EGGS OVER SLEAZY

Donald Trump promised to start lowering prices on Day 1. So much for promises kept!

• President Trump made plenty of political hay on the campaign trail about inflation, posturing as if it would be easy-peasy to send prices back down as soon as he got into office. Lo and behold, after that empty rhetoric helped him win, the picture has changed — and so has his rhetoric. Fresh economic data show that overall prices rose 3 percent in January. Eggs are up so much (15 percent!) that they’re attracting criminals. A batch of 100,000 organic eggs were stolen by bandits in Pennsylvania last week. You can almost hear the crooks telling each other: “Forget the jewels, those bad boys are free range!”

• Trump’s team seems to be reading the room and taking notes. Americans are still grumbling about this issue: One recent poll showed 66 percent of Americans say the Trump administration hasn’t focused enough on lowering prices. Vice President JD Vance lamely groused last month: “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

• Trump, of course, resorted to casting blame. “BIDEN INFLATION UP!” he screamed Truth Social. He then proposed a move that would drive UP inflation more decisively than almost anything else federal authorities could do: lowering interest rates. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell brushed off Trump’s idea, telling lawmakers this week that the U.S. shouldn’t act quickly. “People can be confident that we’ll continue to keep our heads down, do our work, make our decisions based on what’s happening in the economy,” Powell said during a hearing.

Surprise, surprise: Attempting to buy Greenland doesn’t make eggs cheaper. Trump may be whistling past the political graveyard by failing to address this issue. Just ask his predecessor, former President Joe Biden.

• Many people believe Democrats lost the election because they touted a different “economic reality” than working-class people. Former President Joe Biden (and later Kamala Harris) tried to convince people the the economy was strong — and sure, inflation fell, jobs were added, and the country avoided a recession. But those effects were only read about in the media. They weren’t felt by voters at the grocery store.

• Biden may have been too quick to use unorthodox policies to super-charge the economy in the aftermath of the pandemic, argues Jason Furman, who chaired the White House Council of Economic Advisers under the Obama administration. The economy did rebound quickly, but the price was an inflation spike, he argues. “The administration set out to bring back vigorous government involvement across the economy … even if it entailed unprecedented deficits,” Furman writes. Biden’s gamble “fell considerably short of its lofty goals.”

• Average people are historically better at perceiving how the economy is doing than government statistics, according to research conducted by Eugene Ludwig, former U.S. comptroller of the currency. Sometimes the stats are questionable: Biden took pride in record-low 4.2 percent unemployment, though that included homeless people who work part-time and make under $25,000 per year, Ludwig wrote this week. “The percentage is actually 23.7 percent. In other words, nearly one of every four workers is functionally unemployed in America today — hardly something to celebrate,” he said. (That metric is also at an all-time low, however).

The point is: The numbers don’t lie, and Trump owns them now. The price of eggs is on Trump now — and he’s got nowhere to hide.

VLADENTINE’S DAY

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Donald Trump is rekindling his bromance with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

The pair spoke for the first (known) time since Trump has taken office today. The big news: Both men agreed that they want to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to Trump.

“We agreed to work together, very closely, including visiting each other’s nations,” he wrote on Truth Social. “We have also agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately.” Putin invited Trump to Moscow, Russian officials said, and they agreed to set up a “personal meeting.”

“We expect he’ll come here and I’ll go there, and we’re gonna meet also probably in Saudi Arabia the first time,” Trump later told reporters.

Ukraine seems more ready to make concessions than it previously has been: President Volodymyr Zelenskyy offered to exchange land to end the war. Today, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the U.S. won’t guarantee Ukraine a spot in NATO after its war with Russia. That’s a major shift since the Biden administration, which pledged to eventually admit Ukraine into the defense alliance.

Another win for Putin came from the Senate, which confirmed former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to be America’s next top spy, leading 17 intelligence agencies. She’s been criticized for making sympathetic comments toward Russia and saying that the “spirit of Aloha” is needed to end the war in Ukraine.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was the sole Republican to vote against her. Who would’ve thought he’d find a piece of his backbone, which presumably he misplaced sometime in the 19th century.

NEWS NEWS NEWS

A federal judge lifted a freeze on Donald Trump’s deferred resignation offer to federal employees, as part of his plan to slash the federal workforce. The plan can proceed, the judge ruled, because unions that sued to stop the effort weren’t directly affected by it and lack proper standing.

Trump’s Department of Veterans’ Affairs is walking back its hiring freeze for some 350 positions in the Midwest, according to an email obtained by What A Day. It’s a blow to Trump and the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency’s” dreams of slashing the federal workforce. Turns out, you need nurses, pharmacists, and people to fix the toilets! Kind of like what everyone has known all along!

Acting President Elon Musk’s Tesla is set to win the largest State Department contract of the year, worth $400 million — for its “Armored Tesla.” Still TBD on what the fuck that exactly is, but I don’t like the sound of it.

The House DOGE subcommittee held its first hearing today. Known psycho Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA) repeatedly compared federal overspending… to slavery? The hearing was unproductive, and MTG spewed lies and Democrats railed against Elon Musk, the unelected DOGE mastermind, who wasn’t there. It wasn’t even entertaining, in the messed-up, “Real Housewives” kinda way that MTG’s Capitol Hill appearances can sometimes mirror.

Ford CEO Jim Farley said there could be layoffs at the American car manufacturer if Trump ends subsidies for electric vehicles. And those Canadian and Mexican tariffs? They could “blow a hole in the U.S. industry that we have never seen,” Farley said. Sorry, American Auto, the Business Genius is hard at work!

Eight inspectors general filed a lawsuit today alleging that their termination by the Trump administration was illegal. Keep ‘em comin!

MAGA Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) sent out a fundraising email with a petition to deport Somali American Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), a progressive star (and American citizen) who is often subjected to racist attacks from Republicans. “Gill’s attempt to clout chase by threatening to deport a legal US citizen because you disagree with them is directly out of Donald Trump’s fascist playbook,” Omar said in a statement. Keep fighting the good fight.

Pro-Trump Sheriff Chad Bianco plans to run for California governor against Gavin Newsom in 2026. He’s a MAGA grifter and a huge proponent of imposing harsher penalties on drug and theft crimes.

ESPN host Stephen A. Smith said he would consider running for president if he didn’t have to campaign. “If you tell me that I could catapult to the White House, and I could be in a position to affect millions upon millions of lives, not just in America, but the world over, yeah, that’s something that I would entertain,” Smith said. Okay thanks so much for your interest, Stephen! We’ll get back to you.

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