Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg mocked current Treasury Secretary and former hedge fund manager Scott Bessent for his casual suggestion that retirees own dozens of houses.
Bessent, whose estimated net worth is in the hundreds of millions, was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, talking with Fox host Maria Bartiromo about how the administration will protect “mom and pop” landlords from large investment groups.
“Someone, maybe your parents for their retirement have bought 5, 10, 12 homes,” Bessent said, describing those “mom and pop” landlords.
Good news for the forgotten man. The mom and pop real estate investor who has purchased 12 homes can breathe easy, the Treasury Secretary is looking out for you. https://t.co/3y0O5oLpMA
Buttigieg brought up how Republicans in the Senate aren’t passing legislation to extend tax credits for certain health care plans into the new year, which means that many people will see their premiums increase dramatically. He suggested that the president could push Senate Republicans to vote for such legislation, but has not yet done so.
“Again, the president could dramatically lower health insurance premiums TODAY with one phone call to Senate leadership, but he refuses. Meanwhile, at Davos….” Buttigieg wrote on social media, sharing the video of Bessent.
Again, the president could dramatically lower health insurance premiums TODAY with one phone call to Senate leadership, but he refuses. Meanwhile, at Davos….
A Somali American woman who voted for Donald Trump in 2024 because she thought he would only attack LGBTQ+ people – and not people like her – now regrets voting for the GOP for the first time in her life.
“I feel as though the weapon I built is coming to kill me and my people,” clothing store owner Sahra Sharif told the Minnesota Reformer, explaining that she voted for Trump because he was “against the LGBTQ agenda.”
The mall her business is in gets few customers, and she only opens her store for several hours a day, hoping to earn enough to pay the rent, as Minneapolis is overrun with ICE agents who have taken to detaining any person of color they find in public alone.
“In my family, people rarely go outside unless it’s absolutely necessary; and if anyone does, it is considered a reckless thing to do,” she said. Several of her family members have been arrested in the ICE raids, including her son, who was deported to Somalia. Sharif herself is a U.S. citizen.
“Would you believe if I told you I voted for this man?” Sharif said. She then recounted how that happened. She didn’t vote in the past, but in 2024, she was visited by some volunteers for the Trump-Vance campaign who told her that “Trump would be good for business and against the LGBTQ agenda.”
“I was immediately hooked,” Sharif said, and she voted for Trump.
But now she has regrets.
“I never thought the man I put in office would come for my family, make me financially struggle, and cause me so much fear that I carry my passport when I go to the bathroom,” she said.
While Trump has expressed contempt for numerous immigrant groups, perhaps none has been the target of his disdain more than Somali Americans recently. This past December, he ranted at a Cabinet meeting about Somali Americans – and Somali American Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) in particular – calling them “garbage.”
“They contribute nothing. I don’t want them in our country, I’ll be honest with you,” Trump said. “We’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country.”
“These are people who do nothing but complain,” he complained. “They complain, and from where they came from, they got nothing… When they come from hell, and they complain and do nothing but b**ch, we don’t want them in our country. Let them go back to where they came from and fix it.”
“They all ought to get the hell out of here, they’re bad for our country,” he said.
He said that ICE has “bad public relations people” because they aren’t doing enough to make Americans dislike Somali people. He held up binders labeled “ACCOMPLISHMENTS,” and many of them that he read were just attacks on the Somali American population. He repeated exaggerated claims about Somali people committing fraud and even repeated racist tropes about Somali people having innately low IQs.
“Nineteen billion dollars at a minimum is missing in Minnesota, given to a large degree by Somalians. They’ve taken it,” he said. ”Somalians, can you imagine? And they don’t do it — a lot of very low IQ people. They don’t do it. Other people work it out and they get them money and they go out and buy Mercedes Benzes.”
Also on Tuesday, Trump shared a video on social media of a podcaster who claimed that Somali people “have an average IQ of 68,” a claim that Muslim American organizations have condemned as racist.
One 2024 Bayan Research Center survey of Somali Americans nationwide found that 23% planned to vote for Trump, while 55% planned to vote for Kamala Harris.
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Following a trip to Denmark, Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE) highlighted the dangerous effects of President Donald Trump’s threats to invade Greenland.
As the Washington Bladereports, over the weekend, McBride — the first out transgender person to serve in Congress — was one of 11 members of Congress who traveled to Copenhagen, where, as she told MeidasTouch this week, she met with the leaders of Greenland and other European countries.
In a statement, McBride noted that the purpose of the bipartisan delegation — which included Sens. Chris Coons (D-DE.), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), as well as Reps. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Gregory Meeks (D-NY), Madeleine Dean (D-PA), Don Bacon (R-NE), and Sarah Jacobs (D-CA) — was meant “to reaffirm our support in Congress for our NATO ally, Denmark,” according to the Blade.
“At this critical juncture for our countries, our message was clear as members of Congress: we value the U.S.-Denmark partnership, the NATO alliance, and the right of Greenlanders to self-determination,” McBride wrote in a Sunday Facebook post.
The trip came as Trump ramped up his calls for the U.S. to take control of Greenland. In recent weeks, the president has signaled his willingness to use military force to annex the Danish territory.
Over the weekend, PBS Newsreported on a leaked text exchange with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre in which Trump said he “no longer feel[s] an obligation to think purely of Peace” since he was not awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, while reiterating his claims that Denmark cannot protect Greenland from Russia and China. (Støre confirmed the message on Monday.)
As The New York Times notes, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also suggested during a Sunday appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press that the U.S. could take Greenland by force.
However, according to the Times, Pentagon officials said Tuesday that they have not been instructed to plan an invasion. And while he continued to demand control of Greenland during his Wednesday speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump said the U.S. would not take the territory by force, the Times reports.
But in her interview with MeidasTouch, McBride highlighted the effects Trump’s bluster has already had, nonetheless.
“What people here at home have to understand is, it’s easy to turn on the news and look at all of this and just dismiss it as political games and traditional Trump saber rattling,” she told the outlet. “[But] this is existential for the people of Greenland, for the people of Denmark. The fear is palpable. Kids are not sleeping in Greenland because of their fear that the United States will invade. This mere discussion is having an effect.”
McBride: This is existential for the people of Greenland and Denmark. Kids are not sleeping in Greenland because of their fear that the U.S. will invade. pic.twitter.com/2UTd6O27Pz
Indeed, amid Trump’s threats, Denmark and eight other U.S. NATO allies — including Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands, and the U.K. — deployed troops to Greenland over the weekend. Trump retaliated by threatening to impose steep tariffs on the countries, leading global markets to plummet on Tuesday.
McBride added that Trump’s manufactured crisis is also tarnishing the U.S.’s reputation.
“Denmark historically has had some of the most pro-American sentiment among the public there. That has dropped from above 80 percent to single digits because of this administration’s reckless, cruel, and frankly stupid — as our Republican colleagues have said — stupid approach to trying to seize Greenland,” she said, likely referring to Tillis’s recent speech from the Senate floor.
McBride: Denmark historically has had some of the most pro-American public sentiment. That has dropped from above 80% to single digits because of this administration’s reckless, cruel, and frankly—
“There is nothing that we could seek economically or militarily that Greenland and Denmark are not willing to provide us if we simply ask,” McBride said. “There is no reason for us to seize Greenland and doing so would fundamentally undermine our NATO alliance, which has been the greatest force for peace and security for 80 years.”
McBride also refuted Trump’s recent claim on Truth Social that NATO would not come to the United States’ aid if we were attacked.
“That is not only untrue, it is historically inaccurate,” she told MeidasTouch. “The only time that Article 5, our collective defense, has been invoked by NATO is after 9/11 in defense of the United States. And do you know which country in Europe lost more people per capita than the United States in Afghanistan in defense of under NATO – was Denmark.”
McBride: The president said that NATO would not be there for us if we were attacked. The only time Article 5 has been invoked was after 9/11, in defense of the U.S. Do you know which country in Europe lost more people per capita than the U.S.? Denmark. pic.twitter.com/KORfGWZQXM
A 28-year-old Indianapolis woman will plead guilty after threatening to kill anti-trans Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC).
Shayla Addison has been charged with two counts of Influencing a Federal Official by Threat after sending multiple texts to Mace’s campaign number that included threats like, “Come outside b**ch we’ll kill you” and “Tread lightly,” according to a press release from the Southern District of Indiana U.S. Attorney’s Office.
“By sending the messages, Addison intended to retaliate against Victim 1 on account of Victim 1’s performance of official duties,” the release explains.
Addison also emailed Mace, saying, “We will kill you and blow that whole building up b**ch come outside,” and wrote threatening comments on her Instagram such as, “I hope you got mace… cause you gone need it” and “Shut up h** I’ll kill you.” Addison made all of the threats on the same day, according to the release.
The release did not name the lawmaker, but the South Carolina Daily Gazette reported that text message screenshots shared by a Mace spokesperson matched the quotes from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Court records examined by the Gazette found that Addison has agreed to plead guilty. She faces up to 10 years in federal prison, though officials have reportedly agreed to recommend a sentence on the “low end” of that.
Mace recently lamented having to adjust her life due to the many threats she gets. “I’m not able to move around freely anymore, and it’s troubling, but that’s the world that we live in,” she said, adding, “We all have the right to have our viewpoints, but we don’t have the right to bring harm to somebody.”
“I have had to change everything about the way that I live,” Mace continued. “I basically live in hiding… I can’t run errands. Life is just different, and it’s difficult.”
She then declared, “No one should live in fear because of their political or religious beliefs.”
Mace, however, has made it clear she does not believe transgender people have the same right to live without fear or threat. The self-described “proud transphobe” has built her political brand around vicious anti-trans rhetoric, including publicly bullying her trans colleague, Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE).
Mace has called trans people “the most egregious, most vile, violent people on earth,” adding, “They are mentally ill and should be in a straitjacket with a hard-steel lock on it.”
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Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province in Western China and the country’s fourth largest city, has for years been referred to as “Gaydu” by Chinese millennials wise to the cosmopolitan city’s reputation as China’s “gay capital”.
Recent detentions are evidence that the government’s tolerance for Chengdu’s notoriety as a gay hub is fraying.
Two Chinese men who allegedly produced and shared an AI-manipulated photo of two “gay pandas” from Chengdu — known as China’s “panda capital”, as well — have been detained, the Washington Post reports.
Chinese officials call the arrests part of a crackdown on attempts to “maliciously associate” gayness with certain Chinese cities.
The detainees, 29 and 33 years old, are accused of posting the satirical photo as a news report on social media, using an official government report as the source. It showed one male panda mounting another, with a caption that read, “Chengdu: Two male Sichuan giant pandas successfully mate for the first time without intervention.”
Local police said in a statement that the two suspects were detained and their social media accounts suspended. They accused the men of “spreading… fake news” that “triggered a flood of misinterpretations, disrupted the order of cyberspace, and caused adverse social impact.”
The arrests follow at least two other similar detentions addressing activity that allegedly tarnishes municipalities with a gay reputation.
A 25-year-old man from Sichuan was detained last week for posting multiple videos that “insinuated” men in Chengdu lack masculinity and “stigmatized the male population in Chengdu,” according to a statement from the Chengdu Public Security Bureau issued January 17.
A 23-year-old man from the Eastern province of Shandong, known on social media for his street interviews queerbaiting male pedestrians and subway passengers for clicks, was also apprehended, according to state media reports.
“Homosexuality is not universally accepted in China, but we cannot say being gay or claiming to be gay is wrong,” said Wang Xuetang, a lawyer with J. Tongue Law Office in Shenzhen, just outside Hong Kong.
China officially dropped homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in 2001.
Authorities appear to be trying to erase Chengdu’s unofficial queer capital status by other means, he said.
The Chengdu cases were defined as “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” a vaguely defined criminal offense that has often been used to control speech and deter dissent, Wang explained.
“This case has been described as a stigmatization of Chengdu, because many netizens joked that homosexuality is so widespread in the city that even pandas there turned gay.”
The real danger, he said, “is in the police drawing conclusions from online reactions — not strictly from the content of the posts — as evidence for offenses.”
China has exerted slow and steady pressure on the LGBTQ+ community in the last several years, while stopping short of the draconian measures of other authoritarian regimes, like Russia. The moves coincide with Xi Jinping’s ascension to power in 2015.
Last year, the country’s main internet regulator and censorship authority ordered Apple to remove two popular gay dating apps from its App Store in China, including Blued, with an estimated 56 million users. In September, government censors used AI to turn a gay couple straight in the Dave Franco thriller Together.
Two years ago, authorities launched a campaign aimed at erasing the popular “danmei”, or Boys’ Love, erotic fiction genre, with the detention of hundreds of writers, most of them young women. They’ve been accused of “producing and distributing obscene material” under China’s pornography law, which targets “explicit descriptions of gay sex or other sexual perversions.”
In 2023, Chinese authorities shut down one of the last, most visible signs of LGBTQ+ activism in China: the LGBT Center in Beijing.
“There used to be a vibrant gay scene in Chengdu, and LGBTQ people there were highly visible and welcomed,” said Kenneth Cheung, a Hong Kong-based activist and founder of LGBTQ+ rights group Rainbow China, which has been banned from organizing in the country.
“Now,” he said, “that culture increasingly faces challenges.”
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Ellen DeGeneres is suffering the MAGA-fueled consequences of publicly condemning the death of Renee Good, the unarmed protester shot at point-blank range by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis two weeks ago.
DeGeneres, 67, took to Instagram on Sunday in support of Becca Good, Renee Good’s wife, reposting her statement following her wife’s killing.
From the moment the shooting occurred, the Trump administration excoriated Good as a “deranged lunatic” bent on a “radical left” agenda to impede ICE in their immigration roundup. “She brought it on herself” was the drumbeat from the White House about Good’s death, ignoring the fact that protesting is not a capital offense.
Trump’s mildly softened tone on the killing after learning that Good’s father is a MAGA supporter only heightened a sense of helplessness in Minneapolis over a capricious authoritarian’s grip on the city.
The avalanche of hate in Ellen’s replies seems to mostly be coming from women, if their handles are any indication. That fact is at odds with polling in the aftermath of the shooting, which shows 61% of women believe the shooting was unjustified, compared with 30% who thought it was.
A majority of all respondents, 53%, say the shooting was unjustified, while a remarkable 82% of respondents said they’d watched a video of the killing.
The poll on January 13 was taken before analysis of video recorded by Ross revealed him saying “f**king bitch” after shooting Good in the head.
DeGeneres uploaded a second post to Instagram that day, an obviously sincere and emotional video expressing her concern for the citizens of Minneapolis, even as she made it — in part — about herself.
“I am so sorry for what is happening in Minneapolis and our country, really, but specifically Minneapolis right now because it’s where I shot my last standup special and everybody there couldn’t have been more lovely,” she said. “I shot it there because they say it’s the happiest city in America. And I found that to be true.”
Added the comedian, “So my thoughts and my prayers are going out to everyone, and I’m proud of everyone who’s protesting peacefully, and I am sorry for anyone who has been hurt, just for protesting, for doing what you should be doing.”
Gay Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made homophobic comments comparing California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) to Patrick Bateman, the fictional serial killer from the 2000 film American Psycho, and Sparkle Beach Ken from the 2023 comedic film Barbie.
“Governor Newsom, who strikes me as Patrick Bateman meets Sparkle Beach Ken, may be the only Californian who knows less about economics than Kamala Harris,” Bessent told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this week, according to The Hill.
Using homophobic rhetoric, Bessent continued, “[Newsom is] here this week with his billionaire sugar daddy, Alex Soros, and Davos is a perfect place for a man who, when everyone else is on lockdown, when he was having people arrested for going to church, he was having $1,000 a night meals at the French Laundry. And I’m sure the California people won’t forget that.”
A “sugar daddy” refers to a wealthy older man who gives money as a form of appreciation to his poorer sexual partners. Bessent’s comments about the French Laundry refer to a November 2020 incident in which Newsom attended a birthday dinner for a lobbyist friend at the luxurious French Laundry restaurant in Napa Valley, in possible violation of the strict COVID-19 safety protocols his administration imposed on the state.
Alexander Soros is the 40-year-old son of Jewish billionaire George Soros. George Soros has become a regular right-wing bogeyman for using his fortune to fund thousands of education, health, human rights, and democracy projects. Right-wingers regularly (and dishonestly) blame George Soros for funding right-wing violence and immigration to the U.S. southern border.
Alex Soros likely gained Bessent’s ire for praising Newsom as “the real star of the 2026 World Economic Forum.”
“So glad he’s here calling out world leaders for believing appeasement works when it comes to Trump,” Alex Soros said of Newsom. “It doesn’t. It only emboldens him to become more chaotic and destructive. World leaders could take a page out of Newsom’s book. It’s time to stand tall, stand firm, and stand united — before it’s too late.”
Newsom panned Trump’s speech to the forum as “remarkably boring” and “insignificant,” and criticized European leaders for “being complicit” and “pathetic” in their response to the president’s threats to take over Greenland.
In seeming retaliation for his comments about Trump, Newsom said he been blocked by White House officials from holding a planned media appearance at the USA House, the official U.S. pavilion at Davos.
“I was told [Newsom] was asked to give a speech on his signature policies, but he’s not speaking. Because what have his economic policies brought? Outward migration from California, a gigantic budget deficit,” Bessent said at the forum. “Shame on him. He is too smug, too self-absorbed, and too economically illiterate to know anything.”
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Los Angeles-based drag queen Lauren Banall is raising thousands for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) after going viral on TikTok for impersonating conservative leader Erika Kirk.
Videos of Banall lip-syncing to Kirk’s voice have garnered over 10.5 million views on TikTok. In the videos, Banall wore a blonde wig, red blazer, and sparkly undershirt, and made comedic facial reactions while lip-syncing to Kirk’s misquoting of a Bible verse and Kirk’s telling conspiracy theorists to “stop” spreading lies about her husband. One video concluded with Banall then joyously dancing to Cascada’s 2009 song “Evacuate The Dancefloor.”
While Banall hasn’t publicly explained the thinking behind her Kirk-inspired character — who she named “Erica Qwerk” — Kirk was criticized for making flashy public appearances shortly after the September 10 murder of her husband Charlie Kirk. In particular, social media commenters criticized Kirk for wearing a sparkly suit and walking onto a stage lit by pyrotechnics at events following her husband’s death.
Charlie Kirk co-founded the young conservative organization Turning Point USA. After his death, Erika Kirk became the organization’s CEO and board chair.
In a follow-up video, Banall told her TikTok followers, “Thank you so much for all of this incredible response… It’s truly overwhelming, and I’ve been thinking, ‘What’s something good we could do with this? What would Turning Point USA do?”
“Monetize,” Banall said before noting that she had resumed her GoFundMe crowdfunding campaign for the ACLU. The campaign’s webpage states, “We’ve re-ignited our Fund Rager page benefitting the ACLU so we can block the BS this next administration is doing in the courts! No kings, no grifters, no ICE! Any amount helps!”
The campaign had raised just over $3,000 as of Wednesday evening.
Amid speculation of President Donald Trump’s mental decline, several Democratic U.S. House representatives recently voiced their opinions on the matter. Their responses were video recorded by Pablo Manríquez, editor of Migrant Insider.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said, “The president has been acting in increasingly erratic ways. It is really damning when we think about the degree to which media outlets reported on Joe Biden, yet we are seeing behavior from Trump that is alarming and everyone is pretending this is normal. For our global partners, what they also see is the result of not just one man but the entire government apparatus and a party that is willing to watch someone decompensate in front of the world and do nothing about it.”
AOC: The president has been acting in increasingly erratic ways. It is really damning when we think about the degree to which media outlets reported on Joe Biden, yet we are seeing behavior from Trump that is alarming and everyone is pretending this is normal.
Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) said, “I honestly don’t think he was equipped to be sworn into office in the first place… This is literally based upon what some actual doctors were telling me were signs, and so we have tried to investigate this.”
Rep. Della Ramirez (D-IL) said, “We have a physically unstable, mentally ill man running the White House. You’re starting to see the consequences of it. The American people are hurting. Everything is more expensive. People are dying in the streets. He is becoming richer, and he doesn’t even know what he’s talking about. He should resign.”
.@PabloReports: How big of a factor is Trump’s cognitive decline given what we’re seeing in Davos?
Ramirez: We have a physically unstable, mentally ill man running the White House. You’re starting to see the consequences of it. The American people are hurting. Everything is more… pic.twitter.com/BbUbAUUFkK
Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) said, ” It’s very significant. Sadly, cognitive decline doesn’t get better. It’s only going to get worse in the weeks to come.”
.@PabloReports: How big of a factor is Trump’s mental decline after what he has been saying in Davos?
Beyer: It’s very significant. Sadly, cognitive decline doesn’t get better. It’s only going to get worse in the weeks to come. pic.twitter.com/ukbriNgOa4
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