Welcome to the deep dive. We are jumping straight
in today because we have a stack of sources that
are well, they're incredibly dense. They really
are. We've got material covering everything from,
you know, stunning legal reversals to some really
high stakes political messaging. And global security
discussions where the United States is conspicuously
left out of the room. on purpose. Right. And
this all happened just as many of you were probably
trying to pause for the holiday. It's a classic
deep dive scenario, isn't it? You have this critical
information that just gets buried under all the
noise and frankly, the bad timing. So what's
our mission today? I think we have to cut through
that static. We're going to give you the strategic
high points, the most significant implications
of all this legal and political chaos. And connect
how these sort of domestic fights are directly
impacting our global standing. So let's jump
right in with the news that broke in Washington,
D .C., the shooting incident. It was a horrific
incident. Two National Guard members were shot
just a few blocks from the White House. Both
are in critical condition. And these Guard members
were deployed as part of those high visibility
patrols in the area, right? That's right. And
initially, the facts seemed pretty straightforward.
Mayor Muriel Bowser called the attack targeted.
OK, but targeted how? I mean, our sources note
it's not clear if that means targeted at the
National Guard in general, or if these two specific
individuals were selected for some reason. Exactly.
And the shooter was identified as a 29 -year
-old immigrant from Afghanistan who, at the time,
was being uncooperative with the police. And
that, of course, immediately spurred a very aggressive
political reaction. Oh, almost instantly. Donald
Trump released a six -point statement that basically
framed this entire incident as an existential
crisis for national security. His response was
clearly designed for maximum political impact.
He called the shooter an animal, the incident
an act of terror. He used it to claim, this proves,
and this is a quote, the single greatest national
security threat the country is facing. And crucially,
he blamed the Biden administration, alleging
they let in 20 million unvetted foreign nationals.
Which led to his announcement that he would halt
all immigration from Afghanistan and, you know,
seek to deport Afghans already here. So that
was the political narrative at midnight. A very
clear, very aggressive story. It was. But here
is where subsequent reporting, the actual context,
just completely upends that entire message. OK,
so let's unpack this political grenade. The suspect's
name is Rahmanullah Lakinwal. He arrived under
Operation Allies. Welcome back in 2021. Right.
But here's the key detail. The Conowall applied
for asylum. And that application, it was approved
by the Trump administration in April of 2025.
Wow. Yeah. It's a stunning political self -destruct
moment. Because the entire premise of his attack,
that this was a failure of the current administration's
vetting, it just completely collapses. It completely
collapses. The irony is just, it's palatable.
The very administration leveling the criticism
is the one that gave the approval. So that makes
exploiting the story politically almost impossible
for him, right? I mean, is there any way for
him to pivot? Could he argue the delay in vetting
was the problem, or blame it on people he left
behind? He could try, but it's so much harder
to deliver that clean, decisive message. The
sources we're looking at suggest the story is
already fading fast, and it's precisely because
the narrative got so messy. And there's another
problem for him, too. The victims were National
Guard troops deployed as part of his D .C. occupation.
That's an uncomfortable connection. It is. For
the political narrative to stick, you need simple
villains. And when your own administration is
tied to the approval, well, the villain becomes
a lot more complex. A truly fast and sharp reversal.
And speaking of stunning reversals, let's pivot
to the legal landscape, which delivered maybe
the biggest shock of the holiday. The complete
collapse of the Georgia election interference
case. This was the big one, the sprawling RITO
case. That's the Racketeer Influence and Corrupt
Organizations Act for anyone who needs a reminder,
usually used for, like, the mafia. Right, for
organized criminal enterprises. And this case
involved Trump and 18 co -conspirators. It all
started to derail, you might remember, when DA
Fannie Willis and her boyfriend were removed
from the case. So that brought in Peter Scandalakis
to either take it over or wind it down. He chose
to wind it down, recommending dismissal. And
Judge Scott McAfee accepted. This is where the
legal analysis gets highly contested, to put
it mildly. Skinalakis's justification for dropping
the case really stretched the concept of benefit
of the doubt to its absolute limit. He suggested
that Trump's call to Brad Raffensperger, the
one asking him to find 11 ,780 votes, could be
seen as a as a polite inquiry. A polite inquiry.
It's an astonishing phrase. It really is. A polite
inquiry is what you do when you ask a waiter
about the specials for the night. It is not what
a sitting president does when he's asking a state
official to overturn an election result by a
specific number. And it also just completely
ignores Raffensperger's own account of the call
from 2021. It does. Raffensperger wrote, the
president was asking me to do something that
I knew was wrong. I mean, it's... Very clear.
So is that level of benefit of the doubt normal
in a huge right to your case? Or is this, you
know, unique because the defendant used to be
president? The documents suggest this interpretation
was motivated less by legal precedent and more
by. Let's call it political necessity, specifically
avoiding years of constitutional battles. Ah,
the immunity question. Exactly. Scandalakis pointed
to the Supreme Court's decision on absolute presidential
immunity. He basically argued that if he went
forward, the appeals would drag this thing into
2029, 2030, maybe even 2031. And his argument
was that such a massive delay wouldn't serve
the citizens of Georgia. Right. So in essence,
the defense strategy of delay, delay, delay worked.
The delay itself became the mechanism for acquittal.
Justice delayed is justice denied. But the sources
also point out that Scandalock has had another
option, didn't he? A very clear alternative.
He could have removed Trump as the central defendant.
He's the one who triggers all the immunity issues
and just proceeded with prosecuting the other
18 co -conspirators. But he chose not to prosecute
anyone. He chose not to. And meanwhile, what's
Trump's immediate reaction? He monetized it.
He immediately started selling more merchandise
with his Fulton County mugshot, turning the legal
chaos he'd just escaped into a financial asset.
It's the strategy, isn't it? Every legal problem
becomes a political or financial opportunity.
But what about the other state cases? Well, the
overall picture is messy. There was a setback
in Michigan. The case against the fake electors
there got tossed out. The judge ruled they were
basically stooges who didn't know their actions
were illegal. But Nevada is still on. The Nevada
case is proceeding. Yep. The state Supreme Court
settled a jurisdictional fight. So that case
can move forward in Las Vegas. And Arizona's
stalled. That case has 18 defendants, Giuliani,
Meadows. It's stalled because the AG is appealing
a judge's ruling to send it back to the grand
jury. The judge felt the initial indictment didn't
explain the electoral count act well enough.
So even there, you see these technical delays
just compounding. It really does seem like the
momentum in these cases has slowed way down.
That's a good way to put it. OK. Shifting gears
to straight up political messaging. Yeah. which
is all about optics. We saw a couple of massive
unforced errors this week, own goals. The first
one was about the Affordable Care Act subsidies.
Yes. When Trump was asked if he would extend
the current Obamacare subsidies, the ones that
keep insurance costs down for millions of people,
he said very clearly, I'd rather not. That is
just a staggering quote. It's like he handed
the opposition their entire midterm election
script for free. It's a huge political gift.
If those subsidies lapse, millions of Americans
will see their insurance premiums spike maybe
overnight. And the Democrats will just run endless
ads with that five word quote, I'd rather not
and blame him directly for rising health care
costs. And it won't even matter if a compromise
bill passes or if costs rise for other reasons.
That quote provides the perfect sound bite to
connect him directly to that pain point. It's
an indefensible position. And then we have the
vice president, J .D. Vance, with an own goal
that While maybe lower stakes, it just shows
a consistent problem with his messaging. Oh,
the turkey rant. This is at Fort Campbell, home
of the 101st Airborne, the day before Thanksgiving.
What? He went completely off script. He asked
the crowd who liked turkey, and then he called
the people who raised their hands full of shuck.
He did what? Yep. He then argued that nobody
just randomly roasts an 18 -pound turkey because,
quote, it doesn't actually taste that good. I
mean... What a baffling communication strategy.
You're trying to connect with military families
right before Thanksgiving and you decide to attack
Turkey. It really highlights how much he struggles
to achieve that genuine regular guy vibe. The
harder he tries to be this edgy populist, the
more removed he sounds from actual people. It's
a perfect bridge to talking about how these failures
play out in actual elections. We have a very
competitive special election in Tennessee's seventh
district. Right. TNO7, this is a deep red district,
R plus 10. So it's a great little micro test
of the national mood. And Democrats are feeling
pretty good because they've been overperforming
in special elections all year. by an average
of D plus 16. And the latest poll shows that
optimism might be warranted. The Republican,
Matt Van Epps, is at 48 % and the Democrat, Afton
Ben, is right behind him at 46%. And an R plus
10 district, that's basically a tie. A huge overperformance.
But Ben, the Democrat, has a major liability
of her own. Some old podcast comments surface
where she said she hates country music. In Tennessee.
In Tennessee. And she also hates, quote, the
bachelorettes, I hate the pedal taverns, all
the things that make Nashville apparently an
IT city. Saying you hate country music in Tennessee
is about as close to political suicide as you
can get. Those clips are going to be everywhere.
They will. But even if she loses, how close this
race is tells you a lot about the national -
atmosphere right now. And the DCCC, the Democratic
campaign arm, they see this opening. They've
launched a new $10 million campaign called Our
Power, Our Country. And it's explicitly focused
on winning back voters of color and rural voters
who they lost ground with in 2024. The strategy
is really specific. It's populist economics,
anti -monopoly, pro -union, and attacking Republicans
on local issues like rural hospital closures.
Right. The whole idea is that the party just
has to show up in these regions again instead
of writing them off. It's sort of a historical
correction. If you look at the 1964 presidential
map, rural America was overwhelmingly Democratic.
Exactly. These areas weren't inherently Republican.
They can be won back if the message resonates.
And the party is also seeing some positive signs
with Latino voters. A new Pew poll shows 70 percent
of Latinos nationally disapprove of Trump, which
is high. But this is the really critical finding.
Fifty five percent. of Republican or lean Republican
Latinos now believe Trump's policies have been
harmful to Latinos. Only 25 % said helpful. Wow.
So even among his own potential supporters in
that group, there's disillusionment. deep disillusionment,
and that could seriously undermine future GOP
coalition building efforts. All this focus on
coalitions brings us to a really interesting
internal DNC discussion about using Ranked Choice
Voting, or RCV, for the 2028 primaries. The argument
for it is that RCV helps you pick a stronger
general election candidate. Voters rank their
choices. One, two, three. If no one gets 50%,
the last place candidate is eliminated and their
votes go to the voter's second choice. And the
goal is to make life harder for extremist candidates.
How does RCV do that? because it forces candidates
to build consensus. A candidate who only appeals
to a passionate 30 % of the base might win a
normal primary. But under RCV, if they're everyone
else's last choice, they can't win. So you have
to be broadly acceptable to get those second
and third place votes. Exactly. It weeds out
the candidates who can't win in November. But
implementation is a huge hurdle. It's a nightmare.
Primaries are run by the states, so you need
to change state laws. And RCV has a mixed reception.
Some Democrats worry it's too confusing for voters.
It failed in four states just last year. So the
movement has to start small just in the 15 states
where Democrats control everything. That's the
only place it can start. Yeah. Finally, we have
to talk about the shift in global security. This
is maybe the most consequential long term story
in the stack. Our allies are openly planning
for a future where the U .S. isn't a reliable
partner. They're calling it NATO v3 .0. Yeah,
this discussion really came to a head at the
Halifax International Security Forum. You have
leaders from Canada, Europe, Asia, all discussing
security arrangements that view the US as a potential
rogue nation. And the topics on the table are
just. They're unprecedented. Germany exploring...
building its own nuclear weapons. Closer military
integration, manufacturing weapons within the
allied bloc instead of relying on US suppliers.
It's a direct response to a loss of what we call
soft power. Explain that. Soft power is your
ability to influence others through cultural
and political appeal, not just military force.
When the US voluntarily gives up its role as
the stable anchor of global democracy, our allies
have to make these radical changes to compensate.
Germany building nukes would be a massive repudiation
of the entire post -World War II order. A massive
repudiation. And the economic side is just as
dramatic. They're also talking about forming
a massive free trade zone that would explicitly
exclude the United States. So if Canada, the
UK, Europe, Japan, South Korea and Australia
all form a single trade and security block without
us. That completely changes the global economic
structure. It fundamentally alters it. It diminishes
the dollar's influence. I mean, this is a historical
anomaly. The world's most powerful country actively
driving away its most loyal allies. It's a really
striking contrast when you look at how other
democracies handle these things. Like in Brazil,
former president Jair Bolsonaro was convicted
and sentenced to 27 years for blotting a coup.
Right. And he's barred from running for office
until 2030. Now, he gets VIP treatment in prison.
But the point is, the rule of law responded.
There was accountability, and it was swift. It's
hard to ignore the contrast with the systemic
delays we're seeing in all the US cases. Very
hard to ignore. And just quickly, on digital
integrity, ex -Twitter now lets you see an account's
true location. And it's exposing a lot of fake
political accounts. Yeah, like an Ivanka Trump
account being run out of Nigeria, or... Patriot
accounts being traced to Pakistan or Thailand.
It's a start but the challenge is VPNs, right?
Yeah virtual private networks that can mask your
location It's a huge challenge. The sources suggest
a possible countermeasure would be for platforms
to just block connections from the 10 ,000 or
so known global VPN servers and prioritize content
from a reader's actual country. Okay, so we've
covered the whiplash reversal on the DC shooting,
the decay of legal accountability in the Georgia
RIKEO case, and this intense targeted battle
for voters across the country. I think the major
takeaway is the sheer scale and speed of these
adjustments happening globally. While our legal
system is struggling with the complexities of
presidential immunity, our allies are deciding
they just can't wait for the U .S. to stabilize.
They're actively building a new world order without
Washington at the center. So with that in mind,
and given this intense global discussion about
NATO v3 .0 and a massive economic bloc that intentionally
excludes the United States, we want to leave
you with this. What would be the real non -military
cost to the U .S. economy and its influence if
a unified bloc of our closest allies, Canada,
Europe, the UK, Japan, South Korea, and Australia,
actively shifted their economic and political
power away from Washington.