Tag Archives: President Trump

Feb 9 2026

Sunday Talks – Senate Intel Vice-Chairman Mark Warner Apoplectic About DNI Tulsi Gabbard Election Review


Posted originally on CTH on February 8, 2026 | Sundance 

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Vice-Chairman, Mark Warner, a man of exceptionally dubious intelligence, appears on Face the Nation for a pre-scripted interview with CBS’s Margaret Brennan.  The video and transcript are below.

From his position on the SSCI, Senator Warner was one of the key players in the deployment of the Intelligence Community against President Trump’s first term in office, including his background conversations with Chris Steele and his leaking of the Carter Page FISA warrant to promote the Trump-Russia conspiracy claim and stimulate the appointment of a DOJ special counsel.

Within President Trump’s second term in office, Warner’s primary concern is having a Director of National Intelligence (DNI) who doesn’t conform to the goals and objectives of the Fourth Branch of government, the intelligence apparatus.  In reality, DNI Tulsi Gabbard appears to be methodically taking apart the intelligence community weaponization system.  This, when combined with Gabbard’s review of election integrity issues, has triggered the deep concern of Warner, one of the IC’s primary enablers. WATCH:

[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: Good morning and welcome to ‘Face the Nation.’ We begin this morning with the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Virginia’s Mark Warner. Good to have you here.

SEN. MARK WARNER: Thank you, Margaret.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to talk about elections and security. Back on January 28, the FBI went to Fulton County, Georgia and seized ballots and 2020 voting records linked to the presidential election. The Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, then was spotted outside the elections office, and she argued that her presence there had been personally requested by the president of the United States, and she had broad statutory authority to coordinate, integrate and analyze intelligence related to election security. What would justify her involvement? Is there any foreign nexus that you have been informed of?

SEN. WARNER: We have not been informed of any foreign nexus. The job of the director of national intelligence is to be outward facing about foreigners, not about Americans, and remember, many of the reforms that were put in place actually took place after the Watergate scandal under President Nixon, where a president was directly involved in certain domestic criminal activities and appeared with the Watergate break-in. And my fear in this case is it almost seems Nixonian. If the president asked Gabbard to show up down in Georgia on a domestic political investigation- first of all, how would he know about the search warrant even being issued? That’s not his job. And then to have the irector of national intelligence down there, which is totally against her rules, unless there is a foreign nexus, and she has not indicated any foreign nexus to us to date.

MARGARET BRENNAN: There’s been no communication with the committee whatsoever on this issue?

SEN. WARNER: We have asked. We then subsequently found that this was not the first time she was involved in domestic activities. She went down and seized some voting machines in Puerto Rico earlier in the year. Again, we had no knowledge of that. And then the question of what she was doing in Georgia. There’s been three or four different stories since it broke. First, she said the president asked, then the president said he didn’t ask her. Then he said it was Pam Bondi, the attorney general. So we don’t have the slightest idea other than the fact that the whole thing stinks to high heaven, and the fact is, Donald Trump cannot get over the fact that he lost Georgia in 2020 that he lost the election in 2020. My fear is now he sees the political winds turning against him, and he’s going to try to interfere in the 2026 election, something a year ago I didn’t think would be possible.

MARGARET BRENNAN: That’s a tremendous statement. But just to clarify here, it was Reuters that first reported that Gabbard went to Puerto Rico back in the spring to seize voting machines. Was Congress informed at all? Did you learn about it in the press?

SEN. WARNER: I believe the first we ever heard about this was from the press itself.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Wow. So the- you’ve laid out that the intelligence agencies usually focus overseas, but the White House is arguing that the director was there for good reason, and that federal law, they argue, assigns a DNI statutory responsibility to lead counter intelligence matters related to election security, election voting system risk, software, voter registration databases. You’re concerned, but are your fellow Republicans on the committee concerned?

SEN. WARNER: Here’s the ironic thing, Margaret, many of the protections for our election system were put in place during the first Trump administration. We set up CISA, the cybersecurity agency, to help work with state and local elections. There was an FBI center set up for foreign malign influence, foreign influence. And then we put into law something called the Foreign Malign Influence Center at the Director of National Intelligence office. All of those entities have been basically disbanded. CISA cut by a third. The FBI center cut back. The ODNI center cut back, which we think is, frankly, counter to the law. But it all- in terms the ODNI has to be involved, of foreign involvement, there has been no evidence of that to date.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Where is Chair Cotton on this, though?

SEN. WARNER: We have jointly been making sure that we get updates on election security, and I think we see more of that to come, because this is critical. And my concern is that when we see artificial intelligence tools and others- it was almost child’s play. What happened in 2016 China, Russia, Iran others could be interfering. We’ve not seen evidence to date. Gabbard, if she’s got any evidence, should have provided it to the Congress. I think this was an effort where Donald Trump can’t get over the fact that he lost Georgia so obsessed. And it begs the question is, what was Gabbard doing there? And it frankly, begs the question is- question is, why was the president even aware of this investigation before the search warrant was issued?

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, we would, we would love to put those questions to the director, and have asked to do so. But now that you are here, can you just button this up for me? Because we’re talking about 2020, and that’s what Fulton County. The focus was about but you also said, you think in 2026 there’s an effort to interfere. What evidence do you have of that?

SEN. WARNER: This was what I’m seeing from the president’s own comments about nationalizing elections and putting Republicans in charge, counter to the constitution. We’ve seen these activities in Georgia, where could there be some effort that suddenly gives him an excuse to try to take some of these federalization efforts we’ve seen ICE. We focused a lot of this activity on ICE in terms of they’re going rogue in Minneapolis. But there is a very real threat, without reforms at ICE, that you could have ICE patrols around polling stations, and people would say, “well, why would that matter?” If they’re all American citizens–

MARGARET BRENNAN: –Noncitizens cannot vote.

SEN. WARNER: –Because we’ve seen ice discriminate against Latinos families. We’ve seen as well mixed families where someone may be legal and others not. And candidly, you don’t need to do a lot to discourage people from voting, and we’ve more recently seen ICE starting to use technology where they can get information about Americans. Recently, there was an individual in Minnesota that got denied a global entry card to get through TSA quicker because he or she appeared at a protest rally. Do we really want ICE having that information?–

MARGARET BRENNAN: Is that what DHS said?

SEN. WARNER: Hypothetically- that was what happened in Minnesota. Hypothetically, if ICE is getting information, and you’ve got an unpaid parking ticket, would you go vote if you’ve got an unpaid parking ticket, thinking that an ICE patrol might be at a polling station, this is uncharted territory, and yet you’ve got the president’s own words, in many ways, raising concerns, because he says, well, gosh, we Republicans ought to take over elections in 15 states.

MARGARET BRENNAN: We’re going to talk about some of that and the operations at the local level with David Becker, our elections expert ahead in the show, and the immigration reform. But I want to ask you about what’s going on with Director Gabbard, because there was a whistleblower who filed a complaint against her personally and offered to come to Congress to share the information. According to the attorney for this whistleblower, this is about a complaint that two inspectors general, one of them Biden-era, concluded had a non-credible nature. You’ve viewed a redacted version of the complaint as I understand it. Do you accept their conclusions?

SEN. WARNER: Well, first of all, the previous Inspector General, who’d been a long term professional, viewed it as credible. The new–

MARGARET BRENNAN: — Which of the two complaints?

SEN. WARNER: The original- I can’t talk about the contents of the complaint. I’m old fashioned. It’s classified, and the complaint is so redacted, it’s hard to get to the bottom up, I got additional questions. My concern- what the director did, is that this information was not relayed to Congress. There is a process, and we didn’t even- we, and I mean, we the Gang of Eight, didn’t even hear about the complaint until November. We only saw it in February, and we’ve got this complete contradiction where the then lawyer for Director Gabbard said she shared the responsibility she had to share this with Congress in June, the legal responsibility. She later stated that she was not aware of her responsibility. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse if you’re the Director of National Intelligence.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, as I understand it, because when it’s deemed non-credible, it is not necessarily an urgent concern that would —

SEN. WARNER : — There was a ruling of urgency by the first inspector general. That was contradicted by the Trump Inspector General, but the process was still ongoing. The fact that this sat out there for 6,7,8 months now, and we are only seeing it now, raises huge concerns in and of itself.

MARGARET BRENNAN

Well, I know you said you will not share what the intercept and the intelligence was about, or the complaint itself, but CBS has been told by a senior intelligence official the whistleblower complaint included reference to an intelligence intercept between two foreign nationals in which they mentioned someone close to President Donald Trump. US intelligence did not verify whether the conversation itself was more than just gossip. Will you be able to speak to the whistleblower? Will you be able to see this underlying intelligence?

SEN. WARNER: My understanding is the whistleblower has been waiting for guidance, legal guidance, on how to approach the committee.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Does the whistleblower still work for the US government?

SEN. WARNER: I don’t have any idea.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Will you be able to view the intelligence, the intercept itself that she’s accused of not sharing?

SEN. WARNER: My question is- we are trying to get both the redactions and the underlying intelligence, and that’s- that is in process. I’m not going to talk to the content itself, but this whole question, remember, this whistleblower came forward in May. It’s now February of the following year, and we’re still asking questions.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Tom Cotton, the chair, says he’s- he’s comfortable with- with the process to date, but on the–

SEN. WARNER: — I’m- I’m not comfortable with the process, the timing, and I can’t make a judgment about the credibility or the veracity, because it’s been so heavily redacted.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the director is frustrated with you personally and issued this really long blistering statement saying you’ve repeatedly lied to the American people, that the media also lies, and that that she never had the whistleblower complaint in her possession and saw it for the first time two weeks ago. I guess, the actual hard copy. So, do you care to respond to this accusation that you were lying?

SEN. WARNER: I would respond that I do not believe that Director Gabbard is competent for her position. I don’t believe that she is making America safer by not following the rules and procedures on getting whistleblower complaints to the Congress in a timely fashion. I believe she has been totally inappropriate showing up on a domestic criminal investigation in Georgia around voting machines. I think she has not been appropriate or competent in terms of, frankly, cutting back on investigations into foreign malign influence, literally dismembering the foreign line influence center that’s at the Director of National Intelligence, and we are going to agree to disagree about who’s telling the truth, and I believe her own general counsel, who’s now her deputy general counsel, testified this week that he shared with Director Gabbard, in June her legal obligations.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the NSA has released a statement saying that they are abiding by the law. We do invite Director Gabbard on this program. Before I let you go, I have to ask you about Iran. There have been a number of think tanks who have published photos of what they believe is evidence of Iran reconstituting and rebuilding its nuclear program that the US bombed eight months ago. Are they rebuilding?

SEN. WARNER: When we struck Iranians nuclear capabilities, our military did a great job. It was not totally obliterated. So, that standard that the President himself set and Iran has been indicated in public documents, is trying to reconstitute. What I fear is that we don’t have the ability to bring the full power of pressure against Iran. A few weeks back, when the Iranian people bravely were in the streets, and there might have been a moment, we couldn’t strike, because the aircraft carrier that was usually in the Mediterranean was off the coast of Venezuela, doing the blockade there. On top of that- on top of that as well, we were unable to bring the full force of pressure of our allies in Europe against Iran, because at that very same moment, President Trump was disrupting NATO with his Greenland play. We are stronger when we use our allies, when we have our full military capabilities in region, and that military is getting stretched, as good as we are, as the President gets engaged in activities all over the world.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You support the diplomacy underway now?

SEN. WARNER: I support the diplomacy. Absolutely.

MARGARET BRENNAN: All right. Senator. Mark Warner, thank you for your time today, Face the Nation will be back in one minute. Stay with us.

[END TRANSCRIPT]

Feb 9 2026

Massive Win for Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi with Voters Giving Her Party a Big Majority


Posted originally on CTH on February 8, 2026 | Sundance

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi took a calculated risk only three months after her October 2025 election victory when she dissolved the Japanese Parliament and called for a snap election. The high-stakes gamble paid off, with Japanese voters handing her ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) a big super-majority Sunday.

Takaichi said in a January press conference, calling for the snap election was a “profoundly weighty decision,” adding that “by doing so, I am also putting my position as prime minister on the line.”

The voters responded with great enthusiasm for her leadership.  Sanae Takaichi was also a protege’ of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a close personal friend of President Donald Trump.

President Trump who heartedly endorsed Takaichi also celebrated the outcome on Truth Social: “Congratulations to Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and her Coalition on a LANDSLIDE Victory in today’s very important Vote. She is a highly respected and very popular Leader. Sanae’s bold and wise decision to call for an Election paid off big time. Her Party now runs the Legislature, holding a HISTORIC TWO THIRDS SUPERMAJORITY — The first time since World War Il. Sanae: It was my Honor to Endorse you and your Coalition. I wish you Great Success in passing your Conservative, Peace Through Strength Agenda. The wonderful people of Japan, who voted with such enthusiasm, will always have my strong support.”

Yahoo: […] After an election framed as a referendum on Takaichi herself, the LDP party won more than 310 of the 465 seats in Japan’s lower house, marking the first time since World War II that a single party has secured a two-thirds majority. The broader ruling coalition won more than 340 seats.

In an interview with NHK, Takaichi thanked the voters who “braved the cold and walked through the snowy roads to cast their votes.”

“I wanted the voters to give me a mandate because I advocated for responsible, proactive fiscal policy that would significantly shift economic and fiscal policy,” she added.

The hardline conservative, who enjoys US President Donald Trump’s endorsement, has seen high approval ratings since she was elected less than four months ago, making history as the first woman to lead Japan.  She has won over the public with her strong work ethic, savvy social media game and charisma. (more)

Mrs Takaichi, like Shinzo Abe, is a strong Japanese conservative with a deep nationalist perspective.  This Japanese election outcome is the opposite of what China would like to see happen in the region.

Writing on X Sunday, Takaichi thanked President Trump for his endorsement earlier this month and said the potential of the US-Japan alliance was “LIMITLESS.”

From a North American perspective, the alignment of Takaichi and Trump will provide further bolstering to the upcoming dissolution of the USMCA, as Japan will not want to be on the wrong side of the new bilateral agreements likely to happen as an outcome.  Japan will be cautious with any investment positioning in Canada.

Feb 8 2026

The Underlying NSA Intercept – Whistleblower Claims Against Tulsi Gabbard Get More Absurd in Context


February 7, 2026 | Sundance

You know the IC narrative is falling apart quickly when even the New York Times paints the background as gossip.

Within the New York Times reporting we discover more of the underlying context for the NSA intercept.

According to the Times, the NSA intercept was of “two foreign nationals” discussing an American person with some relationship to President Trump.  The underlying concern was about the conversation they intercepted.

Just pulling out the pertinent:

“a whistle-blower report about an intelligence intercept of a call between two foreign nationals discussing a person close to President Trump” … “It is not clear what country the two foreign nationals were from, but the discussion involved Iran.” … “The identity of the person close to Mr. Trump could not be immediately determined.”

[…] “One official said there was no other intelligence that led officials to think the two officials had been speaking truthfully. Some intelligence analysts concluded the two foreign nationals were either gossiping or deliberately spreading misinformation.  As a result of those doubts, Ms. Gabbard moved to restrict the report’s visibility. She also provided the information to Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, according to people briefed on the events.

The acting intelligence community’s inspector general [a Biden appointee] cleared Ms. Gabbard of wrongdoing after she responded to questions about her actions.” {source}

Summary: The NSA intercepted two foreign nationals talking about Iran and gossiping about someone close to Trump. The NSA snooper documented the conversation. Intel analysts concluded the two foreign nationals were just gossiping.  DNI Gabbard did not put credibility on the issue, but to be safe informed Susie Wiles of the intercept.  That’s it.

The NSA snooper then got big mad about the intelligence analysis of the conversation labeling it as gossip and took out their frustration by blaming Tulsi Gabbard for dismissing it.

Moving on.

Feb 8 2026

Senator Mark Warner and/or His Collaborator, NSA Whistleblower Lawyer Andrew Bakaj, Enlist British Intel and UK Media to Promote Impeachment Effort Against DNI Gabbard


Posted originally on CTH on February 7, 2026 | Sundance

The attempted framing of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard continues with senate intelligence committee Mark Warner and/or his collaborating whistleblower attorney Andrew Bakaj (also Ciaramella’s attorney) leaking details to the British intelligence services and their preferred media outlet The Guardian.

DNI Tulsi Gabbard has responded to the ongoing nonsense but first let’s review the newly disclosed details for some interesting information.

The UK Guardian now shares the agency for the “whistleblower” as the NSA, likely an NSA contractor, and the basic details of an intercepted phone call which the contractor deemed “unusual”. I’ll pull citations from the article.

SUMMARY VERSION: In/around March of 2025 an NSA contractor “detected evidence of an unusual phone call between an individual associated with foreign intelligence and a person close to Donald Trump, according to Whistleblower attorney, Andrew Bakaj.” The NSA contractor then wrote up a report and gave it to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. DNI Gabbard then took the report to Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles.

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

The NSA whistleblower was upset that DNI Gabbard didn’t share the report with others and filed a whistleblower complaint on April 17, 2025, with the Intelligence Community Inspector General.  Within the complaint the NSA whistleblower included the details of the phone call leading to the complaint being labeled Top Secret Compartmented Information (TSCI classification).  This format of including TSCI material complicates how the complaint can be reviewed. This looks like it was done on purpose.

Because the complaint contained TSCI material, it could not follow ordinary whistleblower pathways toward congress.

(Guardian) […] Acting inspector general Tamara A Johnson dismissed the complaint at the end of a 14-day review period, writing in a 6 June letter addressed to the whistleblower that “the Inspector General could not determine if the allegations appear credible”. The letter stipulated that the whistleblower could take their concerns to Congress, only after receiving DNI guidance on how to proceed, given the highly sensitive nature of the complaint. (citation)

The inclusion of the TSCI material, the ‘highly sensitive‘ part, creates a conflict within the process.  [The TSCI material is the name of the individual associated with foreign intelligence, and the name of the person close to President Trump.]

The NSA whistleblower complaint is against DNI Gabbard, but any complaint containing TSCI material must carry guidance from DNI Gabbard for further sharing. The NSA whistleblower likely intended to create this problem as part of the scheme to set up the events.

(Guardian) […] The contents of the whistleblower complaint are still largely unknown. Bakaj, the whistleblower’s attorney, said that Gabbard’s office had redacted much of the complaint that was released to intelligence committee members on Tuesday, citing executive privilege.

“I don’t know the contents of the complaint, but by exercising executive privilege they are flagging that it involves presidential action,” he said.

On 3 February, Bakaj again requested guidance from Gabbard’s office about how to share the whistleblower’s full report while taking appropriate precautions.

“As you are well aware, our client’s disclosure directly impacts our national security and the American people,” Bakaj wrote. “This means that our client’s complete whistleblower disclosure must be transmitted to Congress, and that we, as their counsel, speak with members and cleared staff.”

Bakaj said that the DNI’s office did not respond to his letter by its Friday deadline. He plans to contact members of the Senate and House intelligence committees on Monday to schedule an unclassified briefing on Gabbard’s conduct and the “underlying intelligence concerns”.

Members of the gang of eight have contacted the NSA to request the underlying intelligence that the whistleblower says Gabbard blocked, according to staff in Warner’s office. (more)

NOTE: At this point I’m more interested in the name of this NSA contractor who is listening to the phone calls of foreign intelligence and the Trump administration.  Much like the heavily protected Eric Ciaramella (2019 effort), this NSA contractor likely carries similar motivations. Both Ciaramella and this “whistleblower” are using the same lawyer, Andrew Bakaj.

Regardless, DNI Tulsi Gabbard responded today via her X account:

“Senator Mark Warner and his friends in the Propaganda Media have repeatedly lied to the American people that I or the ODNI “hid” a whistleblower complaint in a safe for eight months. This is a blatant lie.

The truth:

– I am not now, nor have I ever been, in possession or control of the Whistleblower’s complaint, so I obviously could not have “hidden” it in a safe. Biden-era IC Inspector General Tamara Johnson was in possession of and responsible for securing the complaint for months.

– The first time I saw the whistleblower complaint was 2 weeks ago when I had to review it to provide guidance on how it should be securely shared with Congress.

– As Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Warner knows very well that whistleblower complaints that contain highly classified and compartmented intelligence—even if they contain baseless allegations like this one—must be secured in a safe, which the Biden-era Inspector General Tamara Johnson did and her successor, Inspector General Chris Fox, continued to do. After IC Inspector General Fox hand-delivered the complaint to the Gang of 8, the complaint was returned to a safe where it remains, consistent with any information of such sensitivity.

– Either Senator Warner knows these facts and is intentionally lying to the American people, or he doesn’t have a clue how these things work and is therefore not qualified to be in the U.S. Senate—and certainly not the Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Here is a detailed chronology of the situation:

– June 2025, I became aware that a whistleblower made a complaint against me that after further investigation, neither Biden-era IC Inspector General Tamara Johnson nor current IC Inspector General Chris Fox found the complaint to be credible.

– The complaint required special handling and storage in a safe because the complainant chose to include highly sensitive information within the complaint itself rather than referencing the sensitive reporting and leaving the complaint at a lower level of classification.

– Security standards for complaints that include such sensitive intelligence required the Inspector General to keep the complaint and the intelligence referenced secured in a safe from the time the complaint was made, until now.

– In June 2025 after Biden-era Inspector General Tamara Johnson completed her review of the complaint, no further oversight or investigative activity took place.

– Biden-era Inspector General Johnson had communicated with me directly throughout the course of her investigation into this complaint, yet neither she nor anyone from her office informed me that the Whistleblower chose to send the complaint to Congress which would require me to issue security instructions.

– When a complaint is not found to be credible, there is no timeline under the law for the provision of security guidance. The “21 day” requirement that Senator Warner alleges I did not comply with, only applies when a complaint is determined by the Inspector General to be both urgent AND apparently credible. That was NOT the case here.

– I was made aware of the need to provide security guidance by IC Inspector General Chris Fox on December 4, 2025, which he detailed in his letter to Congress.

– I took immediate action to provide the security guidance to the Intelligence Community Inspector General who then shared the complaint and referenced intelligence with relevant members of Congress last week.

Senator Warner’s decision to spread lies and baseless accusations over the months for political gain, undermines our national security and is a disservice to the American people and the Intelligence Community.” {source}

This multi-layered IC operation against Tulsi Gabbard is transparent in its political motivations. However, at the end of the day the dynamic is really remarkable when you cut through the fog and see it for what it is.  The Intelligence Community (Fourth Branch) is listening to the conversations of the Trump administration, conducting full spectrum surveillance and looking for anything the IC can exploit to retain their status and power.

For additional perspective, put this IC effort into context looking at it through the separation of powers.

Every element of the Executive Branch is President Donald Trump:

An NSA contractor working for Donald Trump intercepted a phone call between a foreign intelligence person and a person working for Donald Trump. That contractor, working for Trump, then shared the intercept with the ODNI, who also works for Trump.  The DNI, working for Trump, then informed the chief of staff to Donald Trump, and later secured the intercept.

The NSA contractor, who works for Trump, was angered by the DNI who works for Trump, and filed a complaint against the DNI because she didn’t share their intercept with other people who do not work for Trump.

That’s the current state of the Intelligence Community within the U.S. govt.

Again, I will repeat…. Until the Trump administration puts full sunlight on the intelligence community operations; which includes retrieving, declassifying and sharing the sealed secret transcript of former ICIG Michael Atkinson; the various intelligence officials who are comfortable weaponizing their positions will continue trying to manipulate American politics.  They are continually using the same playbook.


[ICIG declassified letter outlining the framework of the backstory]

Feb 8 2026

Europe Furious as U.S. Subsidy Ends – President Trump’s Demand for Lower Rx Prices Means Immediate European Price Increases


Posted originally on CTH on February 7, 2026 | Sundance

Europe is not happy with President Trump’s demand that drug manufacturers provide U.S. consumers with equitable pricing.

If President Trump will no longer permit Americans to pay the research production costs for pharmaceutical companies through high prices, essentially subsiding pharmaceutical costs for the world, then Rx companies will have to increase their prices throughout Europe. This is making the Europeans very unhappy.

(Bloomberg Businessweek) — For the past few years, Swiss oncologist Christoph Renner has treated blood cancer patients with Lunsumio, a new drug that helps the immune system recognize and destroy malignant cells. Then, last summer, Renner got an email from Roche Holding AG, Lunsumio’s manufacturer, informing him the treatment would no longer be available in Switzerland because health insurers there wouldn’t pay for the infusions. “You see what’s possible,” says Renner, a professor at the University of Basel, “and then you’re told you can’t use it.”

The move was a response to rules President Donald Trump introduced that force drugmakers to reduce their prices in the US to the lowest level paid in other developed countries. In Switzerland, new medications typically cost far less than in the US, so in theory Americans should benefit from the change. The problem is, instead of bringing prices down in the US, pharmaceutical companies are raising them elsewhere.

Yet Switzerland has shown little political willingness to pay more—threatening both the availability of medications in the country and its role as a global leader in developing therapies. Drug prices are the primary driver of the increasing cost of mandatory health coverage, and the topic generates heated debate during the annual reappraisal of insurance rates. “The Swiss cannot and must not pay for price reductions in the USA with their health insurance premiums,” says Elisabeth Baume-Schneider, Switzerland’s home affairs minister.

[…] Drug companies say they need to charge high prices on new medications because so much of their work doesn’t pay off. They spend billions of euros on research, but relatively few formulas turn out to be effective. Even fewer provide the massive profits needed to fund further research—and pay off shareholders. Moreover, companies typically need to make that money early on, because after about two decades on the market, drugs lose patent protection, which drives prices down as generics producers start selling copycats.

Manufacturers argue that American patients bear most of these innovation costs and that it’s only fair for other countries to pay more—especially Switzerland, given its prosperity. A more equitable approach, they say, would be to set prices globally and adjust them country by country based on gross domestic product and purchasing power. (read more)

First President Trump starts making Europe pay for their own defenses and NATO commitments; then he has the audacity to tell them the U.S. will not accept European censorship or free speech rules.  President Trump follows by hitting them with the end to the Marshal plan of one-way tariffs, seriously weakening the amount of revenue within the EU, forcing budget cuts.  Then, as if Trump wasn’t bad enough, he makes it even worse by dispatching expensive Green New Deal energy agreements such as the Paris treaty, and using cheap abundant energy in the U.S. while Europe tries to operate on expensive windmills and solar panels covered in snow.

Now, in addition to forcing them to spend money on their military, now Trump expects the EU to just accept the end to their healthcare subsidies and higher prescription medications.  The absolute nerve of this man.

Feb 7 2026

Major Federal Appeals Court Ruling Permits ICE to Detain Illegal Aliens During Deportation Proceedings – This Will Fast Track Removals


Posted originally on CTH on February 6, 2026 | Sundance

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has made a massive ruling in favor of President Trump and the ICE removal process [pdf Ruling Here].  In short, throughout the nation 360 immigration judges had previously ruled that illegal aliens (applicants for admission) should be granted bond and released during the removal proceedings.

The Fifth CCA has now ruled the aliens can be detained as they go through the removal process.  This means ICE captures the illegal, holds them in detention and then rapidly deports them.  The ruling, which will likely be appealed to the supreme court, fast-tracks the removal.

[SOURCE]

(VIA POLITICO) – […] At the heart of the issue is a 30-year-old immigration statute that requires the detention — without bond — of all “applicants for admission” to the United States while they are “seeking admission” to the country. For decades, administrations of both parties applied this to people who had newly arrived in the country, perhaps by crossing the southern border.

Those residing in the country’s interior, often for years, were categorized under a different statute that allowed them to seek a bond hearing before an immigration judge before ICE could lock them up.

But in July, ICE Director Todd Lyons adopted a new interpretation of the law, declaring that anyone targeted for deportation by ICE would be treated as an “applicant for admission,” subjecting them to mandatory detention. That decision was backed up in October by the Board of Immigration Appeals, a panel of immigration judges who set national policy for executive branch-run immigration courts that handle deportation proceedings. (more)

This issue was a big deal during the 2012 “Unauthorized Alien Children” influx, when President Obama and DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson began releasing all the captured illegal aliens with a bond hearing.  Thousands of temporary judges were assigned and NGO’s provided tens of thousands of lawyers for everyone so the illegal entrants could quickly exit ICE custody.

Later, as an expanded part of the Obama and Biden directive, the border patrol just started issuing citations on the spot for court appearances and letting the illegal aliens go into the country.  Now, all illegal aliens will be subject to continued detention as soon as they are captured, pending removal.

Feb 7 2026

President Trump Holds a Press Availability Aboard Airforce One – Video


Posted originally on CTH on February 6, 2026 | Sundance

Flying to Palm Beach for the weekend, President Trump held a press availability and answered multiple questions aboard Airforce One.  One of the reporters from the Washington Post claims to know the thinking of the MAGA base more than President Trump.  WATCH:

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Feb 7 2026

President Trump Holds Impromptu Presser Departing the White House


Posted originally on CTH on February 6, 2026 | Sundance 

President Trump holds a brief impromptu chopper presser as he departs the White House for Palm Beach this weekend. President Trump began with remarks of the strong stock market, with the DOW closing over 50,000 much sooner than expected, highlighting the strength of the overall economy.

President Trump also noted positive crime statistics and then took questions.  The first question was about the SAVE act and the need to eliminate the filibuster to get voter ID passed into law.  The conversation then shifted to “affordability” with President Trump noting that prices are stable and declining due to his economic policies.  WATCH:

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Feb 6 2026

President Trump At The 74th National Prayer Breakfast


Posted originally on Rumble on Bannon War Room on: February 5, 2026

Feb 6 2026

Why is the Deep State Targeting DNI Tulsi Gabbard with Such Ferocity?


Posted originally on CTH on February 6, 2026 | Sundance

Each day more and more people are starting to realize/notice there are elements of the United States intelligence apparatus that are targeting Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.  The need for control is a reaction to fear, and Tulsi Gabbard has the DC Intelligence Community very worried.

What you will read below is something that was written back in 2024 about the potential for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), if President Trump were to win the election.  Subsequently, he did win; and while we are not saying this is the exact ODNI script that is being followed, we are certainly not disputing that either.

Read the roadmap below –Written in 2024– compare it to current events and decide for yourself if this is something that rings a bell and may explain the IC apoplexy.

The ODNI was created as an outcome of the 9-11 Commission recommendations.  In the era shortly after 9/11, the DC national security apparatus was constructed to preserve continuity of government and simultaneously view all Americans as potential threats.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) were created specifically for this purpose.

Washington DC created the modern national security apparatus immediately and hurriedly after 9/11/01.  DHS came along in 2002, and within the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 the ODNI was formed. 

When Barack Obama and Eric Holder arrived a few years later, those newly formed institutions were viewed as opportunities to create a very specific national security apparatus that would focus almost exclusively against their political opposition.

Here is the weird part.  The ODNI was formed in 2004, with the intent for the office to be the pivot point of a national security radar.   The DNI was intended to provide information to domestic agencies about foreign terror networks that would prevent something like 9-11 from happening again.  However, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has never, not for one day, operated on this intent.   This is why they are such a critical position from my perspective.

The office was new, not established yet as a functioning silo, when Barack Obama and Eric Holder arrived in 2009.  They quickly dispatched an idiot, James Clapper, into the operation so they could weaponize around the offices’ fulcrum point.

Prior to the DNI office existing, the CIA radar would sweep externally and then report to the Office of the President. The DNI was intended to take external radar sweep (CIA) and make it a full 360° circle, adding a sweep inside the USA that would be handled by the Dept of Homeland Security.

The DHS sweep and the CIA sweep would then be combined into a central collection hub called the ODNI.  Everyone with responsibility for “national security” could access the ODNI material. Essentially and presumably, post 9-11 nothing like jihadists practicing to fly airplanes would be missed again; at least that was the intent.

The weird part is that because the DNI was immediately weaponized, the office has never functioned to the purpose of its intent.

No one truly knows what the office possibilities consist of because no one has ever seen anyone try to functionally control the hub.  If you think I’m joking about the intent of Obama and John Brennan using the DNI watch this video. This is before Brennan became CIA Director, this is when Brennan was helping Barack Obama put the pillars into place.

For the intents of this outline the takeaway is how the DNI office has never been used for good.  In a strategic way, that can be used to our advantage if you are talking about leveraging silos against each other.

Example:  The DNI can assemble material from any silo.  Meaning the DNI can reach into any IC silo and extract anything they want.  Under the original authorities given to the DNI, this authority exists.  So, let’s spread the wings on this office and do exactly what it is permitted to do, only this time extract for the purpose of showing the President what is happening in every silo.

In essence, the DNI *CAN BE* deployed like a super strong cross-silo inspector general’s office.  Force the other IC silos to comply with the demands of the DNI.  This has never been done. But the DNI has this unique power.

The DNI can make the FBI, DOJ, DOJ-NSD, DoD, DoS and CIA provide anything and everything they demand.  Instead of the other silos using blocks and threats against the office of the President, use the authority of the DNI to get them without confrontation.   Then use the DNI to declassify the documents (if requested by potus), instead of the originating silo.

Can you see how the DNI office can be repurposed to be a seriously strong weapon in the toolbox of the President, against the schemes of those inside the various IC silos.

The DNI becomes much more important than the CIA Director, NSA Director, FBI Director, Attorney General, etc, because the DNI can just show up and say, “give me this.”  That’s the functional purpose of the DNI office that has never been exerted; let’s flippin’ use it.

Let’s use the office of the DNI as the central information hub that takes information from inside the corrupt silos, then provides that information to the President who puts sunlight upon it.  Each corrupt silo penetrated with disinfectant.  This could begin a process to pull down the shadow operations and let the American public see what has been happening inside our IC apparatus.

To accomplish this approach the National Security Advisor to the President (NSA) [currently Marco Rubio], would be the person who tells the DNI what they are looking for. How does the NSA know what to look for?  Because the National Security Advisor is the head of the National Security Council (NSC).

Let the NSC monitor the silos with specific intent, perhaps with assistance from open-source research, then provide Trump’s NatSec Advisor with details on what appears to be happening and where.   With the approval of the President, the NSA [Rubio], then turns to the DNI [Gabbard] and says, “POTUS wants this, go get this.”

Raw, unfiltered, unredacted information.   The silo administrators end up in a fight with the ODNI, not the office of President Trump.  President Trump then uses the power of his office to support the demands of the DNI.

Under this approach the DNI has a lot more power; yet funnily, it’s power they already have – yet have never utilized.

[END of Prior Outline]

Does any of that track with what we are currently experiencing?

With DNI Tulsi Gabbard putting strategic pressure from the inside, and We The People putting accountability pressure from the outside, this Deep State intelligence nut just might begin to crack.

In fact, I might even argue that cracking is exactly what we are starting to see.