Today in Politics, Bulletin 309. 2/16/26

… Marco Rubio was in Hungary campaigning for Viktor Orban less than 2 months before their elections, where Orban is trailing in the polls to Peter Magyar: “We are entering the golden era of relations between our two countries. I don’t think it’s any mystery and shouldn’t be a mystery to anyone here how the president feels about you. I can say to you with confidence that Trump is deeply committed to your success. We want this country to do well. It’s in our national interest, especially as long as you’re the PM and the leader of this country.”

… Historian Anne Applebaum talked about the Ukraine negotiations with Fareed Zakaria: “About these negotiations between Witkoff and Putin’s moneyman - you hear some fantastic tales. Zelensky says that the Russians are proposing a $12 trillion economic package. I don’t even understand what that means, because Russia’s GDP is $2.5 trillion, so this would be an economic package to America that is 5 times the total economy of Russia.”

… Applebaum: “It’s an absurd amount of money, and some of the deals that we’ve heard about that have been leaked from the conversations between Witkoff and Dmitriev are also pretty absurd. The US had been investing in Russia for many years, starting back in the 90s. So we know what kind of deals are available, and all kinds of businessmen who’ve worked in Russia over the past decade have been saying, ‘Don’t be swindled, they can’t provide what they’re offering, no deal in Russia is as good as you think it is.’”

… But unfortunately, Steve Witkoff is not somebody who has any experience with Russia or obviously any experience with diplomacy. And I do fear that he has an idea that there will be some kind of US-Russia pact that he might benefit or his son might benefit or Trump’s family might benefit or that people around them will benefit. It’s a really disturbing prospect, or should be, for all Americans, the idea that US foreign policy is being conducted by people who are not acting in the interest of the US or of our allies or of world peace, but are really acting in the private interests of the people doing the negotiation.”

… “And of course, Putin knows that Trump is vulnerable to that kind of offer and that kind of deal and that’s why he’s continuing to make those suggestions. I just hope that there are enough people in the WH who will be realistic enough to know to refuse them.”

… Zelensky on Trump’s statement that they don’t want to make concessions for a peace deal: “When you want to get compromises from people who are under attacks and who are not aggressors – what do you give them? They don’t trust anybody. They don’t trust anybody because we had Budapest Memorandum. That was security guarantees. We gave up our nuclear and other weapons. A lot of aircraft – dozens of jets. We gave them up and received security guarantees of sovereignty and independence.”

… “In the end, we don’t have those weapons, and we don’t have security guarantees. Nobody saved our independence. And that’s why it’s understandable why people have no trust. They don’t live in a fantasy world. They are realistic, and they lost a lot: their families, their houses, and their way of life. That’s why people have to see what the security guarantees will look like.

… “What if Russia comes? Many of them aren’t asking, ‘What if they come?’ They are asking, ‘What will happen when they come again?’ Because they are sure that the Russians will come again. And they simply say, ‘No, we will not run away. We just want to hear what it means. What is the price? What do the security guarantees from the world leader – the USA – mean?’”

… “Our American friends, they are preparing security guarantees. But they said – first this swap of territories, and then security guarantees. I think – first, security guarantees. We will not give up our territories because we are ready for compromise. What kind of compromise are we ready for? Not for the compromise that gives Russia the opportunity to recover quickly and come again and occupy us. This is an important thing.”

… French entrepreneur Arnaud Bertrand, who writes about economics and geopolitics: “Finally got to read Rubio’s speech in Munich: it is one of the most revisionist and imperialist speeches I’ve ever seen a senior American official make, and that’s saying something. The man literally laments the outcome of WW2 because it marked the end of the era during which ‘the West had been expanding’, a ‘path’ he ‘hopes we walk together again.’”

… “And just to ensure you’re clear about what he means: he wants to restore the building of ‘vast empires extending across the globe’ and blames ‘anti-colonial uprisings’ for what they did to ‘the great Western empires.’ He also says that ‘we cannot continue’ to allow ‘abstractions of international law’ get in the way of US interests.”

… “Basically the man is openly saying that the whole post-colonial order was a mistake and he’s calling on Europe to share the spoils of building a new one. Which is quite a pitch for an American to make given that their own country itself was born from revolt against European colonialism, but I guess expecting the Trump admin to understand their own history is too tall an order.”

… Former Sunday Times (UK) editor Andrew Neil: “Trump has now been in charge of Venezuela (his words) for 6 weeks. Around 700 political prisoners remain incarcerated in appalling conditions by the regime. Of the 400 released many are still being harassed/monitored by the secret police. Over to you, Mr President.”

… CBS: “Trump’s longtime confidant Thomas Barrack, now serving as US ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria, was in regular, close contact with Jeffrey Epstein for years after Epstein’s 2008 conviction for soliciting a minor, a CBS News analysis of over 100 texts and email exchanges from the newly released DOJ documents shows.”

… “The correspondence places Barrack, a globe-trotting billionaire, among a circle of wealthy and influential figures who maintained social contact with Epstein even as his criminal history became widely known. Their relationship continued even after Barrack became a prolific fundraiser for Trump’s 2016 campaign, and later, led his inaugural committee and became a frequent presence in the WH.”

… “At times, Epstein appeared to regard Barrack as a potential conduit for passing information to Trump, though available records show the communication going only in one direction. There’s no indication Epstein’s communications were passed on to Trump or that Trump communicated to Epstein through Barrack.”

… Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) on MS NOW: "If Trump wants to put his name on everything, as he does, then let's start calling this the Trump-Epstein files"

… Guardian: “Two weeks after a trove of files revealed extensive – and inappropriate – communications between Jeffrey Epstein and a recently named CBS News contributor, the longevity expert Peter Attia, the network appears to have settled on keeping him. CBS News has been silent about Attia, and declined to comment when asked. Attia is one of the 19 on-air contributors that editor-in-chief Bari Weiss said she was ‘so excited’ to announce during an all-staff meeting.”

… A search of Attia’s name in DOJ’s Epstein files database returns 1,838 results. This is an email from Attia to Epstein’s assistant in 2016: “I go into JE withdrawal when I don’t see him.”

… A 2015 email Attia sent to Epstein: “You know the biggest problem with becoming friends with you? The life you lead is so outrageous, and yet I can’t tell a soul … ”

… One CBS staffer: “Everyone internally unofficially concluded he was staying as of about a week ago.”

… A second CBS staffer: “We’re pissed off about it.”

… House Maj. Whip Tom Emmer was asked on Fox about one of Dems’ concerns about the SAVE Act: "Let's not treat women - they are brilliant, they are smart - why do you suggest that they don't know how to prove their citizenship by bringing a passport or a birth certificate or a marriage certificate? This is all nonsense."

… My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell was asked on NewsNation why his campaign for MN governor spent $187,000 out of the $350,000 his campaign has raised so far buying copies of his own book: Q - “Your campaign took in $350k contributions in just under a month, but filings show your campaign spent more than half of that money on your own self-published memoir. Is that a wise use of campaign spending?”

… Lindell: “Yeah, we got them for a very good price. What you can do is instead of paying for flyers and stuff, we have to go around and do debates for about a month-and-a-half, these debates, and we gave out the books instead of giving them a little flyer about me. This is my memoir, this is my autobiography, and showing these people who I am.”

… Q - “Do you plan to spend any more campaign funds on your own book? Lindell: Absolutely.”

… NYT: “The Canadian govt, faced with increasing hostility from the Trump admin, plans to divert billions of dollars in military spending it long gave to US defense companies and direct it instead to domestic manufacturers. PM Mark Carney’s wholesale expansion of Canadian military spending was prompted by pressure from Trump, but with relations between the longstanding allies deteriorating, American companies will no longer reap the benefit.”

… The new defense industry strategy, which is to be announced this week, is the latest step by Carney to distance his country from the US following Trump’s decision to impose tariffs against several key Canadian industries. Carney promised to raise Canada’s military spending to levels not seen since the Korean War. Canada has agreed to raise its military spending to NATO’s new target of 5% of GDP by 2035.”

… “But Carney has emphasized that Canada will no longer acquire 70-75% of its weapons from the US, as has been historically the case. The two nations’ armed forces are closely entwined and NORAD, the North American air defense system, is led jointly by American and Canadian commanders.”

… “Under the new policy, the govt plans to increase the revenues of Canadian military suppliers by 240% by directing 70% of military spending to domestic companies and increasing arms exports from Canada by 50%. The govt predicts that its domestic purchasing plan will create 125,000 additional jobs in the sector over the next decade.”

… Guardian: “John Paulson, a hedge fund billionaire and one of Trump’s earliest Wall Street backers, is planning to offshore an Ohio manufacturing plant to China despite heavy pushback from employees. Workers at the plant call the move ‘a slap in our face’, after Paulson vocally defended domestic manufacturing, and are fighting to keep the plant open.”

… “Conn Selmer, the largest US manufacturer of brass and orchestra instruments, told the union it planned to offshore most work at its Eastlake, OH, plant to China by the end of June 2026, eliminating 150 jobs. UAW Local 2359, which represents the 150 employees, said workers were informed of the closing when it first sat down to bargain over their new union contract last month.”

… UAW 2359 president Robert Hines: “We came in with a full proposal, fully prepared to bargain, and they started off with a presentation of telling us how bad we were doing.” The company told them there would be no bargaining and the plant would be closing. Union workers say Conn Selmer opened a facility in China last year and gradually shifted their workload to that plant, though workers were told the new facility would not affect workload in OH.”

… “A longtime Trump donor, Paulson served on Trump’s economic policy team during his first presidential campaign and raised $50.5m for the president at his Palm Beach home in April 2024. Paulson to CNBC in Sept 2024 “We can’t have American producers closing American factories and offshoring. We need to protect American jobs and protect American manufacturing.”

With Congress still on recess, the federal holiday, and Trump on another 4-day golf vacation in Palm Beach, today’s Bulletin has more foreign policy than usual - but that is also because there is a lot going on overseas right now. There is still lots of domestic news in the rest of this Bulletin though, as I pride myself on being able to find key nuggets of news on these kinds of days and usually work extra hard to find them.

If you missed yesterday’s Bulletin, which was rather long and sprawling, you can find it here.

… AP on GA Gov. Brian Kemp’s endorsed US senate candidate against Jon Ossoff: “Lots of candidates pitch themselves as political outsiders. Derek Dooley goes a step further. Not only is the former football coach running for the first time, he says he did not vote for nearly two decades. He did not vote when Trump was first elected president in 2016. Nor did he vote in 2020, when Trump lost to Joe Biden.”

… “Dooley is the son of legendary Univ. of GA football coach Vince Dooley. He coached the Univ. of Tennessee but was fired after a losing record. He then worked as