Trump Heads to Davos
Leaders of dozens of nations — including allies who’ve watched uneasily as President Donald Trump put his “America First” policies in motion — will have a chance to hear first-hand what’s on the president’s mind.
On Wednesday, he’s scheduled to address the World Economic Forum, speaking to the heads of nations that had to scramble in the past year to respond to policy changes, especially on import tariffs, that came with the new administration.
Trump has said he’ll devote some of that speech to housing, including his proposal to ban institutional investors from buying single-family homes.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is to be in Davos, where he’s hoping to finalize agreements for ending the war that Russia started four years ago — though in an interview this week, Trump said Zelenskiy was the main obstacle to ending the fighting.
Also Read: Trump’s Strategy to ‘Own The Libs’ Is to Co-Opt Their Ideas
Greenland on Their Mind
A bicameral congressional delegation is traveling to Copenhagen, Denmark, a NATO member whose territory includes Greenland.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) is leading the delegation, which includes Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), plus Reps. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.), Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), and Sarah McBride (D-Del.).
“At a time of increasing international instability, we need to draw closer to our allies, not drive them away, and this delegation will send a clear message that Congress is committed to NATO and our network of alliances,” Coons said in a statement.
Meetings with the Danish parliament are set for today, and the trip follows a week of meetings in Washington by the Danish foreign minister, Sanne Wass and Sara Sjolin report. Earlier this week, Shaheen and and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) introduced legislation that would bar the use of government funds to occupy or annex the territory of a NATO member state without its consent. Read More
Also Read:
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In Public This Time
The former special counsel who investigated and charged Trump will face lawmakers and cameras on Thursday.
Jack Smith had asked to be questioned privately before appearing for a House Judiciary Committee deposition last month. According to the transcript, he told the panel that there was proof “beyond reasonable doubt” in the cases against Trump.
Trump was charged with a “criminal scheme” to overturn the results of the 2020 election. He also was charged for mishandling classified materials after leaving the White House. The cases were dropped after Trump won again in 2024.
In the closed-door questioning, the lawmakers wanted to know if Smith was pressured by then-President Joe Biden or then-Attorney General Merrick Garland to bring charges. Smith said that didn’t happen, and as Jimmy Jenkins and John Harney reported, told lawmakers that he had “numerous” witnesses who would have said they voted for and supported Trump, but believed his actions had broken the law.
Shutdown Not Looming
The stopgap funding law Congress enacted to end the longest shutdown in history in November is due to run out a couple weeks, but Erik Wasson and Ken Tran report that Congress not only looks set to avoid another shutdown, it is passing compromise bills that soften spending cuts sought by Trump.
Despite surging Democratic opposition in recent weeks to immigration raids in Minnesota and elsewhere ordered up by President Donald Trump’s administration, lawmakers have signaled they won’t shut the government down over the issue. Read More
Tran has a progress report in today’s BGOV Budget newsletter, and he also wrote in today’s Congress Tracker about the scheduling oddity of crunch time arriving when the House is the only chamber in town next week, while the Senate is the only one to be here the following week.
Eye on the Fed
The Supreme Court is ready to hear arguments over whether Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook can stay on the job while she fights Trump’s effort to oust her.
The president said unproven allegations of mortgage fraud, which Cook denies, are enough for him to fire her. The justices are to hear oral arguments in the case Wednesday.
Cook’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, has written that the accusations are baseless and rely on “cherry-picked, incomplete snippets of the full documents submitted at the time and in subsequent filings by Governor Cook consistent with her applications.”
Trump has been pushing the Fed to more aggressively lower interest rates, and a vacancy would let him choose both a replacement for Cook and a new chair to succeed Jerome Powell.
This week’s revelation of a Justice Department investigation into comments Powell made to Congress puts the Cook case even more in the spotlight. It also has raised questions about whether Powell will want to stay on the board since his term as chair ends in May but his term as a Fed governor doesn’t end until January 2028.
See Also:
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New Governors
The new governors chosen in Virginia and New Jersey are about to begin their terms.
Abigail Spanberger is to be sworn in tomorrow in Richmond, while in Trenton, Mikie Sherrill takes the reins on Tuesday. Both are Democrats.
New Jersey has had one female governor: Republican Christine Todd Whitman, who took office in 1994. Spanberger is the first for her state.
Daniel Moore describes some of the tough tax choices ahead for the Virginian, whose state took an economic hit from the firing of federal workers and a drop in international travel.
Election ’26
Those two states were unusual in that they choose chief executives in an odd-numbered year. Campaigns are already in full swing in this even-numbered year, especially for seats in Congress, where the president’s party tends to lose ground in the midterms.
The next state to solidify its election lineups is Alabama, with a filing deadline coming up next Friday. Greg Giroux reports that though there won’t be competitive congressional races, another statewide contest will be worth watching.
Candidates who faced each other in a 2020 Alabama Senate race may be opponents again. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R) and ex-Sen. Doug Jones (D) are both vying to be their parties’ gubernatorial nominee.
See Also: Virginia Set to Vote on Allowing Democrats to Redraw Districts
Sinema Suit
In an unusual postscript to her political career, former Sen. Krysten Sinema is the defendant in a lawsuit filed by her former bodyguard’s ex-wife, David Schultz reports.
Heather Ammel is suing Sinema for “alienation of affection,” alleging she wrecked a 14-year marriage to Matthew Ammel, with whom she has three children.
Ammel, who’s seeking damages of at least $75,000, said in a court filing that she discovered electronic messages between her husband and Sinema. The messages indicated the two were having an affair and showed that Sinema encouraged her Army veteran husband to use the synthetic drug MDMA and offered to guide him through “a psychedelic experience.” Ammel also said Sinema paid for her husband to receive a “psychedelic treatment.”
After leaving the Senate, where she represented Arizona, Sinema became a senior adviser in the global regulatory and intellectual property practice group of Hogan Lovells in DC. Read More
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