February 7, 2026

Friday Talking Points -- Outrage After Outrage

Today Donald Trump proved yet again that he is nothing short of a stone-cold racist. He reposted a message on social media that depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as apes. That's really all you need to know about it, other than the fact that (for once) it was so unbelievably offensive that, hours later, it was deleted. The White House blamed an unnamed "staffer," to which Black voters everywhere responded: "Yeah, right." Trump's hatred for the Obamas is well-known, of course, but even some Republicans complained at this latest racist outrage from Trump.

Of course, this wasn't the only outrage from Trump this week, just the most recent and most racist. There were plenty of others in the competition for the "outrage of the week" gold medal. So far, the one that is leading in the standings is Trump's new push to "nationalize" elections and have the Republican Party "take over the voting." In related news, the F.B.I. raided Fulton County's elections department and confiscated all the ballots from the 2020 presidential election, because Trump still cannot face the hard, cold fact that he lost that election. Now that all the ballots are in Trump's weaponized Justice Department's hands, look for an upcoming announcement that they have "found 11,780 votes" for Trump, as he had requested long ago. Welcome to Banana Republic America, folks!

This week, one government shutdown ended while the next one got teed up. The House passed the bill the Senate had passed last week, which will fund everything in the government except the Department of Homeland Security (which contains ICE). The D.H.S. funding only got extended until next Friday, and Congress has until then to come up with a deal. Democrats are demanding changes to ICE and other immigration enforcement agencies, which are pretty obviously needed right now.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer released a letter that outlines the Democrats' list of demands, all of which seem entirely appropriate and in a sane world would be considered not only reasonable but downright unobjectionable. Previously, a bill to make such changes probably would have gotten bipartisan support and may have even been introduced by a Republican. It wasn't that long ago that Republicans were the ones adamantly against "jack-booted federal agents" (who may or may not be flying around in unmarked black helicopters). But these are not normal times, and that script has been flipped.

Nowadays, every American can see for themselves what out-of-control federal agents are doing in their name, paid for by their tax dollars. The thuggish brutality is on full display, which certainly strengthens the Democrats' arguing position. Masked men in full combat gear with weapons designed for the battlefield are roaming American cities in packs and attacking not just suspected immigrants but also any American citizen who dares to be offended by such totalitarian behavior.

Democrats didn't create this wave of revulsion against ICE, they are merely riding it. Watching American citizens being executed in cold blood by anonymous masked federal agents with a "shoot first, ask questions never" attitude sickened and outraged a large majority of the public. When Donald Trump ran on deporting "the worst of the worst," few expected that would include a 5-year-old boy wearing a Spiderman backpack, to state the obvious. Now that Trump's immigration crackdown has been revealed for what it truly is, the public recoils in horror. Democrats are seen as trying to fight back -- for the Constitution and for basic human rights.

Republicans, of course, are on the other side of those issues. So another shutdown next week is a very real possibility, except that this time it will only be D.H.S. who sees their funding end (the rest of the government is now funded through the end of the fiscal year).

You'd expect in the midst of such a political crisis for it to pop up in Saturday Night Live skits, and to see "ICE out" pins proliferating at the Grammys, worn by pop stars. But things have gotten so bad that the United States Olympic team had to rename their own "shared athlete hospitality area" in Italy, because they had previously chosen to call it the "Ice House." That obviously now has connotations they didn't want, so they're now calling it "Winter House" instead. During a recent winter storm, FEMA was told by its D.H.S. bosses to avoid using the word "ice" in their warnings, and instead say things like "freezing rain" -- so they wouldn't have to deal with memes based on government warnings that "Ice is making the roads dangerous" and whatnot.

Donald Trump has realized what a losing issue this is for him politically, which is a good sign. Whenever Trump wants to put something behind him, he is usually open to cutting a deal to get the whole thing off the front pages. And he's made a few moves in that direction so far. Trump personally told immigration agents not to get involved with the protests, which is a definite shift in tone from the top. He also turned over the immigration besiegement of Minneapolis to Tom Homan, who is seen as less of a thug than the people who previously had been the face of the operation. Which is ironic, as that SNL skit pointed out:

Kristi Noem announced this week that all agents in Minneapolis would be provided with body cameras "effective immediately," and by week's end it was announced that 700 of the occupying officers (out of a total of 3,000) were being sent home. That's not a full retreat, but it does show that Trump is aware of how much this is hurting him in the public eye. If he felt confident of public opinion, he never would have made any of these moves, obviously.

Meanwhile, ICE is trying to buy up warehouses across the country to turn them into detention centers (or as some might call them, "concentration camps" ). Localities are actually beginning to push back against these moves, when they realize what is happening. Who wants an ICE human-misery facility in their own town, after all?

Federal judges, both in Minnesota and elsewhere, are beginning to get seriously annoyed at ICE's tactics and their blatant refusal to obey court orders. One of these rulings -- a short one -- was so witheringly dismissive of the lies, misrepresentations, and willful ignorance displayed in court (on the issue of that 5-year-old boy's detention, in fact) that the New York Times took the time to annotate it to point out how scathing each passage of it truly was. But the feds keep right on lying, no matter how unbelievable these lies are. ICE recently turned over a man in their custody in Minneapolis to a hospital and told the doctors that his injuries were because he "purposefully ran headfirst into a brick wall." Even the nurses knew they were lying, since he had multiple fractures and bleeding in his brain, in several different places. So now they're just lazily using the language of a common wife-beater in an attempt to cover up their own unchecked brutality.

One Justice Department lawyer was pushed to the breaking point by all of this, and was summarily fired for telling the truth in court. She had been buried by having 90 cases assigned to her and just snapped when the judge asked why his court orders in some of these cases had just been flatly ignored:



She went on to express her own exasperation and frustration with trying to make sure the judicial orders were obeyed:



It's gotten to the point where local police in Chicago are now being told to document any aggressive or potentially illegal behavior they see from ICE agents in their streets. D.H.S. is now also using "administrative warrants" (translation: no judge's signature required) to legally harass United States citizens they don't like, including one person who merely wrote a letter to a judge in support of a person who was at risk of deportation. We are slowly slipping into being a police state, which is why Democrats are finally fighting back.

Trump, meanwhile, has his own priorities to take care of. Which apparently includes continuing to slap his own name on everything in America that he thinks he can get away with. There is a huge tunnel project between New York City and New Jersey whose funds are being held up by Trump, and it should surprise no one to learn that Trump's price for freeing up the funding was to get both Dulles Airport and Penn Station (only one of which is even in New York City) renamed after him. This is precisely how petty Trump is, folks.

Speaking of the depths of Trump's pettiness, he went into a snit this week because pretty much every performing artist worth seeing is cancelling their scheduled dates at the Kennedy Center, now that Trump demanded to slap his own name on the building too. This list has grown so long it even has its own Wikipedia page now, in fact. Faced with plummeting ticket sales and the continuing and growing wave of artists refusing to perform there, Trump abruptly announced that the Kennedy Center will be closing its doors after July 4th for two whole years, so that it can be "renovated." This might mean Trump tears the entire building down, knowing his approach to such "renovations" (see: the former East Wing of the White House). Or maybe he'll just completely gut the interior and rebuild it as yet another monument to Trump's tacky and cringeworthy "style" design choices (see: the tawdry gilded additions to the Oval Office, done in classic "cheap brothel" style). This sudden announcement took everyone at the Kennedy Center by complete surprise, naturally, since it was nothing short of another Trumpian tantrum.

It all adds to our growing belief that any Democrat running for president in 2028 would boost their chances by including a plank in their campaign platform that promises to undo all this blizzard of bad taste. Promising to tear down whatever tacky palace Trump erects as his new White House ballroom and restoring the Kennedy Center to its dignity and grandeur seems guaranteed to get a lot of voter support, don't you think?





We have two candidates for this week's Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award, and it was a close call because both were impressive in their own way.

The runner-up (who will have to settle for an Honorable Mention award) was Senator Elissa Slotkin. Here's the story, in case you missed it:



Slotkin released a video this week explaining why she told Pirro to go pound sand, where she said that her lawyers had cautioned her to "just be quiet, keep my head down, and, hopefully, this will all just go away." She refused to take that route, as she explained:



Her legal team met with two lawyers from Pirro's office and afterwards Slotkin's lawyers stated that Pirro's team: "could not articulate any theory of possible criminal liability or identify any statute they were relying on or that could have been violated." Which is why Slotkin refused to take part in such an obvious textbook example of the weaponization of the Department of Justice.

But this week had an even more impressive Democrat in the headlines. Last weekend a special election was held in Texas. Democrats won a U.S. House seat that they were expected to win, which cut Speaker Mike Johnson's GOP majority down to the slimmest margin imaginable (he can now only afford to lose one GOP vote and still muster a majority of the chamber). But it was the state-level election that made the biggest political news:



That is a 31-point swing in the vote, in a district Republicans had held for decades. Which is pretty darn impressive, you've got to admit. Even more impressive is how much Republicans are freaking out about the result, as they look towards the midterm elections in November. Democrats, meanwhile, are filled with glee at the news. For the far-reaching nature of his victory, Taylor Rehmet's stunning upset in his race makes him the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week, in our opinion.

[The online Texas state senate site has not listed Taylor Rehmet yet (he represents the 9th district), so you'll have to wait to officially let him know you appreciate his efforts.]





There were a few minor questionable things Democrats did last week, but we find that none of them rise to the level of the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award, so we're putting it back on the shelf once again until next week.




Volume 827 (2/6/26)

We've got another mixed bunch of talking points this week, and we couldn't even fit in one about how we could be at the dawn of a new nuclear arms race (we wrote about the expiration of the last nuclear arms limitation treaty yesterday, if anyone's interested). So let's just dig in and get right to them, shall we?



Outraged

This is an old favorite of ours, we have to admit.

"You know, there's a political bumpersticker slogan that is so well-written that it continues to be relevant, even though the first time I saw one was decades ago. And never has it been more true than today. It says: 'If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.' These days, as Trump and his goons pile up outrage upon outrage, it's getting harder and harder for anyone not to notice it all. Some of us pay attention to all of them, but most everybody has been forced to pay attention to the worst of it, by now."



ICE just ignores their own rules

This hasn't really been a part of the whole conversation, but it should be.

"You know, while Democrats try to write some rules to rein in ICE, what nobody seems to be addressing is that they already have rules -- they're just flat-out ignoring them. Just like every other police agency in this country, they have a handbook which lays out what is allowable and what is not. It's called the 'ICE Firearms and Use of Force Directive,' and the officers who shot Renée Good to death violated so many of the rules this handbook contains that it's hard to even count them all. So I hope Democrats keep this in mind while negotiating ICE reforms next week. Because creating rules for the use of force won't matter in the slightest if ICE agents are allowed to just flat-out ignore such rules."



That pesky Fourth Amendment

Republicans are already pushing back on Democrats' demands, but their position is awfully hard to defend. So point it out!

"Republicans seem upset that Democrats are demanding that all federal agents fully comply with the United States Constitution. They are pushing back on a demand that judicial warrants must be in place before ICE breaks down doors of private houses and floods in with military weapons drawn and ready for use, without a judicial warrant. How can they even argue for this? For this to be allowable tactics for federal agents to use would require that Republicans pass a constitutional amendment to overturn the current Fourth Amendment in the Bill of Rights. For all those sanctimonious Republicans who used to make a big deal out of carrying a copy of the U.S. Constitution with them at all times, I would direct them to read it again -- especially that pesky Fourth Amendment."



Still a sore loser

Trump is the "greatest of all time" when it comes to sore losers, that's for sure.

"Donald Trump is openly suggesting that he might just 'nationalize' the upcoming midterm elections. He thinks that Republicans should be in charge of the entire process of counting all the votes. And if anyone thinks he is 'just kidding,' for Pete's sake he is still trying to steal the 2020 presidential election -- you know, the one that he lost? He just grabbed all the 2020 ballots from Fulton County, Georgia and keeps promising that any day now he'll produce some sort of evidence to back up his extended sore-loser tantrum about losing. It's been five years now and Donald Trump still can't face the fact that sometimes voters vote for Democrats. Which is what makes all his threats about the midterms so frightening."



Send in the paratroopers!

Trump isn't even the worst on this subject.

"Steve Bannon -- who used to be a close Trump advisor but thankfully no longer is -- is going further than Trump on how the midterms should be conducted. He not only wants to flood all the voting places in blue states and cities with ICE agents -- to intimidate possible Democratic voters -- but he openly called for 'not just ICE' but that Trump 'call up the 82nd and 101st Airborne [Divisions] on the Insurrection Act.' We're nine months away from the midterm elections and already the MAGA lunatics are calling on Trump to flood the polling places with Army paratroopers. Because that's the America they want to live in, folks."



It was all a lie!

Better late than never... Marjorie Taylor Greene is not mincing words these days, since she has broken herself out of the Trump personality cult in a big way. Here is just some of what she had to say in a YouTube interview this week (all of which pretty much any Democrat could agree with):





Dying in darkness

This last one is just sad. This is a newspaper that once took down an American president by exposing his crimes to the public, after all.

"Did you see that the Washington Post laid off 300 journalists this week? This was the same week that a slobbering wet kiss of a documentary about the First Lady was released after Jeff Bezos -- the Post's owner -- paid over $75 million to create it, with $28 million of that going right into her own pocket. So Bezos isn't exactly hurting for money or anything. The Post, however, has gone from being a respectable news outlet to being nothing short of an apologist for everything Trump does. Their editorial board pieces are so laughably bad these days they put Fox News to shame. Subscribers have been leaving in droves, ever since Bezos refused to endorse a candidate in 2024 and then announced that the paper was going to strive to be Trump-friendly. Years earlier, he came up with a new motto for the paper which still exists in their masthead: 'Democracy dies in darkness.' This is nothing short of a joke these days, and it really should be replaced with a more appropriate motto: 'Will the last reporter to get fired please turn the lights out as they go.'"




Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
Follow Chris on Twitter: ChrisWeigant
Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com

January 31, 2026

Friday Talking Points -- Remember The Names Of Those Who Died On The Streets Of Minneapolis

We're going to begin today with a prediction that is completely unrelated to what happened last week. Because next Friday the 2026 Winter Olympics will begin. Our prediction: the U.S.A. is going to get booed. Loudly. It'll probably be most noticeable during the opening ceremonies, but will likely sporadically pop up throughout the games. Perhaps this is why Donald Trump decided to skip the whole thing and send JD Vance in his place? Maybe Vance -- who is not as well-known worldwide -- won't get booed as loudly as the catcalls would have been if Trump had been there?

This all seems like a safe bet, since Trump has spent the past year being as belligerent and offensive as possible to pretty much every other nation on Earth (with the possible exception of Russia and a few oil emirates). Trump has insulted country after country, belittled and denigrated their leaders, thrown America's weight around as the world's biggest bully (and a psychotic one, at that), and threatened the post-World-War-II world order in almost too many ways to count. Trump has used the rest of the world -- Europe in particular -- as his punching bag all year long. So it shouldn't be any surprise if people from the entire world join together in a chorus of boos to let Trump and America know exactly how low we have sunk in the world's opinion.

And we were going to say all of that even before it was announced that Trump is sending ICE agents to Milan, Italy "for security purposes." Anti-ICE protests are already planned, as of this writing. Which isn't too surprising, seeing as how anti-ICE protests are now taking place on a daily basis here at home.

Which brings us to the big news of the week, of course. Donald Trump was finally forced to back down -- in style, at least, although the jury's still out on whether he's actually going to back down on substance or not.

Trump has always expressed praise for cops acting like jackbooted thugs, of course. He's said so many times, in many ways, ever since he entered politics (and long before, for that matter). He wants to see cops breaking heads and shooting protesters -- as long as those protesters aren't on his side. He appointed people who think just like him to key positions in his cabinet and in his White House, and has supported sending either federal agents dressed and equipped for a battlefield or actual military troops to any city he deems to be insubordinate in any way. He gleefully demonized any Americans who dared to protest any of his actions, and praised to the skies the brutality shown by his stormtroopers.

So it wasn't all that surprising that he followed the same playbook after immigration cops shot and killed yet another protester in Minneapolis who was doing absolutely nothing to deserve such summary execution. From Trump on down, when the news broke last weekend, the dead man was called a domestic terrorist and an assassin and a violent radical and anything else they could think up to demonize him and blame him for his own death at the hands of out-of-control federal agents.

Then the videos appeared of what had actually happened. And all the videos plainly showed that Trump and his henchmen were lying. Blatantly and shamelessly lying. Nothing matched their portrayal of events at all. Instead of a wild-eyed wannabe assassin approaching federal officers while waving a gun around and threatening to kill them all, we saw a man who intervened when a federal thug violently shoved a woman into a snowbank and then pepper-sprayed her in the face -- for no valid reason. She was not interfering with the officer's duties, she was not attacking him, she was not resisting arrest, she was just standing there exercising her constitutional right to free speech. When she was on the ground helpless and being sprayed with caustic chemicals in the face, another man positioned himself between her and the jackbooted thug attacking her. So the thug attacked him instead, spraying him in the face as well -- even though he was also not attacking the cop or interfering with him in any way. He was just trying to prevent the woman from a vicious and unfounded attack.

So the cops piled on top of him and then shot him 10 times, even though he did nothing threatening and did not pull out or even attempt to reach for the gun he had in his waistband. ICE and the Border Patrol are now judge, jury, and executioner, as everyone in America could plainly see for themselves.

In response, even after the videos had been seen by most Americans, Trump and his minions doubled down on their lies. They refused to admit what everyone's eyes could plainly see. The attorney general of Minnesota accused Trump and Kristi Noem and all the rest of them of spouting "flat-out insane" lies. This is part of a pattern, and it was about time Trump and the rest of them were called to the carpet over such lying. In every single one of the 16 shootings from ICE or the Border Patrol over the course of the last few months, Trump and his toadies have immediately leapt to sing from the same songbook of lies: they're all "domestic terrorists" who "attacked the officers" and they had to shoot "in fear for their lives." These stories often fall apart on examination, since they are not based in reality at all. The Trump administration has even been castigated by judges for lying in court and under oath, and federal judges are now just assuming that everything the government says in any of these cases is a blatant lie unless proven otherwise by solid factual evidence.

For days, Trump et al kept insisting that their lies were true. Even after the videos so clearly debunked them. And then the shift happened. Trump finally realized that the public wasn't buying the official lies, and that people were turning against him and his fellow Republicans in a big way. So Trump did something he rarely ever does -- he decided it was time to change course and do a little damage control.

Part of the reason for this shift was that cracks were appearing among Republicans. Washington GOP politicians were publicly contradicting Trump and stating the truth (some extremely timidly, some less so) and a Republican who had been running for governor in Minnesota abruptly announced he was ending his campaign because he just couldn't continue calling himself a Republican, saying: "I cannot support the... stated retribution on the citizens of our state, nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so. United States citizens are carrying papers to prove their citizenship. That's wrong."

Even the Second Amendment enthusiasts were angry, after Trump (and others) essentially said that carrying a weapon to a protest was reason enough for a federal agent to execute you on the spot. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pointed out the rank hypocrisy of such a stance, saying: "How rich is it that she is saying showing up to the scene of a protest with a legally owned weapon should be grounds for a person's death, execution at the hands of the state, by the same party and the same administration that praises Kyle Rittenhouse?" Good point.

Federal judges are not happy with the Trump administration either. One threatened to hold the head of ICE in contempt of court if he didn't obey a summons to appear personally. "The court's patience is at an end," the judge wrote. "The Court acknowledges that ordering the head of a federal agency to personally appear is an extraordinary step, but the extent of ICE's violation of court orders is likewise extraordinary, and lesser measures have been tried and failed."

ICE then obeyed the court's underlying order (to release one of their prisoners) and the judge backed off on the demand, but was equally scathing in his order, noting that ICE had ignored 96 judicial orders in over 70 cases since the crackdown in Minnesota began, noting: "This list should give pause to anyone -- no matter his or her political beliefs -- who cares about the rule of law. ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence."

Federal prosecutors in Minnesota also reportedly considered resigning en masse to protest the investigation after the most recent shooting.

Other conservative voices expressed their disgust as well:

After even conservative media began to turn on him by channeling their inner Pink Floyd ("Set the controls for the heart of the sun" ), Donald Trump finally realized that the tide had turned and there was simply no way to bluster his way through this mess. Instead, he decided to blame another scapegoat (Noem, as of this writing, is still not on a rocket, headed sunward). So he demoted the "commander-at-large" of the Border Patrol, a guy named Gregory Bovino, and instead send in Tom Homan to take charge in Minneapolis.

Trump even called up Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and made nice with them. This is in direct contrast to the way Trump had been treating these two up to this point -- accusing them of inciting all the violence and siccing his Justice Department on them -- so it was a noticeable shift in tone. Since Homan arrived, Noem has disappeared from the scene and ICE sent out a new memo to all their officers telling them: "DO NOT COMMUNICATE OR ENGAGE WITH AGITATORS. It serves no purpose other than inflaming the situation." This also told the ICE goons to back off and stop arresting people with no criminal history. So maybe things are changing for the better. Time will tell.

The Justice Department, reversing an earlier decision not to, has now reportedly opened a civil rights investigation into the killing of Pretti. So maybe it's not just ICE and the Border Patrol who have been told to change how they've been operating. We'll see.

Meanwhile, the protests continue. Last Friday Minneapolis held an unofficial "general strike" where most businesses shuttered their doors in protest of the federal jackbooted thugs in their streets. Today, one week later, there is a massive protest march happening after a protest concert was held (with a very special guest performing). And a third "No Kings" rally has been announced, which will have Minneapolis as the center of attention, for the end of March (when the weather warms up a bit).

In Washington, Democrats are using the outrage all of this has sparked to actually get something productive done. Because of the coincidence of the government's funding running out at midnight tonight, Democrats are using the leverage of public opinion to absolutely demand changes to ICE and other Homeland Security agencies. And they've already got an impressive amount of Republican support for their efforts, which is strange so early in the shutdown process. When a vote on a bill that would have funded everything happened in the Senate, eight Republicans crossed the aisle and voted with the Democrats to kill the bill. That is a stunning amount of bipartisan support, these days.

The government will technically shut down starting at midnight, but it will likely only remain shut down until Monday (or perhaps Tuesday). The Senate will divide up the bill that failed and pass all the parts of it that are not contentious, while holding up Homeland Security's budget for another two weeks. Democrats have made three reasonable demands for reform, which include banning ICE agents from wearing masks and mandating body cameras (we wrote about the Democratic demands yesterday at more length).

For once, the Democratic minority in Congress clearly has the upper hand in the negotiations. Trump's thugs are not popular. Midterm elections are a little over nine months away. Republicans are scared of what the voters are going to do (and not just on this issue). And now that even Trump has realized what an enormous political liability this all has become for him, Democrats will be on offense during the negotiations as to how severely to rein in the Department of Homeland Security. While Republicans will be in a defensive crouch.

All in all, things are looking up for the Democrats, at least over the course of the next two weeks. Which is a good place to end on for today.





Senator Amy Klobuchar has been doing a pretty good job of expressing her state's outrage at what is going on in Minneapolis, and just this week she officially launched her campaign to become Minnesota's next governor. She is now seen as the frontrunner in the Democratic primary race, which at least earns her a Honorable Mention.

We have two musicians who are worth some sort of honor, but can't say for certain if they officially belong to a political party, so we'll just note them in passing here. First, Neil Young offered free access to his entire musical catalog online to everyone in Greenland. Young is now an American citizen, but he was born in Canada and wanted to offer his solidarity to the people of Greenland after Donald Trump's maniacal obsession with owning the island.

That was impressive, but closer to home Bruce Springsteen reacted to the news from the Twin Cities by writing, recording, and releasing a new song: "Streets Of Minneapolis." In it, he expresses his rage quite eloquently (more on this in a bit). He made a personal appearance in the city today and sang his new song at a protest concert being given, much to the audience's delight.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer deserves at least an Honorable Mention as well, for pulling Democrats together behind a list of demands for the government shutdown fight. It's rare that Democrats act so quickly in a moment of crisis, so we had to at least acknowledge this.

But our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week goes out to a Democrat for a completely different reason. Representative Ilhan Omar was addressing a crowd this week when a crazed Trump supporter walked up to her podium and sprayed her with an unknown substance (which later turned out to be vinegar), just as she was calling for Kristi Noem to resign or be fired. Omar later said she initially thought the guy had spit on her.

Her reaction, however, was astonishing. Despite being roughly half her attacker's size and weight (Omar is not exactly John Fetterman in terms of having what might be called an imposing physical presence), Omar advanced towards her attacker, one hand curling into a fist. If the guy hadn't been tackled by security, she doubtlessly would have thrown a punch at the guy's face (which she later confirmed was her intent, in an interview). Watch the video to see the unequal physical match between the two and ask yourself if you were Omar's size would you have been that brave?

For her fearless response to an unprovoked attack against her, Ilhan Omar is definitely our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week. "Minneapolis strong" indeed!

[Congratulate Representative Ilhan Omar on her House contact page, to let her know you appreciate her efforts.]





Once again we are delighted to report that no Democrat disappointed us in any major way this week. Democrats are united in response to Trump's immigration overreach and seem like they are going to successfully use the threat of a government shutdown to effect real changes -- without a single dissenting voice. So we're going to put the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award back on the shelf for another week.




Volume 826 (1/30/26)

We had planned on offering up a mix of talking points this week, from the outraged (at ICE and all the other Trump thugs), to the snarky ("Is Kristi Noem on thin ICE with Trump?" ) to the unrelated.

On that last one, Democrats should indeed keep their big issue for the midterm campaigns simmering on the back burner, since no matter what happens with ICE in the next few weeks the economy is still likely to be the biggest issue of the election. And things just keep getting worse out there in the public's opinion. It was revealed this week that consumer sentiment is now at the lowest point it has been for over a decade -- which includes the entire COVID-19 pandemic. People feel worse about the economy now than they did when the economy came to a grinding halt in 2020, to put it another way -- and this is true for every single metric they use to measure consumer confidence. They're all way down.

Add to this the fact that because Republicans have now successfully blocked the Obamacare subsidies from being extended (which we wrote about earlier in the week), healthcare costs are now Americans' top worry. Here are the new numbers:



Those are two enormously important talking points for Democrats to keep in mind, obviously (since they happen to be on the winning side of both of those arguments).

But this week was a one-subject week, politically-speaking. And rather than try to come up with our own talking points to express the rage in the streets, we decided to just let The Boss do so for us.

So instead of this week's talking points, here are the lyrics to Bruce Springsteen's new song, "Streets Of Minneapolis" instead (which you can follow while listening to the official video release):






Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
Follow Chris on Twitter: ChrisWeigant
Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com

January 24, 2026

Friday Talking Points -- Standing Up To The Bully Worked

Welcome back to the ongoing saga of "The Arsonist Fireman." In this week's episode, our protagonist lights a fire which could burn down the entire Western world -- starting with its military alliance -- before grabbing a fire extinguisher and singlehandedly snuffing it out. As usual, he then wonders why everyone doesn't congratulate him on having bravely averted such a disaster.

Sorry for the snark, but it's really hard to see the past week through any other lens. This week, Donald Trump followed through on his sword-rattling over owning Greenland (or perhaps Iceland?) by going to Davos, Switzerland, giving a meandering and insulting speech (full of lies, as usual), and then declaring victory before going home.

However, there was no actual victory. Nothing changed. Trump spoke of a "format of a deal" and "concepts of a deal," but there simply was no actual deal in sight. And certainly not one that gave Trump any of what he was demanding. Denmark and Greenland have unequivocally stated that they are not giving up even one inch of their sovereignty over the island to Trump, period. That has not changed. But all of a sudden, Trump was claiming that somehow all of his goals had been met.

Again: nothing has changed. America already had the ability to open military bases and beef up Arctic defenses on Greenland to their heart's content. That has not changed -- we can still do so quite easily. No new agreement with Denmark is necessary for us to do so. No new "deal" is required. So Trump's big victorious "deal" is a giant nothingburger, or (more properly) Trump desperately seeking some sort of way to save face after the entire rest of the world stood up to his bullying.

Trump's goal in owning Greenland was ridiculous from the get-go, it bears mentioning. All his arguments for why we needed to do so were nothing more than "self-evidently bullshit from top to bottom," as a former Obama State Department official put it. Even some Republicans were denigrating Trump, with Representative Don Bacon calling his obsession over Greenland "the dumbest thing I've ever heard." Mitch McConnell was more polite, but equally as scathing: "I have yet to hear from this administration a single thing we need from Greenland that this sovereign people is not already willing to grant us." A bipartisan delegation from Congress even flew over to Denmark, in an attempt to reassure them that Trump was politically out on a limb even in his own country with this whole obsession.

But a funny thing happened in response to Trump's megalomania: Europe stood up for itself. They challenged the bully. First, several nations sent a token amount of soldiers to Greenland for joint exercises. The unspoken reason for doing so was to serve as a "tripwire" -- the same way American soldiers in Germany during the Cold War and current American soldiers in South Korea serve. They are a warning to the host country's enemies: attack, and you will be at war with the United States. Which is why Europe sent their troops to Greenland -- to provide the same sort of warning to the United States. The message was clear (if unstated): "Attack, and you will be at war not just with Denmark, but with all of us."

Trump, in response, flipped out. He ranted on social media, "Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, The United Kingdom, The Netherlands, and Finland have journeyed to Greenland, for purposes unknown," and called it a "potentially perilous situation." He further complained: "This is a very dangerous situation for the Safety, Security, and Survival of our Planet. These Countries, who are playing this very dangerous game, have put a level of risk in play that is not tenable or sustainable." Which, you will note, would only be true if the United States militarily attacked Greenland. In a fit of pique, Trump then announced new tariffs on those countries. This is his go-to answer in response to anything foreign countries do that he doesn't like, and brings to mind the maxim: "When the only tool you have is a hammer, pretty soon every problem begins to look like a nail."

After all this happening during last weekend, the stock market and the bond markets took a big dive when they reopened. Which was another way people (and foreign countries) were standing up to the bully. People in Greenland rallied, wearing red caps with the slogan: "Make America Go Away."

Then Trump let everyone know precisely how petty this whole episode was, by releasing a text he had sent to the leader of Norway whining about not winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Yep, that's why Trump has been throwing a tantrum over Greenland -- because he is still outraged that he didn't get a shiny gold medal. It's notable that this text didn't leak -- Trump voluntarily released it himself, completely unaware that the entire rest of the planet would conclude that he was being a total whiny baby.

One Democratic senator called for consideration of using the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to oust Trump (which we also had wholeheartedly supported, earlier in the week).

When Trump finally did get to Davos and give his speech, he merely proved on the world stage that he is now a doddering old man who is essentially yelling at them damn kids to get off his lawn. He couldn't even remember what country he was threatening, and used the wrong name four times during his speech:

When asked about this, the White House spokesperson flat-out denied it had happened. Because of course she did.

Later, Trump couldn't remember what another word was and had to resort to talking about "the opposite of peace," and then at one point he just completely garbled the two: "Peace is so destructive for everyone. Even countries that are not involved. It's so destructive for everyone, when you have wars."

Trump was speaking about peace because he is apparently attempting to set up a new United Nations, ostensibly to rebuild Gaza. He wanted all the other countries of the world to pony up $1 billion to join an international group that Trump himself will lead. Oh, and only he will have a veto. Most Western countries either politely declined or made no announcement while quietly not joining Trump's effort. This brought forth another tantrum from Trump, as he threatened France with 100 or 200 percent tariffs on their wines.

But even in the face of all this abuse, Europe actually stood together. They spoke openly of using a "bazooka" they had written into their trade laws which, if triggered, would have allowed them to block any company or country from doing business in the European Union. They also immediately halted the ongoing negotiations over the trade deal that Trump cut with them last year (which has not been finalized yet). And they all supported Denmark over the United States, because they all know full well how important NATO is.

Donald Trump, in the face of this blowback (and in the face of the markets tanking), then totally capitulated. He announced almost casually during his Davos speech that he had decided that a military invasion would not in fact be necessary, and then after meeting with the head of NATO started his victory lap for his non-existant concepts of a framework of a "deal." When reporters asked him whether this "deal" would mean America would own all or parts of Greenland, Trump had no clear answer (since the real answer is: "No, we would not," which Trump doesn't want to come right out and admit).

As we began with, the entire thing was just another episode in the long-running series "The Arsonist Fireman," where Trump causes some major crisis because he has no clue what he is doing or even what he is demanding, and then later on has to pretend that he solved it all by accepting absolutely nothing in return for backing down. Or perhaps our ongoing series might be called: "TACO Man Strikes Again!"

In other "standing up to Trump" news, the city of Minneapolis is currently closed for the day. Well, that's an overstatement, but a "day of economic blackout" to protest the invasion of ICE thugs did indeed cause many businesses to close down for the day. Roughly 100 clergy were just arrested at the airport today, for protesting deportation flights.

Earlier in the week, a federal judge blocked ICE from "using pepper-spray or similar nonlethal munitions and crowd dispersal tools against persons who are engaging in peaceful and unobstructive protest activity," and also from pulling cars over who were following them at a safe and appropriate distance. Stephen Miller, meanwhile, called for local police in Minneapolis to "stand down and surrender."

Trump's ICE tactics are taking a toll on his standings in the polls. Immigration was the one issue that Trump maintained support from most of the country even after they had soured on the rest of his agenda, but now his poll ratings on immigration are underwater. ICE and the brutal tactics they are using are also massively unpopular with the public.

This is understandable, since ICE is basically out of control in the Twin Cities. They are ignoring the Fourth Amendment, they are using White nationalist slogans in their recruiting efforts, they are even targeting non-White local police officers on the streets, they are lying their faces off to federal judges when called to account for their actions, and they just got caught snatching up a 5-year-old boy, who was then whisked away to be deported. The photos of this last one are having the same sort of impact as the videos of them killing a suburban soccer mom did a few weeks ago.

Throughout all of it, the Justice Department has their backs. Both the governor of Minnesota and the mayor of Minneapolis (and others who have spoken out against ICE) are now being investigated (with grand jury subpoenas being issued) for the "crime" of disagreeing with Donald Trump. A man detained by ICE died in their custody in Texas, and the medical examiner ruled it a homicide -- so ICE tried to quickly deport the two other detainees who witnessed the killing and then completely contradicted the "he committed suicide" official explanation (a federal judge stepped in and blocked their deportation just in time).

JD Vance, perhaps aware of how politically damaging all of this has been for the Trump administration (and Republicans in general) flew to Minnesota and tried to calm things down. But, of course, he didn't announce any changes in tactics or mission for ICE, so this was no more than an empty gesture. Vance was ridiculed for one remark he made during his visit, where he begged for cooperation from the community: "Like, if we're trying to find a sex offender, tell us where the guy lives." Plenty of people were happy to do so online, sending in photos of the White House or the simple answer: "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."

This week also marked the end of Donald Trump's first year of his second term. A few articles appeared to note the year in chaos that was, but our favorite was one that looked at it all from the point of view of what America has become during that year. This is just one part of the list, which we encourage everyone to read in full:



Or you can check out a scorecard the New York Times ran, which tries to measure Trump's progress (or lack thereof, on most of them) on his major campaign goals.

Trump's polling has taken a real dive, even in the past few months. There is only one president who is even remotely as unpopular as Donald Trump in his second term -- since modern presidential polling began -- and that is Donald Trump in his first term. The Washington Post noted: "Trump has always been a uniquely unpopular president, and he's as unpopular as ever. Two major polls out last week show 40 percent approve of how he's doing as president. A Washington Post average of polls in January finds 57 percent of Americans disapprove of how he's handling the country."

This is reflected across the board, as voters agree that Trump has made the country worse during his first year back in office. Polls also show that when elected, Trump had gained the support of some traditionally-Democratic groups (such as Latinos or young voters), but they've all soured on him now in a big way.

Trump celebrated his anniversary by appearing in the White House briefing room to give a press conference that was almost two hours long (over an hour of it was him just boasting about his "accomplishments" and endlessly rambling on about other unrelated subjects) and was notable only for its overall incoherence. Jake Tapper at CNN called it: "a marathon rambling, at times incoherent, possibly unsettling White House News briefing." This was being charitable. Other commenters called the spectacle "genuinely insane" and observed that Trump seemed "clearly unwell."

As we mentioned earlier in the week: one year down... three more to go [heavy sigh].





We have to begin this week with two people who are technically ineligible for the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award, before giving it to a group whose eligibility is unclear.

First, Jack Smith stood up for himself and the rule of law in a public hearing before a House committee. Republicans on the committee tried to paint him as some sort of rabid out-of-control partisan who launched a "witch hunt" to go after Donald Trump, after being told to by Joe Biden. Smith denied all of this, of course, since none of it is true.

The Republicans had absolutely nothing to base any of their accusations on, and never have. They are just following their Dear Leader's instructions to demonize Smith in any way they can, plain and simple. Smith reportedly made mincemeat of them, for which he is to be commended, but he's not (to our knowledge) technically a Democrat, so we can't hand him an award.

Our second non-eligible person doesn't qualify because he isn't even an American, much less a Democrat. But Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney did an exemplary job of standing up to Trump in Davos this week, by accurately summing up where the world stands right now -- at the end of the era where all freedom-loving democracies could count on the rock-solid support of the United States of America as a given, and instead moving into a new era where an egocentric madman sets American policy on personal whim. Trump backed down in the end, but even the thought that the United States would militarily threaten another member of NATO does indeed mark a turning point in world history, that's for sure.

Other world leaders also (to one degree or another) pushed back on Trump this week -- starting with the leaders of Greenland, Denmark, and Norway -- but none did so with such elegant rhetorical style, which is what made Carney's speech so notable.

But we have to award our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award to a group that is not only not officially Democratic, but is actually completely anonymous. This is a smart move on their part, since claiming public credit would doubtlessly bring the weight of the Trumpian weaponized Justice Department down on their head(s), so it is entirely understandable.

The group in question is an anonymous group of artists known as "The Secret Handshake," which has been putting installations up on the National Mall for the past year or so which draw attention to the relationship between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, among other things. Here's the story, for anyone who missed it:



There are two basic ways to defeat a bully. One is to stand up to him and punch him in the nose. The other is to just laugh at him -- so long and so loud that everyone else joins in.

For being true pioneers of the latter, when it comes to Donald Trump, we hereby award this week's Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week to "The Secret Handshake," and we certainly look forward to learning who was behind it all -- which (we assume) will happen roughly one day after the next Democratic president is sworn into office.

[Since they are anonymous, The Secret Handshake has no public contact information available. But we'd certainly like to send a rousing, "Keep up the good work!" message to them, whomever they may be....]





There was one story that mostly got lost in all of the Greenland frenzy this week, and that was of Bill and Hillary Clinton refusing to appear before a House committee which had subpoenaed them to appear in person.

We can't really say that this was all that disappointing, since (as Hillary knows full well) a Clinton appearing before a Republican-led congressional committee means sitting for over 10 hours while they try to rip you to shreds on any subject under the sun. It's understandable why they were not looking forward to that.

Then the committee voted to hold both Clintons in contempt of Congress -- with some Democrats voting for the measure. We also find this understandable, since subpoenas from Congress are not supposed to be considered optional, so these Democrats can state that they were merely standing up for the rule of law. Breaking party ranks for such a vote certainly disappointed some Democrats out there, but as we said, we can understand the reasons why they did so.

Instead, we are giving the award to a different group of House Democrats who broke party ranks this week and voted for a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security -- which includes money for ICE.

Congress is facing yet another government shutdown deadline at the end of January. If a full budget hasn't passed by then, the government will shut down again. Some argue that ICE funding wouldn't have been affected even if the government had shut down, while others point out that the bill also funds FEMA and other important departments.

But the math is the math. Seven Democrats voted for the bill. The final vote was 220-207. Take those seven away and add them to the other side, and the vote would have been 213-214 and failed. Republicans would likely have been able to scare up another two votes if they had really needed them (they do still have a majority), but it would have been spectacularly embarrassing for them to pull the bill from the floor while they scrambled to do so.

Which is why we have to collectively award these seven Democrats -- Henry Cuellar, Jared Golden, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Laura Gillen, Don Davis, Tom Suozzi, and Vicente Gonzalez -- this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award.

The real battle, of course, will be in the Senate, since Republicans are going to need seven Democrats there to overcome the filibuster threshold. But that will come next week -- for now, the seven House Democrats who helped the Republicans pass their budget are this week's winners of the MDDOTW.

[Contact Representative Henry Cuellar on his House contact page, Representative Jared Golden on his House contact page, Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez on her House contact page, Representative Laura Gillen on her House contact page, Representative Don Davis on his House contact page, Representative Tom Suozzi on his House contact page, and Representative Vicente Gonzalez on his House contact page, to let them all know what you think of their actions.]




Volume 825 (1/23/26)

A very mixed bunch this week, with one at the end just for fun. Enjoy, and as always, use responsibly....



Six percent

We just had to start off with this one, for obvious reasons.

"You know what we weren't all talking about this week, because Donald Trump was having his Greenland tantrum? The fact that an overwhelming amount of Americans are still waiting to see the Epstein files. While a lot of issues in politics poll fairly evenly, other issues show a big majority versus a small minority. But few issues poll that show only six percent support -- that is almost 19-to-1 against, folks. But that's precisely how much of the public is happy with the way the Trump administration has been releasing the Epstein files: six percent. Even among Republicans, that number was only twelve percent! Two-thirds of the public believes the Department of Justice is intentionally holding things back. So maybe that's what we should all be talking about -- how the Justice Department is breaking the law by not fully releasing the Epstein files and how only six percent of Americans support their delays."



Wait a minute... Iceland?

Moving along to the distraction of the week....

"Remember when everyone -- Republicans, Democrats, and most especially the news media -- went on and on and on about how the president was losing his mental capacity? Remember that? Back when Joe Biden was in the White House? So where is any of that concern now when Donald Trump can't even figure out which foreign country he wants to invade? Or whether he's talking about war or peace? In Davos, Trump mentioned Iceland four times in his speech about how the United States really needed to take over a different island altogether. He got confused between Greenland and Iceland. On the world stage, with everyone watching his mental decline accelerate. So where is the flood of media coverage asking if the president still has enough mental capacity to serve? That's what I'd like to know...."



TACOs for all!

Can't resist this one, even if it did happen on a Wednesday rather than a Tuesday....

"It was TACOs for all this week in Davos, as Trump chickened out, once again. Now don't get me wrong -- I am extremely relieved in this case that Trump did chicken out, since what he was threatening was nothing short of the end of NATO -- but still, it was noticeable how quickly Trump caved not only on his demands that the U.S. be given Greenland but also on his threats to levy tariffs on all European countries who disagreed. The rest of the world must be getting sorely tired of this endless "Boy Who Cried Wolf" nonsense, don't you think?"



China is laughing

Trump continues to make America small again.

"You know what the end result of Trump's threats and trade wars and insults to our longtime allies has been? To push all of them into the welcoming arms of China. Trump said he was going to 'Make America great again,' but instead what he is doing is to make America look scary and unpredictable and unstable to our allies. Just recently, Canada announced a big trade deal they had cut with China, because they are looking for more stable countries to trade with than us. Europe signed a deal with a bunch of Latin American countries for the same reason. While Trump flailed around scaring the Hell out of everyone in Davos, China welcomed other countries in, promising stability and longterm free-trade agreements. Trump is singlehandedly helping their efforts to eclipse the United States as the most popular country in the world to do business with, plain and simple."



Five years old

This is important, mostly because it proves what a lie the administration's propaganda truly is.

"From Trump on down, the administration insists that ICE is only concerned with getting violent criminals off the streets. This is a lie. They are sweeping up everyone they can -- even U.S. citizens -- because they have their quotas to meet. They don't care if the people they deport have criminal records or not. Did you see the videos this week of ICE snatching up a five-year-old boy in Minneapolis? I would love to hear some intrepid reporter ask Kristi Noem or Donald Trump what violent crime this five-year-old had committed. Was he a murderer or a rapist? Because they keep telling us that is all they are going after -- the so-called 'worst of the worst.' So what crime did this five-year-old commit?"



Eyes wide shut

The optics of this were just downright bizarre.

"Recently a party was held at Mar A Lago that featured people dancing with each other dressed up in Bridgerton-style outfits -- period dresses and costumes -- while wearing dog masks. Seriously. You simply cannot make this stuff up. One podcaster noted the jarring disconnect of these video clips with the fact that 'it's literally the end of the world!' and also helpfully including a clip from the movie Eyes Wide Shut. From the way these dogs were dressed, you would not have been surprised to hear one of them growl, 'Let them eat cake.' Is this the type of event we can all expect to see if Trump ever finishes building his new ballroom at the White House? I shudder to think about it, personally."



Fled Cruz

And finally, just for fun....

"I see that another horrendous winter storm was approaching Texas, so it was obviously time for someone to catch Senator Ted Cruz fleeing the state once again. He was seen on a flight heading to (gasp!) California, while his home state was preparing for the worst. Nothing like Ted Cruz to show us all the exact opposite of a profile in courage! Have fun in the sun, Ted... while your fellow Texans brave the storm, that is."




Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
Follow Chris on Twitter: ChrisWeigant
Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com

January 17, 2026

Friday Talking Points -- One Year In, Trump Just Keeps Getting Worse

In another four days, we will have survived the first full year of Donald Trump's second term in office. That's right -- one down, only three more to go!

(Sigh.)

The defining feature of this past year has been -- just like it was in his first term -- the continuing cycle of being so aghast at Trump's planet-sized ego, flailing insecurities, and toddler-grade tantrums and thinking to oneself: "Well, it surely can't get any worse than this!" -- only to wake up the next morning, read the headlines, and find out that yep, it sure can get worse, in ways you would never have imagined in a million years, pre-Trump.

At times the irony can get so overwhelming you just have to shake your head. Such as: ICE detaining people in Minneapolis who are members of a Native American tribe. Think about that just for one second: the immigration cops just rounded up some of the people who were here first. It wouldn't be that surprising if some tribes responded by forming their own immigration police and rounding up everyone they considered "illegal immigrants," would it? I'd suggest starting with Stephen Miller, personally, just to see how he likes it.

More irony: Trump has been threatening Iran with military strikes if it continues to crack down on protests in the streets by shooting people. Meanwhile, here at home, Trump is threatening to unilaterally (via the Insurrection Act) send American troops in to a U.S. city to forcibly suppress by military means protests against ICE agents shooting people in the streets for no justifiable reason.

And Trump shows no signs of slowing down. Here was one striking paragraph from an article in Salon which made the case that Trump wasn't just instituting fascism but full-on tyranny:

That's all happened just since New Year's Day. And the pace just seems to keep accelerating. A federal judge just accused the Trump administration of the worst crime imaginable, and it barely even made the news. Did you miss this development? Here are the details, from an article titled: "Trump Cabinet Secretaries Conspired To Violate Constitution, Judge Says":



This judge, appointed by Ronald Reagan, was speaking of the harsh crackdown by the administration on noncitizen students for the crime of exercising their free speech on Palestine and Israel, which began almost immediately after they all took office. And the judge did not mince words:



In normal times, this would be the biggest news story around and it would be headline news for weeks, if not months. After a whole year of Trump, though, it barely even registered, because (as always) there are so many other, more immediate outrageous things happening. Such as Trump musing about not holding midterm elections ("When you think of it, we shouldn't even have an election" ). And his press secretary later insisting that he was "simply joking," or facetiously trying to say: "We're doing such a great job, we're doing everything the American people thought, maybe we should just keep rolling."

On the international front, Trump is once again obsessed with owning Greenland, no matter what anybody else thinks of the idea. He gets an insane bee in his bonnet, and the rest of the world has to react to it (rather than just laugh at him) because at this point who knows what he'll do? He obviously has no constraints on his actions whatsoever, so nobody in Europe is going to be particularly surprised if Trump orders the Marines in to occupy the island. They'll be outraged (as they should be), but they won't be surprised.

That last one may even be a bridge too far for Republicans in Congress, however. Several GOP senators have strongly spoken out against the idea, and they may even try to rein Trump in before he can act. Taking Greenland is wildly unpopular with the American public, because doing so would be so insane. We already have any and all military access we want to the island, neither China nor Russia is trying to take it (which Trump keeps lying about), and it would be the end of NATO. But Trump being Trump, he is absolutely obsessed with owning it. The leaders of Greenland and Denmark met with Marco Rubio and JD Vance this week, but absolutely nothing was resolved. Trump's newest petulant response is to threaten more tariffs on any country that does not support America taking Greenland (by force, if necessary).

In "If you don't want to be called a Nazi, then stop emulating Nazis" news, we have the Department of Labor, who trotted out a new slogan, in a reel on social media showing American artwork they approve of: "One Homeland. One People. One Heritage." They followed this up with: "Remember who are you, American." As HuffPost reported:



In other "acting like a schoolyard bully" news, Trump successfully strong-armed the winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize into giving the medal to him. This is because Donald Trump is the biggest baby and biggest sore loser in all of American history. People are now calling it the "Nobel Appease Prize," for obvious reasons.

The biggest thuggish Trump news of the week was domestic, however, as even the president's own supporters are now using words like "Gestapo" to describe what is happening on American city streets. Nobody believes a word that comes out of Kristi Noem's mouth any more about any of it, since their go-to move is just to flat-out lie about what happened (which they've done before in court, after shooting someone for no reason). And a death that happened to a man in ICE custody is about to be ruled a homicide, too (another story that deserved more attention this week).

The Department of Justice is reacting to the fallout from the cold-blooded killing of a suburban soccer mom in a predictable way (these days), since it has become fully weaponized to attack anyone Trump doesn't like. A number of prosecutors and lawyers quit en masse this week because they were told to go after the widow of the slain woman. They were also told not to open any civil rights investigation into the shooting itself. This was such a disgusting reversal of what the Justice Department should be doing that it was too much for several career prosecutors, who threw up their hands and walked away from it all.

Meanwhile, the F.B.I. searched the home of a Washington Post reporter, who hadn't even been accused of any crime. And the chair of the Federal Reserve is under investigation, which threatens the political independence of America's central bank (which could have dire consequences, obviously). This one also generated some strong pushback, both from Republicans in Congress and from around the world as well.

All of this frenetic activity has caused Trump's job approval ratings to take a rather noticeable dive recently, since pretty much none of what he is doing is in any way popular or supported by the American public. The most recent poll up on Real Clear Politics shows Trump down by a whopping 19 points -- 40 percent approval to 59 percent disapproval -- and his polling average is the worst it has been for his entire second term.

And the midterms are less than ten months away.

So Trump is desperately trying to gaslight all American consumers into thinking prices are all coming way, way down, even though we all know full well that this is not true. Grocery prices just experienced a one-month price jump that was higher than at any point since the COVID pandemic's aftermath. Here are the actual numbers Trump wants you all not to believe: "The price of beef has risen 16.4 percent over the last year. The price of coffee is up a whopping 19.8 percent. The price of lettuce is up 7.3 percent and frozen fish 8.6 percent." And we're beginning to hear anecdotes of how not just Trump's insane tariffs are driving prices up, but how Trump's immigration crackdown is influencing all this too: "A lack of workers in some areas has led to cherries rotting in Oregon fields, blueberries rotting in New Jersey fields and Pennsylvania dairy farmers selling off cows." Congress is now debating how big a bailout farmers are going to need ($11 billion? $15 billion?), since the tariffs have driven so many of them so close to absolute ruin.

At this point, Democrats should trot out an old political favorite: "Are you better off now than you were a year ago?" That's all they really need to say -- everyone already knows the specifics and can fill in the details on their own.

Democrats have plenty of details they can use, of course. They should also start using the term "child-care crisis" to sum up what millions of parents are going through (and highlight how Democrats at the state and local level are making child care free for all parents). Or the fact that for all of Trump's bluster about bringing lots of manufacturing jobs back home, American has actually (and steadily) lost manufacturing jobs over the past year.

Trump's response is, as always, to just lie his face off about everything. Inflation has disappeared (according to him), grocery prices are all way down, and anything which contradicts this fantasy is all Joe Biden's fault, period. He trotted all of these out in a speech he gave in Detroit, where he also flipped off a protester who was working in the truck factory he was touring. The guy was yelling: "Pedophile protector!" at Trump, to which Trump responded by mouthing "Fuck you!" and flipping the bird at the guy. The worker was then suspended from his job -- which his Union is fighting -- and a crowdsource funding drive immediately raised $800,000 for him.

Michael Steele, who used to run the Republican Party, called the whole thing a "punkish move" by Trump. Democratic strategist James Carville urged Democrats to start using the phrase whenever Trump is in earshot, since it so obviously gets under his skin.

In judicial news, Trump keeps losing. Federal judges ruled this week (in no particular order): that the Trump administration has to restore funding to blue states that it had halted for purely political reasons (on child care payments and energy grants and election funding), that a wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island can continue construction after Trump tried to pull the plug on it, that California's new congressional districts are indeed constitutional, and that Trump can't just demand all kinds of election data from California as well.

We always try to end this weekly review on a positive note, and this week we're (metaphorically) heading out for a night at the opera. The Washington National Opera announced this week that it was leaving the Kennedy Center, since it didn't want to have anything to do with Trump's politicization of the place and because ticket sales were way, way down since Trump started mucking with it, and by week's end the W.N.O. had seen a big spike in fundraising as a direct result. That's a story with a happy ending!





We have two Honorable Mention awards this week before we get to the main one. The first goes to Representative Ilhan Omar, who hails from Minnesota, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who announced this week that they will be opposing all ICE funding bills (as well as Department of Homeland Security funding) to force meaningful reforms on the agency. ICE is pretty obviously completely out of control, and the American public can see with their own eyes how bad the situation has gotten, so right now pushing back on them is a very popular political stance to take.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul is also pushing back, supporting legislation that would explicitly allow New Yorkers to sue ICE for violating their civil rights. This is traditionally a federal legal matter, but with Donald Trump now openly stating that the only civil rights he cares about protecting is those of White people, since (according to him) they are the real victims of discrimination, it seems like a necessary step to flip the legal model to the state level instead.

But the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week hails from Alaska. Democrats just widened the field for possible states to flip in the midterm Senate races, because Mary Peltola has announced she is running for the Senate seat now held by Republican Dan Sullivan. Peltola was described in an article about her announcement as: "Widely considered the only Democrat with a prayer of making that race competitive," since she previously won the statewide race for Alaska's lone House seat. She'll be running on the same slogan she used to win previously, which is: "fish, family, and freedom." Also: "Alaska first."

Democrats face a very steep uphill climb to regain political control of the Senate, as they have to defend some swing seats (in places like Georgia) as well as flip four from the Republicans. But so far Chuck Schumer has been doing a pretty good job at recruiting candidates with the best shot at doing so, and Peltola's candidacy certainly puts Alaska on the table as a battleground.

Also impressive was Peltola's subsequent announcement that she had raised a whopping $1.5 million in campaign funds in her first 24 hours.

If a blue wave does develop this November, then perhaps -- just perhaps -- it might reach far enough north for a Democrat to flip a Senate seat in Alaska. The chances of doing so seemed pretty remote before this week, but now they seem a lot more plausible. For shifting the political landscape in such dramatic fashion, Mary Peltola is our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week

[We do not, as a rule, link to campaign websites, and Mary Peltola is not currently in any public office, so you'll have to seek out contact information for her yourself if you'd like to let her know you appreciate her efforts.]





Former senator and former Democrat Kyrsten Sinema is being sued by a woman claiming Sinema seduced her husband (who worked on her security detail) and destroyed her marriage. Here is what the lawsuit accuses Sinema of doing:



Of course, this is only one side of the story, since Sinema's legal team has yet to respond. So she doesn't qualify for an award quite yet, but we will be watching the case to see further developments, that's for sure.

Instead, we are giving the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award to former New York City mayor (and also "former Democrat," since he tried to get re-elected as an Independent) Eric Adams, who -- true to his nature -- tried to cash in big time on becoming a private citizen once again. Here's the story, which ran under the headline: "Eric Adams's Crypto Coin Crashes Soon After Launch, Sparking Scam Accusations":



There's really not much more to say about this one other than: "Grifters gotta grift, right?"

[Eric Adams is also now just a private citizen, and as a rule we do not provide contact information for such persons, so you'll have to search for his info as well, if you'd like to let him know what you think of his actions.]




Volume 824 (1/19/26)

Before we begin, we have to note our personal sadness at the passing of one of the founding members of the Grateful Dead. Bobby Weir was the last remaining frontman for the group, and his death marks the end of an era for millions of fans.

Requiescat In Pace, Bobby. And say hello to Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, and Pigpen (and everyone else) when you get to Rock-n-Roll Heaven....

But back to politics. This week we've begun to think about Democratic slogans for the midterm campaign trail, so we tried to keep them as short and bumper-sticker-ey as possible. We'll be trying to come up with such Democratic slogans for the rest of the campaign season, but here's what we've got at the start of it.



This should not happen here

This is a good political phrase because it can be used to describe a whole lot of things, although right now it applies to one in particular.

"You know what I keep thinking as I see the tactics of ICE in places like Minneapolis? I keep thinking: 'This should not happen here in America.' Federal agents wantonly using the most violent tactics they can to round up every Brown or Black person they come into contact with should not happen in the U.S. of A. People being killed for protesting such tactics also should not happen. And people who have been killed being demonized as some sort of deranged terrorist -- when everyone can plainly see this is untrue -- should not happen here. We are better than this, or we should be. These things should not happen here in America, period."



Pedophile protector!

We have to say, James Carville has a point.

"Every time anyone gets close enough to Donald Trump that he can hear their voice, they should shout what that autoworker did. Yell: 'Pedophile protector!' at the top of your lungs. Trump is breaking the law by refusing to release all the Epstein files, and people have to let him know that they still care. And it obviously gets under Trump's very thin skin, so I would encourage anyone close enough to him for him to hear to let him know what we all think he is -- a pedophile protector."



Not once

This is the easiest way to laugh at Trump's fantasy about prices coming down everywhere.

"Donald Trump is absolutely delusional when he says that grocery prices have all come way down. The man has obviously never shopped for groceries in his entire life. He didn't even recognize the word 'groceries' when he was campaigning, and still thinks it is an 'old-fashioned word,' for some bizarre reason. As any American family knows, grocery prices just keep going up under Trump's presidency, and he doesn't care. He is delusional when he denies this reality, because he has never -- not once -- shopped for groceries in his entire life."



Child-care crisis

Start using this term, and maybe the media will be helpful and pick up on it too.

"The cost of child care has now gotten so high for so many millions of American families that they simply can't afford it. It costs more for child care than it does to send a student to college, in many places. And Trump deporting every immigrant in sight means there are fewer and fewer people actually working in child care these days, which makes the problem worse. It's gotten to the point where it is a real crisis in America. But Democrats are fighting to fix the child-care crisis in meaningful ways. States like New York are moving towards free child care for all, championed by Democrats. New Mexico already offers it -- again, because Democrats fought to make it happen. Imagine how life would be easier for millions of parents nationwide if the child-care crisis was fixed in such a fashion! Republicans are just making the situation worse, while Democrats are trying to tackle the child-care crisis in a big way."



What manufacturing boom?

This needs pointing out too.

"Donald Trump keeps telling Americans that there's this big boom in American manufacturing on his watch. His tariffs were supposed to bring back zillions of American manufacturing jobs, right? Remember when he promised that? Well, it turns out America has lost manufacturing jobs at a steady rate throughout Trump's entire first year back in office. That's right -- the job market has softened in general, but manufacturing keeps bleeding thousands of jobs month after month. Trump swears a manufacturing boom time is happening, but what I'd like to know is what manufacturing boom? It's just another one of Trump's economic delusions, folks."



Are you better off now than you were a year ago?

This one, as previously mentioned, doesn't even need any explanation. It will have to be adjusted, as we get closer to November (since "a year ago" would then mean "after Trump already took office" ), but for now it works just fine. This is what every Democrat running for every seat in Congress should start their campaign pitch off with:

"Are you better off now than you were a year ago?"



Can you feel it?

OK, this one is rather optimistic, but the more time goes by the more probable it is looking that Democrats at least regain control over the House, so we feel it's justified.

"You know what? Every political analyst I've noticed keeps moving the midterm elections into more and more favorable territory for the Democratic Party. It's now a safer bet that Democrats take back the House than to bet that Republicans keep it. The Senate is now even in play -- something that was considered a wildly-optimistic fantasy even just a few months ago. So what I have to ask everyone is: can you feel it? Can you feel a big blue wave building up? Because I can. November can't get here fast enough...."




Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
Follow Chris on Twitter: ChrisWeigant
Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com

January 10, 2026

Friday Talking Points -- More Lies And Propaganda

It has been a week of stunning events and dangerous rhetorical excesses. Currently the political debate is divided over the question of when government officials can use deadly force against people who are protesting or ignoring orders from those officials. This question is steeped in politics, as it so often is. Whether a person deserves death at the hands of the state almost always has a political element to it, which is not exactly a new thing.

Here's a quick test, just to prove the point. If there is an unruly crowd of people hurling not just verbal abuse but physical objects -- snowballs loaded with ice, chunks of rock pried up from the street, frozen horse manure, and anything else they can get their hands on and throw -- at a contingent of government officers, some of whom were being knocked to the ground and injured by the incoming rain of projectiles, would they be justified if they shot into the crowd in their own self-defense -- and killed some of the crowd?

Well, it would depend on your politics and the politics of the government. As it did, when it happened. Those supporting the government officers brushed the incident off as "the day when some persons were unfortunately killed." Those opposed to the government officers painted a much more visceral picture (emphasis in original):

When the officers were prosecuted, their defense lawyer even pointedly referred to the crowd as a "mob." As you may have already guessed, that defense lawyer was none other than John Adams, and the soldiers he was defending (six of whom he got acquitted) were the ones who had fired into the crowd in the "Boston Massacre."

Americans are taught this story as a tale of patriotic martyrdom. British schoolbooks probably teach it differently, one would assume.

[Technical Note: We cannot link to either of those two quotes, since to the best of our knowledge they only exist online behind a serious paywall, but the first one ("some persons were unfortunately killed" ) was from a letter to the editor from "Massachusettensis" (actually Daniel Leonard, a Loyalist) printed in the "Monday, December 12, to Monday, December 19, 1774" edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and the Boston Post-Boy and Advertiser; while the second quote ("bespattered with your father's brains" ) was published on March 17, 1775 (shortly after the first anniversary of the incident), by the Boston Gazette.]

But let's get back to the current century, shall we? This week had a rather jarring juxtaposition of two completely contradictory viewpoints on the use of force by government officers -- which both came from official channels of the sitting government. The first came when the White House unveiled a webpage marking the fifth anniversary of the January 6th riot and insurrection attempt, by a violent mob who attacked federal police officers at the U.S. Capitol while forcing their way into the building in an effort to stop Congress from certifying a presidential election. We wrote about this disgusting display of gaslighting earlier this week, but suffice it to say that the Trump administration put forth a version of events that was completely contradictory to what virtually every American witnessed with their own eyes that day. Somehow, it was the cops (and Democrats, of course) who were to blame for the entire incident, and the rioters and insurrectionists were "patriots" and peaceful protestors. If you want to see your tax dollars at work producing pure propaganda, take a look. However, if you don't want to be disgusted and enraged, we would recommend that you give it a pass.

Later in the week, an ICE agent shot and killed a woman in a vehicle, in an event that was also caught on camera. The administration instantly leapt into propaganda mode, calling the woman a "domestic terrorist" who was attacking a federal officer who was in fear for his life. This came from the highest levels. Donald Trump jumped in with his take: "[T]he woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self-defense. Based on the attached clip, it is hard to believe he is alive, but is now recovering in the hospital." Actually, it's pretty easy to believe that he is alive, since the videos of the event clearly show him walking around afterwards with no apparent injuries whatsoever. The videos also clearly show he was not, in fact, run over at all -- not even close.

Several administration officials -- from the vice president (who called her a "deranged leftist," among other things) on down -- darkly warned that this was (obviously, to them) some sort of organized resistance movement. Kristi Noem, the secretary of Homeland Security, said she would tell the Justice Department to "prosecute it as domestic terrorism, because it is clear that it's being coordinated. People are being trained and told how to use their vehicles to impede law enforcement operations and then to run over anybody who gets in their way."

With absolutely zero sense of irony, one Republican congressman, Wesley Hunt, summed this all up: "The bottom line is this: When a federal officer gives you instructions, you abide by them and then you get to keep your life." Failure to obey is a capital offense, in other words.

It's strange, isn't it, how none of this thinking applied to the death of Ashli Babbitt, as far as Republicans are concerned. She was the woman shot while attempting to forcibly breach a barricade at the door to the United States House of Representatives on January 6th. Inside the chamber, members of Congress were cowering in fear for their lives as the mob tried to get at them. This is the same mob that had earlier been chanting: "Hang Mike Pence!" Babbitt certainly wasn't obeying any instructions from federal officers, she was instead violently attacking them as part of an angry mob. But to Trump and the MAGA base, she is now seen as some sort of patriot martyr, much as Americans are taught to see those killed in the Boston Massacre.

Salon had an interesting commentary on all of this, in an article titled "ICE Is Not The Victim." After detailing the many ways in which ICE had been trying to paint itself as victims even before the shooting, it makes a very valid point:



The best way to combat naked government propaganda is to stand up and say: "But that's not what happened!" You can believe the propaganda, or you can believe what you can plainly see with your own eyes. A U.S. citizen was gunned down on a city street because she wasn't doing what the cops told her to do. She was trying to drive away, and she was murdered. Federal officers appear on American streets without any identification, dressed and armed for full-on warfare, and they wear masks to hide their identities. And if you don't instantly obey them, you could be killed. After which, the entire weight of the federal government will try to demonize you while fully supporting the officer who pulled the trigger. Minnesota's judicial system has been shouldered aside, and the F.B.I. has taken over the "investigation" (which requires those scare quotes to indicate it is nothing of the sort). Full exoneration will be forthcoming shortly.

This is the country we all now live in.

In further evidence that America is now a rogue nation, the week started off with an invasion of a foreign country. The U.S. military attacked Venezuela and snatched its leader and hauled him back to an American prison. Donald Trump was so happy with the outcome that he immediately began musing over which country would be next -- Mexico? Colombia? Cuba? Greenland?

After the raid, Trump announced he would now "run" Venezuela, and that we were just going to steal all their oil for the foreseeable future. We're going to take their oil, we're going to sell it, and then maybe we'll give some of the money back to "the Venezuelan people," if we're in a good mood. All of this is openly admitted by the president. It's all about the oil, which he will cheerfully tell anyone who asks.

We would accuse any other country on Earth who did such a thing of "piracy" and "extortion" and "imperialism," and we'd be right. We are not the world's policeman any more, we are instead something akin to the world's biggest organized crime network instead.

In the midst of all this, Trump gave an interview to the New York Times, where he sounds not just like a monarch but like an emperor in the imperial days of colonization:



Louis XIV would doubtlessly have approved. This is not just: "L'État, c'est moi," it is in fact closer to: "Le Monde, c'est moi."

And, sadly, it's now the world we all live in.

At least some Republicans in Congress seem to be waking up. The Senate actually passed a measure this week -- with five Republican votes! -- to prohibit Donald Trump from using the military to attack Venezuela again. It's nowhere near enough to overcome a presidential veto (and the House probably won't even bring it up for a vote), but at least there are signs of life from the spineless congressional Republicans. Also this week, the House passed an extension (written by Democrats, with no Republican agenda items included) of the Obamacare subsidies which expired at the start of this month. This could pressure the Senate to act, which could avoid another government shutdown at the end of the month.

Whether this indicates a real trend of Republicans bucking their own party's president on issues which could be used against them in the midterm elections or not is not clear as of yet. But it is at least an encouraging note to end on, after a very tough week all around.





We have a joint Honorable Mention award to hand out, before we get to the main award. This week, a sort of détente was reached between New York Governor Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Hochul is now going to work with Mamdani to achieve one of his biggest campaign promises, it seems. Here's the story:



That's great news, and it normally would have qualified both Hochul and Mamdani for the big award, but since the plan has yet to be enacted by the legislature, we're going to save that until it is signed into law.

We also have a joint Honorable Mention award for all the Democratic members of the House of Representatives this week, for getting a three-year extension of the Obamacare subsidies passed. They had to force Speaker Mike Johnson to hold the vote (with the help of some very worried swing-district Republicans), and in the end an impressive 17 Republicans voted with them to pass the measure. It isn't going to make it into law as written, but it does increase the pressure on the Senate to now act on some sort of compromise bill (which they may do as early as next week).

But the first winner of the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award was Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who was thrust into the national spotlight this week by the ICE shooting in his city, and who did an admirable job of countering the false narrative being put forward by Donald Trump and his administration immediately after the shooting. He bluntly called all the claims the administration made "bullshit" and did not mince his words when offering some advice to ICE:



Later, when called out for the language that he used, Frey responded: "I stand by my statements. I dropped an F-bomb, they killed somebody. Which one of those is more inflammatory? I'm going with the 'killing somebody.'"

Frey will share the MIDOTW award with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as well. Before the shooting took place, Walz made the stunning announcement that he was ending his bid for re-election as governor. The reason was not that he thought he was going to lose, but rather that he feared that the president of the United States was going to use him as a reason to retaliate against the citizens of his state. Trump was going to cut off funding and otherwise harass Minnesota, and Walz saw stepping out of the race as a possible way to defuse the situation. In fact, ICE flooding 2,000 agents into Minneapolis was part of that retribution.

Walz deserves his own MIDOTW award not only for his selfless political act, but also for the way he responded to the shooting:



When the government is actively demonizing Americans and putting out propaganda to justify killing them, prominent people need to stand up and call them on their "bullshit." Both Jacob Frey and Tim Walz did an admirable job of doing so this week, which is why they are the winners of this week's Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award.

[Congratulate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz on his official contact page, and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on his official contact page, to let them know you appreciate their efforts.]





In Congress and elsewhere, Democrats were admirably united this week. There were no dissenting votes in either the House or Senate on important Democratic priorities, and Democrats across the spectrum condemned the Trump administration's overreaches with one voice. So we're going to put the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week back on the shelf until next Friday.




Volume 823 (1/9/26)

We start on a positive note and end with a big heaping helping of scorn this week. It's been quite a while since we wrote one of these Friday columns, but as usual we're not going to even attempt going back to mid-December and catalogue all that has happened, but instead are just going to focus on the events of the past week.



Free child care for all

It hasn't been enacted yet, but it's still worth celebrating nonetheless.

"All the naysayers -- and they were legion -- who said Zohran Mamdani was never going to be able to get anything done since he had to deal with Kathy Hochul in the governor's office seem to have been proven wrong. This week, Hochul unveiled a plan to not just provide free child care to all pre-kindergarten kids in New York City but the whole state. Hochul and Mamdani already are defying the naysayers by working together to solve this aspect of the affordability crisis. This bodes well for Democrats, it bodes well for Hochul and Mamdani, and it certainly bodes well for all New York parents. This is what Democrats can make happen if they work together, folks."



Who are you going to believe?

This is turning into a regular talking point, since it applies to so many different situations.

"When you remember the events of January 6th... when you see a woman getting shot in Minneapolis by federal agents... we all now have to ask ourselves a very important question: Who do you believe? The president of the United States, or your own lyin' eyes? Personally, I know which one shows the truth and which one lies like a rug, and I hope everyone else comes to the same conclusion."



Put the shoe on the other foot

For all those on the right who insist that everything is normal and legal, a quick question to check exactly what they mean.

"Republicans were just fine with Donald Trump sending in the American military to arrest and remove the leader of Venezuela, based on an indictment handed down by an American grand jury. The Republicans tell us that this is legal and appropriate. So I have a question for them: What would you say if the Venezuelan justice system indicted Donald Trump for committing acts of piracy on the high seas and for abducting their country's leader by use of force? And then what would you say if the Venezuelan military launched a commando raid to capture Trump and haul him back to Caracas to stand trial on these charges? Would you be OK with all of that? Would you defend it as righteous and legal? I'm betting you wouldn't. Looks a little different when the shoe is on the other foot, doesn't it?"



Senate needs to vote to protect Greenland

This is now pretty obviously necessary.

"The U.S. Senate voted this week to deny Donald Trump the power to use the American military again in Venezuela. But they shouldn't stop there -- their next bill should also make it illegal for Trump to attack in any way the island of Greenland. Up until now, some Republicans have scoffed at the need for doing so, but after listening to Trump's continuing obsession with owning Greenland -- no matter what the people who live there or in Denmark think about it -- it is now obviously necessary to rein him in. Launching an invasion of Greenland wouldn't just be disgraceful imperialism on our part, it would also mean the end of U.S. involvement with NATO. The stakes are high. And Trump thinks he can do anything he wants. The Senate needs to tell him that he can't, before any Greenland invasion actually takes place."



"King" isn't good enough for Trump

No kings? No emperors, either.

"Donald Trump apparently doesn't want to just be king, instead he'd really prefer to be called an emperor. He wants to go back more than a century, to the time of unchecked imperialism. He wants to grab any country he feels like, take their resources whether they like it or not, and profit off the entire venture. He is fully on board with the concept of 'might makes right,' and he's not shy about admitting it. Donald Trump doesn't just want to be a king, he wants to be an emperor -- and it's up to the rest of us to tell him we don't want to return to the 19th century world of strong countries just taking whatever they want from weaker ones."



This is the country we all live in, now

It's sad to say it, but it also must be said.

"We all now live in a country where masked federal officers who are outfitted for warfare can roam the streets of American cities and freely shoot American citizens without justification and know they'll never face any consequences for doing so, no matter what. This is now America, folks. This is the country we all live in, now."



House Republicans have their priorities straight!

This was just laughable.

"The Washington Post ran an article this week -- which was a shocking and busy week in politics -- with the headline: 'House GOP Prioritizes Trump's Changes To Showerheads.' You just can't make this stuff up, folks. Here's the first sentence of the article: 'House Republicans are hoping to soon deliver a win for President Donald Trump's agenda -- or at least his hair -- by voting to codify his long-desired showerhead changes into law, one of their top priorities of the new session.' Yep, you read that right -- one of the Republicans' top priorities is changing federal rules for showerheads. Voters should remember this come November, as they stand in the voting booth. Voters should think to themselves, 'What should have been the top legislative priority this year -- showerheads, or perhaps something else?' Because their answer might be a wee bit different than how the Republicans in Congress have prioritized things."




Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
Follow Chris on Twitter: ChrisWeigant
Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com

November 22, 2025

Friday Talking Points -- Impaired Waterfowl?

The political term for physically-challenged waterfowl has been appearing with increasing regularity in the media this week, to describe the president. But is Donald Trump really a "lame duck" yet? Or is he more of a duck that happened to sprain an ankle or perhaps stub a toe (do ducks technically have ankles... or toes? I must admit, I have no idea...)?

Etymological/metaphorical/biological amusements aside, though, the question is a bigger one than pinning down the exact nature of this particular waterfowl's infirmity. Because the articles using the term are really asking whether Trump's iron-fisted grip on the Republican Party (and/or his MAGA supporters) is slipping -- and if so, by how much. Here's just one example of the question being discussed:

This isn't the only place the term has been popping up. Articles are appearing with headlines such as: "7 Signs Trump Is Losing His Groove," and: "The MAGA Crackup Might Finally Be Here," and: "Is President Trump's Power Over The Republican Party Waning?" Here's one more example (which notes in the second paragraph: "as the first signs of his lame duck status emerge" ), which adds an important caveat:



That last bit is important, as Trump (much more than any other politician the label has been applied to) has metaphorically been coated with Teflon ever since he entered politics. Nothing has diminished his hold over the party, to date. So all these diagnoses of lameness might be premature, for this particular duck.

Even so, it's been a rather jaw-dropping week for Trump. He lost a vote in Congress that he had been dead-set against -- by a combined total of 527 votes to one. Well, admittedly that doesn't tell the full story, since at the very last minute Trump flip-flopped by announcing he was now for the measure that he had been fighting tooth and nail against all year long. Just last week he was still trying to strong-arm the Republicans who were supporting the resolution (to release the Epstein files) and bully them into switching their position. This failed, so Trump had to pretend he was switching his position. If he hadn't, he would have been seen as a huge loser, but this way he can claim to be on the winning side of the vote.

Which is patently ridiculous, for anyone who didn't just emerge from a years-long coma this week. The bill Congress voted on will force Trump to do something he didn't want to do, period. He lost this vote, plain and simple. Trump could have released the Epstein files at any time, without Congress having to get involved at all. He didn't. He fought the effort to force him to, and lost. Then he had to pretend to be celebrating the bill's passage somehow, even though it was a bill forcing him to do something he didn't want to do. How does that make any sense?

But getting back to the lame-duckery in the media, the Epstein vote (527-1!) wasn't the only indication that Trump is losing his grip. During the shutdown fight, Trump leaned heavily on Senate Republicans to abolish the filibuster and just ignore the Democrats -- and the GOP senators refused to do so. Trump has been leaning on red states to redistrict, to improve the GOP's chances of hanging onto control in the House in next year's midterms, but three state Republican legislatures defied him and refused to do so (Indiana, Kansas, and Nebraska). Trump said he would "welcome" foreign workers in an interview this week, which seriously annoyed his own MAGA base. Some Republicans have been raising questions about Trump using the U.S. military to blow up any boat he feels like, since declaring war is the purview of Congress. Other Republicans in Congress have not been impressed with Trump's idea of just sending out $2,000 checks to everyone in America, in the hopes that they won't notice the rising prices in the grocery store quite so much. And both the House and Senate seem to be moving forward to pass a bill that would slap Russia with heavy sanctions -- a bill that Trump has not expressly supported.

Plus, Trump's poll numbers are way down. One poll this week showed a huge advantage in the "generic ballot" (where pollsters ask people whether they'd support a Democrat or Republican in the next election, without specifying any names) for Democrats -- by a whopping 55-41 margin. To be fair, this poll is probably an outlier (other polls don't show the gap as being nearly as wide), but it should be a red flag for Republicans in Congress who are running for re-election next year.

Trump flip-flopped on one other big issue in the past week, as he sullenly announced that he was removing all tariffs (even on countries who hadn't struck a trade deal with America yet) on a long list of food products, some of which can't be grown here at home (like coffee). This didn't get as much media attention as the Epstein vote, but it's just as damaging for Trump's brand. Trump has insisted all along that tariffs aren't actually "taxes" and that American consumers simply would not see any increase in prices due to higher tariffs. So if that's true, then why did Trump just remove a bunch of tariffs? The only answer is that he is worried about the fact that anywhere from two-thirds to three-fourths of the public thinks his tariffs have made prices worse and inflation go up (both of which are true).

Trump is caught in a trap of his own making, here. Which is why it would be nice if the media pressed him on the inherent contradiction. To use another bird-based metaphor, Trump's answer to the looming problem of inflation, the economy, and affordability is to stick his head in the sand. As far as Trump is concerned, "affordability" is some sort of "Democrat hoax" that doesn't exist. According to him, prices on everything -- everything! -- are down. Way down! Prices were much higher when Joe Biden was running the country... and by the way, anything that is not perfect is still Biden's fault (even a full ten months in to Trump's second term).

Trump can't have it both ways, of course. If his delusions were true, then the voters wouldn't be so angry. If prices have risen, then tariffs are almost certainly a big reason -- meaning it is Trump's fault. Since, to Trump, nothing is ever his fault, he'll never admit any of this. But sticking your head in the sand by insisting that there simply is no problem is not exactly a smart position for the Republican Party to take right now. To put it mildly. As we've said before: "Just ask Joe Biden how that worked out for him."

We're starting to get economic numbers once again, as the Bureau of Labor Statistics ramps back up post-shutdown. The unemployment rate ticked up in September, to 4.4 percent -- the highest it has been in almost four years. They've now announced they're going to skip October's numbers and instead concentrate on this month, but the November numbers will be delayed until the second week of December. But it's not the jobs numbers which might be seriously bad news for Trump -- it's the inflation rate. The last reported official rate was 3.0 percent. If it continues to go upward (as many economists are predicting), it will be higher than at any time since Trump took office again. Trump has also been ignoring this figure, insisting that "there is no inflation" or that it's down to "incredibly low levels" (neither of which, obviously, is true). If the number keeps going up, Trump will have to address it somehow -- and chances are good that he'll do so by continuing to insist that there's no problem and that gas is somehow magically selling for two bucks a gallon everywhere (which also isn't true -- it's higher than that everywhere).

Republicans in Congress will be watching all this. At some point, their instincts for self-preservation are going to kick in, one would assume. Following Trump down the head-in-the-sand denial path seems almost guaranteed to produce a blowout blue-wave midterm election. So there's going to have to be some sort of break with Trump for any of them to attempt to tell their voters that they are actually trying to address the affordability crisis.

This could become apparent as soon as next month. The one thing the Senate Democrats who voted with the Republicans to end the shutdown got in exchange for crossing the aisle was a promise that the Senate would vote on a bill (of the Democrats' choosing) to extend the Obamacare subsidies that are going to turn into a pumpkin on New Year's day. Ever since then, Republicans have been scrambling around trying to come up with some sort of gimmick so they can tell their voters they voted for cheaper healthcare costs, without actually lowering healthcare costs for the people affected by the end of the subsidies. Trump himself weighed in on this, with (as usual) a half-baked idea. Trump is now insisting that any money has to be handed directly to the people, instead of going to an insurance company. This is laughably unworkable and won't do much of anything to lower anyone's costs, but Trump doesn't care. He drew this line in the sand, and some Republicans in Congress dutifully cobbled together some legislation that would do what Trump wants.

However, there are other Republicans who know full well that this isn't going to solve the problem at all. So discussions continue between Democrats and Republicans, with the latest proposal being an extension of the subsidies for two years (with a few GOP ideas tossed in to fight non-existent "massive fraud" ). Other Republicans are holding firm that the subsidies should just expire, period.

If enough Republicans get on board with some sort of compromise worked out with the Democrats, then such a bill might actually pass before the year-end deadline. But Trump has already drawn a line in the sand, vowing to veto any bill that doesn't send all the money directly to the consumers. But would he really veto a bipartisan bill that would avoid premiums doubling or tripling for tens of millions of Americans? Remember: Trump is already politically weak on the whole affordability crisis issue, so this would be a monumentally stupid thing for him to do.

He might be forced to flip-flop, once again.

Which would be one further indication that he has now achieved impaired-waterfowl status. So the entire debate will be very interesting to watch, over the course of the next few weeks.





We have a six-way tie this week.

Two Democratic senators and four Democratic House members collaborated on a video this week that caused Donald Trump to go ballistic. The Democrats are (with their own descriptions of their previous military or intelligence experience), in the order they appear in the video:

Senator Elissa Slotkin ("Former C.I.A. officer" ), Senator Mark Kelly ("Captain in the United States Navy" ), Representative Chris Deluzio ("Former Navy" ), Representative Maggie Goodlander ("Former intelligence officer" ), Representative Chrissy Houlahan ("Former Air Force" ), and Representative Jason Crow ("Former paratrooper and Army Ranger" ).

The video runs for ninety seconds. In it, these former members of the intelligence community and military issue a warning to those still serving. The warning consists of restating current United States military law, which reaffirms the world's decision in the Nuremburg trials that "I was just following orders" is not a valid excuse to commit crimes. If given an illegal order, soldiers must refuse those orders. Which is what the video reminds them of.

Here is the text of the video, after all the members of Congress have introduced themselves [Editorial Note: the punctuation was lightly edited, since at a few points the same line is repeated by multiple people and the captioning's punctuation seemed to get a little confusing at the end -- but none of the text has been edited at all]:



You'll note that Donald Trump is not named anywhere and that at no point do they tell servicemembers to refuse legal orders from anybody. All they are doing is restating what the Uniform Code of Military Justice says.

As mentioned, when he heard about this video, Trump absolutely lost it. He started sending out ominous messages online: "It's called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL. Their words cannot be allowed to stand - We won't have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET." He followed this screed up with: "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!" Trump also reposted one message that said: "HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!"

This isn't the first time Trump has flipped out at Democrats reminding people of the law, or their rights under it. Earlier, Democrats had been reminding undocumented people of their rights under U.S. laws and the Constitution, which Trump also considered treasonous behavior.

We also have a Honorable Mention for Senator Chris Murphy as well, who posted his own video in response to Trump's dangerous words. In it, he says:



With the president convinced he can bomb any boat he chooses, on his say-so alone, without any authorization from Congress to do so and without us being at war with anyone, the reminder the Democrats posted is certainly timely. With the president also convinced he can send any military troops anywhere in our own country -- again, on his say-so alone -- such a reminder is particularly apt.

For bravely standing up and doing so, and for showing the country how unhinged Trump has truly now become, all six Democrats who made the original video are easily the winners of this week's Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award.

[Congratulate Senator Elissa Slotkin on her Senate contact page, Senator Mark Kelly on his Senate contact page, Representative Chris Deluzio on his House contact page, Representative Maggie Goodlander on her House contact page, Representative Chrissy Houlahan on her House contact page, and Representative Jason Crow on his House contact page, to let them know you appreciate their efforts and their service to our country.]





The House went through a spasm of measures to rebuke their own members this week, which led to Representative Chuy Garcia getting a "vote of formal disapproval" from all Republicans and 23 Democrats this week -- in a measure instigated by Democratic Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez -- for essentially locking in his chosen successor for his seat. Garcia played it cute with the filing deadline, by waiting to announce he was not running for re-election until the day after the filing deadline closed. The only Democrat who had filed paperwork to run next year was his own chief of staff. He tried to say he had just suddenly made the decision for personal and family reasons, but this is simply not believable (Garcia's own signature was the first on the paperwork his chief of staff filed, showing he was fully aware of what he was doing).

It's this type of thing that makes voters hate politicians and politics in general, which is why we're awarding Garcia our own (Dis-)Honorable Mention award.

But this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week has now been charged with something much worse. Here's the story:



Of course, as always, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, but things don't look especially good for her. She has now stepped down from her committee assignments, but she is currently running for re-election.

So for now (contingent upon the result of her trial), we have to award her this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week. Stealing money directed to COVID-19 vaccination money is a pretty shameful thing to do, after all.

[Contact Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick on her House contact page, to let her know what you think of her actions.]




Volume 821 (11/21/25)

We begin with a program note: there will (obviously) be no column next week. Hope everyone has a happy turkey day!

You might detect a theme running through this week's talking points [picture one hand making a big "L" while pressed against forehead, here...].



Trump is losing it

This one should be condemned by all, in the strongest possible language.

"Donald Trump is losing it. He called for Democratic members of Congress to be put to death this week, for the supposed 'crime' of explaining what the law says. Remember all that Kumbaya stuff after the assassination of Charlie Kirk? Well, all that has gone right out the window, as we all knew it would. I shouldn't have to say this, but because Trump is losing it I guess I do: the president of the United States of America should never call for the death of his political opponents. Period."



Trump lost 527-1

He can try to spin it all he wants, but this was a stunning loss for him.

"Donald Trump has been fighting tooth and nail against releasing all the Epstein files. His henchman Mike Johnson tried every trick in the book to prevent a vote on a bill to force Trump to do so in the House. But when Trump realized he was about to lose this vote -- badly -- he changed his tune and said he was for the bill. This fooled precisely no one. In the end, Congress voted 527-to-one against Trump. If Trump truly had been for this, he could have released these files at any point in time, but instead he fought it. And he lost -- bigly."



Trump is losing his grip on the GOP

More and more Republicans are finding the backbone to say "No" to Trump, which is good to see.

"Trump is losing his grip over his own party, obviously. Rather than rolling over and doing anything he wants them to do, Republicans have shown they can occasionally stand up to Trump. They did so on the Epstein files vote, and more than one very red state has refused Trump's order to redistrict to stack the deck for next year's midterm elections. Donald Trump is a lame duck -- he's never going to run for anything ever again. But the rest of the Republicans are going to try to get re-elected, and my guess is that as time goes on more and more of them will break with Trump in an effort to save their own political careers. Trump's grip on the GOP is slipping, and it's probably only going to get weaker and weaker as time goes on."



Trump is losing his grip on reality

Hammer this one home, hard.

"Every time someone brings up the fact that everything is getting more expensive, Trump shows that he's completely lost his grip on reality -- if he ever had one to begin with. He insists that prices are all way down -- when everyone can see that they're not. He tells everyone the economy is wonderful and there's no inflation, but people see it every week at the grocery store. The more Trump spirals down his delusion that everything's hunky-dory for everyone, the more people will wake up and realize that Trump has completely lost whatever grip on reality he once had."



Trump has lost his built-in excuse

This one's getting old indeed....

"Trump is losing his go-to built-in excuse for why things might not be going the way he wants them to. He's been in office ten whole months now, and he's still blaming Joe Biden for anything bad anyone asks him about. His tariffs have made everything more expensive, but Trump insists that it was worse under Biden and that it's all Biden's fault. You know, this excuse has a built-in shelf-life and it's already way past its expiration date. How many more months is Trump going to attempt to blame things on Biden? Let's see... how many more months does he have left in office?"



Trump is losing in court

Always worth pointing out.

"Trump is losing in court, every time you turn around. Judges have barred him from using the National Guard in two more cities -- Memphis and Washington D.C. -- and in the biggest legal loss of the week, other judges ruled that the new Texas redistricting map is probably illegal and needs to be thrown out. While the Supreme Court may be in Trump's back pocket, it's good to see other judges out there willing to draw the line on Trump's overreach."



Experts agree: Trump is a pig

We would have used "male chauvinist pig" here, but we felt the phrase would tend to date us, so we just went generic instead.

"Donald Trump is a pig. Think that's disrespectful? This week, Trump wagged his finger at a female journalist asking him a question and told her: 'Quiet, Piggy.' So, quite obviously, he is due precisely zero respect himself. The rest of the world is horrified that America's president is no more than an elementary-school bully, each and every time he embarrasses himself in this way. Which is why we have to conclude that 'experts agree: Trump is a pig.' After all, if he can't bring himself to avoid using such disgraceful language, then why should anyone else restrain themselves?"




Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
Follow Chris on Twitter: ChrisWeigant
Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com

November 15, 2025

Friday Talking Points -- Distractions Abound

So the longest federal government shutdown in American history ended last weekend, not with a bang but a whimper. Seven Democrat senators and one Independent voted with the Republicans to reopen the government without securing the goal that Democrats had been fighting for. This has outraged many other Democrats, since it was seen as "pulling defeat out of the jaws of victory," once again.

Donald Trump essentially ignored the entire shutdown, while he threw lavish parties and visited foreign countries (and demolished one-third of the White House, to boot). But Trump's minions were ratcheting up the pressure on Democrats, by limiting how many flights could take off from major airports and going to the Supreme Court -- twice! -- to demand that they had the power to refuse to feed hungry children. All around, Trump is appearing more and more like a cartoonish supervillain.

Speaking of supervillains, the Epstein files scandal returned to the fore, as Democrats released emails showing what Jeffrey Epstein truly thought of Donald Trump ("evil beyond belief" and "i have met some very bad people ,, none as bad as trump. not one decent cell in his body... dangerous." ) -- which is rather remarkable, when you consider how evil Epstein was.

Trump's response, as usual, was to flood the zone with distractions. He sicced his Justice Department on any Democrats mentioned in the newly-released Epstein files, and of course Attorney General Pam Bondi immediately did her master's bidding.

The White House also tried to strongarm at least two of the House Republicans who have signed the discharge petition to force the release of all the Epstein files in the Justice Department, even going so far as to bring in Representative Lauren Boebert to the White House Situation Room. This ultra-secure room is usually used for the most serious decisions presidents make, but instead Boebert faced Bondi and the head of the F.B.I., Kash Patel, who both tried to force her to withdraw her signature from the discharge petition. None of it worked -- all four Republicans kept their names on it, and because the House is back in session again (after a seven-week paid holiday), Adelita Grijalva was finally sworn in. The first thing she did afterwards was to provide the pivotal 218th signature on the petition, which is now going to force Speaker Mike Johnson to hold a vote on it next week. Interesting wonky factoid: now that the discharge petition is complete, no representative is allowed to withdraw their name from it. So that vote will happen no matter what.

Even if it does, it probably isn't going to work (other than to ramp up the political pressure on Trump). Even if it passes the House, it's still got to get through the Senate (which is doubtful) and then Trump could just veto it in the end. But holding the vote in the House will guarantee that the story will be front-and-center next week.

Unless Trump starts a war with Venezuela, that is. Which he is apparently now seriously considering, after earlier lying to Congress about whether they were planning to invade or not.

Meanwhile, someone in the White House apparently got the wake-up call from the 2025 elections (which Democrats impressively swept) and there is a scramble now on to figure out how Trump can attempt to claim to be fighting for "affordability" (since the Democrats used the issue so successfully against him). Trump, of course, prominently ran on the issue himself, promising to wave a magic wand and fix everything on "Day One." Affordability (getting inflation down and prices down) was one of his two biggest issues, in fact (the other was immigration). But since he's taken office, all he's done has made things worse. His tariff spree has increased prices on all kinds of things Americans buy, so the White House is finally attempting some damage control on the issue (since they are obviously fearful that Democrats will use it just as successfully in next year's midterms).

Trump being Trump, though, his efforts are scattershot (at best) and will doubtlessly be ineffective. Except for one thing -- they're announcing that tariffs on foods that don't grow in America (like coffee and bananas) will be rolled back. Coffee prices have skyrocketed this year, but Trump will deserve exactly zero credit for "fixing" the problem. He's like a guy who sets fire to your house and then puts it out and wants to be congratulated for dousing the fire -- that he himself lit.

Other ideas Trump has been floating are all over the map:

But he's got a long way to go to convince anyone:



Trump's poll numbers in general have taken a notable downturn, and his average is now roughly 12-to-14 points underwater in job approval polling. His numbers are even worse in polling on the economy and inflation. Trump even went to a pro football game last week and got [link:ttps://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-commanders-game-boo_n_69112d21e4b05694e6ae4d4b?origin=home-zone-d-unit|soundly booed] by the crowd. He has also lost one notable member of his own party, as Marjorie Taylor Greene continues to rip into Trump on affordability, saying in a recent interview:



However, denial and gaslighting are Trump's favorite go-to moves. He continues to insist that everything is wonderful, prices are down on everything, and that gasoline is selling for two bucks a gallon. None of that is true, but that's never mattered to Trump. However, this time Trump seems to be losing support even among his own voters:



It's hard to say for certain, but it certainly feels like Trump's talent for flooding the zone with lies has slipped. Many have noted that he seems to be falling into the same "out of touch" trap that Joe Biden did -- talking up the economy while millions of people are hurting. Even MAGA supporters hear Trump tell them how wonderfully low all the prices for everything is, but then they have to confront the reality at the checkout stand every week. They know prices aren't down.

They're also still waiting to see those Epstein files in full, too. And they're probably not going to be very impressed if Trump decides to invade Venezuela, either.





We have a few Honorable Mention awards to hand out before getting to the main one. The first of these goes to Senator Elizabeth Warren, who wrote a letter to Trump demanding he explain the difference between the lies he's been telling and the actual data that his own administration has put out. She goes through a short list of questions, on economic claims Trump has recently made. Here is just one of them (the others, on affordability, energy costs, and grocery costs are similar):



This is what Democrats should be doing -- hit Trump (in public, if possible) on the reality of the situation versus his gaslighting, with details.

The other awards-winners are all from the election (as close races are finally settled). Honorable Mention awards go out to a group of progressive candidates (who ran as a bloc) in Aurora, Colorado, who defeated enough members of their city council to give Democrats control. Some of the Republicans who were ousted went along with Donald Trump during the campaign last year as he lied about immigrant gangs being in control of the whole city, so it was a welcome comeuppance indeed.

But the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week this week is the woman who won the mayor's race in Seattle (in a very close race). Here's her story:



Here's a more in-depth look at the new mayor-elect as well:



For decades now, Republicans have used "Socialist!" as a scare word, applying it to any Democrat who dared to suggest rich people might need to pay more taxes. But it seems increasingly likely that the smear word has lost its power, as more and more voters actually hear what Democratic Socialists have to say about their agenda and conclude, "That sounds like a good idea!" This is especially true among younger voters.

These are just mayor's races, to be sure. But then again Bernie Sanders started out his political career as a mayor, so it can indeed lead to bigger things. For deepening the progressive bench and for running on economic populism, Katie Wilson is our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week this week. We'll be just as interested to see how successful she is at her new job as watching the career of Zohran Mamdani. For now: Congratulations and well done!

[You'll have to wait to congratulate Seattle Mayor-Elect Katie Wilson until she is sworn into office, as our standing rule here is not to provide contact information to campaign websites, sorry.]





There are nine candidates for the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week, but we've decided to only hand it out to eight of them.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer only gets a (Dis-)Honorable Mention award, since he did vote against caving on the shutdown, but also because he couldn't keep his caucus together, even after a romp of a victory in the 2025 elections. Schumer is getting plenty of grief for his handling of the situation, including calls from fellow Democrats (although none in the Senate, so far) for him to step down from his leadership position.

But the seven Democratic senators (and one Independent) who did cave certainly deserve this week's MDDOTW award. The ignoble eight are:

• Catherine Cortez Masto


• Dick Durbin


• John Fetterman


• Maggie Hassan


• Tim Kaine


• Angus King [Independent]


• Jackie Rosen


• Jeanne Shaheen

This group certainly didn't manage to get much from the Republicans -- they essentially agreed to what the Republicans had been offering all along. A Senate vote will be held in December on a Democratic bill to extend the Obamacare subsidies. It will likely fail. Even if it does pass, the House may just ignore it. And even if through some miracle it passed both houses, Trump would almost certainly veto it.

Republicans are now scrambling around trying to come up with something to pass in its place, with some sort of gimmick so they can claim they solved the problem (while campaigning for the midterms, next year). But even that is in no way guaranteed -- the easiest thing for them to do would be "nothing" (which they are quite good at doing, in general).

The issue could come back to haunt the Republicans, however, in a big way. If nothing passes, then Democrats will have a second bite at the apple at the end of January -- they could shut the government down again. And next time around, SNAP benefits will be fully funded for the rest of the year, so it won't be available as a bargaining chip for the Republicans (this was included in the bill they passed to end the shutdown).

But let's just say everything Democrats attempt fails. If the Obamacare subsidies do go away, then Democrats will hammer the issue all year long out on the campaign trail. Fighting for affordability is emerging as the centerpiece for Democrats to run on, and this will fit very nicely into that theme. So by failing to fix the problem now, Democrats may actually increase their chances of winning back at least the House in the midterms.

Even so, this week was disappointing (and that's an understatement). So all the Democrats (and one Independent) who caved and got virtually nothing out of the deal certainly deserve their own Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award.

[Contact Senator Catherine Cortez Masto on her Senate contact page, Senator Dick Durbin on his Senate contact page, Senator John Fetterman on his Senate contact page, Senator Maggie Hassan on her Senate contact page, Senator Tim Kaine on his Senate contact page, Senator Angus King on his Senate contact page, Senator Jackie Rosen on her Senate contact page, and Senator Jeanne Shaheen on her Senate contact page, to let them know what you think of their actions.]




Volume 820 (11/14/25)

We are pre-empting our usual talking points this week in order to present excerpts from a very powerful letter. It was written by U.S. District Court Judge Mark L. Wolf as a public resignation letter. Wolf is stepping down from the bench because he is so disgusted at what Donald Trump and his administration are doing. The rules of judicial conduct have prevented him from saying all of this until now. But by resigning, he is now free to speak out.

The letter was originally published in The Atlantic, but their site is behind a paywall, so here's another link to it (published by AOL, with no paywall) if you'd like to read the letter in full.

This is one of the best condemnations of Trump and his minions that we have ever read. Which is why we're pre-empting our talking points this week to bring you Judge Wolf's resignation letter instead.





[Note: due to editorial restrictions here on reposting articles, all we could excerpt was the beginning of this letter. We strongly encourage everyone to follow the link and read the whole thing for yourself -- it's definitely worth your time.]




Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
Follow Chris on Twitter: ChrisWeigant
Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com

November 8, 2025

Friday Talking Points -- A Time For Boldness

This week, a major vibe shift took place in American politics. For the first time in an entire year, Democrats got up off the mat. Or maybe: they now have the wind at their backs. There are plenty of other metaphors to choose from, but the reality is that Democrats emerged stronger from the first major election since Donald Trump started his second term, and both Trump and his Republicans emerged weaker.

This sea-change isn't all-encompassing, of course. There just aren't that many offices up for grabs in the odd-numbered off-off-year elections which follow a presidential election. But next year there will be, as the midterms will determine the makeup of the entire House of Representatives and one-third of the United States Senate.

Of course, the standard caveat applies -- a year is an eternity in politics, especially in the Trumpian era. Anything could happen in the meantime. What next year's election hinges upon might be something that nobody sees coming right now.

But if things continue as they have been, then the economy is going to be the big issue that could determine how the midterms turn out -- and Democrats just proved that they've got a winning message while Republicans are stuck with nothing but gaslighting and other bald-faced lies.

Many have pointed out the irony, since Donald Trump now appears stuck in the same trap that ensnared Joe Biden. Biden strove to convince people that the economy wasn't really all that bad -- that things were getting better, according to the numbers. But people didn't feel it. They didn't feel it at the grocery store, they didn't feel it when paying their rent, and they didn't feel it when paying their energy bills. So Biden (and, later, Kamala Harris) lost the argument and appeared out of touch to the voters struggling to make ends meet.

Donald Trump won in large part because he made sweeping promises to fix all of that "on Day One." To be blunt: he hasn't. Almost everything he's done as president has actually made things worse -- and, just like with Biden, people are feeling the pain. And blaming Trump.

Much ink has been spilled over the ideological disparity between the biggest victors from Tuesday night. Two rather moderate Democrats won the governors' offices in New Jersey and Virginia, while a Democratic Socialist won the mayor's office in New York City. But what was striking to us was that all three ran on various flavors of the same issue: affordability. And they offered up (to a varying degree) some very solid ideas for how they were going to deal with the problem.

Which is what the big takeaway from the election was, in our humble opinion. It's not "progressive versus moderate" -- no matter how much that divide is hyped by the pundits. It's not even generational. It is instead boldness versus timidity. That is the real divide within the Democratic Party, and the sooner they realize it the better off they will be.

In New York City, Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani was demonized by his opponents -- some of them from within his own party. He was called every fearmongering name in the book. But the voters weighed all of that against his actual agenda, which was quite bold and forward-looking. Mamdani ran on four big ideas: a rent freeze for rent-controlled apartments. Free and faster bus service. Free child care for every child from six weeks of age up to five years old. And building government-run grocery stores (as a pilot program, which would be very limited at first). To pay for them all, Mamdani wants to (gasp!) tax rich people and corporations a wee bit more.

You can call those ideas "Socialist" or "Marxist" or "Communist" until you are red in the face, but the voters looked at them and weighed them and decided, "That doesn't sound like such a bad idea!" Because Mamdani didn't just promise some gauzy "I will fight for you every day!" future, he instead offered up concrete real-world ideas. He will be judged on the success or failure of those ideas, but they are tangible things that could (if implemented well) actually help people's lives out, in a big way.

Mamdani wasn't the only one. In New Jersey, Governor-Elect Mikie Sherrill promised to tackle high energy prices (which have skyrocketed in the state recently) by freezing the rate the utilities are allowed to charge. Will this work? It's hard to say. Will she even be able to make good on her campaign promise? That remains to be seen. But once again it is a genuine big idea. It is something concrete that she can be judged on later (depending on its success or failure), instead of just some vague politician-speak about "fighting to bring prices down."

That was the real lesson from this election. Part of the big problem the Democratic Party's brand is having right now is that most voters don't know what they stand for. Democrats have been defined by their opponents, and they have largely failed to counter the impression (of being too "woke," for instance) with their own solid political agenda full of big ideas that could help millions of people out right away.

Personally, we think Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin bear a lot of the blame for this. Democrats had a golden chance, during Biden's first two years in office, to implement the same sort of sweeping improvements to government programs that would have been a real sea-change for tens of millions of American families. Biden worked together with Bernie Sanders to come up with this plan, which would have guaranteed free (or affordable) child care and preschool for all of America's children, free college tuition (at least for two-year community colleges), free elder care, and a raft of other programs designed to make people's lives tangibly better. Manchin and Sinema balked, and so the bill had to be watered down (again and again, in fact) so that they'd vote for it. What Biden wound up with was still impressive -- but not nearly as far-reaching as it could have been.

The pundits (and the Republicans) keep insisting that attempting to do these things is somehow "radical" and "far-left" and "too progressive." And the Democratic Party establishment buys into this framing and cowers. Which is precisely what the voters hate -- timidity in the face of big problems. Incremental plans that take forever to be implemented and don't really solve the problem but merely tinker around the edges of it.

In fact, the Democratic establishment -- which is so timid it balked at even supporting their own party's nominee for mayor in New York City -- now resembles nothing so much as what the Republican Party looked like right before Trump launched his hostile takeover. They are floundering around trying to figure out why voters don't like them any more, but they keep retreating into timidity and thoughts of "maybe we should move to the right -- to the center -- and become Republican-lite... maybe that will fix our problems!" They focus-group every single thing that comes out of an establishment Democrat's mouth to the point where they become experts at saying absolutely nothing while turning people off with their stilted mealymouthed vagueness.

Then along comes someone with genuine authenticity and shows them politics is supposed to be done. Like Mamdani.

If Bernie Sanders were perhaps 20 years younger, he might be in a prime position to effectuate the same sort of takeover of the Democratic Party that Donald Trump managed on the other side. Nobody's more authentic than Bernie, after all. But even he realizes he's now too old to be the standard-bearer in 2028.

But the Democrats seem ripe for somebody to achieve this. They are largely rudderless and in dire need of a leader to follow, and that doesn't necessarily mean someone with similar politics as Bernie. But ideally it should be someone with authenticity. Someone who can speak like a normal person, instead of endlessly regurgitating focus-group-speak and platitudes. Someone with a concrete platform that promises: "These are the things that I will get done! Maybe not all of them will work perfectly, but it's certainly worth trying something new, don't you think?"

Such an agenda should be centered around affordability. This is a new way of saying what "It's the economy, stupid" meant, back in the 1990s. The cost of living is crushing American families, and neither party seems all that interested in doing much of anything about it. Donald Trump made sweeping promises, but once he got into office he forgot all about them. While on the campaign trail, Trump promised to lower energy costs by half during his first year in office. While gas prices have recently come down very slightly (after spending the first half of the year almost exactly where they were when Trump took office), the same is not true for electricity prices. Meanwhile, Trump just lies about it. He either confidently tells people that gas is selling for two bucks a gallon in multiple states (spoiler: it isn't), or that we'll all be paying that magic price real soon now.

On grocery prices, Trump is completely incoherent. He apparently just learned the word "groceries" last year, during his campaign, which is astonishing enough -- but not for someone who has lived his entire life in the lap of luxury. He still insists (he repeated it this week) that you have to show a photo I.D. to buy a loaf of bread in a grocery store (spoiler: this is not true and never was). He is, in a word, completely clueless about the process of buying food in a grocery store, likely because he has never actually done so for himself in his entire life. And now he is trying to pull the wool over the eyes of even his own supporters who complain about high prices. Here he is on Fox News, answering a woman who voted for Trump three times and who wrote in a letter stating: "[S]omething has to be done fast. I don't see the best economy right now. Wall Street numbers do not reflect my Main Street money. Please do something, President Trump."

Trump responded by flat-out lying to the woman:

Here is Trump attempting the same gaslighting, from an interview aired last weekend:



Two years ago, polling showed Republicans with a 20-point edge on the economy. Now they are tied with Democrats on the issue. For Trump, the problem is even worse:



Trump is vulnerable on the issue, since he has either done nothing or made things worse (with his trade war tariffs). He is underwater in the polls, according to Nate Silver, by an average of over 17 points on both the economy and trade. And he is down a whopping 30 points on inflation. The polling on inflation is all pretty close to being 2-to-1 against Trump on the issue. That is an enormous vulnerability, and that is precisely why Democrats concentrating on affordability is so potent right now. And Trump is so tone-deaf and out of touch on the issue it's almost cartoonish:



Today, Trump filed an emergency appeal so that he could go ahead with his plan to starve over 40 million poor Americans who get SNAP food aid -- because a judge ruled that he had to pay the benefits in full, even with the government shutdown. As we said, this is all so blatant it is downright cartoonish -- all Trump needs is a thin little villain's mustache to twirl, really.

Some Republicans, after Tuesday night's Democratic blowout, are beginning to realize the pickle Trump has now put them in. By all rights, we should be reading headlines screaming "Republicans In Disarray!" (but of course, we aren't). Trump is either ignoring affordability issues or actively making them worse, while living in a delusional fantasyland where "groceries" is some old-fashioned word that nobody ever uses anymore and prices have gone way, way down (just because he is president). He's never going to admit he was wrong (about his tariffs, for instance), and he's never going to face the reality of life for millions of his own supporters. Republicans have to somehow thread the needle of addressing the biggest issue Democrats have right now without angering Trump or coming up with any policies that contradict what he's been doing. That's a pretty tough needle to thread, you have to admit. Here's an immediate example, from today's news:



So look for Republicans to start echoing the word "affordability" -- without offering anything tangible that could possibly contradict Donald Trump. Good luck with that!

And hopefully (oh, please, please, please... hopefully!) Democrats will counter with not just "I will fight for you every day" nonsense, but with actual, concrete, and very bold plans to improve daily life for millions of Americans. Because, as we just saw Tuesday night, that is the winning ticket for them, period.





We have two Honorable Mention awards to hand out before we get to the main one this week.

Representative and Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi announced this week that she would not be seeking re-election next year. This was monumental news in San Francisco, since Pelosi has been an institution there for over four decades now. But after being instrumental in convincing Joe Biden to abandon his bid for re-election due to his advanced age, it would have been hypocritical of Pelosi to follow in the footsteps of Senator Dianne Feinstein, who stayed in office long past when she should have, and never stepped down at all (she died while in office). Pelosi, who is 85 years old, would have been 88 by the time the next congressional term ended, so it was definitely time for her to think about retirement.

Pelosi will be missed, of course, and will go down in American political history as one of the strongest and most effective speakers of the House ever. The only question remaining is whether her daughter Christine will attempt to run for her mother's seat, which would not just continue the Pelosi dynasty, but continue a political dynasty that reaches back to her father, Thomas D'Alesandro in Baltimore, Maryland. But whomever takes Pelosi's seat will have some awfully big stiletto heels to step into (so to speak).

Also worth an Honorable Mention is Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who has done a fairly admirable job of holding his caucus together throughout the government shutdown, and today countered Republicans with an offer to solve the crisis with his own plan (which would extend the Obamacare subsidies for another year, among other things). Schumer isn't the most animated politician around, but he has done a good job leading the Democrats through this whole crisis and deserves recognition for that alone.

But our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week goes to all the big winners of this week's off-off-year elections: New Jersey Governor-Elect Mikie Sherrill (who beat expectations that it would be a close race and won by an impressive 13 points), Virginia Governor-Elect Abigail Spanberger (who also chalked up a better-than-expected 14-point victory), and of course New York City Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani (who got just over 50 percent, so he can claim a solid mandate from the voters). California Governor Gavin Newsom wasn't on the ballot himself in the Golden State, but his brainchild ballot initiative to redistrict the state to counter Texas doing so mid-decade passed in an absolute landslide, so he deserves the award for taking the political risk (and for levelling the playing field in a big way for the midterm House races).

Democrats had a great night Tuesday. It was a blowout all around. They improved their margins from past elections (both the 2024 presidential election and the past gubernatorial elections) in dramatic ways -- especially (in New Jersey) among Latinos. This is what is putting the wind at all other Democrats' backs, heading into the midterm campaign season.

Well done all around, with a shoutout to every voter everywhere who was part of such a spectacular Election Day for Democrats. For the first time in a year, a shining ray of optimism is beaming down on the Democratic Party once again. It's hard to even overstate how meaningful that is and is going to be for the next year.

[It'd probably be best to wait until all of these folks are sworn into office, so you can congratulate them on their new official webpages, to let them know you appreciate their efforts. Or you can look up their campaign sites (which we do not link to as a general rule here, sorry).]





We have to hand out two Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week awards this week, both for exactly the same reason.

Neither one of New York's senators -- Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand -- wound up endorsing Zohran Mamdani. That is pathetic. Mamdani won the Democratic primary and by doing so routed the comeback attempt of another political dynasty, as he soundly defeated Andrew Cuomo. Then Mamdani went ahead and soundly defeated Cuomo again in the general election.

In doing so, Mamdani energized young voters and disaffected voters and progressive voters in a huge way. He won two-thirds of voters under 45, for example. His campaign centered on some very blue-collar issues, as is evidenced by the impressive victory speech he gave (where he talked about their concerns almost exclusively).

Not to put too fine a point on it, but these are exactly the demographic groups that Democrats need to do better with, if they want to regain power in Washington. So it was indeed pathetic that neither Gillibrand nor Schumer could bring themselves to endorse the nominee of their own party for New York City mayor.

[Contact Senator Chuck Schumer on his Senate contact page, and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand on her Senate contact page, to let them know what you think of their actions.]




Volume 819 (11/7/25)

Some of these talking points are directed not so much at the public as at Democratic politicians. Because with a blowout election at their backs, perhaps a few of them can be convinced that being bold is a lot more effective than being timid. Hey, it's worth a try, right?



It's going to happen anyway...

Sound advice for all Democrats, really.

"You know what? Far too many Democrats are far too afraid of being called a 'socialist' or 'Marxist' or whatever rightwingers use as their go-to demonization word. But it really doesn't matter what Democrats stand for or run on because they are going to do this anyway. You can be timid and hope that the mean ol' Republicans don't call you a name, or you can be bold and support new and creative ideas to help people out, but either way they're still going to call you the same names. So here's an idea -- stop being so afraid of it! If you give voters solid ideas to vote for, they're not going to care what labels the opposition uses, they're going to support you at the ballot box. That's a key takeaway from Tuesday's election."



Universal free child care sounds pretty good

Case in point...

"Democrats should be championing bold ideas that actually help average Americans, and they shouldn't do so in some half-assed incrementalist fashion. Run on universal free child care! It not only worked for Zohran Mamdani, but the entire state of New Mexico just implemented free child care for everyone -- and you know what? The sky did not fall! This is an enormous financial burden for parents everywhere, and lifting that burden will change tens of millions of families' lives for the better. Republicans will say it's too expensive, but they never seem to say that when offering trillions of dollars in tax cuts to rich people, do they? It's just a matter of getting your priorities straight, and for Democrats, removing the burden of having to pay enormous amounts for child care from struggling parents is a much higher priority than saving rich folks some tax money."



Welcome back, Latino voters!

This is already making some Republicans quake in their boots -- and it should.

"You know what the biggest demographic shift was in Tuesday's elections? Latino voters coming back to the Democratic Party. Donald Trump managed to convince a lot of Latinos to vote for him last time around, but a whole bunch of them are disgusted with what he's done in office. Trump said he'd fix inflation and price hikes -- and he has only made things worse. He said he'd only deport murderers and rapists and violent criminals, but instead he is rounding up every brown person he can find -- including abuelas and school children and gardeners and mechanics and construction workers who are not criminals at all. And now Latino voters are saying to themselves: 'This is not what we voted for!' Latino voters may very well be the key to winning next year's midterms, so as a Democrat I'd like to say: 'Welcome back!' The Republicans from Trump on down have shown how little they care for you and your families, and how every brown person they see equals some sort of criminal to them. Democrats don't see Latinos this way, which is why so many of them are now having second thoughts."



Trump is making electricity prices soar

Hit this one hard.

"As you and your family see your electricity prices keep going up and up and up, think to yourself which would be the smarter thing to do: build more electricity-generating facilities or build fewer? Because Donald Trump is waging a war on solar and wind energy projects and cancelling them left and right. Why? I have no idea. But you better believe that this is only going to make things worse in the future, because all that generating capacity will not be coming online to help get prices back down. Trump is aiding and abetting a shortage of electrical production for no reason at all. It's really the stupidest possible thing he could do, and you should remember that every time you look at your monthly power bill. Instead of making things better, Trump is actively making the situation worse."



Clueless!

Again, hit Trump hard, because he deserves it so much.

"Donald Trump is trying the old 'Who do you believe, me or your lying eyes?' bit, when it comes to inflation. He keeps insisting that prices have come way down, just like he promised. But he's lying to you! How would he know what paying grocery bills is like? He only learned the word 'groceries' about a year ago, and he still has no clue -- the man has probably never been in a grocery store in his entire life! He has no idea what all his tariffs and trade wars are doing to the price of coffee... or beef... or anything else families have to buy to survive. Every time he swears that prices are way, way down he just proves how clueless and out of touch he truly is. So you know what? I'm going to believe my own eyes at the checkout stand instead of listening to Trump's lies -- because he either just does not know what the reality is for people like you and me, or he just doesn't care."



Trump sinking in the polls

This one is specifically designed to make other Republicans worry.

"It's no wonder that Donald Trump is sinking in the polls. His job approval rating is dipping below 40 percent in poll after poll, and that's not even the worst of his numbers. He's below water on just about every individual issue there is -- even immigration. And now fully two-thirds of Americans disapprove of how he is making inflation worse. Trump keeps insisting that the fantasyland in his head is true -- where his poll numbers are 'higher than ever' -- but in the real world more and more people are turning away from him in disgust. Sooner or later other Republican politicians are going to have a choice to make: either tie yourself to Trump's sinking approval ratings, or flee the sinking ship and start standing up to Trump -- for their own political survival."



Point-blank range!

And we saved the best one for last....

"Did you see that the 'sandwich guy' was found not guilty this week? Trump's Justice Department is being run by people who play lawyers on television, and that's going about as well as you'd expect it to. A man protesting the militarization of the streets of Washington D.C. by throwing his salami sandwich at one of the full-battle-gear federal agents had his trial this week. The Justice Department raided his apartment with a huge 20-person goon squad -- which was totally unnecessary and only happened to make a video so Trump could brag about it -- and then the made-for-teevee federal attorney tried to convince a grand jury to bring him up on felony assault charges. They refused to. So they brought him up on misdemeanor charges instead. During his trial the Justice Department laughably said they were prosecuting him because 'he was recorded throwing a sandwich at a federal officer at point-blank range.' A sandwich! I had no idea there was such a thing as 'point-blank range' for a sandwich, did you? Thankfully, the jury in the trail quickly brought back a strong 'not guilty' verdict, and the sandwich guy went free. The entire episode was nothing more than a bad episode of the Keystone Kops, folks. And a gigantic waste of your tax dollars, to boot."




Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
Follow Chris on Twitter: ChrisWeigant
Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com

October 25, 2025

Friday Talking Points -- Ballroom Blitz

So, let's review, shall we? Last weekend, seven million Americans took to the streets to protest Donald Trump, in the biggest political protest this country has ever seen. The theme of the protest was: "No Kings!" So this week, Trump responded by acting in what can only be described as kingly fashion, in as many ways as he could dream up -- including a rushed demolition of one-third of the White House, without consulting anyone or even attempting to get anyone's permission. He sent the demolition crews in, and within a few days the entire East Wing was nothing more than a pile of rubble. All because a royal decree had been issued.

Trump also demanded $230 million in personal tribute money, to be paid to him by the Department of Justice, using (of course) taxpayer dollars. The reason the public should hand him almost a quarter-billion dollars? Because his feelings were hurt when the justice system tried to hold him accountable for his many crimes. So now, according to the king, the public must pay fealty to him in a very tangible way.

Meanwhile, a U.S. aircraft carrier is heading to the Caribbean, so that Trump can kill whomever he wishes with more ease. Think that's an overstatement? Think only a king would do something like that? Here is Trump, after being asked whether he was going to ask Congress to approve of such actions: "I think we're just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, OK? We're going to kill them, you know? They're going to be like, dead."

Oh, and the Marines apparently shelled Interstate 5 in California, while putting on a big show for the vice president. Coincidence?

In trade news, Trump hit the ceiling when a Canadian politician dared to run an ad in America criticizing tariffs, using clips from an old speech by Ronald Reagan. So Trump immediately declared he had halted all trade negotiations with Canada.

That's all just from the past week, mind you. There are plenty of other examples of Trump's royal inclinations, but at least a few of these must have been spurred by the fact that seven million Americans took to the streets to protest what he is doing to our country. The best commentary that we read on the protests (and Trump's regal offenses) reached back to our own founding document, the Declaration of Independence. The document was, for the most part, a huge list of reasons why Americans had decided to break ties with their sovereign. It listed all the complaints we had, in very specific terms. And more than a few of them ring true today:

Not to mention destroying one-third of "The People's House" without any permission at all. With apologies to the rock band Sweet, this "ballroom blitz" took everyone by surprise ("It's, it's a ballroom blitz!" ). Previously, Trump had sworn that his plans for a new ballroom would not even touch the existing White House structure. There would be no damage or changes to the building at all, he promised. This week, however, the demolition machines appeared without warning and starting ripping down the East Wing. At first, it was just reported that "the facade" would be torn down, but within days it was revealed that the entire East Wing had been completely destroyed -- reduced to a pile of rubble. Congress was not consulted, and neither were any of the groups who are supposed to approve changes to federal building or are interested in preservation of historic Washington architecture. Trump just decided to rip it down before anyone could stop him. He was obviously embarrassed about it, since the White House took pains to block any possible sightline to the destruction, to limit the scenes from appearing on the news.

Trump then announced that the pricetag for his palatial palace of tackiness had risen to $300 million, but (not to worry!) there had been plenty of people and companies willing to offer him tribute money to cover the costs. They even released a list of donors, which included some very familiar corporate names, including: Amazon, Apple, Comcast, Google, HP, Meta, Microsoft, T-Mobile, and even (for some reason) Hard Rock International. These are the corporate titans who are financing this destruction and desecration of the White House, folks.

The new ballroom will occupy a stunning 90,000 square feet -- much bigger than the footprint of the White House itself. It will loom over the entire complex, and the interior is just as tasteless and kitschy and tacky as you would imagine, since Trump approved it all. Everything will be gold-plated, of course. So that Trump can hold parties for 999 of his closest friends.

Our initial reaction to this behemoth was to dearly hope that the next Democrat who runs for president makes a campaign promise to tear this palace of tastelessness down and to restore the East Wing to its previous sedate existence. Tear down the giant new flagpoles, too, while you're at it. And strip the walls of the Oval Office of all that gold bric-a-brac, since America was founded specifically against kings in palaces.

One can dream, right?

Getting back to the protest rallies and marches from last weekend, though. While the Republicans tried to smear the entire effort as "Hate America" rallies, there was no violence or disruption, and the people who attended were fiercely defending the America they saw being dismantled before their eyes. As Bernie Sanders said in a speech to the Washington rally, the attendees weren't there because they hated America, but because they love America.

Trump, true to form, responded by posting a disgustingly scatological fake video of him, wearing a crown (because why not?), flying a military jet, and bombing the protesters with crap. He has sunk to the level of basic primatology, because apes and monkeys will often express their displeasure by flinging their own poo in a blind rage. Which was literally what that video depicted -- the president of the United States of America taking a big ol' dump on citizens who had the temerity to protest him. Such is the world we now live in, folks.

On the world stage, Trump went through a bout of flip-floppiness that was so abrupt it caused whiplash. Last week, Trump mused about providing Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory, then Vladimir Putin called Trump up and talked him out of it, one day before he met with the Ukrainian leader (who was mightily hoping for those Tomahawks). Trump, acting on Putin's orders, denied the missiles to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, because Putin had dangled another summit meeting in front of Trump. This week, Putin bombed a preschool in Ukraine and informed the White House that he was simply not interested in the ceasefire proposal Trump was now pushing, so the summit plans fell apart. Trump then completely reversed course and instituted the first sanctions (on two of Russia's biggest oil companies) that he has in his entire nine months in office. But (alas!) Zelenskyy still didn't get any Tomahawks.

In other foreign policy news, Trump has now flown off to a tour of Asia, where the hope is he will meet with China's leader and somehow fend off the escalation in the trade war we're having with them. Trump has threatened a new 100 percent tariff on Chinese goods, but who knows whether he'll follow through on the threat or not?

One group of Americans who would like to see the trade war resolved (even partially) are soybean farmers. Democrats have a real opportunity here, because Trump seems to be going out of his way to annoy a whole bunch of people who faithfully voted for him. He bailed out Argentina to the tune of $20 billion, but so far has yet to bail out any American farmers. This is galling, since China is now refusing to buy any American soybeans, so Argentina lowered its own trade barriers so that China could buy up their entire crop of soybeans. This, understandably, has left some American farmers seriously annoyed. And now Trump has announced he will be massively increasing the importation of beef from Argentina, since beef prices have skyrocketed for American consumers. This is a slap in the face to all the ranchers who voted for Trump. As I said, this leaves a clear opening for Democrats out in rural America, if they are smart enough to take it.

Let's see... what else has been happening? The government shutdown continues with no end in sight, and the speaker of the House continues to refuse to allow his chamber to meet, even though there is no rule or law preventing them from doing so (they're all still getting paid, it bears mentioning).

Obamacare insurance premium price hikes are starting to be published, and if the Democrats don't win the shutdown battle and restore the expanded subsidies, millions of families are going to be priced out of the marketplace.

FEMA has quietly been refusing to provide aid to disaster-struck areas, including those with plenty of Trump voters (such as North Carolina and Western Maryland). This likely won't become big news until a major disaster hits America and FEMA completely falls down on the job, but the warning signs are there for anyone paying attention. Speaking of paying attention, even though the government stopped tracking the data (since according to Trump, it's not a problem) but climate change continues to threaten us all -- through the first six months of this year, disasters caused more than $100 billion damage, which is the most expensive start to any year on record.

Trump used his pardon power to free two buddies this week, a crypto criminal and none other than George Santos -- because (as Trump explained) he always voted Republican. Trump commuted both the sentence Santos had been serving and any requirement to pay back the victims he scammed.

A Republican Vermont state senator finally resigned, after being caught on an extremely racist chat with a bunch of other Republicans. Even better news was that a Trump nominee had to withdraw from consideration because of his own racist "Nazi streak" (his words) and this proved to be too much for even the sycophantic Republican Senate to take.

In other "Republicans actually doing the right thing" news, Indiana will not be redistricting to gerrymander more Republican House seats because there aren't enough votes in the legislature to do so (despite it being overwhelmingly Republican).

But that's enough of a wrap-up for this week, instead let's move right along to the awards section of the program, shall we?





If we had an award for a "not very impressive" Democrat, this week House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries would have won it. He finally (finally!) gave his half-hearted endorsement to the Democratic nominee in the New York City mayor's race, Zohran Mamdani. But he waited until the absolute last minute to do so (just before early voting begins), and it wasn't exactly a ringing endorsement of Mamdani. Maybe it'll help him defeat Andrew Cuomo, but Mamdani looks on track to do that anyway. So we have nothing but an ironic slow-clap for Jeffries this week.

We do have a few Honorable Mention awards to hand out this week, though:

To California Governor Gavin Newsom, for his latest "get under Trump's skin" gimmick -- he says he's going to send signed kneepads to all the CEOs of corporations and leaders of prestigious universities who have "bent the knee" to Trump.

To the Virginia legislature's Democrats, for pushing a new measure to redistrict the state to provide more safe seats for Democrats, in response to all the redistricting red states are doing.

To both the attorney general of Arizona and to Representative-Elect Adelita Grijalva, who have filed a joint lawsuit against House Speaker Mike Johnson, to try to force him to swear her in and let her take her duly-elected seat. Johnson has refused to do so for over a month now, so Grijalva is suing to either force him to swear her in or allow her to be sworn in by any judge anywhere, so she can assume the office the voters in her district elected her to.

And to former President Barack Obama, who -- even though he has been fighting to make redistricting fairer and nonpartisan for years -- this week endorsed the Proposition 50 effort in California and cut an ad urging California voters to vote for it. Desperate times call for desperate measures is essentially Obama's message in the ad, and we couldn't agree more at this point.

But we have to give the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award to every single one of the seven million people who turned out last weekend to show their displeasure with King Donald. Never in the history of this country have more people taken to the streets in protest, or "to petition their government for redress of grievances."

It is heartening to know that so many Americans are not just outraged by what Trump has been doing but so outraged that they showed up to send the message in person. We have no doubt that these protests will continue (although probably not until the weather warms next spring), and they are an important indicator that Trump is a very unpopular president, no matter how much he deludes himself to the contrary.

The best thing about the events was that they were universally peaceful demonstrations. This is important, because Republicans tried to paint the whole thing as some sort of violent "hate America" uprising, but the reality was far different. As all of America could see. So to each and every person who made the effort and stood up for what they believed, please share this group Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award, with our gratitude.





Sadly, this one was an easy call.

A Democratic candidate (who is an ex-Marine) in the running to unseat Senator Susan Collins of Maine had to do some serious damage control this week, after it was revealed that he had a tattoo on his chest of an abhorrent Nazi image.

Here's the basic story, from Slate (note: emphasis in original):



Good question. Platner has now done so -- he has altered the tattoo to now display a Celtic knot instead. But the tattoo wasn't the only scandal he faced this week, as several very questionable old internet postings were also released to the media.

We will see if the voters of Maine choose to accept his explanations and apologies, but for now at the very least Graham Palmer deserves this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award.

[Graham Platner is a private citizen, and it is our blanket policy not to link to campaign websites, so you'll have to seek our his contact information yourself if you'd like to let him know what you think of his actions.]




Volume 818 (10/24/25)

Before we begin, we have a quick program note. Next Friday is All Hallows' Eve.

Now, we can't actually promise that we're going to go out and carve pumpkins and write new tales of horror from right and left, but we do promise we will be celebrating Hallowe'en in some fashion or another, which will pre-empt next week's Talking Points column, just to warn everyone in advance.



Where is the outrage?

Democrats don't quite have the equivalent of Fox News and the rightwing media echo chamber, but even so -- where is the outrage? Where are the Democrats who will express their anger authentically? Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries don't quite fill this bill, but you'd expect more from at least some Democrats.

"Let's just imagine for one tiny moment what the Republicans would have said if Barack Obama had -- without consulting anyone, without asking any permission at all -- just torn down one-third of the White House. Can you even imagine the apoplexy? Can you imagine the scathing language Republicans would have used to condemn Obama? So where is the outrage from Democrats over the travesty that just happened? Every Republican I have seen on the news has meekly approved of what Donald Trump just did to desecrate The People's House, but they need some serious pushback and they need it now. In fact, I would highly suggest that any Democrat who is now considering running for president in 2028 get out there and vent their anger to any news outlet they can find. Our party needs a new litmus test -- the 2028 candidate should have to pledge to tear down the Trump monstrosity and rebuild the East Wing back to something the people of America can be proud of. I don't know about you, but I'm not willing to vote for any candidate who doesn't make such a promise, personally."



J'accuse!

Let's just make sure we also lay the blame squarely where it belongs.

"Trump says his ballroom will be entirely paid for by donors, and he even helpfully released a list of them. So if you are disgusted by this desecration of the White House, now you know precisely who is to blame. Consumers should make their disgust known by writing to the CEOs of these companies -- which include: Amazon, Apple, Comcast, Google, HP, Meta, Microsoft, and T-Mobile -- and let them know you do not appreciate them bending the knee to Trump and handing over millions upon millions of dollars so he could destroy one-third of the White House. Without such craven behavior by these corporations, this might not have even been possible for Trump to do. But because they all just threw money at Trump, there's a big ugly pile of rubble where the East Wing of the White House used to be. For shame!"



Inflation heads up again

Don't forget to keep banging this drum, because it is what voters care about more than anything else.

"Remember what Trump actually got elected promising to do? Because it sure wasn't 'bomb some boats in the Caribbean and destroy a major part of the White House.' While Trump distracts everyone, the official inflation rate went up to three percent. And that's if we can even trust such a number, after Trump got so petulant about economic numbers he didn't like that he fired the head of the bureau that produces them. I don't know about you, but it feels like prices have gone up a lot more than three percent this year -- after Trump took office and started a trade war with the rest of the planet. Have you bought beef recently? Or coffee? Or back-to-school supplies for your kids? Those prices are all up a whole lot more than three points, that's for sure. So whatever Trump is doing to distract us all, the real question that he needs to be asked is: 'When are you going to do something about inflation?' Personally, I don't think he's got an answer to that one."



There is not enough money for you

This one's a two-fer. We found these quotes in an article up on HuffPost and couldn't decide which one we liked better, so we're just going to run both of them. They both link the bailout money to other issues quite well. The first one is from Senator Jeanne Shaheen:



And the second one is from Senator Brian Schatz:





Is this what you voted for?

Or you could make a more direct case, to rural Trump supporters.

"Donald Trump is sending $20 billion to Argentina to bail out their struggling economy. Why? Because he's buddies with the leader of the country. He also allowed Argentina to drop all their tariffs and sell their entire soybean crop to China, because China is refusing to buy any American soybeans. Trump also just announced he'd be importing a whole lot of beef from Argentina as well. Is this really what American farmers and ranchers voted for? Trump hasn't lifted a finger to bail out any American farmers who are getting slammed by his tariffs and his global trade war. He hasn't provided $20 billion to farmers here at home. Is that really 'America first'? I mean, I know a lot of farmers, but not one of them is willing to say 'Yes, this is what I voted for -- to bankrupt American farmers while bailing out some foreign country who is a direct competitor to our farmers and ranchers.' Because this is not what they voted for, plain and simple."



No dick-tators

This had to have been the most egregious arrest at any of the No Kings! rallies, which is why it deserves a mention.

"Three police officers in Alabama tackled a 61-year-old woman who was not being violent in any way but merely exercising her First Amendment rights to protest Donald Trump last weekend. Her crime, according to the police? 'Disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.' The video of it is worth watching, though, because it shows the real reason the cops took her down: she was dressed in a giant penis costume, and holding a sign that said 'No dick-tator.' According to the police, this was 'deemed obscene in a public setting.' That's amusing, since Donald Trump does things that are more obscene on a daily basis -- just take a look at his video response to the No Kings! protests. Seeing a giant dick on the side of the road is no worse than being subjected to one behind the desk of the Oval Office, as far as I am concerned."



Couldn't have picked a better piece of music if I tried....

This one wasn't at the rallies, but rather stemmed from a one-man protest of the militarization of the streets of America.

"A man is suing the Ohio National Guard and D.C. police after he was handcuffed and detained for having the temerity to play a piece of music on his phone while walking behind some of the soldiers who now patrol Washington D.C. streets. The man pulled out his phone and set it to play 'The Imperial March' from the Star Wars franchise -- which is better known as 'Darth Vader's Theme.' The soldiers warned him to stop, which he refused to -- why should he, since he was merely exercising his First Amendment rights? He was then tightly handcuffed and detained, before being released. Even so, his constitutional rights were clearly violated and I hope he wins his court case. I would also hope that this becomes a meme and thousands of other people start playing exactly the same tune whenever they see soldiers on American city streets. Because for the life of me, I couldn't have picked a better piece of music if I had tried...."




Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
Follow Chris on Twitter: ChrisWeigant
Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com