February 2, 2026 at 6:01 AM EST
Trump unleashes a new distraction based on his obsession with losing

If you thought that President Donald Trump and Georgia Republican candidates for higher office have left the 2020 election in the rearview mirror, think again. Federal agents on Wednesday were seen seizing records from Fulton County's election center warehouse as the president continues echoing false claims surrounding his 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Justice Department have not provided a reason for the raid, but a U.S. magistrate judge signed off on a warrant allowing agents to access a trove of information from ballots to voter rolls.

February 2, 2026 at 5:50 AM EST
Trump's own financial illiteracy could lead the world into economic anarchy

America's economic system has never been fair or perfect but for more than a century it rested on basic guardrails that kept instability in check and allowed us to fight for progress and win. Those guardrails are now being stripped away by policies that favor wealth and power over accountability and long-term stability. For over a hundred years, the United States has been the cornerstone of international economic stability. The independence of our central bank (the "Fed") has been a part of it, as has the strength of the dollar, which comes about in large part because the rest of the world relies on our currency as the default for international trade.

February 2, 2026 at 5:17 AM EST
Two agents identified in Alex Pretti shooting

The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti are identified in government records as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez. The records viewed by ProPublica list Ochoa, 43, and Gutierrez, 35, as the shooters during the deadly encounter last weekend that left Pretti dead and ignited massive protests and calls for criminal investigations.

February 2, 2026 at 5:09 AM EST
America finally reaches the breaking point as critics plan Trump's reckoning

The facts are so damning that it's unclear to me why moderate Democrats are being careful about their reaction to them. Renee Good was shot in the face. Alex Pretti was shot in the back. Their deaths were not accidental. They were not the result of poor or insufficient training . They were the result of intent .

February 1, 2026 at 3:18 PM EST
Trump derided for claiming he was 'not involved' with losing candidate

Hours after the Republican Party suffered an upset defeat in a special election in a deep-red district in Texas, President Donald Trump falsely claimed he had nothing to do with the race. While speaking to reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Sunday, Trump was asked what he made of the GOP losing a Texas state senate election in a district that he carried by 17 percentage points in 2024.

February 1, 2026 at 2:13 PM EST
Moderate churches 'hollowed out' as Christian Right's 'extreme influence' persists

In a survey released in March 2023, Pew Research Center examined Americans' views on different religious groups. Pew found that 27 percent of respondents had a "very" or "somewhat unfavorable" view of evangelicals, while only 10 percent had that view of Mainline Protestants and 6 percent felt that way about Jews. But the fact that evangelicals fared badly in Pew's survey doesn't mean that they are going away.

February 1, 2026 at 1:26 PM EST
Republicans have a plan to keep women from voting: report

Between a series of Democratic election victories in late 2025 and early 2026 and President Donald Trump's weak approval ratings in a long list of recent polls, Republican strategists are growing increasingly worried about this year's midterms --which are a little over nine months away. Never Trump conservative and New York Times columnist David French fears that Trump and his allies will use militarized U.S. Immigration and Customs and Enforcement (ICE) raids to "intimidate" non-white voters in November. And Guardian opinion columnist Arwa Mahdawi worries that MAGA Republicans will resort to another tactic to discourage Democratic voter turnout: making it harder for women to vote.

February 1, 2026 at 12:45 PM EST
'Earthquake of a scandal' as foreign investment in Trump firm skyrockets

A bombshell Saturday report from the Wall Street Journal revealed that a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family secretly backed a massive $500 million investment into the Trump family's cryptocurrency venture months before the Trump administration gave the United Arab Emirates access to highly sensitive artificial intelligence chip technology. According to the Journal's sources, lieutenants of Abu Dhabi royal Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan signed a deal in early 2025 to buy a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial, the startup founded by members of the Trump family and the family of Trump Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

February 1, 2026 at 12:38 PM EST
Even conservative George Will gets it

In today's edition, I'm going to try something different. Instead of an essay or analysis or an interview, I'm going to offer diary-like entries. The reason is practical, but also artistic, if you will indulge the term. These diary entries reflect how my mind works - vestiges, observations, random thoughts - sometimes interconnected but more often not. I wrote them on Bluesky before they appeared here, but have expanded and modified nearly all of them in order to give the impression of a beginning, middle and end.

February 1, 2026 at 11:51 AM EST
Trump's 'massive war chest' remains unmatched -- even as his popularity dives

With the United States' 2026 midterms a little over nine months away, President Donald Trump's low approval ratings are a major source of anxiety for GOP strategists. And a series of Democratic election victories has them worried as well. The latest came on Saturday night, January 30 in a special election for a Texas State Senate seat in the Ft. Worth suburbs. Donald Trump carried that district by 17 percent in 2024, but on January 30, Democratic nominee Taylor Rehmet defeated Republican Leigh Wambsganss (who Trump endorsed) by 14 percent.

February 1, 2026 at 10:34 AM EST
Trump admin 'overwhelming themselves' with their own brutal strategy

MAGA Republican Steve Bannon, host of the "War Room" vodcast and former White House Chief strategist in the first Trump Administration, famously described the MAGA movement's strategy as "flood the zone with s---." The idea, according to Bannon, is to keeping opponents feeling overwhelmed by inundating them with nonsense. "Real Time" host Bill Maher warned Democrats not to fall for it. Democrats, he stressed, need to pick their battles carefully with Trump and not "lose their s---" every time he says something offensive.

February 1, 2026 at 9:38 AM EST
Trump could become even more dangerous as public anger soars: historian

Dr. Ruth Ben-Ghiat -- a history professor at New York University, author of the 2020 book "Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present," and a frequent guest on MS NOW -- is known for her expertise on the history of fascism and authoritarianism. And she isn't shy about comparing President Donald Trump to authoritarian figures of the past. In an op-ed/essay published by the New York Times on February 1, Ben-Ghiat argues that Trump's overreach may backfire -- which, she points out, happened with authoritarians before.