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Edition 1,399
I thought I’d start out a little differently this week. I’m fortunate to have a friend I met in Beirut back in 2010, Michael Young, longtime opinion editor of a terrific newspaper, The Daily Star, that unfortunately went out of business in 2021, and author of the definitive book on Lebanese politics, “The Ghosts of Martyrs Square,” Michael signing my copy after we purchased it at a bookstore there before some drinks and conversation.
He has a ton of friends around the world whose names you’d recognize, and I still check up on him, especially when there is an ‘incident’ in Beirut. I try not to abuse the privilege of asking for his opinion every now and then and I’ll just share his thoughts on the current situation in Iran and potential U.S. involvement. This is from about ten days ago.
“The real story in the region today is the regional realignment taking place, a major objective of which is to contain Israel. I believe the Arab and Turkish reaction to the U.S. threat to attack Iran is that they regard any such attack, with Israeli backing, as something that would bolster Israel’s power in the region, and they’re focused on containing Israel. The Israelis, in turn, cannot allow Iran to retain a ballistic missile capacity, because, against the official reports last June that Israel suffered little damage, there was significant damage from the retaliatory Iranian strikes on Israel. So Iran, paradoxically, is regarded by the Turks, Saudis, Qataris, and probably the Egyptians, as a counterweight of sorts to Israeli hegemony. We’re in a classic balance of power situation here, and Lebanon is in the middle. The Israelis want to absorb it into their zone of influence, but all this would do is lead countries such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, even Qatar and Egypt, to try to thwart such a thing, turning us into a game board for regional rivalries, dividing the society further.”
So that’s a learned view from the region. More on Iran below.
This weekend is the annual Munich Security Conference, with 20 U.S. senators and many administration officials on the scene, as well as countless world leaders. There will be many important speeches, and I’ll have some of that next time.
But already today, leading things off, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that Berlin had begun confidential talks with France about a European nuclear deterrent, saying the region had to become stronger in order to reset its relationship with the United States.
In a speech to open the conference, Merz also called on Washington to “repair and revive trust” in a dangerous new era of great power politics, warning the U.S. could not go it alone as the old global order crumbles.
“I have begun confidential talks with the French President on European nuclear deterrence,” Merz said. “We Germans are adhering to our legal obligations. We see this as strictly embedded within our nuclear sharing in NATO. And we will not allow zones of differing security to emerge in Europe.”
Taking his cue from those warning that the international rules-based order was about to be destroyed, Merz said: “I fear we must put it even more bluntly: This order, however imperfect it was even at its best, no longer exists in that form.”
Switching to English at the end, Merz said: ‘In the era of great power rivalry, even the United States will not be powerful enough to go it alone. Dear friends, being a part of NATO is not only Europe’s competitive advantage. It is also the United States’ competitive advantage.”
“So let’s repair and revive transatlantic trust together,” he added.
At the same gathering of top security officials last year, Vice President JD Vance had attacked European allies in a speech that marked the start of a series of confrontations.
“I think it’s at a defining moment…the world is changing very fast right in front of us,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said before departing for Munich.
“The U.S. is deeply tied to Europe, and our futures have always been linked and will continue to be,” said Rubio, a potential rival to Vance in 2028. “So we’ve just got to talk about what that future looks like.” [Reuters]
A YouGov poll on Friday of the six largest European countries showed favorability towards the U.S. in Europe hitting its lowest since tracking began in 2016.
Sixty-one percent of those polled in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain consider the U.S. to be a major or moderate threat. [Newsweek]
This is startling.
—
Wall Street and the Economy
Wednesday, the jobs report for January from the Bureau of Labor Statistics saw employers adding a better-than-expected 130,000 jobs, when 70,000 was forecast (other reports have the consensus at 55,000…yours truly uses Trading Economics data). The unemployment rate fell to 4.3 percent from 4.4 percent a month earlier. December’s jobs figure was seasonally adjusted to just 48,000.
The peppier data is a sign that the labor market might be emerging from a period of extremely slow growth brought on by a trade war that made companies hesitant to hire, an immigration crackdown that lowered the number of available workers and a federal government firing spree.
Annual revisions to earlier data changed the picture of last year. The economy added only 181,000 jobs in 2025, down from an earlier estimate of 584,000.
For 2024, the U.S. produced 1.2 million jobs, versus the previously estimated 2 million.
Heath care accounted for more than half of the job gains in January, adding 82,000 positions. Construction gained 33,000 jobs, but most other sectors were flat, and the federal government shed another 35,000 positions.
Average hourly earnings rose by 3.7% year-over-year, same as the prior month.
But there is a seasonal quirk in that sluggish hiring of seasonal workers during the holidays may have boosted the number, as fewer were then laid off in January.
A minute before the jobs release at 8:30 AM ET, the 2-year Treasury was at 3.45% and the 10-year 4.12%, and a minute after, the two had surged to 3.54% and 4.20%, respectively, as traders took the stronger number to mean not as many rate cuts down the road as expected just minutes earlier. Yields then recovered a bit the rest of the day.
The February jobs report is slated to be released before the Fed meets next to set interest rates, in mid-March.
Friday, we had data on consumer prices for January and the headline number, 2.4%, year-over-year, was better than expected and versus the 2.7% reading prior. The core figure, ex-food and energy, 2.5%, was in line with expectations and the smallest rise for this key metric since March 2021.
Food costs rose only 0.2% in the month after a 0.7% rise in December, and are up 2.9% year-over-year. Housing rose just 0.2% and energy was down, led by a decline of 3.2% for gasoline.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, motor vehicle insurance has risen only 0.5% year-over-year, which is a bunch of B.S., though I did recently save money by finally switching from my long-time insurance carrier to Progressive. [The letter said I’d save $950 and you know what? I indeed saved $900.]
In other economic news, December retail sales were unexpectedly unchanged, when a rise of 0.4% was expected, ex-autos also a surprising ‘unch.’ The flat reading followed an unrevised 0.6% increase in November, the Commerce Department’s Census Bureau reported.
January existing home sales came in at an annualized pace of 3.91 million, far worse than expected and vs. December’s 4.27M rate. It was the lowest level in two years, according to the National Association of Realtors.
The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow barometer for fourth-quarter growth is down to 3.7% from 5%+.
Freddie Mac’s 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is 6.09%…but should be lower next time.
Next week, among the data releases is the key PCE (personal consumption expenditures index) reading for December, the Fed’s preferred inflation barometer.
Meanwhile, lawmakers left Washington Thursday afternoon without plans to vote on a deal to avert a funding lapse at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is set to begin this weekend and doesn’t have a clear end in sight.
While members are on notice to return to Washington if a deal is struck, both chambers of Congress are scheduled to be out through next week for the Presidents’ Day recess, so the shutdown could be lengthy.
But all other government departments and agencies outside DHS have already been funded through the rest of the fiscal year.
The big potential impact is on travel, as TSA workers will continue working without pay, but previous shutdowns that extended for weeks have resulted in airport delays as agents begin to call in sick.
ICE will continue to largely operate normally, as most of its employees are considered essential. It also has access to billions of dollars in funding through Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Other agencies impacted to varying extents include the Coast Guard and Secret Service. Across the entire department, employees will go without paychecks as they are either furloughed or required to continue working without pay.
And some FEMA workers will be furloughed and thus limited in their ability to coordinate with state and local partners should there be a natural disaster somewhere.
On the trade front, the Trump administration reached a trade deal with Taiwan on Thursday, with Taiwan agreeing to remove or reduce 99% of its tariff barriers, the office of the U.S. Trade Representative said.
The agreement comes as the U.S. remains reliant on Taiwan for its production of computer chips, the exporting of which contributed to a trade imbalance of nearly $127 billion during the first 11 months of 2025, according to the Census Bureau.
Most of Taiwan’s exports to the U.S. will be taxed at a 15% rate, the same as that levied on other U.S. trading partners in the Asia-Pacific region, such as Japan and South Korea.
However, Republican backlash in Congress over Trump’s sweeping tariffs burst into view on Wednesday as the GOP-led House voted to overturn his tariffs on Canada after six Republicans joined with House Democrats to rescind the emergency declaration the president has used as a basis for imposing taxes on imports from one of the United States’ closest allies. Republicans still largely backed Trump, with the vote totaling 219-211.
The measure was the culmination of simmering frustration with the White House among some GOP lawmakers, whose patience for a long-awaited Supreme Court ruling over Trump’s tariff power had run thin.
Trump immediately threatened the six GOP lawmakers who bucked him, which included Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Don Bacon of Nebraska, Dan Newhouse of Washington, Jeff Hurd of Colorado, and Kevin Kiley of California. One Democrat voted to preserve the tariffs: Rep. Jared Golden of Maine.
“Any Republican, in the House or Senate, that votes against TARIFFS will seriously suffer the consequences come Election time, and that includes Primaries!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. [A number of the six are not running for reelection.]
Rep. Bacon, my favorite Republican in the House these days, said before the vote that Trump’s tariffs have been a “net negative” and a “significant tax that American consumers, manufacturers, and farmers are paying.”
“Article I of the Constitution places authority over taxes and tariffs with Congress for a reason, but for too long, we have handed authority to the executive branch,” he wrote on social media. “It’s time for Congress to reclaim that responsibility.”
The bill faces an uncertain future in the Senate, but even if it survived, it would face a veto at Trump’s desk.
Lastly, the U.S. government posted a $95 billion budget deficit in January, down $34 billion or 26% from a year earlier as revenue gains including customs duties outpaced growth in outlays, the Treasury Dept. said Wednesday.
Through the first four months of the 2026 fiscal year that started Oct. 1, the deficit fell to $697 billion, down $143 billion or 17% from the same period of fiscal 2025. Year-to-date receipts are up 12% from the prior year period, while outlays rose 2%.
Net tariffs totaled $27.7 billion in January, about the same level as December.
Year-to-date Treasury debt interest totaled $426 billion, a record for the period, up $34 billion or 9%.
Europe and Asia
Nothing from the eurozone on the data front this week of note, after last week’s deluge of both economic and central bank news.
But in Britain, Prime Minister Keir Starmer was under pressure to resign over his decision to make Peter Mandelson the ambassador to the United States despite his close ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
The leader of the Scottish Labour Party, Anas Sarwar, became the most senior figure in Starmer’s Labour movement so far to call on him to quit, deepening a crisis within the government that has threatened the prime minister’s grip on power.
But Sarwar is a member of the Scottish, not the Westminster, Parliament and is not a government minister, diluting his influence. All of Starmer’s top cabinet officials have come to Starmer’s defense.
China’s January inflation rate was 0.2% over December, 0.2% year-over-year, which isn’t healthy, while producer prices fell at a 1.4% Y/Y pace, less bad than December’s -1.9% reading.
Japan’s producer prices in January rose 2.3% year-over-year.
But the big news in Japan concerned last week’s snap election for the lower house of parliament, with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi gambling she could build a large majority given her strong popularity ratings (67%).
And the LDP secured a two-thirds super majority in the 465-seat lower house by itself, 316 seats, but with a coalition partner, it’s 352 seats, expanding its previous razor-thin majority of 233 by a considerable margin. The LDP’s haul of 316 seats gives it a higher proportion of representatives in the lower house than any other party in post-war Japan.
Investors have been jittery about the prospect of more government borrowing to finance her spending plans. That could lead to higher interest rates and a weaker currency in the future, analysts say, though financial markets broadly welcomed the prospect of long-term, stable leadership in Japan on Monday, with stocks hitting new records, the currency strengthening and bond yields generally stable. [The Japanese 10-year yield was unchanged over the week at 2.21%, after hitting a 27-year high of 2.27%.]
Japan does have a big challenge in Beijing. Japan has suffered a barrage of economic reprisals from China after Takaichi said Japan might get pulled into any conflict over Taiwan. Tensions were ratcheted higher at week’s end when Japan seized a Chinese fishing trawler that Japan sought to board for inspection, as the trawler was in Japan’s territorial waters in the East China Sea, but the Chinese vessel sought to flee…unsuccessfully.
President Trump posted 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 II. 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. PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP”
Street Bytes
—Volatile, down week, the Dow Jones falling 1.2%, the S&P 500 off 1.4% and Nasdaq extended its now five-week losing streak, down 1.8%.
Next week we get Walmart earnings.
President Trump on Truth Social Sunday PM:
“Record Stock Market, and National Security, driven by our Great TARIFFS. I am predicting 100,000 on the DOW by the end of my Term. REMEMBER, TRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING! I hope the United States Supreme Court is watching.”
Record ‘National Security’? Eegads.
—U.S. Treasury Yields
6-mo. 3.60% 2-yr. 3.40% 10-yr. 4.05% 30-yr. 4.70%
Crazy week. Treasury yields moved higher following the jobs report, after dipping lower the day before on the lousy retail sales number, but then with today’s inflation data, traders are betting on more rate cuts from the Fed, perhaps sooner than expected.
The yield on the inflation sensitive 2-year fell to 3.40%, after jumping to 3.54%, Wednesday, on the employment report, and the 10-year yield went from last Friday’s 4.20% close to 4.12% prior to the jobs number, back up to 4.17%, and you see where it closed, 4.05% [lowest weekly close since Nov.] Can it finally break below 4.00% definitively? Next week’s PCE might tell you.
—The biggest tech companies are gearing up to spend even more on artificial intelligence than investors had anticipated, as we saw in the last two weeks’ earnings reports, and money managers increasingly fear that whatever happens, credit markets will get hit.
A chunk of the estimated $600 billion in new investments this year will come from the high-grade corporate bond market, potentially resulting in more debt sales this year than investors had expected. But the more tech companies borrow, the greater the potential pressure on bond valuations. The securities are already expensive by historical standards, trading at close to their tightest spreads since the late 1990s.
—Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent cited Chinese traders as a reason behind last week’s wild swings in the gold market.
“The gold move thing – things have gotten a little unruly in China,” Bessent said on Fox News. “They’re having to tighten margin requirements. So gold looks to me kind of like a classical, speculative blowoff.”
Bessent was responding to a question about a record-breaking rally in precious metals – fueled by speculative buying, geopolitical turmoil and concern about the Federal Reserve’s independence – that abruptly reversed last week.
The turmoil helped lift the dollar to its first weekly gain since early January.
On the week, gold climbed back over $5000 and silver was largely unchanged at around $77.
—Cisco Systems reported better-than-expected financial results as demand for artificial intelligence hardware remained strong.
Cisco reported fiscal second-quarter adjusted earnings of $1.04 a share, which beat analyst estimates of $1.02 a share. Revenue for the quarter of $15.3 billion also came in better than the Street’s consensus of $15.11bn.
The networking segment generated the most revenue for the company, $8.29 billion for the quarter, above Wall Street’s estimates and a 21% increase from the past year.
“We believe Cisco is uniquely positioned to deliver the trusted infrastructure needed to securely and confidently power the AI-era,” CEO Chuck Robbins said in the earnings release.
Cisco said it expects third-quarter earnings to be between $1.02 a share to $1.04 a share, in line with analysts’ own forecast of $1.03 a share. Revenue estimates for the quarter are between $15.4 billion and $15.6 billion, above consensus of $15.2bn.
For the full fiscal year ending in July, Cisco expects earnings to be between $4.13 a share to $4.17 a share on revenue of $61.2 billion to $61.7 billion. Wall Street has been expecting earnings for the year of $4.13 a share, on revenue of $63.9 billion.
But investors wanted far more from the guidance, and then the company acknowledged rising memory prices were putting pressure on the company’s margins and the shares cratered 12%, the stock’s worst day since 2022.
Strong demand for AI data centers has led to a global shortage of memory, which has caused costs to skyrocket for the component. Large orders for data center memory have limited production capacity for other devices, including smartphones.
—U.S. equity markets are set for a sharp rebound in IPOs in 2026, Goldman Sachs analysts said, forecasting proceeds quadrupling to a record $160 billion as marquee names such as SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic edge closer to public listings.
Goldman expects the number of IPOs to double to 120 this year, as improving economic growth, stronger equity prices and easier financial conditions revive dealmaking appetite.
–Speaking of Anthropic, it has raised $30 billion in its latest funding round, more than doubling the Claude chatbot maker’s valuation to $380 billion and underscoring massive investor interest in the startup and the broader AI industry.
Anthropic’s recently launched series of plugins for its Cowork agent had sparked a brutal selloff in global software stocks as investors debated the disruptive potential to the sector from sophisticated AI models.
—Ford Motor repeated weaker-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings Tuesday evening. But the outlook for 2026 was solid despite many headwinds.
For Q4, Ford announced an operating profit of $1 billion from sales of $45.9 billion. Wall Street was looking for an operating profit of $1.2 billion from sales of $43.6 billion.
Adjusted earnings per share were 13 cents, down from 39 cents a year ago. The Street was at 19 cents.
For the current year, Ford expects to generate an operating profit of between $8 billion and $10 billion. The midpoint is close to the roughly $9bn consensus view.
Overall, the fourth quarter was OK, tariffs weighing on results, as did a supplier fire in upstate New York that had an impact on production. (Ford backs out EV-related write-downs from its adjusted profit figures.)
For the full year 2025, Ford produced an operating profit of $6.8 billion. The company’s initial outlook for 2025 operating profit, given about a year ago, was between $7 billion and $8.5 billion, down from $10.2bn reported in 2024.
Ford’s EV business lost $4.8 billion in 2025, down from a $5.1 billion loss in 2024. Losses in the future should shrink.
—The Federal Aviation Administration late Tuesday halted all flights to and from El Paso International Airport for 10 days for “special security reasons,” isolating a major American metropolitan area from air travel.
In a move that appeared to surprise state and local officials, the restriction went in to effect at 11:00 PM local time on Tuesday and was to remain until 11:30 PM local time on Feb. 20.
The airport said in a statement that the restriction had been issued “on short notice” and that it was waiting for additional guidance from the FAA.
This was a totally unprecedented move.
But then late Wed. morning, the airspace over the airport was reopened and we learned the Pentagon had disabled drones controlled by Mexican cartels that breached U.S. airspace, according to an administration official.
“The FAA and DOW acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on X, citing the acronym for the Department of War.
“The threat has been neutralized, and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region. The restrictions have been lifted and normal flights are resuming.”
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Wednesday that there was no information about drones on the border – if the United States had information, it could ask the Mexican government, she told reporters.
“The Mexican airspace did not close… We will learn what the reasons are for why the airspace closed,” she said.
Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, said at a news conference that she learned of the closure not through the Trump administration but through a contact within the federal workforce. According to Escobar, the FAA did not notify local officials in advance and made the decision independently.
“There’s no threat. There was not a threat, which is why the FAA lifted this restriction so quickly,” Escobar said. “The information coming from the administration does not add up.”
And then we learned that the closure of the airspace was precipitated when Customs and Border Protection officials deployed an anti-drone laser on loan from the Defense Department without giving aviation officials enough time to assess the risks to commercial aircraft.
The episode led the FAA to abruptly declare that the nearby airspace would be shut down for 10 days. So, the administration explanation was undercut (Claudia Sheinbaum and Rep. Escobar were right), as the FAA’s extreme move came after immigration officials used the anti-drone laser without coordination with the FAA.
But wait…there’s more! It turns out border patrol agents used the high-powered laser to, get this, shoot down what was later revealed to be a party balloon that had drifted into the sky near the U.S.-Mexico border. [New York Times]
—TSA checkpoint numbers vs. 2025
2/12…136 percent of 2025
2/11…118
2/10…80
2/9…109
2/8…124
2/7…80
2/6…106
2/5…127
—Delinquency rates on loans ranging from mortgages to credit cards rose to 4.8% of all outstanding U.S. household debt in the fourth quarter, the highest level since 2017, driven by higher defaults among low-income and young borrowers.
While the overall share of loans in some stage of default is near pre-pandemic averages, the rise in delinquencies among the lowest earners adds to evidence of an increasingly bifurcated economy, data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit released Tuesday showed.
The rise in defaults was driven by delinquencies in mortgage payments, and New York Fed researchers found that they were particularly high in lower income zip codes.
Some 16.3% of student-loan debt became delinquent in the fourth quarter, the biggest increase on record in data going back to 2004.
—McDonald’s shares rose 2% after the fast-food giant handily beat expectations for fourth-quarter earnings and revenue.
The company reported adjusted earnings of $3.12 a share and revenue of $7.01 billion. Global comparable sales rose 5.7%, and comparable sales in the U.S. rose 6.8%
Wall Steet was expecting McDonald’s to show growth as the fast-food chain’s value-led strategies offset the challenge of a tough economy.
CEO Chris Kempczinski said that by listening to customers and taking action, “we have improved traffic and strengthened our value & affordability scores.” That helped boost global systemwide sales 11% in the quarter.
For the full year, global comp sales rose 3.1%, with a 2.1% gain in U.S. comparable sales. Revenue rose 4%.
McDonald’s is planning an aggressive global expansion, aiming to reach 50,000 restaurants globally by the end of 2027. It had 43,477 restaurants worldwide as of the end of 2024.
To be sure, the restaurant industry is facing plenty of challenges. Consumers have become more sensitive to higher menu prices after years of inflation, while rising commodity costs – especially in beef – continue to pressure margins.
Over the past year, McDonald’s has responded with steps to attract more customers and encourage them to spend more per visit.
—Restaurant Brands International is slowing the pace of its Burger King remodeling program as higher construction and materials costs force the company to push out its timeline for modernizing its locations.
The fast-food franchiser was aiming to have 85% of Burger King restaurants modernized by 2028, but CEO Joshua Kobza said Thursday that rising costs are slowing its remodeling campaign.
“Reclaim the Flame” is Burger King’s multiyear turnaround plan started in 2022, backed by a $400 million investment to revive the brand through better operations, increased marketing, and a sweeping restaurant refresher push to lift sales and franchisee profitability.
On an earnings call, the company said Burger King’s U.S. beef prices rose more than 20%, contributing to commodity inflation of 7% last year, something that is likely to remain elevated in 2026.
Popeyes franchisee profitability also declined, and Tim Hortons Canada (a great franchise) faced higher tariffs and commodity costs, adding to the pressure.
In the fourth quarter, system-wide sales grew at a rate of 5.8% compared with 5.6% a year earlier, taking system-wide sales to $12.13 billion, from $11.28bn.
Comparable sales rose 3.1% in the quarter, with Burger King up 2.7%, Tim Hortons rising 2.9%, and Firehouse Subs up 2.1%. Popeyes extended a run of softer results, with comp sales falling 4.8%.
I go to a local Burger King fairly often, using coupons, and yesterday I had a Whopper for the first time in quite a while, and it was damn good! Very fresh tomato and a quality patty.
–One more on the fast-food front…Wendy’s same-restaurant sales fell 10.1% in the fourth quarter, worse than expected, a drop mostly driven by the U.S., where comp sales fell a rather staggering 11.3%, while they were down 2% internationally.
I love Wendy’s. The chain now realizes after an extensive study of its customers in the fourth quarter that it needs to have more affordable prices on an everyday basis, rather than offering limited-time deals, Interim CEO Ken Cook said.
—Coca-Cola’s latest earnings show that markets can’t rely entirely on staples to fill the void when tech stocks are lagging. Q4 earnings per share edged past consensus by two cents, but its revenue came in short of expectations, and it is forecasting organic revenue growth of 4% to 5% in 2026, lower at the midpoint than the 5% growth Wall Street was looking for. Shares in Coke fell 1.5% on the news.
Coke said it is trying to hold the line on prices.
The beverage giant said it is marketing a range of products at different prices and sizes to respond to financially stretched consumers, but isn’t planning a major shake-up of its pricing strategy.
“There’s no big reset out there,” said CEO James Quincey in an interview. “We can make bottles and cans in all sorts of different sizes. Part of the range is in affordability and an entry price point.”
Consumers continue to feel the squeeze after years of inflation. PepsiCo announced last week that it would slash prices by up to 15% on snacks like Cheetos and Doritos. The company didn’t specify plans to change its beverage prices.
Coca-Cola reported that increased prices and sales volumes helped lift its fourth-quarter revenue to $11.8 billion, up 2% from the previous year, but the Street was expecting sales of $12.05bn.
Adjusted earnings per share rose 4% from the prior-year quarter to 58 cents, better than consensus of 56 cents.
—Anheuser-Busch stock rose after the Budweiser brewer beat fourth quarter earnings expectations.
The beverages giant reported earnings of 95 cents a share, as revenue rose 4.8% from a year ago to $15.6 billion. The Street was at 88 cents on the same revenue of $15.6bn.
Anheuser, owner of popular beer brands like Bud Light, Michelob, Stella Artois and Corona Extra, has had a solid start to the year, the stock up more than 20% since the start of January.
Compared to a year earlier, volumes fell 1.5% in the quarter ending December. While beer volumes fell 1.9%, non-beer volumes increased by 0.6%. Over the full-year 2025 totally volumes fell 2.3%.
“We exit 2025 with improved momentum and enter 2026 well positioned to engage consumers with our megabrands and an unparalleled line-up of mega platforms,” said CEO Michel Doukeris.
Management noted in the past that growth was mainly driven by the company’s megabrands like Corona. In the U.S., Michelob Ultra has overtaken Bud Light to be the top-ranked brand by volume.
Bud Light’s longtime dominance was disrupted in 2023 after a marketing backlash weakened demand for the brand. Constellations Brands’ Modelo Especial briefly took the top spot before Michelob Ultra’s recent ascent.
But much of Anheuser’s revenue growth came from higher prices rather than more purchasing. In the third quarter, total volume declined 3.7% from a year ago.
Health trends have led to rising interest in low- or no-alcohol beverages, cutting into traditional beer consumption, and management has highlighted faster growth in its no-alcohol beer and other non-beer offerings such as hard seltzers, ready-to-drink cocktails, hard teas, and ciders.
—Heineken said it would cut up to 6,000 jobs from its global workforce and set lower expectations on Wednesday for 2026 profit growth than last year, as the Dutch brewer and its peers face weak demand.
The job cuts amount to almost 7% of the 87,000 strong, global workforce at the world’s No. 2 brewer by market value, which is also searching for a new CEO following the surprise resignation of Dolf van den Brink in January.
The maker of Tiger and Amstel alongside its namesake lager has promised to deliver higher growth with fewer resources as it looks to assuage dissatisfied investors who say it has fallen behind on efficiency.
Along with weak demand, alcohol makers also face long-term threats like rising health warnings, competition from alternatives, and disruptions like weight-loss drugs.
Heineken expects slower profit growth for 2026 of between 2% and 6%, against the 4% to 8% growth it guided for in 2025.
—Marriott shares surged, not necessarily because of its earnings or outlook, but rather a likely big boost to profits from Marriott inking more lucrative credit card deals with partners like JPMorgan. CEO Anthony Capuano said the company is in active discussions, and he teased on the earnings call that the arrangement could lead to a 35% increase in the fees it collects from credit card companies this year.
Otherwise, Marriott says the economy resembles a dual-track highway as seen through the prism of a hotel giant.
“I mean, there is certainly – pick your description – a K-shaped economic bifurcation of the consumer. We continue to see really consistent strength across luxury for the full year,” Capuano said.
He added that it seems like Marriott’s business is “firing on all cylinders,” pointing to a lot of new hotels being built alongside strength with higher-income consumers.
The company’s fourth-quarter performance and outlook added some concern, however, that a mixed U.S. economy was continuing to weigh on consumers.
Adjusted earnings of $2.58 per share compared with the Street’s view of $2.62. For the first quarter, Marriott expects per-share earnings of $2.50 to $2.55. Consensus is at $2.50. Full-year earnings of $11.32 to $11.57 per share, with the Street at $11.43.
—Paramount Skydance’s sweetened offer for Warner Bros. Discovery seems unlikely to shift the takeover battle in its favor away from Netflix, mostly because it doesn’t raise the purchase price. Warner shareholders have repeatedly signaled that they want more than $30 a share to break the existing agreement with Netflix.
Warner Bros. said its board will carefully review the offer. Netflix’s $27.75 a share offer is for the movie and TV studios and HBO Max streaming platform, with the cable channels spun out separately. Paramount’s offer is for the whole company, and it says the cable channels would have no equity value.
—Goldman Sachs’s top lawyer, Kathryn Ruemmler, resigned on Thursday in the wake of the Justice Department’s release of emails and other material that revealed her extensive relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
Ruemmler and representatives for Goldman said for years that she had a strictly professional relationship with Epstein, but emails, text messages and photographs released late last month upended that narrative, leading to Ruemmler’s sudden resignation, which surprised many inside the firm.
Before joining Goldman in 2020, Ruemmler was a counselor, confidante and friend to Epstein, the documents showed. She advised him on how to respond to tough questions about his sex crimes, discussed her dating life, advised him on how to avoid unflattering media scrutiny and addressed him as “sweetie” and “Uncle Jeffrey.”
Epstein, in turn, provided career advice on her move to Goldman, introduced her to well-known businesspeople and showered her with gifts of spa treatments, high-end travel and Hermes luxury items. In total, Ruemmler was mentioned in more than 10,000 of the documents released by the Justice Department.
—Sunday night’s Super Bowl and Bad Bunny fell short of setting records for most watched U.S. broadcast and halftime show, as expected, with no Kansas City Chiefs in the big game.
Seattle’s 29-13 victory over New England averaged 124.9 million viewers on NBC, Peacock, Telemundo, NBC Sports Digital and NFL+, according to Nielsen’s Big Data+ Panel rating system.
This fell short of the 127.7 million U.S. viewers that tuned in for Philadelphia’s 40-22 victory over Kansas City last year on Fox.
Bad Bunny’s halftime show averaged 128.2 million viewers from 8:15-8:30 PM ET. That would make it the fourth-most watched halftime behind Kendrick Lamar (133.5 million, 2025), Michael Jackson (133.4 million, 1993) and Usher (129.3 million, 2024).
The audience for Sunday’s game peaked at 137.8 million viewers during the second quarter (7:45-8:00 PM ET), which is a record; surpassing the 137.7 million during last year’s second quarter.
After three straight years of Super Bowls that came down to the final minute, the past two have lacked excitement. This year’s was just the second in Super Bowl history in which a touchdown had not been scored in the first three quarters.
The Turning Point USA halftime show featuring Kid Rock peaked at 5 million at one point on YouTube.
Telemundo averaged 3.3 million viewers, making it the most-watched Super Bowl Spanish-language broadcast in the United States, peaking at 4.8 million viewers during the halftime show.
The ads cost about $8 million for 30 seconds of air time.
—Washington Post CEO and publisher, Will Lewis, stepped down Saturday, days after the newspaper came under widespread criticism for laying off hundreds of its journalists.
Lewis said in a statement that he had made the decision “in order to ensure the sustainable future of The Post.” His email, which was terse, thanked only Jeff Bezos, the owner of The Post, and did not mention journalists at the newspaper.
Lewis left three days after the company, facing years of financial losses, undertook a significant round of layoffs that cut 30 percent of the staff – more than 300 journalists – decimating The Post’s local, international and sports coverage. Marty Baron, the celebrated former editor of The Post, called it one of the “darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organizations.”
Lewis, it seems, was not well-liked among the reporters.
Foreign Affairs
Iran: Last weekend’s talks between U.S. and Iranian diplomats in Oman wrapped up with no agreement on anything, and none remotely in sight, though Iran stalls by calling it a “good start,” adding the talks were also “exclusively nuclear.”
But Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Sunday ruled out Tehran ever giving up uranium enrichment in its negotiations with Washington, insisting it will not be intimidated by the threat of war with the United States.
Araghchi told a forum in Tehran that Iran had little trust in Washington and even doubted that the U.S. side was taking renewed negotiations seriously.
“Why do we insist so much on enrichment and refuse to give it up, even if a war is imposed on us? Because no one has the right to dictate our behavior,” Araghchi said.
“Their military deployment in the region does not scare us,” he said, referring to the arrival of the aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, in the Arabian Sea.
The New York Times reported that “Iran appears to have rapidly repaired several ballistic missile facilities damaged in strikes last year, but it has made only limited fixes to major nuclear sites struck by Israel and the United States, (a Times) analysis of satellite imagery suggests.
“The uneven pace of reconstruction offers clues about Iran’s military priorities as the United States amasses forces near it and President Trump weighs new military action. If the United States were to attack, Iran would most likely retaliate with ballistic missiles targeting Israel and U.S. assets in the region.”
Tehran still has an estimated 2,000 midrange ballistic missiles that can reach across the region, as the Wall Street Journal has reported. It also has significant stockpiles of short-range missiles capable of reaching U.S. bases in the Gulf and ships in the Strait of Hormuz, as well as antiship cruise missiles.
The Institute for Science and International Security said in a report last week that it had detected an uptick in activity at the Isfahan nuclear complex in past days, most recently to bury tunnel entrances with fresh soil.
David Albright, the president of the institute, said that piling up dirt was likely in “anticipation of an attack, which would imply there’s something in there that’s valuable,” possibly enriched uranium.
Albright said that while it wasn’t clear what Iran was doing, “it is increasing suspicion that they’re reconstituting a program to be able to build nuclear weapons,” he said. “We don’t think it is urgent or imminent by any means.”
—Crude oil rose Wednesday after the Wall Street Journal reported the Trump administration had discussed seizing additional tankers involved in transporting illicit Iranian oil.
As part of a continuing blockade on Venezuela, the U.S. has already seized several ‘shadow tankers’ carrying Iranian oil to buyers such as China.
Wednesday, after a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House, Trump posted on Truth Social:
“There was nothing definitive reached other than I insisted that negotiations with Iran continue to see whether or not a Deal can be consummated. If it can, I let the Prime Minister know that will be a preference. If it cannot, we will just have to see what the outcome will be. Last time Iran decided that they were better off not making the Deal, and they were hit with Midnight Hammer – That did not work well for them. Hopefully this time they will be more reasonable and responsible.”
The Wall Street Journal reported that the Pentagon had told a second aircraft carrier strike group to prepare to deploy to the Middle East. President Trump has said he was weighing sending a second carrier group to the region, but one official said it could be two weeks before it is ready to deploy, likely from the U.S. East Coast.
But we then learned Friday it will be the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, that will be deployed from its current position in the Caribbean.
Gulf Arab nations have warned any attack could spiral into another regional conflict in a Mideast still reeling from the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
Editorial / New York Post
“This is (Iran’s) eternal strategy: Drag their feet, hem and haw and never agree to anything substantial….
“This government just slaughtered as many as 36,000 of its own citizens in a few days because they were protesting for basic rights; it’s not going to bow to American demands on any front that threatens its rule.
“Washington needs to push Tehran harder, ideally ‘til the regime breaks.
“Yes, the ‘how’ is tricky: Having our armada offshore is great, but empty threats won’t do much….
“We hope Team Trump has other plans in motion: The Iranian people, having paid with the blood of their children deserve an end to their half-century of suffering under the heel of the co-called Islamic Republic.”
Russia/Ukraine:
—Russia continued to pummel Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, an attack Saturday causing power outages across the country, the state grid operator said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the overnight strikes involved more than 400 drones and 40 missiles of various types.
“Every day, Russia could choose real diplomacy, but it chooses new strikes,” Zelensky posted on X. “It is crucial that everyone who supports the trilateral negotiations respond to this. Moscow must be deprived of the ability to use the cold as leverage against Ukraine.”
Russia attacked energy facilities again Sunday night in the Poltave region of central Ukraine, striking state-owned Naftogaz Group for a 19th time.
A drone attack in the northeastern Kharkiv region overnight Wednesday killed a father and his three small children and seriously wounded their mother who is 35 weeks pregnant, officials said, part of an attack involving 129 drones.
Thursday, Russia pounded Ukraine with more drones and ballistic missiles, further battering the energy system and leaving tens of thousands in Kyiv and the cities of Dnipro and Odesa without heat, power and water, officials said. This attack involved 24 ballistic missiles, one cruise missile and 219 drones.
Two people were killed in an attack on the railway hub of Lozova in the Kharkiv region.
Residents in Ukraine, with no power, no heat, have taken to pitching tents on top of their beds to stay warm…sort of….
–As reported by the New York Times, Russia has been making incremental gains in the east and south and appears poised to complete the capture of three strategic areas in the coming weeks or months, including the much talked of city of Pokrovsk. This would give Russia an urban foothold to base troops and organize logistics for future offensives, as well as new leverage in U.S.-mediated peace talks.
“Russia is unlikely to rapidly convert these gains into further territorial expansion given how slowly its troops have advanced over the past year, experts say. But Moscow could use the gains to argue during peace talks that its advance, while slow, is inevitable, and that Ukraine would be better off ceding land now in a deal, rather than losing it later in bloody fighting.”
—Speaking of peace talks, President Zelensky said the U.S. is proposing to finish all necessary negotiations and have all needed documents signed to end Russia’s invasion in June.
“The Americans are proposing that the parties end the war by the beginning of this summer,” Zelensky told reporters in a briefing late last Friday.
“We understand that American internal issues have an impact and will certainly become even more relevant for them,” he said, suggesting U.S. midterm elections in November would become the administration’s major focus.
President Trump has previously dangled the possibility of sanctions relief and renewed economic cooperation with Russia as inducements for Moscow to agree to halt the war. Putin, however, has insisted that Russia would achieve its objectives in Ukraine one way or another.
—Russia’s Federal Security Service said Sunday that the man suspected of shooting a deputy chief of Russia’s military intelligence agency in Moscow was detained in Dubai and handed over to Russia.
Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev was hospitalized after being shot several times last Friday by an assailant at an apartment building.
The FSB said in a statement that it had identified two “accomplices,” one of whom was detained in Moscow and anther who “left for Ukraine.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Friday it was an apparent “terrorist act” by Ukraine intended to derail peace talks.
Monday, the FSB said that the men suspected of shooting Alexeyev had confessed that they were carrying out orders from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).
Russia said that the suspected shooter, a Ukrainian-born Russian citizen named by Moscow as Lyubomir Korba, had been questioned after he was extradited from Dubai. A suspected accomplice, Viktor Vasin, has also been questioned.
The FSB said in a statement that both Korba and Vasin had “confessed their guilt” and given details of the shooting which they said was “committed on behalf of the Security Service of Ukraine.”
The FSB did not provide any evidence that was verifiable.
China / Hong Kong: Jimmy Lai, the pro-democracy former Hong Kong media tycoon and a fierce critic of Beijing, was sentenced on Monday to 20 years in prison in the longest punishment given so far under a China-imposed national security law that has virtually silenced the city’s dissent.
Lai, 78, was convicted in December of conspiring with others to collude with foreign forces to endanger national security, and conspiracy to publish seditious articles. The maximum penalty for his conviction was life imprisonment.
His co-defendants, six former employees of his Apple Daily newspaper and two activists, received prison terms of between 6 years and 3 months, and 10 years of collusion-related charges.
Lai smiled and waved at his supporters when he arrived for the sentence. But before he left the courtroom, he looked serious, as some people in the public gallery cried. When asked about whether they would appeal, his lawyer Robert Pang said no comment.
Editorial / Wall Street Journal
“Monday’s sentencing of Jimmy Lai to 20 years in prison is a profound injustice to the publisher, but it also marks a symbolic end of an era. It confirms that Hong Kong, which was promised autonomy for 50 years after 1997, is now firmly under the iron boot of Beijing.
“The sentencing marks the end of the 26-month trial of the owner of Apple Daily on trumped up charges of sedition and conspiracy to collude with foreign powers. But it also marks the end of the larger dream that Hong Kong could – under Chinese rule – preserve the freedoms that had transformed it from a barren tock into a beacon of hope and opportunity.
“This was the question hanging over Hong Kong’s future when Britain and China issued a Joint Declaration in 1984 laying out the terms of Hong Kong’s return to Chinese sovereignty. Would China’s Communist Party uphold the rights and freedoms a free-market society requires? Sad experience said no, and we expressed our doubts at the time.
“ ‘The essence of the declaration,’ we wrote more than 40 years ago, ‘is that five million largely free people will soon have their futures determined by a totalitarian government not known for tolerance or stability.’ That editorial was headlined ‘Promises, Promises.’
“With Jimmy Lai, our fears have been realized… He is in ill health and has spent most of the last five years in solitary confinement, the lone window fixed to block sunlight. Along the way, the Hong Kong government denied him his choice of lawyer and stole his newspaper without a court order. Six former Apple Daily executives also received multi-year sentences on Monday.
“This isn’t the way Hong Kong operated under Britain. It isn’t the way a world trade and financial center operates. But it is the way of Hong Kong under Chinese rule….
“Mr. Lai was convicted on national-security charges and will die in prison if nothing is done. President Trump, who has raised Mr. Lai’s plight with President Xi Jinping, is scheduled to visit Beijing in April. At this point someone in Beijing should be asking whether it is really in China’s interest to keep generating the bad press and opprobrium that come from keeping an old man incarcerated.
“On Friday a bipartisan group of five U.S. congressmen wrote the Nobel Peace Prize Committee in Oslo nominating Jimmy Lai for the prize. There’s no one more deserving. And Beijing’s message to Taiwan about what life would be like under rule by the Chinese Communist Party couldn’t be clearer.”
Israel: The Security Cabinet made unilateral changes that could allow Jewish settlers to more easily buy West Bank land and undercut the Palestinian Authority in parts of the territory that it administers. The measures appear to violate the Oslo Accords and challenge President Trump’s opposition to Israeli annexation of the territory.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, ahead of his meeting with Trump in Washington on Wednesday, did not announce the changes. That role went to Bezalel Smotrich, the vile far-right finance minister, and another official. “We are deepening our roots in all parts of the Land of Israel and burying the idea of a Palestinian state,” Smotrich said.
President Trump and Netanyahu have split over Israel’s growing efforts to annex the West Bank. Trump reiterated to Axios that he’s opposed to annexation.
“We have enough things to think about now. We don’t need to be dealing with the West Bank,” he said.
Cuba: Disruptions to Cuba’s travel industry began Monday after the government notified airlines that it would run out of aviation fuel, part of a crippling energy crisis triggered by the Trump administration’s strict measures, which have largely cut off the country’s access to foreign oil.
Air Canada announced that starting Monday, it had suspended its 16 flights per week to four Cuban cities.
The airline said it would send empty jets to Cuba from Montreal and Toronto to bring back roughly 3,000 Canadians currently visiting the island. Canada is the top source of tourists to Cuba.
According to the Association of Tour Operators of Russia, there may currently be between 4,200 and 4,700 tourists traveling on package tours from Russia in Cuba.
The island had long relied on Venezuela for a majority of its fuel needs. But after the Jan. 3 U.S. attack on Venezuela that ousted its president, the Trump administration took control over Venezuela’s oil industry and stopped shipments to Cuba.
The measure is widely seen as part of the administration’s efforts to exacerbate Cuba’s economic free fall and prolonged blackouts and force an end to the country’s 66-year-old communist revolution.
Venezuela: Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said her opposition colleague Juan Pablo Guanipa has been kidnapped just hours after being released from detention.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner said on Sunday that Guanipa, leader of the Justice First party, was taken in a neighborhood of Caracas.
“Heavily armed men dressed in civilian clothes arrived in four vehicles and took him away by force,” she wrote on social media.
Guanipa’s center-right party said he had been kidnapped by the “repressive forces of the dictatorship” while he was moving between locations.
“We hold Delcy Rodriguez, Jorge Rodriguez, and Diosdado Cabello responsible for any harm to Juan Pablo’s life,” Justice First wrote on social media, referring to the interim president, the National Assembly speaker, and the interior minister, respectively.
—The U.S. seized its eighth tanker allegedly linked to Venezuela, the Defense Department said on Monday.
The tanker was carrying 700,000 barrels of Venezuelan heavy crude bound for China and was tracked and hunted from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean,” the Pentagon said in a statement.
Meanwhile, strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats in the waters off Venezuela and Colombia continue…at least 37, killing at least 128 in the campaign thus far.
Random Musings
—Presidential approval ratings….
Gallup: 36% approve of President Trump’s job performance, while 59% disapprove. 25% of independents approve (Dec. 1-15).
Rasmussen: 46% approve, 52% disapprove (Feb. 13). I said last week’s 41-57 split seemed unusual for this Trump-friendly poll, and it reversed this week.
The RealClearPolitics poll average has Trump with a 42% approval rating, 55% disapproval.
—The Hill reported that congressional retirements are on track to hit their highest level in a decade this election cycle, fueled in part by Republicans increasingly looking to exit the halls of Congress with the midterms fast approaching.
Last week, Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) became the 30th House Republican to announce he doesn’t intend to run for reelection. Along with nearly two dozen House Democrats who have also said they don’t plan to seek another term this November, the number of retirements in the chamber stands at 51.
That’s a higher number in the House than in any election cycle of the past decade except for 2018, which saw 52 retirements.
In the Senate, nine incumbents are retiring either to end their political careers or seek another office outside Congress – already the highest number of any cycle in the past decade.
One GOP strategist told The Hill: “D.C. right now is a hard place to get something done. Everything is difficult. Everything is a battle. Everything is a fight.”
Another GOP strategist said: “The Republicans and Democrats do not socialize much in the House, whereas in the Senate, there’s some of that, not as much as there once was, but some of that. And in fact, it’s downright antagonistic [in the House],” he said.
–I’ve told how I live in one congressional district, and a block away another district starts. Republican Tom Kean Jr. is my congressman, and now there is Gov. Mikie Sherrill, who represented the other district across the mighty Passaic River.
So they just held a primary to see who takes her place on the Democratic ticket for a special election and it was a shocker. Progressive advocate Analilia Mejia, who defeated former U.S. Rep. Tom Malinowski by less than 900 votes.
Mejia is the former national political director for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign. She now faces Randolph Mayor Joe Hathaway – the lone Republican in the race – in the April 16 general election to fill the final months of the term.
Mejia is likely the favorite because the district – a once-red, largely suburban area – has gotten progressively bluer since Sherrill flipped it in 2018, and it was made more Democratic-friendly in 2022 redistricting.
—A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to temporarily unfreeze funding for a $16 billion rail tunnel under the Hudson River.
U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas, appointed by former President Biden, last Friday granted the states of New Jersey and New York a temporary restraining order preventing the Trump administration from suspending the release of funds for the project while the case proceeds.
But because the administration appealed, construction has been halted and as I wrote last week, 1,000 workers and their custom machinery could go elsewhere! They aren’t being paid.
President Trump still wants Penn Station in New York and Washington Dulles International Airport named after him for the funds to be released. Unfreakin’ real.
—The story on the Trump post that depicted the Obamas as apes was hitting Friday as I was going to post and I wasn’t going to comment on it until I learned more.
President Trump posted – and later deleted – a video that was beyond outrageous, prompting swift condemnation from Democrats and Republicans.
The roughly one-minute video, which was posted on Truth Social at 11:44 PM on Thursday, features a narrator questioning the security of voting machines used in competitive states in the 2020 election. In the final seconds of the video, images of the Obamas’ faces on the bodies of cartoon apes appear. They bob their heads against the backdrop of a jungle as the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” plays.
The post was deleted late Friday morning, so it was up for 12 hours. Friday night, Trump told reporters that he watched the beginning of the video before deciding to post it on his Truth Social page, but didn’t see the portion that featured Obama. He said he wouldn’t apologize for the post.
“I didn’t make a mistake. I look at thousands of things. I looked at the beginning. It was fine,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One, saying that he passed the video on to a staffer to post.
Asked if he condemned the racist imagery in the video, Trump said, “Of course I do.”
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, one of the highest-ranking Black Republicans in Washington, criticized Trump’s post. “Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” he wrote on social media, calling on Trump to remove it. Trump said he spoke to Scott about the post on Friday.
Republican senators across the ideological spectrum condemned the post, including Sens. Pete Ricketts of Nebraska, Roger Wicker of Mississippi, John Curtis of Utah, Katie Britt of Alabama and Susan Collins of Maine. “The post was blatantly racist and inexcusable. It should never have been posted or left published for so long,” said Curits.
Earlier last Friday, the White House defended the president, saying the imagery of the Obamas was a clip from an internet meme that portrays Trump as a lion and Democrats as cartoon animals.
“Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
Well, the story was front page in the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal. That’s all you needed to know. Leavitt’s comment was pathetic.
What we know is that Trump has never stopped in his criticism of former President Obama, amplifying false allegations that Obama wasn’t born in the U.S., and demanded that the then-president release his long-form birth certificate. Trump later conceded that Obama was born in the U.S.
—President Trump threatened to block the opening of a bridge connecting the U.S. and Canada until Washington is “fully compensated for everything” it has given to its northern neighbor.
The Gordie Howe International Bridge, connecting the Canadian province of Ontario to Michigan, would not open until Ottawa “treats the United States with the Fairness and Respect that we deserve,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
According to the project’s website, the bridge is being funded by the Canadian government but will be publicly owned by both Canada and Michigan.
It is not clear how Trump could block its opening but he said negotiations would begin immediately, without elaborating.
Spanning the Detroit River, the bridge is expected to open to traffic pending formal tests and approvals in early 2026. Construction began in 2018, but the project has been a point of contention between the countries for more than a decade.
It is estimated to have cost about $4 billion.
In the statement on his Truth Social platform, Trump said that the U.S. should own “at least one half of this asset.” He also suggested that Canada owned both the Canadian and U.S. sides of the bridge.
The organization developing the bridge, the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority, is wholly owned by the Canadian government, according to the project’s website.
Trump wrote: “The Canadian Government expects me, as President of the United States, to PERMIT them to just ‘take advantage of America!’”
“I will not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them,” he added.
The Moroun family – the American owners of the neighboring Ambassador Bridge that also connects Detroit to Canada – appealed to Trump during his first term to stop construction of the new bridge, arguing that it infringed on their exclusive ability to collect tolls.
In response, Trump and then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a joint statement saying the bridge was a “vital economic link” between the countries.
Trump on Monday pointed to recent trade disputes between the two countries saying that “the Tariffs Canada charges us for our Dairy products have, for many years, been unacceptable.”
He also said that a trade deal signed between Canada and China last month would “eat Canada alive.”
Trump continued: “The first thing China will do is terminate ALL Ice Hockey being played in Canada, and permanently eliminate The Stanley Cup.”
Like so much these days coming out of the White House, this is F’n nuts!
—Ghislaine Maxwell declined to answer questions from the House Oversight Committee Monday in a closed-door deposition virtually from prison.
“She answered no questions and provided no information,” said Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the committee.
David Markus, one of Maxwell’s lawyers, previously told lawmakers she would require immunity for questioning so she wouldn’t risk further criminal exposure. Markus said Monday she was prepared to speak if granted clemency by President Trump.
“Only she can provide the complete account,” Markus said. “Some may not like what they hear, but the truth matters.”
Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said after the deposition that he doesn’t think Maxwell should be granted any kind of clemency or immunity. “She committed a lot of crimes,” he told reporters.
Separately, members of Congress gained access to the unredacted Epstein files this week, generating a new round of scrutiny for several major figures.
Democrats along with Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.), the most vocal Republican advocate for the files’ release, accused the DOJ after reviewing the documents of violating the law by improperly covering up names that should be publicized, along with revealing names that should remain private.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calilf.), who has worked with Massie on pushing this issue, cast a light on some names that were apparently covered up when he named six men who he said on Tuesday were “likely incriminated” in the files.
The congressman made his comments on the House floor, helping to shield him from any criminal liability or civil lawsuits for sharing the names. The Constitution’s Speech and Debate Clause protects members from being questioned for speech made in the context of their duties.
The recent disclosures increased scrutiny on Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who admitted to senators on Tuesday that he visited Epstein’s island in 2012, despite previously saying he vowed not to be in the same room as Epstein after meeting him in 2005.
Lutnick said his wife and children were with him and said he didn’t witness any of the sex crimes that are alleged to have taken place on the island.
There were calls for his resignation from Democrats.
Wyoming Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis said she now understands “what the big deal is” after reviewing the full, unredacted Epstein files.
“I’ve not been one of the members who has glommed on to this as an issue,” Lummis told journalist Pablo Martinez. “I’ve sort of intentionally deferred to others to find out about it. But 9-year-old victims…Wow.”
“Well, initially, my reaction to all this was, ‘I don’t care. I don’t know what the big deal is.’ But now I see what the big deal is, and it was worth investigating,” she added. “And the members of Congress that have been pushing this were not wrong. So that’s really my only reaction.”
Wednesday, Attorney General Pam Bondi combatively defended her leadership at the Justice Department to House lawmakers on Wednesday amid sharp criticism that she botched the release of the Epstein files and has wielded the nation’s most powerful law enforcement agency to heed President Donald Trump’s calls to prosecute his political foes.
In exchange after exchange, Bondi lobbed scripted insults when Democratic lawmakers questioned her decisions and repeatedly portrayed the expansive Justice Department as unfairly maligned by Democrats and those who dislike Trump.
“I’m not going to get in the gutter with these people,” Bondi said repeatedly in response to pointed questions. She lashed out when the committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin, directed her to respond to the panel’s inquiries.
“You don’t tell me anything, you washed-up loser lawyer,” she said. “You’re not even a lawyer.”
President Trump posted on Truth Social:
“AG Pam Bondi, under intense fire from the Trump Deranged Radical Left Lunatics, was fantastic at yesterday’s Hearing on the never ending saga of Jeffrey Epstein, where the one thing that has been proven conclusively, much to their chagrin, was that President Donald J. Trump has been 100% exonerated of their ridiculous Russia, Russia, Russia, type charges.”
—President Trump on Truth Social, Sunday AM:
“America’s Elections are Rigged, Stolen, and a Laughingstock all over the World. We are either going to fix them, or we won’t have a Country any longer. I am asking all Republicans to fight for the following:
“SAVE AMERICA ACT!
- ALL VOTERS MUST SHOW VOTER ID (IDENTIFICATION!).
- ALL OTERS MUST SHOW PROOF OF UNITED STATES CITIZENSHIP TO REGISTER FOR VOTING.
- NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS (EXCEPT FOR ILLNESS, DISABILITY, MILITARY, OR TRAVEL!).”
—The New York Times reported that “An FBI search warrant affidavit unsealed on Tuesday shows that a criminal investigation into 2020 election results in Fulton County, Ga., was set off by a leading election denier in the Trump administration and relied heavily on claims about ballots that have been widely debunked….
“ ‘The FBI criminal investigation originated from a referral sent by Kurt Olsen, presidentially appointed Director of Election Security and Integrity,’ the affidavit said. Mr. Olsen played a central role in Mr. Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, including speaking to the president multiple times on Jan. 6, 2021. He has continued to push false claims about elections, and was recently appointed to a key role in the Trump administration….
“The warrant for the search of an election center in Fulton County, which FBI agents carried out late last month, demanded all physical ballots from the 2020 election, as well as all ballot images, tabulator tapes for Fulton County’s voting machines, and copies of voter rolls from last year.
“Robb Pitts, the chair of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, said at a news conference last week that the Justice Department did not give local officials an inventory of what was taken.
“ ‘We don’t even have copies of what they took, so it’s a problem,” Mr. Pitts said. The county estimated that the FBI seized 656 boxes of ‘original documents and records from the 2020 election,’ according to its motion to unseal the affidavit. Another official estimated that the number was closer to 700 boxes.”
Last week, Trump called in a podcast for the Republican Party to “nationalize” elections. He later told reporters in the Oval Office that “the federal government should get involved” in elections, and cited a list of cities where he claimed there was voter fraud in 2020. Of course there is no evidence of widespread fraud in any of these places, Trump citing Detroit, Philadelphia, and Atlanta.
“Look at some of the places that [had] horrible corruption on elections, and the federal government should not allow that. The federal government should get involved.”
Thankfully, there are some adults in the Senate, such as Majority Leader John Thune, as well as House Majority Leader Mike Johnson who recognize this is unconstitutional and won’t fly. But with each day, the damage is done, confidence in the elections process falling.
—The Trump administration will end the immigration crackdown in Minnesota and wind down the enforcement surge in the state, Border czar Tom Homan said Thursday.
“Operation Metro Surge is ending,” Homan said Thursday. “In the next week, we are going to deploy those officers here on detail back to their home stations or other areas of the country where they are needed.”
Homan said the crackdown has achieved the Trump administration’s public-safety goals and has led to more than 4,000 arrests in the state. He said federal immigration authorities have improved coordination in recent weeks with state and local officials, including Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, both Democrats.
“As a result of our efforts here, Minnesota is now less of a sanctuary state for criminals,” Homan said.
—President Trump reversed a key Obama-era scientific ruling that underpins all federal actions on curbing planet-warming gases.
The so-called 2009 “endangerment finding” concluded that a range of greenhouse gases were a threat to public health. It’s become the legal bedrock of federal efforts to rein in emissions, especially in vehicles.
The White House called the reversal the “largest deregulation in American history,” saying it would make cars cheaper, bringing down costs for automakers by $2,400 per vehicle.
Speaking in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump said the 2009 ruling was “a disastrous Obama era policy that severely damaged the American auto industry and massively drove up prices for American consumers.”
“This radical rule became the legal foundation for the Green New Scam, one of the greatest scams in history,” Trump added.
President Obama, who infrequently comments on the policies of sitting presidents, said that repealing the finding the finding would make Americans more vulnerable.
“Without it, we’ll be less safe, less healthy and less able to fight climate change – all so the fossil fuel industry can make even more money,” he wrote on X.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board opined:
“The scope of CO2 regulation is a decision for Congress. It’s richly ironic for Democrats who denounce Mr. Trump as an authoritarian to howl that he’s relinquishing power to regulate all corners of the economy under the guise of climate that the Biden and Obama administration unilaterally claimed.”
—President Trump on Truth Social, minutes after the following:
“The Super Bowl Halftime Show is absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER! It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn’t represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence. Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting,* especially for young children that are watching from throughout the U.S.A., and all over the World. This ‘Show’ is just a ‘slap in the face’ to our Country, which is setting new standards and records every single day – including the Best Stock Market and 401(k)s in History! There is nothing inspirational about this mess of a Halftime Show and watch, it will get great reviews from the Fake News Media, because they haven’t got a clue of what is going on in the REAL WORLD – And, by the way, the NFL should immediately replace its ridiculous new Kickoff Rule. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! President DONALD J. TRUMP”
*Pretty funny coming from the “grab them by the pussy” guy.
—Mayor Zohran Mamdani showed his true colors when he dissed millions of Catholics as the first city mayor in nearly 100 years – and possibly ever – to skip the local archbishop’s installation.
Ronald Hicks, 58, last Friday became the 11th archbishop of the New York Archdiocese since 1850, accepting the reins of power from Cardinal Timothy Dolan at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in a packed ceremony steeped in ritual.
One of the event’s traditions – dating back to at least 1939, when then-New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia attended the installation of famous top clergyman Francis Spellman – had been the attendance of the Big Apple’s sitting mayor.
But this time, Mamdani decided he had better things to do than help honor the new leader of one of the largest groups of Catholics in the country – including hundreds of thousands of his own constituents.
Mamdani – who in the past week put out a tweet marking World Hijab Day and suggested at the annual interfaith prayer breakfast that the U.S. should use the Prophet Muhammed’s example on immigration – skipped out on the ceremony altogether, marking the occasion with nothing more than a tepid post on X.
“Congratulations to Archbishop Ronald Hicks on today’s installment and welcome to New York City,” Mamdani wrote Friday afternoon. “I know that Archbishop Hicks and I share a deep and abiding commitment to the dignity of every human being and look forward to working together to create a more just and compassionate city where every New Yorker can thrive.”
“Mamdani has been in office for just over a month and already he is signaling to Catholics that they are not welcome,” fumed New York’s Catholic League in a statement.
Michael Bloomberg and the late former Mayor Ed Koch, both Jewish, attended New York archbishop installations during their respective tenures.
–Last week I wrote of the drought out West and the historically low levels of snowpack. The snowpack in Oregon is not only at a record low, but 30% lower than the previous record, said Jason Gerlich, regional drought early warning system coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Oregon, Colorado and Utah have reported their lowest statewide snowpack since the early 1980s, as far back as records go.
As of Monday, it had been 327 days since Salt Lake City International Airport got 1 inch of snow, making it the longest stretch since 1890-91, according to the National Weather Service.
[There is a chance Salt Lake City could finally get an inch of snow this coming Wednesday, by my reading of the long-range forecast.]
This is going to be a huge story this spring and summer. Remember, all those data centers and chip factories being built in the area need gobs of water, and you can’t keep relying on the aquifers, as some reassure us.
Needless to say, the wildfire threat will be extreme as well.
–Elsewhere, from Argentina to Australia to South African record heat and raging wildfires are rampaging through the Southern Hemisphere at the start of 2026, with scientists predicting that even more extreme temperatures could lie ahead – and possibly another global annual high – after three of the hottest years on record.
While Australia has seen temperatures as high as 122F, heat and catastrophic wildfires have gripped parts of South America, setting remote parts of Argentina’s Patagonia ablaze and killing 21 people in coastal towns in Chile. In addition, South Afrida has been experiencing its worst wildfires in years.
–Lastly, I’ve been a “Today Show” viewer since I was a kid, growing up as a news junkie. Monday through Friday, I’m watching the ‘A’ block at 7:00 AM ET, before switching to CNBC, which I have on until 4:00 PM, though if there is breaking news or the president is saying something I switch to another network, or two.
I’m following the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, Savannah’s mother, closely, but there is little for me to say, except I offer my prayers…that’s what Savannah would want. She’s terrific at her job and I admire her devotion to God.
—
Pray for the men and women of our armed forces…and all the fallen.
Slava Ukraini.
God bless America.
—
Gold $5050…Silver $77.00
Oil $62.60
Bitcoin 68,787 [4:00 PM ET, Friday]
Regular Gas: $2.94; Diesel: $3.66 [$3.16 – $3.67 yr. ago]
Returns for the week 2/9-2/13
Dow Jones -1.2% [49500]
S&P 500 -1.4% [6836]
S&P MidCap -0.7%
Russell 2000 -0.9%
Nasdaq -2.1% [22546]
Returns for the period 1/1/26-2/13/26
Dow Jones +3.0%
S&P 500 -0.1%
S&P MidCap +7.8%
Russell 2000 +6.6%
Nasdaq -3.0%
Bulls 59.6
Bears 15.4
Hang in there. Enjoy the holiday.
This week marks 27 years of StocksandNews, though this column began a year-and-a-half earlier when, in starting their web site, I was the “Week in Review” guy for PIMCO Funds…same format.
As David Byrne sings in “Once in a Lifetime,” I often muse, “My God! What have I done?”
To my supporters over the years, a big thank you. I’ve taken two weeks off from this column. Two. It is the definitive history of our times…AI be damned. It’s the truth, the facts, with an opinion.
The other day, CNBC’s Jim Cramer, talking about AI, said he checked four chatbots for information on the market reaction following the Kent State massacre (May 4, 1970) and not one of the four got it right.
In the future, if this site stays alive, anything like Kent State from Feb. 1999 on, you’d just check StocksandNews…same thing for the world of sports!
Brian Trumbore…back as always next week, friends.
