MONDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2026
We may not agree with its message: With the release of additional Epstein files, the stumblebum conduct continued.
That said, was this really stumblebum conduct? Or might it have been a gesture of contempt from within an undeclared "silent secession?" Let's hear from the Wall Street Journal:
Epstein Files Release Exposes Names of at Least 43 Victims, WSJ Review Finds
The Justice Department exposed the names of dozens of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, including many who haven’t shared their identities publicly or were minors when they were abused by the notorious sex offender.
A review of 47 victims’ full names on Sunday found that 43 of them were left unredacted in files that were made public by the government on Friday, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. Several women’s full names appeared more than 100 times in the files.
Could they really have been that inept? Or was that just the latest gesture?
Whatever the answer to that question might be, the madness has continued unabated. With respect to Rep. Omar, the president quickly returned to the practice of calling for—well, we'll let Mediaite explain:
Trump Rages At Ilhan Omar In Early Morning Rant Days After Attack—Demands Sending Her To Jail Or ‘Back’ To Africa
President Donald Trump attacked Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) in an early morning rant suggesting she be jailed or “sent back” to Africa just days after she was attacked onstage.
And so on from there. In a somewhat similar gesture, he announced, early this morning, that he may sue celebrity host Trevor Noah because of the bad thing he said:
Trump Aims Next Lawsuit at Trevor Noah Over ‘Defamatory’ Epstein Joke at Grammys: ‘Get Ready Noah, I’m Going To Have Some Fun With You!’
President Donald Trump said he is going to sue “pathetic” Trevor Noah after he made a “false and defamatory” joke about the president hanging out with dead sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein while hosting the Grammy Awards on Sunday night.
Trump went off on Noah in a Truth Social post at 1:01 a.m. on Monday.
And so on from there.
More accurately, the president only said that he may decide to sue Noah. For the record, he returned to his "George Slopadopolus" construct in the course of this post:
Ask Little George Slopadopolus, and others, how that all worked out. Also ask CBS! Get ready Noah, I’m going to have some fun with you!
It was actually Little George Slopadopolus to whom his post referred.
Have recent events in Minneapolis damaged the president's political standing? It seems that they actually have! But after replacing Bovino with Homan, the president continued along on his rather unusual way.
Consider this surprising announcement, to cite one example:
Trump Drops Big News About His ‘Trump Kennedy Center’—It’s Closing For 2 Years
In a lengthy Truth Social post Sunday, President Donald Trump announced that his renovation plans for the Kennedy Center For The Performing Arts will involve closing the facility for a full two years.
And so on from there. Will "Kennedy" still be part of the name by the time the renovations are done?
Regarding those naming rights, we wouldn't bet one way or the other. Meanwhile, also this construction project, according to this report in Saturday's Washington Post:
Trump wants to build a 250-foot-tall arch, dwarfing the Lincoln Memorial
The White House stands about 70 feet tall. The Lincoln Memorial, roughly 100 feet. The triumphal arch President Donald Trump wants to build would eclipse both if he gets his wish.
Trump has grown attached to the idea of a 250-foot-tall structure overlooking the Potomac River, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe his comments, a scale that has alarmed some architectural experts who initially supported the idea of an arch but expected a far smaller one.
[...]
Trump has considered smaller versions of the arch, including 165-foot-high and 123-foot-high designs he shared at a dinner last year. But he has favored the largest option, arguing that its sheer size would impress visitors to Washington, and that “250 for 250” makes the most sense, the people said.
Of course! You always design the height of a project based on how many years it has been!
The president tore down the East Wing in order to build a ballroom; the ballroom just keeps getting bigger. So too, it seems, with the triumphal arch.
And yet, the most remarkable post-Minneapolis walk-back moment would almost surely be this:
FBI Raids Georgia Election Office in Probe Related to 2020 Voter Fraud
The FBI has raided a Georgia election hub as part of an investigation into 2020 election fraud, Fox News Digital reported on Wednesday.
Agents were seen entering the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center just outside of Atlanta on Wednesday in an operation related to the 2020 election, the outlet reported. A law enforcement official later confirmed to Reuters that a search warrant was executed at the facility.
President Donald Trump has claimed repeatedly—and without evidence—that the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden, was stolen and rigged against him.
More than five years later, this madness hasn't stopped! Tulsi Gabbard was on the scene—and also, there was this:
Trump Revives #Italygate—The Weirdest 2020 Election Conspiracy of Them All
In the middle of a late-night online posting spree on Wednesday, President Donald Trump resurrected what may be the most bizarre conspiracy theory to emerge from the aftermath of the 2020 election: the idea that the vote was stolen in a globe-spanning covert operation involving Italian military satellites, U.S. intelligence agencies, and China.
Between posts declaring former President Barack Obama a “traitor” and inaccurate claims Walmart is shutting down in California, the president reshared a screengrab of an X post to his 11.6 million followers on Truth Social alleging that “Italian officials at [defense contractor] Leonardo SpA used military satellites to help hack U.S. voting machines, flipping votes from Trump to Biden using CIA-developed tools like Hammer and Scorecard.”
“China reportedly coordinated the whole operation,” the post claimed, while “the CIA oversaw it” and “the FBI covered it up.”\
[...]
This particularly elaborate conspiracy theory, dubbed “Italygate,” is not new and was, in fact, mainlined from QAnon channels to staffers in the first Trump administration during the months between the 2020 election and former President Joe Biden’s inauguration, while Trump was pushing claims the election was “rigged.”
And so on from there. Should that post have been front-page news in the New York Times? We'd say that the answer is yes.
More than five years later, the president has returned to that peculiar claim about the Italian military. In a new column for the New York Times, David French reacts to that news as show:
This Is Not a Drill
[...]
After the F.B.I. raided the Fulton County election center, Trump demanded Obama’s arrest on social media and threatened the prosecution of election workers. He claimed, among other things, that Italian military satellites had hacked the 2020 election and that Obama had “conspired with foreign powers, not one, not two, not three, but four times to overthrow the United States government in 2016.”
The Italian satellite theory is a jolting reminder that Trump will demand that his core supporters believe almost anything he says, no matter how wild or delusional.
As Jonathan Karl reported for ABC News, this theory “was brought to the White House by a woman who went by several aliases, including ‘The Heiress,’ and was known at the Pentagon for her claimed ties to Somali pirates.”
More than five years later, that peculiar theory is suddenly back!
French delivers a frightening warning in the course of that new column. We'll summarize that warning in the days ahead.
We mention these things because of a song we thought we may have heard in several other recent columns in the New York Times.
We've been hearing a version of that same song on MS NOW as Blue America responds to the latest startling election win. We refer to the Democratic win in a Trump-friendly district in a race for a seat in the Texas State Senate.
The "song" to which we refer is more like a storyline—a pleasing claim, proffered by many, according to which the end may finally be drawing near for the MAGA Express.
According to that storyline, it's looking worse and worse for the GOP in this year's scheduled midterm elections. That theory may turn out to be perfectly accurate—though we toss the word "scheduled" into the stew in deference to David French's extremely dire perspective.
Where were we hearing that song sung Blue? In his new column for the Times, Jamelle Bouie worked beneath this headline:
Minneapolis May Be Trump’s Gettysburg
Ezra Klein's new column was published beneath this banner:
Trump Has Overwhelmed Himself
Also, Ruth Ben-Ghiat—she's more of a (highly insightful) academic—almost seemed to be singing the same song in the course of this nuanced guest essay:
History Shows Trump’s Worst Impulses May Backfire on Him
We thought we've heard this song before, dating at least to 2015. It's rarely worked out quite right.
French's new column stands in extremely gloomy opposition to this possible "song sung Blue." We ourselves would suggest a different perspective, one which may be less dire his.
Have we Blues returned to that upbeat song? We'll pick up here tomorrow.
Tomorrow: A major blue note from French
