

Speaking at Starbase, Hegseth spoke of sweeping through the Pentagon in the way Musk intended to do with federal spending and bureaucracy as part of his short-lived Department of Government Efficiency.

“This is about building an innovation pipeline that cuts through the overgrown bureaucratic underbrush, and clears away the debris, Elon-style, preferably with a chainsaw,” a fired-up Hegseth told Starbase employees.

The former Fox News host said he and Trump “have the backs of our war fighters” as they make life-and-death decisions on the battlefield.

“Now, I want this audience to know that we also have the backs of innovators who share that very same urgency.”Hegseth said he had sworn in “10 more” military staff that day, adding, “I demand, and we demand that we arm our war fighters with overwhelming and lethal technology right now. Not a decade from now.”

Ironically, even Musk admitted last month that DOGE was a failure and had tarnished his brand.

Speaking to former DOGE employee and podcast host Katie Miller, Musk said, “We were a little bit successful, we were somewhat successful.” His embed with the Trump administration ended abruptly last June after he posted on X that President Donald Trump featured in the Epstein files.

When Miller asked Musk if he would do it again, he said, “I don’t think so. I think instead of doing DOGE, I would have basically built—worked on my companies, essentially."

Referring to the damaging consumer protests against his electric vehicle company, Tesla, as he slashed spending on welfare and health, Musk added, “The cars... they wouldn’t have been burning the cars.”

While at Musk’s facility, Hegseth also said he was incorporating the billionaire’s troubled AI tool Grok into the Pentagon’s technology suite, alongside Google’s generative AI engine.

The timing is awkward, however, as Grokbot is in the news for letting users of the AI tool create sexualized images of children.

The resulting controversy has led to it being temporarily blocked in Malaysia and Indonesia, while the U.K.’s media regulator, Ofcom, announced on Monday it was launching a probe into Musk’s X platform, which could lead to a ban in that country.

Hegseth said Grok AI would go live in the Pentagon network later this month, promising it would not be “woke.”

“Very soon, we will have the world’s leading AI models on every unclassified and classified network throughout our department. Long overdue,” Hegseth said on Monday.

He told Musk’s employees that the Pentagon “would not employ AI models that won’t allow you to fight wars. We will judge AI models on this standard alone. Factually accurate, mission relevant, without ideological constraints that limit lawful military applications.”

The former Princeton politics graduate added, “Department of War AI will not be woke. It will work for us. We’re building war-ready weapons and systems, not chatbots for an Ivy League faculty lounge.”

Earlier on Monday, Hegseth spoke at the Lockheed Martin Facility in Fort Worth, where F-35 jets and other fighter aircraft are produced.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/pentagon-pete-hegseth-admits-hell-follow-elon-musks-totally-failed-cuts-plan/?

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The Biggest Takeaways From Our Investigation Into Grazing on Public Lands

The federal government allows livestock grazing across an area of publicly owned land more than twice the size of California, making ranching the largest land use in the West. Billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies support the system, which often harms the environment.

https://www.propublica.org/article/grazing-public-lands-investigation-takeaways?

Vouchers, Patriotism and Prayer: The Trump Administration’s Plan to Remake Public Education

Linda McMahon, the nation’s secretary of education, says public schools are failing. 

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-administration-linda-mcmahon-public-education?

Trump administration labels 3 Muslim Brotherhood branches as terrorist organizations

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration has made good on its pledge to label three Middle Eastern branches of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations, imposing sanctions on them and their members in a decision that could have implications for U.S. relationships with allies in the region.

https://apnews.com/article/muslim-brotherhood-terrorist-organizations-trump-sanctions-d862fcc5b04558f9af8d648dd4e9a0d1?

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Project 2025 called for 're-hemisphering' in Latin America. Trump's actions in Venezuela went further

The claim surfaced following U.S. President Donald Trump's military intervention in Venezuela.

Claim:

Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation's document that has largely been used as a roadmap for U.S. President Donald Trump's second term in office, contains language calling for the "re-hemisphering" of Latin American countries.

Rating:

True

Context

Page 184 of Project 2025 does use the word "re-hemisphering" when discussing Latin America. It uses the word in an economic context rather than a militaristic or interventionist context, with a goal of moving "manufacturing and industry closer to home." While the next bullet point, "A 'local' approach to security threats," does call for more U.S. intervention in Latin America, it proposes potential military (and other) collaborations with allies in and outside Latin America — not unilateral military operations.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/venezuela-project-2025-latin-america/?

ps:If people actually read this "Project 2025 Manifesto" they would've know that this was part of his plan!!!!!!!!!!

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Vance Elbows Out Little Marco to Lead Greenland Power Grab

Trump officials will meet with Danish and Greenlandic diplomats on Wednesday.

Vice President JD Vance wanted in on the action, so a high-stakes meeting over President Donald Trump’s demand that the U.S. take over Greenland will take place at the White House this week.

The foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland will meet with Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday.

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen and Greenlandic counterpart Vivian Motzfeldt requested the meeting with Rubio in response to Trump’s repeated threats of invasion.

Rubio said on Capitol Hill last week that he would be meeting with officials from the European country and its semi-autonomous territory this week.

But according to the foreign minister, the vice president also wanted to attend.

“U.S. Vice President JD Vance also wanted to participate in the meeting, and he will host the meeting, which will therefore be held at the White House,” Rasmussen told reporters in Copenhagen on Tuesday.

A U.S. official confirmed the meeting would be at the White House and Vance would be attending.

The vice president’s inclusion in the discussions comes as Rubio has taken center stage on a range of issues in the Trump administration in recent weeks, including a top role in U.S. plans for Venezuela after Trump claimed he is “in charge” of the country.

It is one of the latest roles for the secretary of state, who has also been serving as acting National Security Adviser and archivist for the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

The secretary of state’s star has been on the rise in recent weeks as he has continued to deliver for the president in the Trump administration.

Long gone are the days when Trump publicly referred to him as “Little Marco” and belittled his former presidential rival.

In response to a post Trump shared on Truth Social on Sunday, the president wrote, “Sounds good to me!” about Rubio becoming “President of Cuba.”

The former Florida senator who ran for president in 2016 remains a top contender for the 2028 presidential election. It would likely pit him directly against the vice president.

Vance, meanwhile, has been more vocal as the Trump administration defended ICE after an agent shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis nearly a week ago.

The vice president appeared at the White House podium on Thursday to defend the shooting last week and posted furiously on social media about it.

However, the vice president has long been involved in discussions of the president’s demand for Greenland as the White House has repeatedly refused to rule out using military force to take it over.

Vance joined his wife, Usha, for a trip to Greenland late last March, making him the highest-ranking Trump official to travel there, but the trip had to be scaled back to just a visit to the U.S. base as Trump continued his threats to invade, and the visit was seen as a “provocation.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/vance-elbows-out-little-marco-to-lead-greenland-power-grab/?

ps:Psalm 14:1 "Only fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, and their actions are evil; not one of them does good! New Living Translation

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‘Mr. Tariff’ Trump Melts Down in New Attack on Arch Nemesis

The latest tirade came amid growing pushback over the president’s latest revenge plot.

President Donald Trump has ramped up his ongoing attacks against Jerome Powell, demanding that the Federal Reserve chair lower interest rates as he faces a fresh revenge plot by the president.

In a bizarre social media post in which Trump described himself as “Mr Tariff”, the president touted the latest inflation rate, which remained relatively steady last month, to hit out at the central bank chief.

“Great (LOW!) Inflation numbers for the USA. That means that Jerome “Too Late” Powell should cut interest rates, MEANINGFULLY!!!” he said on Truth Social.

“If he doesn’t he will just continue to be, “TOO LATE!”. ALSO OUT, GREAT GROWTH NUMBERS. Thank you MISTER TARIFF! President DJT.”

The Tuesday morning rant came days after the Trump Justice Department opened a contentious criminal investigation into Powell over the Federal Reserve’s renovation of its Washington headquarters and whether Powell lied to Congress about the scope of the project.

But Powell has staunchly defended himself, issuing an extraordinary two-minute video on Sunday, branding the move as politically motivated.

“This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions—or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation,” he said in a stinging rebuke.

Republicans such as Thom Tillis, Lisa Murkowski and Kevin Cramer have rushed to Powell’s defence, while Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reportedly told Trump privately that the probe “made a mess” and could spook financial markets.

In an unusual show of international solidarity, central bankers from major economies also issued a joint statement on Tuesday backing Powell as someone who “has served with integrity, focused on his mandate and an unwavering commitment to the public interest.”

“The independence of central banks is a cornerstone of price, financial and economic stability in the interest of the citizens that we serve. It is therefore critical to preserve that independence, with full respect for the rule of law and democratic accountability,” said the statement, signed by leaders including European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey.

Powell’s term expires in May, and any successor would require Senate confirmation.

Republican opposition could complicate Trump’s long-standing desire to reshape the Federal Reserve’s leadership by installing one of his allies as the next chairman.

But Trump doubled down on Tuesday, telling reporters at the White House that Powell was “billions of dollars over budget” on the Fed’s renovations, “so he either he’s incompetent or crooked. I don’t know what he is.”

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeannie Pirro defended the probe, which is being conducted by her office, saying it would not have happened “if they had just responded to our outreach.”

“The United States Attorney’s Office contacted the Federal Reserve on multiple occasions to discuss cost overruns and the chairman’s congressional testimony, but were ignored, necessitating the use of legal process—which is not a threat,” Pirro wrote in a post on the social platform X.

Trump has been demanding that Powell lower interest rates substantially for months - a move that the president believes will bolster his economic credentials with voters as Republicans head into the midterm elections in November.

Those credentials will come under the spotlight on Tuesday when Trump heads to the battleground state of Michigan to recalibrate his message on affordability with a speech at the Detroit Economic Club.

The trip will be Trump’s first domestic trip since capturing Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, threatening to seize Greenland, and hinting at military action against Iran.

It also comes as the US Supreme Court is set to rule on whether Trump’s signature tariff policy was lawfully issued last April using emergency powers.

Trump has since taken to calling himself “Mr Tariff”, a cringey nickname unveiled earlier this month, prompting online mockery.

The White House, however, later leaned into the branding, sharing a post on X that appeared to depict Trump as a Mr. Clean–style figure.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/mr-tariff-trump-melts-down-in-new-attack-on-arch-nemesis/?

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Trump Vows ‘Day of Reckoning’ After Deadly ICE Shooting in Dark Rant

The 79-year-old president addressed Minnesota residents to tease imminent “retribution.”

President Donald Trump has appealed to Minnesota residents in a bizarre rant about the “patriots of ICE” coming to save them and imminent “retribution.”

In an early morning Truth Social tirade, the 79-year-old president appeared to lash out at Minnesotans after state officials sued to stop more federal immigration agents from entering the state following the fatal shooting of Minneapolis mother Renee Good.

He questioned if the people of Minnesota “really want to live in a community in which there are thousands of already convicted murderers, drug dealers and addicts, rapists, violent released and escaped prisoners, dangerous people from foreign mental institutions and insane asylums, and other deadly criminals too dangerous to even mention.”

“All the patriots of ICE want to do is remove them from your neighborhood and send them back to the prisons and mental institutions from where they came, most in foreign Countries who illegally entered the USA though Sleepy Joe Biden’s HORRIBLE Open Border’s Policy. Every place we go, crime comes down,” Trump said.

“In Chicago, despite a weak and incompetent Governor and Mayor fighting us all the way, a big improvement was made. Thousands of Criminals were removed! Minnesota Democrats love the unrest that anarchists and professional agitators are causing because it gets the spotlight off of the 19 Billion Dollars that was stolen by really bad and deranged people. FEAR NOT, GREAT PEOPLE OF MINNESOTA, THE DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING!”

The White House has been contacted for comment on the president’s post.

Tensions have been high across the country after Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was shot three times at point-blank range last week by ICE agent Jonathan Ross.

The Trump administration has scrambled to portray Good as a “domestic terrorist” who deliberately attempted to run over the ICE agent with her vehicle, despite video footage from the scene appearing to show her trying to drive away.

The shooting has sparked anti-ICE protests nationwide, with Democratic lawmakers demanding accountability for the killing.

On Monday, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), asking a judge to declare the Trump administration’s “unprecedented” surge of federal immigration agents into the state unconstitutional and unlawful.

“The unlawful deployment of thousands of armed, masked, and poorly trained federal agents is hurting Minnesota,” Ellison said in a statement. “People are being racially profiled, harassed, terrorized, and assaulted. Schools have gone into lockdown. Businesses have been forced to close. Minnesota police are spending countless hours dealing with the chaos ICE is causing. This federal invasion of the Twin Cities has to stop, so today I am suing DHS to bring it to an end.”

The lawsuit has the backing of Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who demanded that ICE “get the f**k out” of the city in the wake of Good’s death.

“Minneapolis didn’t ask for this operation, but we’re paying the price,” Frey said. “When federal actions undermine public safety, harm our neighbors, and violate constitutional rights, we have a responsibility to act. That’s exactly what we’re doing today.”

In the filing, Ellison alleges that Trump targeted Minnesota as part of “Operation Metro Surge” because the state is governed by Democrats and has never supported Trump in any of his presidential campaigns.

The state estimates that Minneapolis Police Department officers logged more than 3,000 additional overtime hours—costing taxpayers over $2 million—between Jan. 8 and Jan. 11 alone, due to heightened law enforcement activity tied to ICE’s “reckless and aggressive immigration enforcement tactics” and the public response to them.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-vows-day-of-reckoning-after-deadly-ice-shooting-in-dark-rant/?

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America’s Top Banker Warns Trump That Revenge Plot Will Blow Up in His Face

Jamie Dimon warned that the investigation into Jerome Powell could have the opposite effect of what Trump wants.

JPMorgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon has warned that the Trump administration’s attacks on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell could backfire by driving up borrowing costs and causing inflation to spike.

Dimon, who oversees the largest U.S. bank by assets, said during a call discussing JPMorgan’s fourth-quarter results that he had “enormous respect” for Powell and was a strong supporter of the Fed’s independence.

“Anything that chips away at that is probably not a great idea,” he said, according to the Financial Times. “And in my view, it will have the reverse consequences. It will raise inflation expectations and probably increase rates over time.”

Powell, 72, announced Sunday that Trump’s Justice Department had launched a criminal investigation against him, which he blamed on the Fed’s failure to do Trump’s bidding.

“This unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration’s threats and ongoing pressure,” he said. “The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president.”

The administration has prosecuted other officials whom Trump considers his enemies, including former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

The president has insisted he didn’t know anything about the investigation, which revolves around Powell’s congressional testimony last June regarding renovations to the Fed’s offices in Washington, D.C.

But Trump has repeatedly railed against Powell for being “clueless” and an “enemy,” after the Fed failed to follow his demands to lower interest rates.

Sources told The Wall Street Journal that Trump’s federal housing chair, Bill Pulte, kick-started the investigation by preparing a report about the Fed’s renovations and passing it along to the U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., former Fox News personality Jeanine Pirro.

Attorney General Pam Bondi would have also signed off on the subpoena, the Journal noted.

Even Republican lawmakers quickly jumped to Powell’s defense, with Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina vowing to block Trump’s future Fed nominees, and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski threatening to investigate the Justice Department if it moves forward with the inquiry.

Following the backlash, Pirro tried to downplay the investigation.

“The word ‘indictment’ has come out of Mr. Powell’s mouth, no one else’s. None of this would have happened if they had just responded to our outreach,” she wrote in a statement on social media. “This office makes decisions based on the merits, nothing more and nothing less.”

The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/americas-top-banker-jamie-dimon-warns-trump-that-revenge-plot-will-blow-up-in-his-face/?

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Supreme Court seems likely to uphold state bans on transgender athletes in girls and women’s sports

The Supreme Court on Tuesday seemed likely to uphold state laws barring transgender girls and women from playing on school athletic teams. Lower courts ruled for the transgender athletes in Idaho and West Virginia who challenged the state bans, but the conservative-dominated Supreme Court gave no indication after more than three hours of arguments that it would follow suit. Read more.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

Clintons refuse to testify in House Epstein investigation as Republicans threaten contempt charges Trump administration labels 3 Muslim Brotherhood branches as terrorist organizations Wisconsin Gov. Evers questions his lieutenant governor's immigration enforcement proposal Trump is ending protected immigration status for Somalis, long a target of his anti-immigrant barbs FACT FOCUS: Trump repeats false claims when discussing Greenland's security in the Arctic

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Wall Street CEOs warn Trump: Stop attacking the Fed and credit card industry

Up until this week, Wall Street has generally benefited from the Trump administration’s policies and has been supportive of the president. That relationship has suddenly soured. Bank executives warned the White House on Tuesday that President Trump's policies and the Justice Department's investigation into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell could harm the economy. Read more.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

Inflation cooled slightly in December though it remains above Fed's target Fewer Americans sign up for Affordable Care Act health insurance as costs spike Bargain grocer Aldi seizes the moment in an era of higher prices Microsoft’s Brad Smith pushes Big Tech to ‘pay our way’ for AI data centers amid rising opposition

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Trump's envoy secretly met Iran's exiled crown prince

White House envoy Steve Witkoff met secretly over the weekend with the exiled former crown prince of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, to discuss the protests raging in Iran, according to a senior U.S. official.

https://www.axios.com/2026/01/13/pahlavi-witkoff-iran-protest-meeting-trump?

ps:Old boss same as the new boss!!!!!

Multiple Americans detained in Venezuela have been released, Trump administration says

WASHINGTON (AP) — Multiple Americans who were detained in Venezuela have been released, the Trump administration said Tuesday.

https://apnews.com/article/venezeula-american-detainees-released-43f779bfccc1c5df98780938a30a3417?

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Trump's plan to replace USAID

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

The Trump administration is launching an unprecedented, $11 billion soft-power effort to remake foreign health assistance after its controversial decision to gut USAID, Axios' Marc Caputo writes. Why it matters: The America First Global Health Strategy aims to boost U.S. influence and interests in developing nations — especially those in Africa — while bypassing non-government organizations that delivered services through USAID. The program would send billions directly to needy foreign governments, health care organizations and drug manufacturers over the next five years. Critics say the plan could be a recipe for corruption and "catastrophic" failures. ? Zoom in: So far, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has signed 15 agreements with African countries aimed at improving their health systems with an emphasis on HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and maternal health. The U.S. has committed $11.1 billion over five years to the countries, which have pledged $12.2 billion in matching funds and promised to meet performance goals. The State Department aims to have agreements with 50 countries in a few months. Zoom out: The initiative is the White House's answer to critics who accused Trump of deadly, dangerous and self-defeating isolationism when the administration scuttled USAID at the start of his second term. Rubio said the system replaces the "NGO industrial complex" that siphoned 70% of U.S. money to middlemen and bureaucrats based in the D.C. area. Former USAID officials dispute that characterization. ? Between the lines: Adopting a criticism from the left, Jeremy P. Lewin, undersecretary of state for foreign assistance, said USAID fostered a "neo-colonial mindset" of: "The white man has to do it." The new plan will do more to help developing nations build their health care capacity, Lewin said. "We're going to give you access to innovative American drugs. We're going to give you access to commodities, antiretroviral drugs, diagnostic kits [and] malaria nets at scale through pool procurement," he said. Lewin said third-party auditors will track data and money. ? Reality check: Former USAID officials and global health specialists say the administration's new system could be crippled by graft on the ground and inaccurate data collection. "The capacity is not there, and the level of corruption is so high that money is going to disappear," said Andrew Natsios, a Republican who led USAID under President George W. Bush.

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? Trump signature tightens economic grip

Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios

President Trump is reaching deeper than ever into the gears of the U.S. economy, attempting to harness state power to directly shape prices, markets, interest rates and corporate behavior, Axios' Zachary Basu writes. Why it matters: These interventions — including its extraordinary criminal probe of the Fed — go far beyond typical electioneering. Trump is trying to reverse his sagging approval ratings by brute force, leaning on populist instincts to deliver visible cost relief before November. The result: institutional stability and capitalist norms — like so much else in the Trump era — are increasingly subordinate to raw presidential power. ? Zoom in: Trump has denied advance knowledge of the Justice Department's criminal inquiry into Fed chair Jerome Powell, which is nominally focused on cost overruns from the central bank's renovation of its D.C. headquarters. But Powell and his predecessors see the probe as the culmination of a months-long White House pressure campaign against the Fed, which has resisted cutting interest rates as fast as Trump wants. "That jerk will be gone soon," Trump said of Powell during an economic speech in Detroit yesterday. ?️ The big picture: In the first two weeks of 2026, Trump has targeted the biggest drivers of voters' cost-of-living anxiety with direct, highly visible interventions outside the normal policy-making process. Energy costs: Trump has openly acknowledged that Venezuela's vast oil reserves factored into his decision to capture its leader, Nicolás Maduro. He urged Big Oil executives to invest $100 billion to revive Venezuela's decrepit infrastructure — then threatened to shut Exxon out after its CEO called the country "uninvestable." Housing costs: Trump ordered a $200 billion purchase of mortgage-backed securities in a highly unusual effort to lower mortgage rates. He also proposed a ban on "large institutional investors" from buying single-family homes, seeking to force down prices by squeezing corporate players. Consumer debt: Trump called for capping credit card interest rates at 10% for at least a year — an intervention into consumer lending aimed at delivering immediate relief to borrowers. Banks and lenders warned the move could restrict access to credit, especially for riskier consumers.

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Trump's 14-day defense frenzy

President Trump returns to D.C. from Michigan yesterday. Photo: Luis M. Alvarez/AP The world's understanding of how President Trump intends to wield the American military and influence the industry that arms it changed dramatically in two weeks flat, Axios Future of Defense author Colin Demarest writes. As the year began, the commander in chief dispatched troops to capture Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro and warned Colombia, Cuba, Greenland and Mexico they could be next. Trump also hinted at another round of action in Iran, a symptom of his growing affinity for military force. Another sign: Nigeria was the seventh country bombed in less than a year. London front pages today. ? Zoom in: So far this year, Trump has menaced the contracts of the world's second-largest defense company, sought to suspend dividends and stock buybacks across the sector, and demanded investments in "plants and equipment" and speedier weapons production. At the same time, Trump floated a record $1.5 trillion military budget. The president wants new warships on the sea and space-based interceptors in the sky on his terms and his expedited timeline.