Yesterday President Trump met in the Oval Office with Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and, in the midst of defending him over the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, said that MBS “knew nothing about it.” Last night Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-VA) went to the well of the House and gave a brief speech in which he said that the two most troubling presidential calls he had reviewed while serving on the National Security Council staff were the infamous one with President Zelenskyy and another heretofore unknown call with MBS. Vindman then goes on to imply that the call showed Trump not knew MBS ordered the murder but likely supported it. Vindman first posted the video on Twitter last night. This morning he posted the same video on Bluesky. But in the caption he writes in the post — as opposed to the video — he zeroes in specifically on Trump’s claim that MBS “knew nothing about it.”
Based on Vindman’s statement and what we already know about Trump generally and the U.S. intelligence community’s verdict on the murder, it seems clear that MBS admitted to ordering the murder — that he admitted it to Trump and that Trump was completely fine with it. He did everything he could to protect MBS after the fact. The last point is a matter of public record. It’s important to remember that for a time it seemed like a very open question whether MBS could remain as the de facto ruler of the country after the facts of Khashoggi’s murder emerged. Whether the U.S. and Europe really had the muscle to force that change, I don’t really know. But Trump did MBS a very, very big solid.
The U.S. Intelligence community said unequivocally that MBS ordered the killing. Trump said at the time that MBS told him he didn’t do it and he believed him. That’s a contradiction and the American people have a right to know what was said between the two.
I’m not going to hold my breath that anyone will ever release it because they’ll cite national security concerns and that will be that. I suppose it’d always possible that Trump will do it himself, though. He did before and he’s very stupid.
Nonetheless, if the Democrats win the majority next year, they should pound the drum for him to do it. It’s very possible that there was a quid pro quo since that’s what he does. And I would not be surprised if it was one that benefited Trump personally. There’s so much money flowing into his and the rest of his family’s hands from Saudi Arabia that the whole thing needs to be thoroughly examined.
No Scott, they will spend it. Of course they will. And it will function as a stimulus, which it will be, and that will raise inflation even more. Normally that would precipitate a rise in interest rates to tame it but that would make Trump explode. So my guess is that they will wait to do this until Powell’s term is up next year and they can replace him with a toady. Trump thinks they should lower interest rates in the case of inflation because he’s a moron so if he can somehow get a majority of the Fed governors on board with that, it’s what he’ll do. (It remains to be seen if the Supremes will allow him to fire fed governors and if they do all bets are off.)
If they lower interest rates when inflation is rising we’re going to get a real snootfull of inflation. If they do raise interest rates and the tariffs stay in place with all the associated chaos, we’ll likely be looking at stagflation.
I’m sure everyone would like to get another stimie. I would too. But we’re not going to like the consequences.
I assume Bessent knows all that. But he seems to think that Trump is a genius who “knows things” that others don’t see we need to trust him.
Bessent: I think President Trump would make a great fed chair. He understands monetary policy better than a lot of people. pic.twitter.com/goVpevGYSP
In case you’re wondering why anyone with any sense of dignity would say such a thing, I think this explains it:
Trump on Jerome Powell: "I'd love to fire his ass. He should be fired. The only thing Scott [Bessent] is blowing it on is the Fed. The rates are too high, Scott. And if you don't get it fixed fast, I'm going to fire your ass." pic.twitter.com/s653VB3MI1
I’m not sure what he thinks Bessent is supposed to do about the Fed, but I’m sure Bessent obediently bent over and said “thank you sire, may I have another.”
Those of you who follow right wing political history are certainly familiar with their old lament about “the sell-out at Yalta” in which Roosevelt and Churchill allegedly old out to Stalin by allowing him to continue to occupy eastern Europe. It was bullshit of course. But it looks like Trump’s on his way to actually doing it:
The Trump administration has been secretly working in consultation with Russia to draft a new plan to end the war in Ukraine, U.S. and Russian officials tell Axios.
The 28-point U.S. plan is inspired by President Trump’s successful push for a deal in Gaza. A top Russian official told Axios he’s optimistic about the plan. It’s not yet clear how Ukraine and its European backers will feel about it.
The plan’s 28 points fall into four general buckets, sources tell Axios: peace in Ukraine, security guarantees, security in Europe, and future U.S. relations with Russia and Ukraine.
It’s unclear how the plan approaches contentious issues such as territorial control in eastern Ukraine — where Russian forces have been inching forward, but still control far less land than the Kremlin has demanded.
Behind the scenes: Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff is leading the drafting of the plan and has discussed it extensively with Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev, a U.S. official said.
Dmitriev, who runs Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and is also deeply involved in diplomacy over Ukraine, told Axios in an interview on Monday that he spent three days huddled with Witkoff and other members of Trump’s team when Dmitriev visited Miami from Oct. 24-26.
Dmitriev expressed optimism about the deal’s chances of success because, unlike past efforts, “we feel the Russian position is really being heard.”
Dmitriev told Axios the basic idea was to take the principles Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to in Alaska in August and produce a proposal “to address the Ukraine conflict, but also how to restore U.S.-Russia ties [and] address Russia’s security concerns.”
[…]
Dmitriev said this effort was entirely unrelated to the U.K.-led push to draft a Gaza-style peace plan for Ukraine, which he said had no chance of success because it disregards Russia’s positions.
The Russian envoy said the U.S. side was now in the process of explaining the “benefits” of its current approach to the Ukrainians and the Europeans.
Sounds great. Give Russia what it wants and everything’s copacetic.
The Democrats currently have a 14-point lead against the Republicans among registered voters nationally on the 2026 generic congressional ballot question. This has changed considerably. Since 2022, voters have divided about which party’s candidate they would support. Asked at the tail end of the nation’s longest government shutdown, a plurality of Americans say they place most of the blame for the shutdown on congressional Democrats. However, President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans do not walk away unscathed, with six in ten blaming either the President or the GOP in Congress.
A majority of registered voters nationally (55%) say they would support the Democratic candidate for Congress in their district, if the 2026 congressional elections were held today. 41% would support the Republican, and 3% would back another candidate. Among independents, the Democrats (61%) have a +33-point advantage over the Republicans (28%).
This is the first time in more than three years that Democrats have had a notable advantage on the congressional generic ballot question. When last asked in November of 2024, registered voters divided, 48% to 48%. The last time the Democrats had a noteworthy advantage on this question was in June of 2022 when the Democrats were +7 among registered voters.
39% of Americans blame the Democrats in Congress for the government shutdown. 34% place responsibility on President Trump, and 26% blame congressional Republicans.
While 80% of Republicans blame congressional Democrats, 49% of Democrats blame President Trump. An additional 40% of Democrats point a finger at the Republicans in Congress. Among independents, 41% blame President Trump; 32% blame the Republicans in Congress, and 27% blame the congressional Democrats.
President Trump’s job approval rating among Americans is 39%, down slightly from 41% in September. 56% of Americans disapprove of the job the President is doing in office. This compares with 53%, previously.
26% of Americans say they strongly approve of the job President Trump is doing while 48% strongly disapprove.
There’s more here.
I don’t think I need to comment other than to say that Trump’s king act may not be the hit he thinks it is.
President Donald Trump’s approval rating fell to 38%, the lowest since his return to power, with Americans unhappy about his handling of the high cost of living and the investigation into the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.
The survey showed Trump’s overall approval has fallen two percentage points since a Reuters/Ipsos poll in early November.
Neither I nor Digby anticipated that I would be writing from ground zero in the voting rights war when I joined her in August 2014. Life’s little quirks.
The conservative Carolina Journal summarizes the case today:
A three-judge federal panel will consider this afternoon requests to block North Carolina’s new congressional map for the 2026 elections.
Two sets of plaintiffs are seeking an injunction against the map. Republican legislative leaders are defending the map.
Tied to Senate Bill 249, the map shifts counties between Congressional Districts 1 and 3. Legislative leaders say the changes are designed to help Republicans pick up District 1, a seat held now by Democratic Rep. Don Davis.
One group of plaintiffs led by the North Carolina NAACP and another working with Democratic operative Marc Elias’ law firm challenge the map as violating constitutional rights.
The NAACP’s latest court filing targets arguments from legislative lawyers.
Beyond that point, it’s Republican arguments for why disenfranchising Black voters is A-okay with them.
Feting a Saudi butcher, suggesting Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi had earned dismemberment, and calling a female reporter “piggy” are not the only items on Donald Trump’s lowlights reel from the last week.
His effort to shake up the 2026 congressional elections by asking (and getting) state-level allies to redraw district maps to favor Republicans mid-decade just came up TILT on Tuesday (Politico):
Together, they represent roadblocks for the White House’s push to shore up a House majority through mid-decade redraws. Republicans began their rush to redraw the maps with the upper hand, but state-level backlash, Democrats’ big Election Day win for California’s redistricting measure and this court ruling have cut into that advantage, with just under a year until voters head to the polls in next year’s midterms.
Not to mention Trump’s epic Tuesday losses in the House (427-1) and Senate (unanimous consent; GOP senators did not want a recorded vote) on release of the Epstein files:
The bill forces the release within 30 days of all files and communications related to Epstein, as well as any information about the investigation into his death in federal prison. It would allow the Justice Department to redact information about Epstein’s victims or continuing federal investigations, but not information due to “embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity.”
The bill now lands on the Oval Office desk.
Trump does not dare veto the measure. Not with those vote margins and with 80 percent public approval of full disclosure. That doesn’t mean he, AG Pam Bondi, and FBI director Kash Patel won’t be casting about for “the dog ate my homework” excuses for drawing out the Epstein coverup. Don’t expect to see full disclosure anytime soon.
Getting back to the 160-page Texas ruling authored by Judge Jeffrey V. Brown, a conservative Donald Trump nominee, Mark Joseph Stern explains (Slate):
Remarkably, Brown found that it was Trump’s own Department of Justice that had injected race into the plot as part of its “hamfisted” effort to cook up a pretext for new maps. And he laid out a gobsmacking amount of smoking-gun evidence that all points in the direction of unlawful racism. The Texas Legislature, Brown noted, could simply have drawn a straightforward partisan gerrymander that benefited Republicans without regard to race. Instead, it colluded with the DOJ to reengineer congressional districts by skin color—the one thing that even this Supreme Court does not allow.
But it was a letter sent July 7 by Harmeet Dhillon, the head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, that set the stage for Brown’s ruling. She claimed that existing Texas districts were unconstitutionally racist and risked federal action if not redrawn.
Brown, explains Stern:
… largely blames Dhillon and her deputies at the DOJ for bungling the whole gambit. Partisan gerrymandering, he noted, is permissible under the U.S. Constitution. And “to be sure, politics played a role” in the creation of this map. But Texas Republicans repeatedly disclaimed that they were, first and foremost, attempting to comply with Dhillon’s demands. And her primary demand was that they re-sort voters along racial lines.
Why? That is the baffling question that Brown spent much of his opinion trying to resolve. Here is what appears to have happened: Texas Republicans wanted a pretext they could use as a fig leaf to pretend that their gerrymander was not purely partisan. Dhillon was well positioned to concoct one, since she could threaten to sue the state if it didn’t follow through on Trump’s demands. Her solution was to seize upon a recent ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, Petteway v. Galveston County, which held that the Voting Rights Act does not require states to draw multiracial “coalition” districts. (In other words, Texas does not have to combine two minority groups to create one majority-minority district.) Petteway merely relieved states of the obligation to draw coalition districts. In her letter, though, Dhillon twisted the ruling into a prohibition against these districts. Because Texas currently has a number of them, she wrote, the state’s congressional map was unconstitutional and had to be retooled.
But Dhillon’s letter was so full of factual, legal, and typographical errors that, following its illogic, Stern summarizes, “Republicans targeted Texas’ nonwhite voters with almost surgical precision. [North Carolina knows something about surgical precision.] They left majority-white districts largely intact, even those that leaned Democratic. But they obliterated majority-minority “coalition” districts through the classic technique of a brazen racial gerrymander.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said he would appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court and seek a stay. Voting Rights Act adversaries on the Roberts court may sympathize with Trump’s effort. But, Stern suggests, “Tuesday’s decision is notrooted in the VRA; it is, rather, based on the simple principle that the Constitution does not permit invidious racial discrimination in congressional elections.”
The question now is whether SCOTUS is prepared to stand by that principle despite Texas having broken the law to steal an additional 5 congressional seats.
“Donald Trump and Greg Abbott played with fire, got burned — and democracy won,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement on X Tuesday. “This ruling is a win for Texas and for every American who fights for free and fair elections.”
Meanwhile, at the White House:
Everyone at this White House State Dinner and Elon Musk are sitting down at a table having dinner with a man Musk accused of being a pedophile They are also breaking bread with a Saudi murderer prince. That’s the current backdrop to a gathering of the world’s most evil people pic.twitter.com/HMSUjg3wh0
60% of Republicans think Trump is full of shit on the Epstein files. And since his own DOJ is now charged with releasing the files (assuming he signs the bill, which he says he will do) a good many people will assume it’s a shame — because Trump has spent the last few months covering it up. This is never going to fully go away — and Trump knows it.
He knew how this was going to go when they asked him if he’s release the JFK, MLK and Epstein files all in the same breath. Those conspiracy theories never go away.
I hope everyone doesn’t get too, too excited, though. The Trump era is a roller coaster. We’re on the upside today but it’s inevitable that we’ll be hurtling down the other side before long. I don’t know what it will be — war maybe. Rally ’round the flag? But something. We have three long years to go….
Online influencer Andrew Tate, a self-described misogynist who has millions of young male followers, was facing allegations of sex trafficking women in three countries when he and his brother left their home in Romania to visit the United States.
“The Tates will be free, Trump is the president. The good old days are back,” Tate posted on X before the trip in February — one of many times he has sung the president’s praises to his fans.
But when the Tate brothers arrived by private plane in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, they immediately found themselves in the crosshairs of law enforcement once more, as Customs and Border Protection officials seized their electronic devices.
The Tates were released under pressure from the United States for reasons that were obscure. There is no doubt that they are the worst kind of violent misogynists. They videos their misdeed and put them on the internet. At the time, it was thought that maybe the U.S. would take over the investigation and deal with them in their own judicial system.
Nope:
This time, they had a powerful ally come to their aid. Behind the scenes, the White House intervened on their behalf.
Interviews and records reviewed by ProPublica show a White House official told senior Department of Homeland Security officials to return the devices to the brothers several days after they were seized. The official who delivered the message, Paul Ingrassia, is a lawyer who previously represented the Tate brothers before joining the White House, where he was working as its DHS liaison.
In his written request, a copy of which was reviewed by ProPublica, Ingrassia chided authorities for taking the action, saying the seizure of the Tates’ devices was not a good use of time or resources. The request to return the electronics to the Tates, he emphasized, was coming from the White House.
[…]
Ingrassia’s intervention on behalf of Tate and his brother, Tristan, caused alarm among DHS officials that they could be interfering with a federal investigation if they followed through with the instruction, according to interviews and screenshots of contemporaneous communications between officials.
One official who was involved and spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid facing retribution said they were disgusted by the request’s “brazenness and the high-handed expectation of complicity.”
— Nathan Livingstone (MilkBarTV) (@TheMilkBarTV) January 11, 2025
Yeah:
Trump had nominated Ingrassia to lead the Office of Special Counsel, but the 30-year-old lawyer’s chances for Senate confirmation imploded after Politico reported that he had sent a string of racist text messages to fellow Republicans and described himself as having “a Nazi streak.” Paltzik, his lawyer, raised doubts about the authenticity of the texts but said “even if the texts are authentic, they clearly read as self-deprecating and satirical humor.”
In a post on X announcing he was withdrawing from his Senate confirmation hearing because not enough Republican lawmakers were supporting him, Ingrassia said he would “continue to serve President Trump and this administration to Make America Great Again.”
Last week, Ingrassia announced he was moving to a new role within the administration, after Trump called him into his office and asked him to serve as deputy general counsel at the General Services Administration.
From the man who personally, and with the help of his Vice President, dressed down the president of an allied country at war with an adversary in front of the whole world, comes this:
Reporter: Is it appropriate for your family to do business with Saudi Arabia while you’re president? The us intelligence concluded you orchestrated the murder of a journalist…
Trump: Who are you with?
Reporter: ABC News
Trump: ABC Fake news. I have nothing to do with the family business. You mentioned somebody extremely controversial—a lot of people didn’t like that gentleman. Whether you did or didn’t like him, things happen but he knew nothing about it. You don’t have to embarrass our guest.
Trump suggests Khashoggi had it coming: "You're mentioning someone that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn't like that gentleman that you're talking about. Whether you like him or didn't like him, things happen. But he knew nothing about it. You don't have to… pic.twitter.com/uhh8VjFy20
