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Donald J. Trump White House 2nd Term Page 19
Iran's IRGC seizes two vessels in Persian Gulf, official threatens US with 'massacre and hell'
Story by FRAIDY MOSER

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy claims it seized two vessels near Farsi Island that were carrying smuggled fuel, Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) reported on Thursday.

The IRGC Navy’s Public Relations Department alleged that more than one million liters of fuel were found on the ships. The 15 foreign crew members were referred to the judicial authorities.

According to ISNA, the vessels had been operating within a smuggling network over the past several months and were intercepted through monitoring, intelligence work, and IRGC naval operations.
Story by Reuters

Feb 5 (Reuters) - Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi has departed for the Omani capital Muscat at the head of a diplomatic delegation for nuclear talks with the U.S. due to be held on Friday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry's spokesperson said.

The U.S. and Iran have agreed to hold talks in Oman on Friday, officials for both sides said, even as they remain at odds over Washington's insistence that negotiations must include Tehran's missile arsenal and Iran's vow to discuss only its nuclear programme.
Story by Jack Hobbs

President Donald Trump was met with groans after allegedly telling Christian leaders that they should not vote for democrats during a prayer breakfast on Thursday.

Speaking to the assembled crowd of politicians and religious leaders at the Washington Hilton, Trump stated that he "didn't know" how a person of faith could vote for a Democrat. "I don't know how a person of faith can vote for a Democrat," the president said.

"I really don't," he added, eliciting a groan from the audience. "And I know we have some here today, and I don't know why they're here, because they certainly don't give us their vote." It comes after the daughter of Trump's doctor made a bombshell claim about his health.

Trump added, switching gears to his newest idea to "nationalize" the election system: "I certainly know that we're not going to be convincing them to vote for a little thing called voter ID. It polls at 97%. And even the Democrats, the people, the voters, are at 82% for voter ID, but the leaders don't want to approve it."

"They said they will strike. They will not allow it to happen," the president claimed. "It's polling at over 90%. It's called voter identification. When you go to the polls, you show if, yes, my name is so-and-so, and I live in the country."
Story by Alison Durkee, Forbes Staff

Topline
The Justice Department’s latest release of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein shows new ties with the world’s most powerful people—including information about his relationship to Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, the president of the World Economic Forum Borge Brende and Bill Gates—and at least one is already out of a job.

Key Facts
The DOJ released approximately three million documents Friday, including 2,000 videos and 18,000 photos, part of the government’s requirement to release its full documents on Epstein under federal law—but coming more than a month after the files were required to be released by Dec. 19.

The files released Friday include a wide variety of documents, including emails between Epstein and his powerful friends—including billionaire Elon Musk—documents related to Epstein and associate Ghislaine Maxwell’s times in prison and witness interviews with Epstein victims, though many are heavily redacted.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche denied the Trump administration had “covered up” any of the Epstein files by failing to release them sooner, pointing to the millions of pages the government had to review and arguing, “There’s not some tranche of super-secret documents that we’re withholding.”

The documents include materials from the government’s criminal investigations into Epstein and Maxwell, “multiple FBI investigations” and the government’s investigation into Epstein’s death, the DOJ said.
Story by Adam Van Eekeren

TRUMP THREATENS IRAN
Fears that WWIII is on the horizon have intensified after US President Donald Trump issued a chilling four-word threat to Iran amidst mounting tensions. His comments come as experts claim that discussions between the White House and the brutal regime regarding nuclear weapons are now on the brink of collapse.

US IS 'LOCKED AND LOADED'
The president’s threats come as tensions between Iran and the US continue to mount. These tensions were sparked by Trump's previous warnings that he would military strike the region. This came after the revelation that Ayatollah Al-Khamenei had killed around 6,000 demonstrators as part of a brutal crackdown on anti-regime protests. Trump then told Iran that the US was ‘locked and loaded’ to strike if the killings continued.

TRUMP SENDS ARMADA
Trump later doubled down on his threats to Iran by sending a massive naval armada towards the country ahead of key negotiations. ‘We have ships heading to Iran right now, big ones - the biggest and the best - and we have talks going on with Iran and we’ll see how it all works out,’ the US President told reporters in the Oval Office.
Story by Travis Gettys

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that California may use a new congressional map approved by voters.

Justices rejected arguments from Republicans asking the court to block district lines they claimed were rigged in favor of Democratic candidates, and their decision was issued as a one-sentence order that did not provide explanation or dissent, reported NBC News.
BuzzFeed

As tensions rise between ICE and the public, Donald Trump's former White House Chief Strategist, Steve Bannon, recently made a chilling comment about where he says ICE may show up next.

A clip from Bannon's political show, The War Room, has gone viral, garnering over 2.5 million views on X, where he claimed that ICE would be at the polls. You can watch it here.

At the beginning of the clip, Bannon said, "You're **** right. We're gonna have ICE surround the polls come November."
BuzzFeed

This morning, President Donald Trump spoke for an hour and 15 minutes at the 74th National Prayer Breakfast.

It was...about as spiritual as you'd expect.

He discussed his chances of getting into heaven:
Donald Trump dubbed 'crazy' as he flips on election claims days after viral audio leak
Story by Jaja Agpalo

It is a peculiar hallmark of the current American political epoch that reality is frequently treated not as a fixed state, but as a negotiable position. This pliability was on full display this week when Donald Trump, sitting across from NBC News’ Tom Llamas, offered a denial so stark it seemed to challenge the very existence of recorded audio. “I didn’t say nationalize,” the president asserted, waving away suggestions that he had called for a federal takeover of the US electoral system.

The denial was swift, confident, and categorically false. This wasn’t a mumbled slip of the tongue or a vague aside that could be explained away; he had demanded a ‘take over’ of voting in “at least 15 places” on a massive platform. Yet, when the heat turned up, Donald Trump didn’t just spin the comment—he tried to erase it from the record entirely, looking into the camera and denying words the world had just heard him say.

It’s a classic Trumpian cycle, but this specific incident exposes something deeper than his usual loose relationship with the truth. It lays bare the sheer mess of his operation—a candidate saying whatever comes into his head in the moment, while his staff scramble behind the scenes, trying to retrofit his outbursts into something that sounds like coherent policy.
'Had no lawful right': Judge who helped immigrant evade arrest says ICE agents violated 'longstanding privilege' barring civil arrests at courthouses
Story by Chris Perez

ICE agents "violated a longstanding privilege" barring civil arrests from happening in courthouses when they tried to arrest an undocumented immigrant that Hannah Dugan — the former Wisconsin judge who was found guilty last year of impeding agents during a courthouse bust — shielded from arrest, her lawyers say.

"ICE had no lawful right to execute the warrant in a state courthouse against a party with a court appearance that day," Dugan's legal team argues in a Jan. 30 motion for a new trial. "[Dugan's] conviction cannot stand, as a matter of law," the motion charges.

Dugan, 66, was indicted last year for allegedly helping an immigrant, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, evade federal officers shortly after he appeared in her Milwaukee County Circuit courtroom in connection with a domestic abuse case. A federal jury found Dugan guilty in December of one count of obstructing or impeding a proceeding before a department or agency of the United States, a felony. Jurors found her innocent of one count of concealing an individual to prevent his discovery and arrest, a misdemeanor.

Steve Biskupic, one of Dugan's defense attorneys — and a former U.S. Attorney — told WISN in late December that her legal team had planned to ask U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, a Bill Clinton appointee, to set aside Dugan's guilty verdict. Her lawyers filed their motion for a new trial on Friday with claims that recent court cases, including one in November 2025, established a "common-law privilege" that bars civil arrests from happening inside courthouses.
Peter Mandelson offered Jeffrey Epstein help getting a Russian visa via a billionaire oligarch with links to Putin, files reveal
By SAM MERRIMAN, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

Peter Mandelson offered to help Jeffrey Epstein obtain a Russian visa via a billionaire oligarch with close links to Vladimir Putin.

The paedophile financier planned to use the visa to travel to Moscow to meet young women, documents released by the US Department of Justice suggest.

Epstein emailed the disgraced ex-Labour minister, who had left government six months earlier, on 9 November 2010 asking if he could help acquiring a Russian visa.

Epstein emailed Lord Mandelson saying: 'I do not have a visa for Russia, it is a bank holiday in Paris today... any ideas how I can get one.'

The emails suggest Lord Mandelson replied hours later indicating he was willing to help Epstein, who had been released from prison about a year earlier after serving 13-months for soliciting a minor.

The following day Lord Mandelson emailed Epstein again and said that an associate 'can get visa through OD' - thought to refer to Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska who was sanctioned by the UK after the start of the Ukraine war.

A few hours later Lord Mandelson said to Epstein: 'OD office helping on visas. Told him he [should] meet u and of course he wants to. He's travelling at moment.'

There is a known link between Lord Mandelson and Deripaska. In 2008 the then EU trade commissioner and George Osborne, then shadow chancellor, were embroiled in controversy after attending a party on the oligarch's superyacht in Corfu.
by Alexander Bolton

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says he does not support President Trump’s proposal for Republicans to “take over” voting procedures in more than a dozen states and “nationalize” the midterm elections, declaring the president’s call to action blatantly unconstitutional.

“That’s not what the Constitution says about elections,” Paul said in an interview Tuesday with MS NOW’s Stephanie Ruhle, when asked about the president’s statement that Republicans “ought to nationalize the voting.”

Paul noted the U.S. Supreme Court limits states in some ways, such as by barring them from setting different rules for some issues, including term limits. But he said the Constitution gives states the power to determine the time, place and matter of elections.

“The Supreme Court did rule that, for example, Washington state can’t set term limits on federal officials if Georgia doesn’t. It has to be a uniform election law,” the Kentucky Republican said.

“But as far as the time, place and manner of elections, that, under the Constitution, is a state activity,” he continued. “So, I’m not for nationalizing it.”
Story by Nicole Charky-Chami

The American ambassador to Poland had a meltdown Thursday after the country's parliament speaker said President Donald Trump wasn't worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Ambassador Tom Rose, a MAGA ally, raged over the comment Thursday in a post on X after Parliament Speaker Wlodzimierz Czarzasty did not agree that Trump was a good potential recipient of the famed prize, The Daily Beast reported.
Story by Adam Lynch

MS NOW analyst Cornell Belcher argues a recent boo-down at a major professional wrestling event in Las Vegas reveals President Donald Trump may have lost a bigger sector of the voting class than originally expected.

“That clip … at a wrestling match is, quite frankly, startling because the cultural stuff has such importance,” Belcher told MS NOW host Alicia Menendez. “These blue-collar non-college voters have been the face of Trump's support for a long time. Non-college white voters broke for Trump by 34 points in the last election.”

Belcher pointed to surveys showing 57 percent of non-college white voters now believe Trump’s Department of Homeland Security personnel have “gone too far,” even on an issue that Trump once enjoyed widespread support.
Story by Jack Detsch

President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he will let the last arms control treaty between Russia and the United States lapse and instead direct his administration to work toward a new one.

The New START treaty, which expired at midnight, was the last safeguard on the superpowers’ nuclear arsenals.

While Trump has called for a new deal to include China, his TruthSocial post represents the president’s first public comments on the future of the pact. New START had set limits on the number of bombers, missiles and warheads both sides can deploy.
Story by Kate Plummer

A video posted by U.S. President Donald Trump‘s Truth Social account contained a racist depiction of Barack and Michelle Obama as apes.

At the end of the 62-second video—otherwise about voting machines—the Obamas’ faces appear on apes’ bodies for about 1 second as The Tokens’ song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” plays.

The video was posted to the account shortly before midnight ET.

The edited image of the Obamas, both Democrats, carries a watermark @XERIAS_X, which corresponds with a Trump-supporting X account with about 46,000 followers.

Given the bulk of the video is about elections, it is not clear if Trump watched the whole video and was aware of the content shared at the end. Newsweek reached out to the White House by email outside of normal business hours on Friday.

Why It Matters
Political polarization online has increased in the last few years, sparking conversations about the balance between free speech and offensive discourse.

What To Know
The 62-second video, which appears to have originated from the website Patriot News Outlet claimed Michigan officials had accessed voting tabulators that showed potential election interference. It comes amid Trump’s continuous unfounded claims that the 2020 presidential election was beset with electoral fraud and other issues, meaning former president Joe Biden’s win was false.
Story by Chris Melore, Assistant Science Editor For Dailymail.Com

The Trump Administration has given the green light to reveal the secret UFO facilities to one of the leading voices in Congress calling for full disclosure of alien life.

US Congressman Eric Burlison of Missouri revealed that he has requested and been granted access to secure locations, such as Area 51, which have decades-old ties to UFOs and secret government projects.

Speaking on the ALN Podcast, Burlison added that the request to President Trump and his staff included visiting US military bases and facilities where evidence suggests unidentified craft, materials, bodies, or archives allegedly exist.

Burlison is a member of the congressional oversight committee involved in the ongoing investigation into Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs), commonly known as UFOs.

Although the US government and the Pentagon have officially denied that there has been any physical evidence of UFOs or alien life ever recovered, Congress has heard from multiple whistleblowers claiming secret programs have covered up the truth.

In fact, Burlison has previously claimed President Trump has been 'fully briefed' on the existence of aliens, UFOs recovered by the military since the 1940s, and alien-human hybrids allegedly living on Earth today.
Story by Janna Brancolini

Kristi Noem’s Department of Homeland Security is trying to expedite deportation proceedings against the family of a 5-year-old boy who has become the face of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation strategy.

Photos of Liam Conejo Ramos standing in the snow wearing a Spiderman backpack and blue bunny-ears hat went viral last month after the preschooler and his father were detained by ICE in Minneapolis and sent to a detention facility more than 1,000 miles away in Texas.

Before Ramos and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, were released on Saturday on a federal judge’s orders, the boy became feverish, vomited, and grew lethargic, but was denied medication because the detention center said they didn’t have any, Arias told ABC News.

Earlier this week, top officials at the Department of Justice vowed to appeal the order granting the father and son’s release. Arias and his wife, who is pregnant with the couple’s third child, came to the U.S. from Ecuador with Liam and their oldest child in 2024 and legally applied for asylum.
Story by Kate Plummer

President Donald Trump has sparked online criticism after posting a video on Truth Social that contained a racist depiction of former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama as apes.

Near the end of the 62-second video about voting machines in the 2020 presidential election, the Obamas’ faces appear on the bodies of apes for about one second as the Tokens’ “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” plays. A watermark from X user @XERIAS_X, a Trump-supporting account with 45,900 followers, overlays that portion of the video.

On X, various public figures condemned the video. Harry Sisson, a liberal social media influencer with over 374,000 followers, called it “incredibly racist and disgusting.”

Newsweek has contacted the White House and representatives for Obama for comment by email outside normal business hours.

Why It Matters
Political polarization has increased in the past few years, particularly in online spaces—sparking conversations about the balance between free speech and offensive discourse. The president, whose use of social media has long drawn scrutiny, was barred from Facebook and Twitter, now X, in 2021 after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. In response, Trump created Truth Social, where he posts frequently. His Facebook and Twitter accounts were later reinstated.

Since taking office in January 2025, Trump and his administration have been accused of racism and bigotry amid its rollbacks of diversity, equity and inclusion programs and their efforts to carry out the largest mass deportation program in U.S. history. Trump posting a video depicting Obama, the first Black president of the United States, as an ape during Black History Month has further fanned those accusations.
Story by Isabella Murray, Beatrice Peterson, Ivan Pereira

President Donald Trump on Thursday again shifted explanations of why Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was at a controversial FBI search of a Georgia election office where 2020 ballots were seized amid his continuing false claims of voter fraud.

Trump told attendees of the National Prayer Breakfast that it was Attorney General Pam Bondi who "insisted" that Gabbard oversee the Jan. 28 raid at the Fulton County Elections Hub and Operations Center.

"She went in and she looked at votes that want to be checked out from Georgia," he said of Gabbard. "They say, 'Why is she doing it?'" he continued, referring to questions raised about why Gabbard -- who deals with foreign intelligence threats -- was getting involved in domestic law enforcement. "Because Pam wanted her to do it," he said. "And you know why? Because she's smart."
Story by Craig Hoyle

A far-right provocateur and pardoned January 6 rioter has been arrested in Minneapolis for vandalising a "PROSECUTE ICE" sculpture at the Minnesota State Capitol.

Jake Lang posted a video of himself on X in which he kicks down the ice installation, which was put in place earlier on Thursday by a veterans group in protest against ICE’s presence in Minnesota as part of President Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Lang, 30, dressed in military-style camouflage, begins the video speaking directly to the camera: “President Trump, we support you. We support ICE. Our country was made for Americans, not for Somalis.”

He then strides over to the sculpture and kicks out the six middle letters, so it reads “PRO ICE.”

Once the destruction is finished, Lang raises his arms triumphantly to declare: “Pro ICE baby! America first, America only.”

The 30-year-old was seen leaving the area in a vehicle and was subsequently stopped by a state trooper at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and University Avenue, local news affiliate Fox 9 reported; he was arrested without incident and booked into the Ramsey County Jail on suspicion of criminal damage to property.
Story by Daniel Hampton

President Donald Trump's FBI has reportedly summoned election officials from all 50 states to a mysterious late-February conference call, sparking alarm among state leaders already bracing for federal interference in midterm elections.

An email obtained by Crooked Media's "What A Day" reveals FBI "Election Executive" Kellie Hardiman invited state officials to discuss "preparations for the cycle" alongside the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and U.S. Election Assistance Commission on Feb. 25. The FBI refused to comment on the call.
Story by Janna Brancolini

A watchdog group is demanding that Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice explain why none of the millions of documents released as part of the Epstein files include communications from top Trump administration officials.

The Democracy Defenders Fund alleged in a letter Friday that the DOJ has “impermissibly” narrowed the scope of the Epstein Files Transparency Act by failing to include any communications from Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, or FBI Director Kash Patel.

Those officials “have been at the center of DOJ’s response (or lack thereof) to congressional and public calls for production of the Epstein files,” the letter said, meaning the Epstein Library “should be replete with their communications.”

“The obvious conclusion is that these communications have been withheld, destroyed, or redacted to the point that they are not traceable in the Epstein Library,” it continued.

The law requires the release of all of the DOJ’s unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials relating to the investigation and prosecution of Epstein, while allowing certain information to be redacted, including personal details of victims and materials that would jeopardize an active federal investigation.
Story by Alexander Willis

Terrance Williams, a Black comedian, MAGA influencer and loyal supporter of President Donald Trump, scrambled Friday to cover for the president’s racist social media post that included depictions of Barack and Michelle Obama as primates, and was promptly dogpiled by critics.

Early Friday morning, Trump shared a video on social media that included racist depictions of the Obamas as primates in a jungle, a post that stunned critics, media figures and onlookers alike. As a fierce defender of Trump, however, Williams falsely claimed that the outrage was manufactured, and that Trump never shared the racist clip.

“FAKE NEWS ALERT! Trump Didn’t post this monkey video of the Obamas,” Williams wrote Friday in a social media post on X. “Lying Democrats. It’s not on his page. Fake screenshot.”

Williams’ post was immediately hit with X’s crowd-sourced fact-checking service known as “Community Notes” flagging his statement as false. Williams also faced swift pushback from critics, many of whom pointed to the irony of a Black comedian defending a president for amplifying an anti-Black racist trope with roots stretching back centuries.

“Yes he did,” wrote journalist and former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan, refuting Williams’ claim that Trump did not share the video in question. “He is happy to depict Black people as apes and you’re still pathetically and shamelessly willing to shill for him.”

With the evidence clear that Trump did, in fact, share the video, some critics called on Williams to make his position clear.
Alexander Willis

Under penalty of perjury, a witness told the FBI back in 2016 that they had “personally witnessed” President Donald Trump threaten to “disappear” a girl and have her entire family killed, according to a document released by the Justice Department on Friday.

Released as part of the DOJ’s publication of around 3.5 million files on Jeffrey Epstein, the FBI tip was submitted by an individual using the pseudonym “Tiffany Doe,” and includes details of an alleged threat Trump made to a plaintiff in a lawsuit.

“I personally witnessed Defendant Trump telling Plaintiff that she shouldn’t ever say anything if she didn’t want to disappear like the 12-year-old female [redacted], and that he was capable of having her whole family killed,” the FBI tip reads, signed under penalty of perjury on June 18, 2016.
Story by Julianna Bragg

President Trump's push to have Washington Dulles Airport and New York Penn Station renamed after himself is just the latest example of his desire to stamp his personal brand across America.

The big picture: Trump, more than any prior president, has made his own identity a focus of his administration, naming government buildings and programs the same way he did his business empire and campaign merch.

Renaming D.C. buildings
In addition to renaming the Kennedy Center, which would still require an act of Congress, the U.S. Institute of Peace was rebranded as the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace.

The intrigue: Both newly named entities are meant to honor the president's work during his second term, per the White House.

White House officials — and Trump himself — have also argued he played a critical role in preserving both institutions, which they say were struggling under previous administrations.
Attaching Trump's name to the new Washington Commanders stadium could be next.

National Park passes
The Interior Department in November unveiled the 2026 America the Beautiful National Park pass, which features a side-by-side image of George Washington and Trump to commemorate America's 250th anniversary.

Yes, but: A conservation group sued the administration, arguing that placing the president's face on the pass violates federal law.
Story by Camilla Jessen

Christopher Steele, a former MI6 officer who once ran the service’s Russia desk, said it is “quite likely” that Epstein possessed compromising information about U.S. President Donald Trump.

Speaking to LBC, Steele said Epstein was “recruited by Russian organised crime” and later operated under Russian control. He pointed to recently released Justice Department documents as evidence of Epstein’s deep ties to Russia.

According to Steele, U.S. sources have long questioned the origins of Epstein’s wealth. He said it did not appear to come from conventional business activities but instead had links to the Soviet Union and later Russia.

Decades-long operation
“I would say this story starts back in the 1970s,” Steele told LBC. “My sources in the United States tell me that the assessment of the US government and intelligence was that Epstein was recruited as early as the 1970s by Russian organized crime figures in New York, and his information and operational methods have been used since then.”

“So this scandal spans several decades,” he added.
Story by David Badash

Concern is mounting over reports that the FBI emailed election officials in all 50 states to invite them to a conference call with multiple federal agencies about the 2026 midterms — an outreach election officials reportedly view as unusual and concerning.

“The exact purpose of the call remains unclear. But it’s raising concerns after President Donald Trump called for state elections to be nationalized,” Crooked Media reported on Thursday. “The email is raising anxiety at a moment when Trump is calling for the federal government to take control of elections in 15 states, and dispatching the FBI to investigate the 2020 election in battleground state Georgia.”

“Election officials from every state received an invitation for the call on Feb. 25th, to be joined by Trump’s FBI, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Postal Inspection Service and U.S. Election Assistance Commission,” according to Crooked Media’s Matt Berg. He added: “The email, which was obtained via public records request, was sent on Tuesday by an official named Kellie Hardiman, who gave her title as ‘FBI Election Executive.'”
Story by Elizabeth Preza

President Donald Trump on Sunday jumped into the fray of MAGA Republicans complaining about U.S. athletes at the Olympic Winter Games in Milan who’ve expressed unease about recent actions by the federal government.

As the New York Times reports, “By Sunday morning, no member of the U.S. team in Italy had spoken publicly in support of the Trump administration. U.S. Olympic committee guidelines stipulate that athletes can advocate social and racial justice, but should avoid partisan politics.”
Disabled Minneapolis resident dragged, detained by ICE speaks out
Aliya Rahman gave her account of what happened during her now-viral account with ICE, where she was dragged out of her car. She also shared what she saw in the detention center.
Olympic athletes are already protesting against Trump and ICE
Story by Julianna Bragg

The Winter Olympic Games are just beginning, but some athletes are already speaking out against the Trump administration and its immigration enforcement tactics.

The big picture: While the Olympic Charter prohibits political, religious or racial demonstrations at Olympic sites, athletes have used early interviews and social media posts to express their concerns.

Team USA rebranded its hospitality house from Ice House to Winter House, distancing it from current immigration enforcement.
The latest: Team Great Britain skier Gus Kenworthy shared a photo on Instagram that appeared to show 'f--k ICE' written in snow with urine just ahead of the Milan-Cortina games opening ceremony.

The Olympian, who was raised in the U.S., also urged constituents to call their senators and "put pressure on them" during Homeland Security funding negotiations. He shared an example script.

"Innocent people have been murdered, and enough is enough," Kenworthy wrote on Instagram. "We can't wait around while ICE continues to operate with unchecked power in our communities."

The backlash comes as Trump has expanded federal operations in Minnesota, which resulted in the killings of Minneapolis residents Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, who were both shot by federal agents.
Congressional Black Caucus chair says Trump's post on the Obamas shows a 'bigoted and racist regime'
Story by BILL BARROW and RIVER ZHANG

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ever since a racist video was posted on President Donald Trump's social media account, the White House has offered shifting responses.

First it dismissed “fake outrage," then it deleted the post and blamed a staff member.

Trump later told reporters Friday that “I didn't make a mistake." The Republican president insisted that before the video was posted, no one saw the part that depicted former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as primates in the jungle.

But the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus had a different explanation when she spoke to The Associated Press.

“It’s very clear that there was an intent to harm people, to hurt people, with this video,” said Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y.

The AP interviewed Clarke, who leads the group of more than 60 Black House and Senate members, hours after the video was deleted on Friday, and she was unsparing in her criticism. “As my mother would say, ‘Too late. Mercy’s gone,'" Clarke said.

Here is an interview transcript, edited for length and clarity.

AP: What was your reaction when you saw that the post?

CLARKE: We’re dealing with a bigoted and racist regime. ... Every week we are, as the American people, put in a position where we have to respond to something very cruel or something extremely off-putting that this administration does. It’s a part of their M.O. at this point.
NSA detected phone call between foreign intelligence and a person close to Trump
Whistleblower says that Tulsi Gabbard blocked agency from sharing report and delivered it to White House chief of staff
Cate Brown

Last spring, the National Security Agency (NSA) detected evidence of an unusual phone call between an individual associated with foreign intelligence and a person close to Donald Trump, according to a whistleblower’s attorney briefed on the existence of the call.

The highly sensitive communique, which has roiled Washington over the past week, was brought to the attention of the director of national intelligence (DNI), Tulsi Gabbard – but rather than allowing NSA officials to distribute the information further, she took a paper copy of the intelligence directly to the president’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, the attorney, Andrew Bakaj, said.

One day after meeting Wiles, Gabbard told the NSA not to publish the intelligence report. Instead, she instructed NSA officials to transmit the highly classified details directly to her office.

Details of this exchange between Gabbard and the NSA were shared directly with the Guardian and have not been previously reported. Nor has Wiles receipt of the intelligence report.
MAGA’s war on "woke" has a long history — like 400 years
Opinion by Andrew O'Hehir

One explicit goal of the second Trump administration, if not its defining mission, is to undo the recent past and rewrite history to fit its own master narrative. By now it’s axiomatic that making America “great again” has never referred to any fixed point in the actual American past; it’s more like a mashup or highlight reel of random images taken from eras before any living American was born. We can see that vision embodied with startling literalness in the propaganda posters recently concocted by the Labor Department, such as the depiction of a whites-only church picnic apparently taking place in Uncanny Valley. If the rise of Donald Trump preceded the advent of AI slop, it may also have conjured it into existence: Never in cultural history have form and content been so perfectly matched.

We already know that Trump and his inner circle — which mostly means Stephen Miller and Russ Vought, the high priests of MAGA ideology — want to erase the gains of the civil rights movement, LGBTQ equality and feminism. But their true goals are far more ambitious, if less easy to define. This is a fake presidency devoted more to creating viral memes than shaping policy, and there’s no coherent or consistent narrative at work. Honestly, that’s less a flaw than a feature: The wholesale rejection of reality is central to the brand.

Team Trump claims to want the broadly shared prosperity of a 1950s-style industrial boom, but without the progressive taxation and expanded welfare state that made it possible. They also want a new American empire, vaguely modeled on the great-power glory days of the 1890s, but built on the cheap and based on extortion rather than military conquest. Spoiler alert: They don’t really want any those things. Those are just memes, about as realistic as the one about King Trump taking a dump on protesters, designed to distract attention from the imposition of a brutal but incompetent police state.
The Department of Homeland Security is using a little-known legal weapon, targeting dissenters with administrative subpoenas. MSNOW Legal Analyst Melissa Murray says the Trump administration isn’t using them “to fight crime or enhance public safety, but to minimize public dissent.” Tech reporter Joseph Menn warns, “This isn’t an isolated case.”
Democrats and some Republicans are raising the alarm about President Trump’s ideas to “nationalize” the midterms or assert “federal controls” over some polling locations. Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA), member of the House Armed Services Committee, joins Alex Witt to discuss election security and voting access ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Story by Namrata Sen

Chinese regulators have told financial institutions to limit their purchase of U.S. treasuries amid concentration risks and market volatility. Those with high exposure to the bonds have been advised to reduce their holdings, reported Bloomberg on Monday.

Notably, the advice is not applicable to Chinese state holdings of U.S. government bonds. The publication reported that the directive had been issued to the financial institutions before the recent call held between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

As per U.S Treasury data, China’s holding is worth $682.6 billion as of November 2025, the third-largest after Japan and the UK.

Economist Peter Schiff said that China’s move will mainly prompt the Federal Reserve to buy the bonds, creating inflationary conditions for consumers.

“That will send consumer prices soaring,” he wrote on X.
Story by Olivia Ralph

Newly released Epstein files include a draft statement attributed to federal prosecutors that is dated the day before Jeffrey Epstein was found dead.

The draft appears among at least 23 documents in the disclosure labeled as statements from the Southern District of New York’s U.S. Attorney’s Office.

A review of the records shows multiple versions of similar statements with inconsistent redactions—some leaving phone numbers or names visible, others blacking out nearly all identifying information.

One draft bears a date of August 9, 2019, the day before Epstein was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.

The circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death have been repeatedly scrutinized.
Story by Alexander Willis

A dinner President Donald Trump apparently attended nearly a decade ago sparked fears at the time that the president may have already been exhibiting symptoms of the memory-loss disease dementia, according to a newly unearthed email from Jeffrey Epstein.

In an email to author Michael Wolff dated Dec. 29, 2017, Epstein wrote that some attendees at the supposed dinner were startled by Trump, who was wearing “tons of makeup” and unable to recognize “old friends.”

“some at dinner wtih donald last night , were concerned about dementia,” Epstein wrote to Wolff. “tons of makeup. did not recognize old friends.”

According to former White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley, Trump did attend a dinner on Dec. 28, 2018 in Palm Beach, Florida at his Mar-a-Lago resort, which would match the date in Epstein’s email. The only reported guest at the dinner was Wilbur Ross, Trump’s former secretary of commerce, though other guests may have been in attendance.
National Governors Association Vice Chair Wes Moore responds to President Trump excluding him from a bipartisan White House dinner, telling Dana Bash, “It’s not lost to me that I’m the only black governor in this country… I’m never in a room because of someone’s benevolence nor kindness. I’m not in a room because of a social experiment. I’m in the room because I belong there and the room was incomplete until I got there.”
Story by Robert Davis

The latest batch of Jeffrey Epstein files released last week revealed a "deeply untoward" connection between President Donald Trump and a wealthy investor, one expert has said.

Russ Baker, founder and editor-in-chief of WhoWhatWhy, wrote in a new Substack essay on Sunday that Trump appears to be currying favors for Leon Black, the disgraced co-founder of Apollo Global Management, who resigned from the firm in 2021 when his ties to Epstein, a convicted sex criminal, were receiving increased scrutiny. He noted Trump's appointment of Black's son, Benjamin, to lead the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, and the subsequent reactions to that move, as evidence that something other than a simple quid pro quo is at play.

"This may be the understatement of the year: Something deeply untoward appears to be hidden just beneath the surface of recently released documents as they relate to certain people," Baker wrote.
Story by Ewan Palmer

Fewer than one in seven of those arrested by ICE since Donald Trump returned to office had charges or convictions for violent criminal offenses, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s own data.

A previously undisclosed document, obtained by CBS News, shows that only a small fraction of the nearly 400,000 migrants detained by ICE since last January are violent offenders, undermining the administration’s vow to target only “the worst of the worst” immigrants as part of its hardline mass deportation campaign.

The data also shows that 42 percent of the 392,619 ICE arrests between Jan. 21, 2025, and Jan. 31, 2026 involved people with no prior criminal charges or convictions. Nearly 40 percent were accused only of civil immigration offenses, such as living in the U.S. illegally, with around 11,000 accused of allegations such as interfering with ICE’s operations.
Story by Lex Harvey, Samantha Waldenberg, CNN

President Donald Trump threatened Monday to block the opening of a new bridge connecting the US and Canada, again lashing out at his country’s northern neighbor over a range of economic issues as the rift between Washington and Ottawa deepens.

Trump said he would “not allow” the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge, a 1.5-mile bridge connecting Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, in a post on Truth Social Monday. Major construction on the bridge is complete, and it’s expected to open this year after a period of testing.
Story by Sarah K. Burris

Rep. Dave Min (D-Calf.) said that new revelations expose some conflicts in President Donald Trump's timeline about his relationship with trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Members of Congress have been working their way through the unredacted investigation files released by the Justice Department, which one senator said mentions Trump's name at least 38,000 times.

Speaking to CNN, Min brought up recent reports from the Miami Herald that exposed conflicting stories from Trump about what he knew about Epstein and when he knew it.

The report cites a conversation the Palm Beach Police chief told investigators he had with Trump in 2006.

“Thank goodness you’re stopping him. Everyone has known he’s been doing this,” Trump told then-Chief Michael Reiter, who told the FBI in 2019. The interview documents are included in the case files released to date.

This "tells me Donald Trump was caught lying because he said that he did not know about Epstein until like 2019," said Min. "He said he'd quit affiliations with Epstein at some point. So the fact that, as early as 2005 or 2006, Donald Trump clearly and apparently knew something about what was going on with Epstein and that he was continuing to send girls from Mar-a-Lago to Epstein's employment. That tells us a lot about what Donald Trump knew and when. And I think that's a smoking gun."
Story by Matthew Chapman

A federal judge was blindsided on Monday upon learning that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been storing detainees on floors of a Manhattan facility that it hadn't disclosed to the court prior.

According to Courthouse News, "U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan slammed ICE for 'stalling' the production of discovery related to how immigrants are treated at 26 Federal Plaza, a short-term ICE jail in downtown Manhattan that has been subjected to claims of overcrowding, unsanitary living conditions and violations of detainees’ civil rights."

In particular, per the report, ICE has already been under an order to limit the number of detainees stored on the infamous 10th floor of the facility, so to get around that, they started storing people on the ninth floor as well.
Story by Robert Davis

A new lawsuit filed by a watchdog group accuses federal judge Aileen Cannon of Florida of "burying the truth" about former special counsel Jack Smith's final report of his investigation into President Donald Trump.

The lawsuit, filed by watchdog group American Oversight, asks the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals to vacate Cannon's order prohibiting the release of Volume II of Smith's report to Congress about Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. Cannon ruled last December that the report could not be released, and gave the Trump administration a 60-day window to challenge any disclosures.
Story by Samyarup Chowdhury

President Donald Trump’s renewed threats to acquire Greenland and punish opposing nations with tariffs have unsettled global markets, triggering another wave of so-called “Sell America” trades.

Investors moved away from U.S. stocks, bonds and the dollar after Trump said he was “100%” committed to imposing tariffs on countries rejecting the Greenland plan, deepening concerns about trade conflict, diplomatic fallout and long-term confidence in U.S. economic leadership.

Markets react
According to reports, selling pressure has intensified amid Trump’s latest Greenland push.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.8%, the S&P 500 dropped 2.1% and the Nasdaq slid 2.4%, marking the worst session for all three indices since October, according to CNBC.

Treasury prices also fell sharply, pushing yields higher, while the U.S. dollar weakened to a two-week low, The Wall Street Journal reported.

At the same time, demand increased for safe-haven assets, accelerating gains in gold and silver.
Story by David Edwards

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) forced Todd Lyons, the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to admit that his agency uses the same tactics as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

During a Tuesday House Homeland Security Committee hearing, Goldman pointed out that ICE agents were "asking people walking on the streets of America to show proof of citizenship."
Story by Pratik Sharma

Newly released Justice Department documents and FBI interview records reveal a stark contradiction in Donald Trump’s long-standing public denials about Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes.

For years, Trump has claimed he had “no idea” about Epstein’s abuse of underage girls. Yet records show that in 2006, he privately told Palm Beach police that “everyone” knew about Epstein’s activities and described Ghislaine Maxwell as evil.

Trump’s call to Palm Beach police chief
According to an FBI interview conducted in October 2019 with former Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter, Trump personally called him in July 2006, just as Epstein’s criminal sex charges became public. Reiter told agents that Trump said, “Thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this.”

Trump also warned Reiter about Epstein’s associate, saying Maxwell was Epstein’s “operative” and that “she is evil and to focus on her.”

Reiter further recounted that Trump said he had once been around Epstein when teenagers were present but “got the hell out of there.” Trump also claimed he had banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago.
Story by Ewan Palmer

Judges across the country are growing increasingly frustrated with the Trump administration for violating or ignoring court decisions related to ICE’s efforts to detain immigrants indefinitely.

An analysis of hundreds of court documents and cases by Politico found multiple examples of judges getting angry at the administration’s flagrant noncompliance with rulings as it carries out Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts.

Many of the disputes stem from the administration’s repeated attempts to round up people suspected of living in the country illegally and keep them detained without the possibility of release on bond. Among the more devious tactics employed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are moving detainees from state to state to prevent them from filing lawsuits seeking release, keeping individuals locked up for weeks after a judge has ordered their release, or even dumping them hundreds of miles from home without their possessions.
Story by Atlanta Black Star News

The Ford autoworker who heckled President Donald Trump last month during a tour of a Michigan manufacturing plant is keeping his job without penalty, and on top of that, he’s cashing in on more than $800,000 raised in the weeks after the incident.

And guess what? The MAGA sphere is in meltdown mode over it. Some Trump supporters are threatening to boycott the automaker over the decision to take no action against TJ Sabula, the worker who called the President a “pedophile protector” during Trump’s tour of Ford’s Rouge River plant in Dearborn on Jan. 13.

Ford initially suspended Sabula with pay, but since he’s a member of the United Auto Workers union, the union fought to get him reinstated. The suspension is over, and he has not been penalized, according to the union and news reports.

And the union was more than clear about what it thinks of Sabula’s heckling of Trump and his Constitutional right to free speech.
Georgia army veteran deported after traffic stop speaks out on ICE detention
Story by Sharon Lawson

A Georgia Army veteran who spent nearly five decades in the United States was deported to Jamaica following a routine traffic stop, and now he's sharing his story in hopes of sparking change for others in similar situations.

Godfrey Wade, a legal U.S. resident and Army veteran who first came to America in 1975, was detained after being pulled over for failing to use a turn signal and not carrying his driver's license. What should have been a minor infraction quickly escalated, landing Wade in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and ultimately leading to his deportation — despite his honorable military service and long-standing ties to the U.S.

Speaking to CBS Atlanta over Zoom from Jamaica, Wade recounted the moment that changed everything: "On that particular Saturday morning, I didn't have a license on me, so I knew just upon being stopped, it's gonna be the officer's discretion whether he releases me with just a fine or he'll take me into jail."
Trump says he raised country’s tariffs by 9% after not approving of leader’s tone in phone call: Didn’t ‘like the way she talked to us’
Story by Zachary Leeman

President Donald Trump recalled punishing a world leader with steeper tariffs after being dissatisfied with her tone during a phone conversation.

Trump joined Fox Business’ Larry Kudlow, who served as the director of the National Economic Council during Trump’s first administration, on Tuesday where he declared that “only stupid people and people who really hate Trump” could stand against his reciprocal tariff strategy.

The president recalled during a discussion on tariffs that he hit Switzerland with a steeper tariff after being unhappy with the leader’s tone during a phone call. Trump said he spoke to Switzerland’s “prime minister,” though he appeared to be referring to the country’s former president, Karin Keller-Sutter, who served through December of last year.

Trump said he spoke to her and she was not happy about a 30% trade tariff her country was being slapped with. Trump responded by raising the tariff by 9%. Trump claimed the world leader was “very aggressive” on the phone lead to a steeper punishment tariff, at least temporarily.
Trump nominee goes on offense after Chuck Schumer accuses him of 'white supremacy'
Opinion by Ashley Brasfield

President Donald Trump’s nominee, Jeremy Carl, is going on offense after Democrat Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused him of white supremacy.

Carl, Trump’s nominee to serve as assistant secretary of state for international organizations, was accused by Schumer in a post on X of having “a long history of racist, white supremacist, and antisemitic views,” stating that disqualifies him from serving in State Department.

“Jeremy Carl’s nomination should go no further, and he should be forced to answer during testimony for his long history of violent, racist, and antisemitic rhetoric,” Schumer wrote.
Story by Troy Matthews

The January jobs report was released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and while the monthly jobs numbers were a positive sign for the economy, a deeper dive into the report revealed a remarkable revision of the data from last year:

Total seasonally adjusted nonfarm jobs numbers for the year 2025 were revised down from an initially reported +584,000 jobs added, to just +181,000 added for the entire year. Meaning 2025 was the worst year for jobs growth since 2003.

Since Donald Trump entered office, the economy has added only 359,000 jobs total, averaging an abysmal +30,000 jobs gained per month.
Story by Kathryn Palmer, USA TODAY

President Donald Trump is urging lawmakers to pass a voter ID bill that has caught heat in the past for provisions that several voting rights groups warn could lead to voter disenfranchisement, including among married women.

The SAVE America Act, which passed in the GOP-led House of Representatives last year but has since stalled in the Senate, is again at the center of discussions on Capitol Hill after it returned to the House floor. Lawmakers are expected to vote Feb. 11 on the legislation, which would require people provide proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, and demand voters show a government-issued photo ID that proves their citizenship to cast their ballots.

Supporters call the efforts a security measure and say they're trying to reinforce laws that will bar noncitizens from voting. However, voting rights advocates say it's exceedingly rare for noncitizens to vote and such anomalies aren't pervasive enough to to influence election outcomes. These groups, including the Brennan Center for Justice, say the laws could make it more difficult for millions of Americans to cast a ballot, especially younger voters and voters of color.

Millions of women whose married names aren’t on their birth certificates or passports would also face extra hurdles to register to vote and cast their ballots.
More details continue to emerge from the Epstein files, including a 2006 document showing President Trump speaking with Palm Beach Police about their investigation into Epstein.
Story by Chiara Fiorillo

Fox News fans have urged President Donald Trump to "look in the mirror" as he spoke about corruption during an interview with the TV network.

During an interview with Fox Business host Larry Kudlow, the Republican politician, 79, discussed the investigation into outgoing Chair of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell. Trump claimed Powell is "incompetent" and even "corrupt" in his handling of renovations underway at the Federal Reserve building.

The president told Kudlow, "It's the most expensive construction job ever built anywhere in the world per square foot. It's crazy. They're either corrupt, which somebody's corrupt has to be, or grossly incompetent. Now we know he's incompetent, but the question is, is he corrupt?" It comes as the daughter of Donald Trump's doctor made a bombshell claim about his health.
Story by Victoria Bekiempis

A man who took part in the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol and later pardoned by Donald Trump was found guilty on Tuesday of multiple child sexual abuse charges in Florida, officials said.

Andrew Paul Johnson was arrested in Tennessee this August and extradited to Florida. He pleaded not guilty.

Johnson was found guilty of five counts this week, on charges such as molesting a child under 12 and another under 16, and lewd and lascivious exhibition, NPR first reported. A jury found him not guilty of one count of transmission of material harmful to a minor by electronic device or equipment.

The Guardian has contacted an attorney listed for Johnson.

“He is exposed to the possibility of life in prison,” said Walter Forgie, chief assistant state attorney for Florida’s fifth judicial circuit, of a possible sentence. “Sentencing will be at a later date.”
Story by Jack Davis

More than 18 months after Thomas Matthew Crooks shot President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, questions central to understanding that event remain unanswered, according to a Republican U.S. senator who is not satisfied with that state of affairs.

Republican Sen. Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania, who attended the rally where Trump was wounded on July 13, 2024, says critical questions need answers, according to the New York Post.

In July 2025, CBS News asked some of the questions: “Crooks left no known written explanation. His political leanings remain unclear. Was the Butler rally just a convenient option for a young man planning mass violence, or was he committed to shooting Mr. Trump? Did he have a plan for his bombs? Did he understand he was on a suicide mission?”

McCormick vented his concerns Wednesday on “Pod Force One,” a podcast hosted by New York Post columnist Miranda Devine.

McCormick has a unique perspective on the near tragedy. In the "Pod Force One" interview, he recounted that he was campaigning for his Senate seat at the time of the Butler rally and that Trump had actually invited him to come on stage just before the shooting. But Trump changed his mind almost immediately, when McCormick had gotten close to the lectern where Trump stood.
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