Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today is Tuesday,
January 20, 2026. And I feel like we need to
just take a collective breath and mark this date.
It's a big one, for sure. We are exactly one
year in, 365 days since the inauguration of the
Trump v2 .0 administration. And normally these
anniversaries are about looking back, right?
a critique of the first year's policy, maybe
a little celebration. But looking at the sources
we have today, from hedge eye to electoral vote,
it feels less like an anniversary and more like
we're looking at two totally different countries.
That's the perfect way to put it. It's a split
screen reality. and it is almost impossible to
reconcile. Right, because on one hand, I'm looking
at these economic deck boards you sent over,
and everything's lighting up green. I mean, it's
a party on Wall Street. A full -on boom. But
then you just glance at the news, the headlines
out of Minneapolis, or these bizarre stories
about, what, buying Greenland again? Oh, we have
to talk about Greenland. It's just absolute chaos.
We've got troops mobilizing on American streets,
diplomatic insults flying around. So I guess
the mission for today is to try and make sense
of these two realities. Yeah, how can that be?
How can the markets be breaking out the champagne
while the streets are, in some cases, literally
filling with tear gas? That's the paradox of
2026. It is. If you only looked at your brokerage
account, you'd think we're in a new golden age.
But if you looked out your window in the Twin
Cities, you might think the whole thing is teetering
on the edge. So we're going to dig into this
Quad One economy, what's really happening with
Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota, and this
very, very strange new thing called the Board
of Peace. That one's a doozy. Yeah. We've got
hedge eye, electoral vote, and some really surprising
Gallup data about what's actually keeping Americans
up at night. So let's start with the money. That
seems to be the glue holding this all together.
Absolutely. The money explains the confidence.
We have to start with the Quad One boom because
that's the context for, well, for why the administration
feels it can take these massive risks everywhere
else. Okay, so Quad One. I see this term all
over the Hedge Eye reports. Break it down for
me. This is the Goldilocks scenario, right? Exactly.
It's the sweet spot. Think of the economy in
four quadrants. Quad one is where economic growth
is accelerating, and at the same time, inflation
is slowing down. Best of both worlds. The absolute
best. But that feels a little counterintuitive.
I mean, usually when growth is ripping higher...
Inflation goes right along with it. It does.
But that's the magic trick of this cycle. We're
seeing these productivity gains, probably from
tech and AI, that are keeping costs down even
while output is going up. For an investor, it's
paradise. OK. But here's where it gets a little
strange. Look at the currency markets. Right.
I was just looking at that. The US dollar is
confirming a bullish trend. I mean, it's ripping
higher. And historically, a super strong dollar
is a wrecking ball. It's a wrecking ball. It
crushes exports. It smashes risk assets like
crypto and commodities. But that's not what's
happening. No, it's not. And that's the anomaly.
We're seeing the dollar go up, but we're also
seeing Bitcoin, gold and silver trending up.
Silver was up almost 12 percent week over week.
That shouldn't happen. A strong dollar should
make gold cheaper. So what's going on? Is it
just pure hype? It's not hype, it's actually
fear. But it's not fear of the US, it's what
we call the cleanest dirty shirt theory. Global
capital is looking at Europe, it's looking at
Asia, and it's fleeing. It's flooding into US
markets because despite our own chaos, we look
safer than everybody else. So the chaos everywhere
else is actually fueling our stock market. Precisely.
And look at the VIX, the volatility index. The
fear gauge. Yeah, Wall Street's fear gauge. It
is sitting comfortably in what they call the
investable bucket. That's low. Wall Street is
not panicking. They're not worried about a crash.
But wait a minute. Okay, Wall Street is happy,
but the Hedge Eye Report uses the word meandering
to describe the labor market. That doesn't sound
like a boom for the average worker. It sounds
like stagnation. Meandering is a very polite
way of saying it's stable, but uninspiring. It's
not overheating, which is good for inflation,
but wages aren't skyrocketing either. So if you're
a day trader, you're loving life. If you're a
regular person buying groceries, you're probably
wondering where this boom is. And that's the
disconnect. This economic stability, or at least
the appearance of it on the stock ticker, it
acts as a kind of political shield. It lets the
administration pivot to things like what's happening
in Minneapolis. The calculation seems to be that
as long as 401ks are up, the public will tolerate
a lot of social upheaval. Well, let's test that
theory. Because Minneapolis isn't just upheaval.
Our sources are calling it the hill the White
House wants to die on. This is Operation Metro
Surge. It's moved way beyond a protest. It's
a standoff, a really dangerous one. You have
a direct conflict between federal power, meaning
IC, and state resistance from Governor Tim Walz
and Mayor Jacob Frey. And the escalation is what's
terrifying. I mean, the reports say the White
House is preparing to send 1 ,500 regular troops.
Not just agents, but actual soldiers. That is
the critical red line. because Governor Walz
has already mobilized the National Guard, supposedly
to protect citizens from federal overreach. So
you have the Guard on one side and potentially
federal troops on the other. The fear is that
they're trying to provoke a situation where they
can invoke the Insurrection Act. I want to zoom
in on the human element here, because the legal
stuff can kind of sanitize what's happening on
the ground. The sources mention this term, Kavanaugh
stops. Right. It's a colloquial term. What does
that actually mean? It comes from a Supreme Court
concurrence by Justice Kavanaugh. And the argument
is basically that the border isn't a line on
a map anymore. The border is everywhere. Oh.
So ICE should have the same power to stop and
detain people in Minneapolis as they do on the
Rio Grande. So stopping people without reasonable
suspicion, just profiling. That's it. And the
examples in the source material are. They're
vivid. Did you see the incident at the church?
Yeah, I read that. Protesters go into a church
where an ICE officer, who's also a pastor, is
preaching. Normally you get kicked out, right?
Fine. Maybe. But here... The DOJ is launching
a full civil rights investigation against the
protesters. The entire weight of the federal
government. And it's not just protesters. Don
Lemon, the journalist, he was arrested just covering
it. That's a signal. It's a huge signal. You're
telling any witnesses, look away. But the story
that really got me the one that was just physically
uncomfortable to read was the case of Abkhadir
Noor. That was a harrowing read. Can you walk
us through that one? Because I think people need
to visualize what this actually looks like. OK,
so you have to picture it. It's January in Minnesota.
It is freezing. Abkhadir Noor is an American
citizen of Somali descent. He's driving with
his kids in the car. OK. He sees icy agents dragging
two Latino men out of a car on the side of the
road. His instinct is to witness. He pulls over.
He gets out. He has no weapon. He's telling everyone
to remain calm, just trying to deescalate. And
for doing that... For that, they threw him onto
the frozen asphalt. They shackled him. And while
he's on the ground in front of his family, they
taunted him. The transcript quotes them using
slurs, saying Somali should go back home. And
he was released with no charges. Hours later,
no charges. It's not law enforcement, it's intimidation.
It sounds like a gang. It does. And legally,
they're actually hitting a wall. A judge, Catherine
Menendez, issued an injunction saying you cannot
retaliate against peaceful observers. The response
is to send 1 ,500 troops. It feels like they
just don't care about the courts. The analysis
suggests they might actually want a confrontation.
If one federal agent gets hurt, that's the justification
they need for the Insurrection Act. To override
the governor, the courts, everything. Everything.
But the resistance in Minneapolis is getting
smarter. They're becoming incredibly disciplined.
They use code words like calling, tailing ICE
agents commuting. They organize cop watch shifts.
It's like the whole city is mobilized. It's incredible
resilience, but it just creates this insane split
screen stock market at all time highs and a major
American city under what the mayor calls an occupying
force. And speaking of that split screen, let's
talk about who is profiting. Because the economy
might be quad one, but there's this section in
our sources called the grift report Yeah, and
it suggests the lines between public service
and private profit have just been erased. This
is where the lack of oversight is just glaring.
The sources highlight Donald Trump's financial
disclosures for 2025. He's been busy trading.
Extremely busy. One hundred and ninety one transactions.
That's a trade almost every other day. But it's
not the volume, it's the timing. He bought millions
in stock in Warner Bros, Discovery and Netflix.
Right before a massive merger that needs his
administration's approval to go through. I mean,
if a CEO did that, it would be insider trading.
If a Democrat did that, the source points out
the reaction would be apocalyptic. impeachment
earrings, everything. But now, it's just another
Tuesday. But even that, it kind of pales in comparison
to this thing called the Board of Peace. This
sounds like it's from a movie. It really does.
It's a proposed body to oversee Gaza for the
next three years. And the key detail is they'll
govern the region without any Palestinian input.
None. Zero. And the list of members is wild.
You've got Tony Blair, Javier Malé from Argentina,
Jared Kushner and the billionaire Mark Rowan.
A very strange mix. But the detail that really
made my jaw drop is the buy -in, the entry fee.
What is it? The sources claim that for any nation
that wasn't invited but wants a seat at the table,
the fee is one billion dollars. A billion dollars
to sit on a board overseeing a war zone. Where
does that money go? That's the question. Does
it go to humanitarian aid? Yeah. Or does it go
to what the source cynically calls the Trump
International Resort, Gaza? It's pay to play
on a geopolitical scale. Exactly. It frames foreign
policy as a transaction. And when you see it
like that, that everything is just real estate,
the next story makes a lot more sense. We have
to talk about Greenland. Part two of the Greenland
saga. I thought this was a meme from 2019. I
thought it was a joke. He's back at it. And this
time, it's in writing, an open letter to the
Norwegian prime minister. And he calls him Dear
Jonas. Dear Jonas. And in the letter, he claims
to have stopped eight wars plus arrests, all
caps, and basically demands that NATO do something
for the US by facilitating the transfer of Greenland.
True. Not by. Just hand it over. And Stephen
Miller went on TV to justify this. He says it's
about polar competition. His argument is that
if you don't inhabit and defend a territory,
you forfeit it. He claims Denmark isn't, so the
US should take it. It's like Manifest Destiny
for the Arctic. Yeah. And Ted Cruz is on TV comparing
it to the Louisiana Purchase. Which is just a
historically illiterate comparison. France wanted
to sell. Denmark has said very loudly it is not
for sale. The source quotes Francis Fukuyama
on this, the political scientist. Yes, and he
had a very strong warning. He said, this isn't
a real estate deal, it's imperialism. And appeasement
won't work. If Europe gives him a little piece
of land, he'll just come back for more. He made
an interesting point about modern warfare too.
A fascinating point. He says, you can't just
buy a country anymore because resistance is too
easy. He mentions suitcase nukes. You can't just
plant a flag and say mine when the locals have
modern technology. OK, so let's just pause. We
have. Deep unrest in an American city. A board
of peace that costs a billion dollars to join.
A diplomatic crisis over Greenland. And yet,
the Dow is up. The VIX is down. Which brings
us back to the American voter. With all this
happening, what are people actually afraid of?
This was the Gallup data. And for me, this was
the biggest aha moment. Yeah. Because the old
story is Republicans hate big government. Democrats
hate big business. Right. But that script has
completely flipped. For decades, the number one
threat for Americans was big government. That's
changing. Drastically. Fear of big government
has dropped 15 points. At the same time, fear
of big business has surged by 16 points. That
is a massive swing. It is. And when you add big
tech as an option, 32 % of people say that is
the biggest threat, and it crosses party lines.
So the populist right and the left are actually
meeting in the middle on this. Exactly. So even
with a Quad One market, the average person is—
at the Warner Bros. deal or the Board of Peace
buy -ins and thinking the problem isn't just
government, it's that government and corporations
are the same thing now. which connects directly
to the Free America Walkout happening today.
Right. January 20th, 2 .000 p .m. local time.
And the sources are realistic. They don't expect
millions of people. But they make an interesting
point about the regularization of resistance.
Yes. Dana Fisher, the expert on protest movements,
she says this is a marathon, not a sprint. The
fact that these things are planned, that Minneapolis
has these cop watch networks, it shows resistance
is becoming part of daily life. It's not just
a one day No, it's becoming a lifestyle for a
lot of people. So let's try to tie this all together.
One year in, we have a booming economy that is
masking this deep, deep structural instability.
And we're seeing a test of two different systems.
The source has made a really sharp comparison
to China. How about how they handle descent?
Right. In China, the government controls everything.
The courts, the police, the media. They can stifle
dissent very efficiently because the apparatus
is competent in total. OK. The Trump administration
seems to want that level of control. sending
troops, demanding Greenland, ignoring conflicts
of interest. But they don't have the system to
back it up. Exactly. They don't have the competence
or the total control that someone like Xi Jinping
has. They have Judge Menendez blocking them in
court. They have decentralized protesters. And
they have a public that is more and more skeptical
of corporate power. So what we're left with is
this messy chaotic attempt at authoritarianism
clashing with a very resilient civil society.
And the trillion -dollar question is this. Will
the Quad One money be enough to keep the lid
on it? Can you buy peace with a high stock market
while you break democratic norms? The Gallup
data suggests that maybe the answer is no. That
as people get more afraid of big business, that
economic shield starts to crack. It is going
to be a very long year. Well, we will be here
to track it. Thank you for unpacking this with
us. It's a lot to process from the ticker tape
to the police tape. Always a pleasure to connect
the dots, even when the picture is a little frightening.
And to you listening, thanks for joining this
deep dive. Keep your eyes on the VIX and keep
watching Minneapolis. We'll see you next time.