VIDEO: Josh Marshall and David Kurtz on What the Heck the DOJ Is Up to in Minneapolis

Posted on by Allegra Kirkland

We’re just days out from our first Morning Memo Live event on the weaponization and politicization of the Justice Department under Trump II. To preview the kinds of topics we’ll be digging into, Josh Marshall joined David Kurtz on Substack Live to talk about the aftermath of the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis.

“There’s no longer any independence between the White House and the Justice Department,” David told Josh. “And it’s been made abundantly clear that what the White House says is what goes.”

Join us on Jan. 29 at the National Union Building in Washington, D.C. to talk about what’s going on at Main Justice, Pam Bondi, Trump’s retribution campaign against his political enemies, and where things go from here.

All TPM members should have a special discount code in their inboxes. And 2 for 1 tickets available now at checkout (even for those who already purchased a ticket!).

We’ll see you there.

Continue reading “VIDEO: Josh Marshall and David Kurtz on What the Heck the DOJ Is Up to in Minneapolis” →

White House Uses Shutdown to Carry Out Trump’s Retribution Agenda

The government is shut down and the Trump administration has begun its retribution campaign against Democrats. President Trump and Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought are engaging in a blatant attempt to squeeze Democrats into helping pass a continuing resolution to reopen the government, instead of engaging with their requests to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies and restore Medicaid coverage.

Follow along with our coverage here:

Trump Tries to Primary Senator Who Provided Key Vote to Confirm RFK

Posted on by Kate Riga

Bill Cassidy Chose Not to Fight, and It Did Not Save Him

Rep. Julia Letlow (R-LA) announced Tuesday that she will challenge Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) in 2026, pulled into the race on the strength of President Trump’s preemptive weekend endorsement. 

“Louisiana deserves a conservative Senator who will not waver,” she wrote in a tweet accompanying her launch video. “I am honored to have President Trump’s endorsement and trust.”

The waverer in question is Cassidy, a normie Republican and thus an endangered species in the GOP caucus. Of the original seven Republican senators who voted to impeach Trump after January 6, only he, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) have survived. Cassidy is the quietest of the three. 

The senator made clear who he was, who he would be under the second Trump term, back in February, when he cast the tie-breaking vote to advance Robert Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation as HHS Secretary out of committee. Cassidy, a medical doctor, used his momentary but immense power to entrust an infamous anti-vaxxer with America’s health, the deadly effects of which are already ripping through the country. Multiple children have died of measles in the past year, a disease that vaccination had all but eliminated in the United States.  

In return for this ultimate betrayal of his hippocratic oath, Cassidy got a list of gleefully broken promises. And, now, a Trump-endorsed primary challenger. 

Cassidy’s ambivalence about the MAGA project, embodied in his impeachment vote and brief equivocation over RFK Jr.’s elevation, is unforgivable in the MAGA universe. Far from staunch resistance, even momentary hesitancy is enough to doom a political career. 

Letlow — who won her seat after her husband died of COVID-19 before he took office — is promising not to “waver” in her fealty to Trump and his chosen helpmates. Her campaign pitch is to present no friction to the regime. 

Cassidy will end his career with blood on his hands. A doctor — someone trusted, someone educated, someone who knows better — crumpled under political pressure. This is his reward.

— Kate Riga

Trump Continues to Threaten Indiana Republican State Senator for Rejected Redistricting Proposal

President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance are still targeting Indiana Republicans who have not caved to the administration’s threats to approve new maps. 

In a series of social media posts, both Trump and Vance went after Indiana Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray over his failure to save Trump’s pressure campaign. This is not the first time Trump has targeted and threatened Bray for not caving to the administration’s demands on redistricting. 

The posts come in response to the Democratic-led Virginia state Senate approving a proposal late last week that would put before voters a constitutional amendment that would allow for pre-midterm redistricting. The advancement of Virginia’s proposal, which would help Democrats in the state, comes against the backdrop of Republican lawmakers rejecting the redistricting push in Indiana. The approval of Virginia’s redistricting proposal and the failure of Indiana’s suggests the administration may not maintain the upper hand in its months-long attempt to redraw red-state maps to maintain control of the U.S. House in the 2026 midterm elections.

“I was with David McIntosh of the Club for Growth, and we agreed that we will both work tirelessly together to take out Indiana Senate Majority Leader Rod Bray, a total RINO, who betrayed the Republican Party, the President of the United States, and everyone else who wants to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “We’re after you Bray, like no one has ever come after you before!”

Vance, similarly went after Bray in a post on X, blaming Bray for Virginia’s advancement of a redistricting proposal. 

“I’d like to thank @bray_rodric for not even trying to fight back against this extraordinary Democrat abuse of power,” Vance wrote. “Now the votes of Indiana Republicans will matter far less than the votes of Virginia Democrats. We told you it would happen, and you did nothing.”

— Khaya Himmelman

Musk Invests Heavily in Safe Red Seat 

After dumping hundreds of millions of dollars into Trump’s 2024 bid, Elon Musk is back on the market, pumping $10 million into a seeming underdog’s bid for outgoing Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) seat. Nate Morris, the self-described “outsider” and businessman, announced his candidacy for the seat last summer on Donald Trump Jr.’s podcast. The money will give the mostly self-funded Morris a boost, as the competitive primary has also attracted heavy-hitters in Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY) and Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron (R).

— Kate Riga

In Case You Missed It

WTF: DOGE Worker at SSA Signed Agreement With Group Seeking to ‘Overturn Election Results,’ DOJ Says

The Backchannel: What Trump Can Do in Greenland by Barely Lifting a Finger

Morning Memo: Trump’s Greenland Rantings Put World on Edge

TPM Cafe: You Say The Supreme Court Isn’t Partisan? Look in the Shadow

Yesterday’s Most Read Story

DOJ Abandons Probe of Fatal ICE Shooting of Renee Good

What We Are Reading

Inside Bari Weiss’s Hostile Takeover of CBS News — Clare Malone, The New Yorker

America vs. the World — Robert Kagan, The Atlantic

The Old World Order is Dead — Paul Musgrave, Systematic Hatreds

Trump Marks First Year In Office With Unhinged Racist Rant Targeting ‘Very Low IQ’ Somalis 

Posted on by Hunter Walker

President Donald Trump spent the first anniversary of his second term on Tuesday pitching himself to the American people from behind the White House briefing room podium. In nearly two hours of remarks, Trump seemingly sought to address his cratering approval by running through a list of his supposed accomplishments. His remarks also included a series of vicious, racist remarks about Somali people and other immigrants. 

Continue reading “Trump Marks First Year In Office With Unhinged Racist Rant Targeting ‘Very Low IQ’ Somalis “ →

DOGE Worker at SSA Signed Agreement With Group Seeking to ‘Overturn Election Results,’ DOJ Says

Posted on by Khaya Himmelman

In a bizarre court filing last week, the Justice Department conceded that in March 2025, two members of Elon Musk’s DOGE team who were working at the Social Security Administration were in touch with an advocacy group that hoped to “find evidence of voter fraud and to overturn election results in certain States.”

Continue reading “DOGE Worker at SSA Signed Agreement With Group Seeking to ‘Overturn Election Results,’ DOJ Says” →

What Trump Can Do in Greenland by Barely Lifting a Finger

Posted on by Josh Marshall

As is so commonplace in the land of Trump, the United States, Greenland and really the world are on tenterhooks over an issue that is simultaneously grave and absurd. How far will President Trump go to acquire Greenland and how much is he willing to risk to do it? More specifically, if he is “risking” the future of NATO is that not so much a risk as a goal? When someone asked me recently just what Trump’s beef is with NATO and Europe and the EU more generally, I told them this: Trump sees two classes of states beside what he recognizes as the three global powers: states are either vassals or prey. Since European states aren’t vassals they are inevitably prey. But here’s an issue that I think is more destabilizing than it may appear on the surface.

Continue reading “What Trump Can Do in Greenland by Barely Lifting a Finger” →

Corruption of the Department of Justice

Posted on by Josh Marshall

At approximately 2 p.m. eastern this afternoon David Kurtz and I are going to do a Substack live about the corruption of the DOJ under the second Trump administration. If you’re interested in this topic, please tune in. If you’re a subscriber to The Morning Memo, you’ll get an email notification when the conversation starts. We’ll be discussing this issue and previewing the topics David and a group of experts will be discussing at our event on Jan. 29 in Washington, D.C. Join us.

Trump’s Greenland Rantings Put World on Edge

Posted on by David Kurtz

Get Your Tickets Now!

We’re hosting our first Morning Memo Live event on Jan. 29 in Washington, D.C. Find details and tickets here — and TPM members should look out for a special discount code in your inboxes. Reach out to talk@talkingpointsmemo.com if you didn’t receive or can’t find it.

The Mad King

President Trump is marauding through the Arctic and NATO and basic good sense in such a disinhibited and public way that it’s giving rise to new calls for the invocation of the 25th Amendment. That’s not happening, but his jangly grip on reality is already doing grave damage to the North Atlantic alliance.

The most glaring concoction of Trump’s fevered mind was the missive to Norway’s president, irrationally connecting his failure to get the Nobel Peace Prize to his threats against Greenland: “I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace.” Here’s the full text:

Since that nonsense, Trump has been posting to social media his private texts with European leaders, who are not just alarmed but mystified by the rantings of the American president. “I do not know what you’re doing on Greenland,” French President Emmanuel Macron wrote Trump in one text.

Trump’s weekend threat to impose punitive tariffs on Europe if it doesn’t bend to his will on Greenland has turned Davos from a lifestyles convention of the rich and famous into a emergency summit on the future of trans-Atlantic relations. And Trump doesn’t arrive until tomorrow.

Among the latest developments:

  • Denmark deployed a small contingent of combat troops to Greenland, including the chief of the Danish Army.

Footage shows Danish troops arriving in Greenland as part of a new military deployment. Among the personnel who landed on the island is Major General Peter H. Boysen, Chief of the Danish Army Command. #Greenland

— NOELREPORTS (@noelreports.com) 2026-01-19T22:01:04.799Z
  • “We’re living through uncharted territories. We’ve never seen this before. An ally, a friend of 250 years, is considering using tariffs … as a geopolitical weapon,” France’s Finance Minister Roland Lescure said.
  • “A line has been crossed… You’ll understand that today I’m not saying exactly what will happen. But one thing must be clear: Europe must be prepared,” said German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil
  • The three most senior Roman Catholic cardinals in the United States issued a joint statement condemning U.S. policy toward Greenland, Venezuela, and Ukraine — and warning that America’s “moral role in confronting evil around the world” is now in question.

Feds Not Investigating Good Shooting

Since yesterday was a federal holiday, I want to make sure you saw the important news that the Justice Department has ended its investigation into the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Good even though the FBI’s initial review “determined that sufficient grounds existed to open a civil rights probe.”

While this is a complete abdication of the DOJ’s role, the confidence level was already extremely low in any federal investigation controlled directly by the Trump White House. What I’m curious about is whether — since there’s no ongoing federal investigation — this clears the way for state investigators to access all the evidence they need to proceed with their probe. And if not, what basis the feds claim for thwarting the state investigation.

Investigating Good Instead of ICE

The WaPo updated its story later yesterday with this additional nugget, suggesting that instead of using its powers under civil rights law to investigate ICE, it turned them on Good instead:

[S]oon after the shooting, law enforcement applied for a warrant to search Good’s car under a civil rights statute, according to an FBI official familiar with the probe, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. The official said a magistrate judge approved that warrant, though agents did not execute it after it was granted.

Instead, the FBI official said that as new facts emerged in the case, law enforcement applied for a warrant under an assault statute. A magistrate judge rejected that warrant, the FBI official said, determining that it was not an appropriate statute since Good was deceased and could not be charged with assault.

It’s not clear why the FBI didn’t execute the search warrant, though you’ll remember that a half dozen top lawyers in the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office resigned rather than abide by an order to investigate the political activities of Good’s widow.

More Fallout From Good Shooting

  • Former FBI agent Michael Feinberg: “[W]hat much of the nation has now seen was not professionalized or situationally appropriate law enforcement. It was a series of incredibly bad choices leading to an unnecessary death.”
  • The far right is demonizing Good and her widow with the acronym “AWFUL.”
  • Since the Civil War, the federal government has been a backstop to the enforcement of civil rights law when state and local governments fail to do so, but former DOJer Jonathan Wroblewski argues that the roles have been reversed in Trump II and district attorneys and state attorneys general must step up to investigate ICE abuses.

Mass Deportation Watch

  • Marisa Kabas: Behind the disturbing image of ICE snatching a half-naked, elderly Hmong American from his home in St. Paul
  • WaPo: Family of man shot by ICE in Minneapolis disputes key aspects of DHS account
  • Judd Legum: ICE has stopped paying for detainee medical treatment
  • Valerie Smith attended a Customs and Border Patrol recruitment event in Florida that touted qualified immunity and early retirement: “By never saying ‘no,’ I was corralled from standing near the recruitment table to having a completed application submitted on my behalf, and I was told to expect a tentative job offer within weeks.”

The FBI-MAGA Disinfo Pipeline

The NYT took a long look over the weekend at how the FBI has become the wellhead in a disinformation pipeline that flows to Republicans on the Hill and into the wider MAGA universe:

[U]nder its current chief, Kash Patel, the bureau has added payback to its portfolio. Agents now scour the F.B.I.’s vast holdings to root out negative information about those who once investigated President Trump, according to current and former officials, lawmakers and lawyers representing some of those targeted. …

The material, once gathered, has typically been distributed through various channels to Trump-allied media and to Republicans on Capitol Hill, including Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

This is particularly relevant ahead of former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s upcoming public testimony Thursday on the Hill.

A Symbolic Appearance

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is planning to attend in person tomorrow’s Supreme Court oral arguments over whether President Trump can fire Fed governor Lisa Cook on the flimsy pretext of bogus mortgage fraud claims.

One Year Down, Three to Go

On the first anniversary of Donald Trump second inauguration, Thomas Zimmer argues, perhaps counterintuitively, that the past year was not an inexorable rampage through democracy toward an inevitable authoritarianism:

Several times over the past twelve months, the regime pushed the country right up to the edge of the kind of authoritarian escalation that would have taken America across the line into full-blown autocratic territory… but then failing and/or proving unwilling to actually go there. Several times the Trumpists seemed poised to vanquish the democratic opposition, break through whatever obstacles the constitutional order was still placing in their path, and wipe away the system entirely – but then were either unable or didn’t dare to force that next step.

Zimmer, who is quick to say he’s not making predictions or minimizing the current dangers, zeroes in on three moments when the Trump forces encountered pushback they were unable to overcome.

Get Your Questions In

Ahead of the Morning Memo Live event next week, I’m soliciting your questions for the panel. As you think about what you’d like to ask, it might help you to know that I’m not just looking for specific questions I can use but also your input to help shape the direction and focus of the discussion of the politicization and weaponization of the Justice Department. With that in mind, you can email me your questions with “MM” in the subject line. Thanks in advance!

Hot tips? Juicy scuttlebutt? Keen insights? Let me know. For sensitive information, use the encrypted methods here.

You Say The Supreme Court Isn’t Partisan? Look in the Shadow

Posted on by John Light

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. 

As the Supreme Court wrapped up its term last June, USA Today ran an op-ed entitled, “Do you think the Supreme Court is partisan? Well you’re wrong.” It was quite serious, apparently a defense of the Supreme Court by a conservative columnist, Dace Potas, distinguishing between the justices’ chosen right-wing philosophy, which does not change direction with a new president’s party, and a partisanship Potas denies, that acts just to empower the MAGA president. 

Continue reading “You Say The Supreme Court Isn’t Partisan? Look in the Shadow” →

We Only Have a Small Window Into the Full Extent of ICE Violence

Posted on by Allegra Kirkland

This story was originally reported by Candice Norwood of The 19th. Meet Candice and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.

A mother shoved to the ground in front of her children in the hallways of a immigration courthouse in New York. A young woman pulled from her car and handcuffed on a busy street in Key Largo, Florida. A child care worker dragged out of her workplace in Chicago, in front of parents and children. A pregnant woman yanked by one arm through the snowy streets of Minneapolis. 

In each of these cases, the aggressors were men working for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and their actions were caught on video widely shared online. 

Then came Renee Nicole Good.

Continue reading “We Only Have a Small Window Into the Full Extent of ICE Violence” →