LEFT: @asharangappa.bsky.social four weeks ago RIGHT: new NYT report Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/27/u...

Trump is now pressuring Ukraine to give up twenty percent of its sovereign territory taken by Russia by force in two separate invasions with no apparent concessions by Russia - this has been Kyiv’s nightmare scenario. Here’s what he said tonight:

After his call with Putin, Trump says the U.S. needs the Tomahawk missiles he had previously said he might send to Ukraine *and* that “it may not be perfect timing” for the Russia sanctions bill the senate is preparing to move on. What concrete concession did Putin make or suggest in return, if any?

Breaking: A federal judge has granted a temporary restraining order blocking the deployment of National Guard troops in the state of Illinois for 14 days.

Breaking: The Israeli government has approved the ceasefire resolution, which includes the release of all hostages held in Gaza, the prime minister’s office says. The government met late on Thursday evening to vote on the proposal.

“The #InsurrectionAct requires a violent rebellion trying to take over the government that does not exist, doesn't exist in Portland, DC, Chicago, L.A., anywhere. But they like the power that these emergency, laws provide to them…And so they lie about the factual circumstances” - CA AG Bonta to me

Wow — Harvard Crimson student newspaper busts Hegseth for having written a long policy brief touting diversity before he joined Trump’s war on DEI. With receipts. Bravo, Crimson. www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

The people who are sincerely in favor of freedom of expression will speak out now for the reporters.

Yes, it’s significant that the president is repeatedly discussing invoking the #InsurrectionAct

New: Suspected Chinese govt operatives used ChatGPT for tool to conduct large-scale surveillance and another that allegedly scans social media accounts for “extremist speech,” @OpenAI found in new threat intel report. I spoke with their head of investigations. www.cnn.com/2025/10/07/p...

Pay attention: So what, if not the courts, would be the remaining check on presidential power? New: Trump says he could use Insurrection Act to bypass court rulings blocking use of troops in US cities www.cnn.com/us/live-news...

Hi folks, Check out the new promo for our show “The Brief”. As I say here, in a world packed with noise, facts matter.

Some of us saw this coming:

Breaking: Former FBI Director James Comey has been indicted by a federal grand jury, an extraordinary escalation in President Donald Trump’s effort to prosecute his political enemies. www.cnn.com/2025/09/25/p...

Breaking down the takeaways from #unga on #ukraine #palestinianstatehood and Trump’s #maga pitch to the world.

Breaking: “Jimmy Kimmel Live!" will return to air on ABC on Tuesday night, the network announced in a statement. -@CNN reporting

Failing to reference the broad bipartisan assessment TikTok is a national security threat, Trump expresses his interest: “I like TikTok. TikTok helped get me elected.”

New: Sen Chris Van Hollen accuses Israel of “a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Gaza” with two consecutive US admins complicit, adding that Israelis who served in Gaza told him “how one of their jobs was to blow up houses so that nobody would have a house to come back to.” www.cnn.com/2025/09/18/w...

New: On Senate floor today, Sen. Mark Warner to accuse DNI Tulsi Gabbard and the Trump admin of “going to war” with intelligence professionals and sacrificing the integrity of US intelligence “on the altar of partisan convenience.” www.cnn.com/2025/09/18/p...

What a Russian drone strike on Ukraine looks and sounds like from the ground - this one in Kharkiv. Frightening.

New conditions for US allies, no new conditions for Moscow, and so another delay in Trump’s long-threatened Russia sanctions.

Trump keeps saying Putin would not have invaded if he were president but… “Russia has significantly escalated strikes on Ukraine since President Trump took office, data show, defying his call for peace by increasing the range of buildings hit, including civilian ones.” www.wsj.com/world/these-...

—>> “A Palestinian state will not be established. This entire place is ours. We will preserve it – for our heritage, for our land, and for our security,” said Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu as he signed a ceremonial West Bank settlement expansion plan.

New: First-time applications for unemployment benefits surged to a level not seen in nearly four years. There were an estimated 263,000 initial filings for unemployment  insurance made during the week ended September 6, according to Department of Labor data.

Breaking: Polish and NATO jets scrambled, Warsaw airport shut after Ukrainian reports of Russian drones over Poland www.cnn.com/2025/09/09/e...

Breaking: US job growth through March was significantly weaker than previously thought, according to a preliminary report released today. The US economy added about 911,000 fewer jobs than initially estimated for the year ending in March, the Bureau of Labor Statistics report suggests.

23 days since the Alaska summit, 24 days since Trump vowed “severe consequences” if Putin didn’t agree to a ceasefire. www.cnn.com/2025/09/07/e...

Breaking: Job growth slowed to a crawl in August. The economy added just 22,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate rose to 4.3% from 4.2%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

China’s military parade was, as always, a choreographed spectacle but it delivered several substantive messages worth paying attention to:

It’s 13 days since the Trump-Putin summit and 15 days since Trump vowed “severe consequences” if Putin wasn’t serious about ending the war.

Two weeks after blowout coverage of the Trump/Putin “summit” in Alaska. @afp.com

Pay attention to what’s going on at the CDC tonight. It’s the agency charged with reducing the spread of disease and several of its scientists say their work is in danger.

Question: Does Trump help Putin inadvertently drag this out by delaying further sanctions? Ukrainian MP Yehor Cherniev: “Putin understands only the language of power. Any negotiation, any concession, any appeasing of this dictator will not lead to the effective result, only pressure.”

Trump met Kim three times during his first administration during which North Korea expanded its nuclear program.

In short: red carpet welcome to US, three-hour meeting, long Putin speech citing “root causes” of the war, no deal. #TrumpPutinSummit

This might be the headline: “We didn't get there but we have a good chance of getting there,” said Trump just now.

Movement in the press room - some of US and Russian delegation already seated. This is earlier than the originally scheduled press conference time of roughly two hours from now. #TrumpPutinSummit

President Trump bristled at suggestions inviting Putin to the U.S. was a gift but now the Russian leader has been greeted with a fighter escort, a red carpet, presidential applause and a ride in the presidential limousine. It is a warm and very public welcome in from the diplomatic cold.

New: Trump-Putin meeting will no longer be one-on-one, Rubio and Witkoff will now join as well, @kaitlincollins.bsky.social reports

“This is very important: when we are talking about trading land, we are actually talking about trading people. These lands are inhabited by Ukrainians, civilians,” Ukrainian MP Halyna Yanchenko tells me of proposed “land swapping” for peace.

on’t forget: Putin has called the collapse of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century” and has been working to rebuild Russia’s sphere of influence since he took power.

As we await the Trump-Putin summit here in Anchorage, keep in mind that when Trump and others speak of “swapping” territory to reach a peace deal in Ukraine, all the territory under discussion is Ukrainian territory, taken by Russia by force.

Arrived in Anchorage for Trump-Putin summit

“There will be some swapping of territories,” says Trump just now of potential Ukraine peace deal. This is most we’ve heard so far. Unanswered: how much will U.S. demand from Ukraine? All of Donetsk and Luhansk? What will Russia cede in return? Remember: all is Ukrainian territory taken by Russia.

New: Israel intends to take control of all of Gaza, Israeli PM Netanyahu said in an interview on Fox News: “We intend to,” Netanyahu said. “That’s what we want to do. We want to liberate ourselves and liberate the people of Gaza from the awful terror of Hamas.”

The pattern is beyond transparent by now: bad economic numbers are “rigged” just like any lost elections or unyielding Fed decisions and so on, allowing Trump and supporters not only to sow doubts about setbacks but also to plant more pliant officials in key roles.

Hard to think of a more transparent case of shoot the messenger- with genuine consequences for the reliability of economic data going forward.

New: “I think people in Britain are revolted at what they’re seeing on their screens” in Gaza, said UK PM Starmer ahead of a meeting with President Trump in Scotland, calling the situation for Palestinians there an “absolute catastrophe.”

New: French President Macron says France will recognize a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in Sept. “True to its historic commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, I have decided that France will recognize the state of Palestine,” Macron posted to X.

Justice Department told Trump in May that his name is among many in the Epstein files. - WSJ reporting www.wsj.com/politics/jus...