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States’ mistrust of Trump’s fraud crusade could hinder fight against foreign influence in elections, federal officials fear

Updated Feb 6, 2026, 4:08 PM ET | Published Feb 6, 2026, 3:00 PM ET | CNN

By Sean Lyngaas, Evan Perez

An election worker examines a ballot at the Clackamas County Elections office May 19, 2022, Oregon City, Ore.

Gillian Flaccus/AP/File

State and local election administrators’ growing suspicion of the Trump administration’s motives has triggered concerns among some federal officials that distrust of even routine moves by the FBI could hinder cooperation with states and give an opening for US adversaries trying to influence elections.

An FBI official this week sent a standard email to top state election officials inviting them to discuss how federal agencies could help with securing the midterms.

The email, reviewed by CNN, said the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, US Postal Investigative Service and other agencies wanted to speak with election officials about what support they could provide for the midterm elections. It’s a message that has gone out numerous times in the years since Russia’s 2016 influence campaign as the feds have looked to offer security resources for election administrators.

But this email, the existence of which was first reported by Crooked Media, came a week after the FBI executed a search warrant at the elections office of Fulton County, Georgia, and seized ballots related to the 2020 election — a move that alarmed many election officials. And it came amid Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s move to study voting machines for security vulnerabilities as she tries to support President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 contest was stolen from him.

Trump has also sparked alarm by saying he wants Republicans to “take over the voting, in at least … 15 places” and “nationalize” elections — comments for which his administration has given shifting explanations.

The Fulton County search and cuts to federal election security efforts in the second Trump administration have led to an “erosion of trust” between some election officials and the federal government, said one Republican election official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The Fulton County search “raises concerns among a lot of election officials,” the Republican added.

United States Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard speaks on the phone while standing at the edge of a truck loading bay after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) executed a search warrant for the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center in relation to the 2020 election, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the matter, in Union City, Georgia, U.S. January 28, 2026.

Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters

That’s a problem for the FBI. Any disruption in the security coordination between states, the bureau and other federal agencies, means foreign intelligence services will have an advantage if they try to shape or disrupt the elections, one U.S. official told CNN.

The first Trump administration built up a big federal security structure for tracking and defending against foreign influence on elections. But the second Trump administration has severely curtailed it, closing centers dedicated to countering foreign influence at the FBI and in Gabbard’s office.

Heading into the midterms, there is widespread concern among current and former officials that the US government’s willingness to combat foreign efforts to shape elections has waned, CNN has reported.

Explaining her presence at the Fulton County search, Gabbard has cited her foreign-focused responsibilities to justify her presence but has not provided any public evidence connecting Fulton County to any foreign threat.

“That horse has already left the barn,” the Republican election official said. “If there were credible evidence of actual foreign influence” in Fulton County, the US government would have previously disclosed it, the official added.

The FBI email “in theory, should be routine. And should be good,” said another source in the election community familiar with the FBI outreach. “But the administration and cabinet secretaries running things have created significant trust issues between federal and state authorities.”

Other sources in the election community told CNN that there was a risk of election officials — or commentators in the media — overreacting and crying wolf over a routine FBI email when there are so many other legitimate concerns over things like the Trump administration’s threats to federalize elections.

Don Palmer, a commissioner at the federal Election Assistance Commission, said the upcoming call with election officials is “an opportunity to introduce points of contact for the midterm election year and share information.”

There was “a wonderful level of familiarity” between federal officials and local and state officials in past election cycles as they worked together on security issues, said Stephen Richer, a former top Republican election official in Arizona’s Maricopa County who faced violent threats for saying the 2020 election was secure.

But now, Richer said, there are probably a “fair number” of election officials who view federal officials as potential “adversaries.”

CNN’s Tierney Sneed contributed to this report.

Redistricting effort aimed at helping Republicans in midterms could cost them dearly in Virginia

February 6, 2026 / 2:56 PM EST / CBS News

President Trump’s Republican Party has gambled on redrawing Democratic-held congressional districts in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina to help boost conservatives’ chances at holding on to a narrow House majority in the 2026 midterm elections.This out of the ordinary mid-decade approach, however, may end up costing Republicans as many as four congressional seats in Virginia.

Democrats this week have prepared a harsh partisan gerrymander that could dramatically shift the commonwealth’s representation on Capitol Hill if it were to become law and be used in this fall’s elections.

“Today we are leveling the playing field,” Virginia Democratic state Sen. L. Louise Lucas said in a social media video. “These are not ordinary times and Virginia will not sit on the sidelines while it happens.”

Questions remain, however, about whether the larger endeavor will survive ongoing legal scrutiny. And it faces the challenge of needing quick voter approval in a part of the south that is by no means a blue sanctuary of statewide voters.

“This extreme proposal rigs the game before a single vote is cast,” GOP Virginia Congressman Rob Wittman, one of the four incumbents targeted by the proposal, said in a statement,

The move in Virginia serves as the latest escalation of a feud between Republicans and Democrats ahead of an election rife with the historical precedent that the incumbent president’s party tends to lose House seats in the midterms.

Mr. Trump and Republicans in Texas moved last summer to shift five Democratic-held seats and shape them to be more favorable to Republicans.

California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom then made a national case to redraw his state’s maps to counter what was happening in Texas. He succeeded in winning the approval by his state’s voters of a new map last fall that could effectively curtail any gains the GOP aims to make.

In the months that followed, Republicans in North Carolina and Missouri each took a Democratic district in their respective states and changed the boundaries to help improve the likelihood that a GOP contender would instead carry the seat this fall.

But what started out as a dire dynamic for Democrats, one in which GOP legislative leaders around the country flexed their political muscle to help an embattled president moving closer to lame-duck status, may only end up helping Republicans minimally, if at all.

A court-ordered redraw in ruby red Utah is expected to help Democrats pick up one seat from the GOP. Kansas Republicans’ pursuit of changing the district of the state’s lone Democratic congresswoman quietly failed. A bipartisan deal in Ohio averted a nightmare scenario for the left of a harsh Republican gerrymander. And to close out 2025, a majority of Indiana Senate Republicans sided against Mr. Trump and voted down overhauling the state’s only two Democratic congressional districts.

Virginia Democrats have been working for months to respond to the national redistricting standoff. But doing so requires buy-in from the public, since just a few years ago, 66% of voters passed a measure giving congressional drawing power to a bipartisan commission.

Democrats are now aiming for an April 21 special election in which voters would have the chance to sign off on a new constitutional amendment allowing the party to push through the partisan gerrymander released publicly this week.

But Democrats’ redraw hopes are in peril, after a Virginia judge in January rejected the push, citing the steps the party quickly took to try and get the change on the ballot.

As more legal maneuvering plays out, Virginia Democrats have continued to push forward on their plans, culminating in the release of this week’s map proposal.

Currently, six of Virginia’s congressional districts are held by Democrats and five are held by Republicans.

Under the plan, four GOP congressional seats are targeted: Rob Wittman’s 1st District, Jen Kiggans, 2nd District, John McGuire 5th District and Ben Cline’s 6th District. Of those four, only Kiggans and Cline’s seats appear to have the potential to be competitive this year, while the other two would become comfortably blue. The new map unveiled this week would likely be among the most aggressive gerrymanders in the country, given Virginia’s recent partisan history.

Virginia is a purple state that has voted for the Democratic presidential candidate reliably since the 2004 election. But in the 2024 presidential election, Mr. Trump only lost the commonwealth by around six points.

It also may not end up being the last state to act before the midterms.

In Maryland, Democratic Gov. Wes Moore is trying to turn the state’s last GOP seat into an easy pickup for Democrats, but is in a standoff with the Democratic senate leader who opposes it.

Meanwhile, GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis and his fellow Florida Republicans are primed to try later this spring to potentially take away some of the state’s dwindling Democratic-held congressional seats.

Any changes, from Virginia and Texas to California and North Carolina, could prove to be critical in which party controls the House for the final two years of Mr. Trump’s presidency. Or they could end up being a footnote during a span of time where many political norms were discarded.

‘I did that’: Trump takes credit for a prisoner release that happened before he even ran for president

By Daniel Dale, 2 hr ago, PUBLISHED Feb 6, 2026, 3:55 PM ET

US President Trump speaks during the National Prayer Breakfast at the Washington Hilton in Washington, DC on February 5, 2026.

Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

At the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, President Donald Trump spoke from prepared remarks as he discussed the persecution of Mariam Ibrahim. Ibrahim was unjustly imprisoned and sentenced to death in Sudan in 2014, in a case centered on her Christian faith, until she was released that same year following a global outcry.

Trump correctly said: “Believers all over the planet rallied to Mariam’s cause, prayed for her protection, and successfully pressured for her release.”

But then the president appeared to ad-lib – and claimed that he was the one who got Ibrahim freed.

“I did that. I did that. I did that with one phone call, actually,” he said. “And she had such support, it was so easy. And when I explained it to the powers that be: ‘Yes, sir, we will do it right away.’ I just wish I knew earlier. But it’s a big world with a lot of people.”

For years, Trump has told fictional stories that feature unnamed people referring to him as “sir.” This was another one.

Ibrahim was released in 2014, during the Obama administration. Trump did not become president until January 2017. He was not even a presidential candidate until June 2015. There has never been the slightest indication that a private citizen in the US, a businessman and celebrity at the time, was the person who convinced Sudanese authorities to let her out of prison.

A former Obama administration official who served on the National Security Council in 2014 told CNN on Friday: “I neither had at the time nor have now any knowledge of Trump’s involvement whatsoever. It’d be very surprising if he were.”

Jack Jenkins, a reporter for Religion News Service, first raised skepticism about Trump’s story on Thursday.

Robert P. George, a Princeton University professor who is a prominent conservative legal scholar, said in a Friday email: “As Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in 2014, I advocated for Mariam Ibrahim. I do not recall Donald Trump being involved in the case or assisting our Commission’s efforts. Of course, he was not President at the time. Whether he was working privately outside our view, I cannot say. It is certainly possible.”

It is possible in theory. But even if Trump did contribute in some way to the international pressure campaign to achieve Ibrahim’s release – some way Trump’s White House team and congressional allies could not identify when invited to do so by CNN on Friday – that wouldn’t make it true that he personally got Ibrahim released with a phone call.

Trump didn’t tell this story at a 2019 event. The White House wouldn’t comment Friday

The White House did not respond to CNN’s Friday request to describe any Trump involvement in Ibrahim’s release. A Friday search of the LexisNexis database of news articles brought up hundreds of articles about the case but none that mentioned any Trump involvement.

When Ibrahim met Trump at the White House in 2019, at an event with fellow survivors of religious persecution, he did not publicly display familiarity with the case or tell the story about how he had supposedly singlehandedly secured her release. A member of his administration briefly summarized Ibrahim’s story for him, and Trump then told her, “We got you out, that’s good, that’s great.”

During a public conversation in 2020, Trump’s then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, a former congressman, spoke with a conservative activist about how they both look back proudly on their work to free Ibrahim – but neither of them said Trump had been involved too.

And when CNN reached out Friday to Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican who was a vocal advocate for Ibrahim in 2014, to ask whether there was any truth to Trump’s story, he responded only by having an aide send along two web links to his own 2014 comments on the matter. He did not mention Trump in either link.

Attempts to contact Ibrahim for comment were unsuccessful.

Judge orders U.S. to return families affected by Trump’s family separation policy who were deported

Updated on: February 6, 2026 / 3:30 PM EST / CBS News

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the U.S. government to return three migrant families affected by the family separation policy during President Trump’s first administration and then deported under his second, declaring the deportations

US accuses China of secret nuclear test as Trump admin calls for broader nuclear weapons agreement

Updated Feb 6, 2026, 5:02 PM ET | Published Feb 6, 2026, 3:32 PM ET | CNN Politics

By

[Jennifer Hansler]

,

[Kylie Atwood]

Land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles are seen at the V-Day military parade at Tian’anmen Square in Beijing, China, on September 3, 2025.

VCG/Getty Images/File

The United States on Friday accused China of carrying out a secret nuclear test in 2020 as the Trump administration calls for a broader nuclear weapons agreement including both China and Russia.

The allegation comes a day after the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between the US and Russia lapsed, leaving the world’s largest nuclear superpowers without limits on their arsenals for the first time in decades.

President Donald Trump and other top officials in his administration have made clear they will no longer abide by the limitations of the New START Treaty and instead have argued they need a new deal to address threats from Moscow and Beijing. And Trump last year called for the resumption of US nuclear weapons tests.

“Today, I can reveal that the U.S. Government is aware that China has conducted nuclear explosive tests, including preparing for tests with designated yields in the hundreds of tons,” Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Thomas DiNanno said in remarks at a global Disarmament Conference in Vienna Friday.

“China conducted one such yield producing nuclear test on June 22 of 2020,” he said, without providing further details. A former senior US official told CNN that information about China’s 2020 test had been declassified.

DiNanno accused the Chinese military of seeking “to conceal testing by obfuscating the nuclear explosions because it recognized these tests violate test ban commitments.”

“China has used decoupling – a method to decrease the effectiveness of seismic monitoring – to hide their activities from the world,” he said. According to experts, decoupling happens when a large cavern is dug to lessen the seismic activity from a nuclear explosion, making it harder to detect.

A top official from an organization that works to monitor for nuclear weapons tests worldwide said in a statement Friday that their system “did not detect any event consistent with the characteristics of a nuclear weapon test explosion” on June 22, 2020.

“Subsequent, more detailed analyses have not altered that determination,” said Rob Floyd, the executive secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO).

Floyd said the organization’s International Monitoring System (IMS) “is capable of detecting nuclear test explosions with a yield equivalent to or greater than approximately 500 tonnes of TNT.” He noted it had detected “all six tests conducted and declared by” North Korea.

The alleged Chinese test had a yield “in the hundreds of tons,” DiNanno said without providing a specific number, so it’s unclear if it would have met the threshold to be be detected the monitoring system.

“If this was a very, very low yield test explosion…it is possible that it could be hidden from the CBTBO monitoring stations,” explained Daryl Kimball, the Executive Director of the Arms Control Association.

Floyd noted that there are mechanisms “which could address smaller explosions” provided by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). That treaty prohibits “any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion.” However, those mechanisms can only be used when the treaty enters into force.

Most of the world has signed onto and ratified the treaty. Although both the US and China signed, they have not ratified it and Russia withdrew its ratification in 2023. As such, the Treaty cannot enter into force.

The US and China in the past had said they adhere to a moratorium on nuclear testing, but last year, Trump called for US nuclear weapons testing to resume “on an equal basis.”

In his remarks on Friday, DiNanno suggested that the alleged Chinese testing had motivated Trump’s decree. He also said that “the annual US compliance report has previously assessed that Russia has failed to maintain its testing moratorium by conducting supercritical nuclear weapons tests.”

Asked about the allegation of secret nuclear testing, the spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC, said China “follows a policy of ‘no first use’ of nuclear weapons and a nuclear strategy that focuses on self-defense, and adheres to its nuclear testing moratorium.”

“We stand ready to work with all parties to jointly uphold the authority of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty and safeguard the international nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime,” said Liu Pengyu.

“It’s hoped that the US will earnestly abide by its obligations under the Treaty and its commitment to a moratorium on nuclear testing and take concrete actions to uphold the international nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime, as well as global strategic balance and stability,” he told CNN.

‘The end of an era’

In his remarks Friday, DiNanno said that “February 5, 2026, indeed marks the end of an era: the end of US unilateral restraint,” referencing the end of the New START Treaty. Although he did not explicitly say the US would upload additional nuclear weapons now that it was no longer bound by the agreement, he indicated it was likely.

“We will complete our ongoing nuclear modernization programs that were initiated while New START entered into force. The United States also retains non-deployed nuclear capacity that can be used to address the emerging security environment, if directed by the president,” he said.

The US “will maintain a robust, credible, and modernized nuclear deterrent to ensure our security preserves peace and stability, and negotiate from a position of strength,” he added.

“The next era of arms control can and should continue with clear focus, but it will require the participation of more than just Russia at the negotiating table,” DiNanno said.

It is unclear how the US intends to get China to that negotiating table. Beijing has consistently rebuffed trilateral arms control negotiations, arguing that their stockpiles are not on par with Moscow and Washington.

Matthew Kroenig, vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, noted that if this is truly China’s concern, “shouldn’t they want arms control?”

“If they can get us to limit our weapons, that should be better for them,” he argued. He said he believes Beijing doesn’t want to negotiate because “they want a superpower nuclear force.”

“They’ve invested a lot in building this force. They didn’t spend all this money and bend all this metal to trade it away,” he said.

Some US officials believe that the expiration of New START paves the way for the expansion of the US arsenal which could prompt enough Chinese concern to bring the expanding nuclear power the table, according to a US official.

Daryl Kimball, the Executive Director of the Arms Control Association, noted that “if there is any true violation of the test ban treaty, that’s a big problem, but simply complaining about it doesn’t solve the problem.”

He called on the US to propose a “sensible approach” like bilateral talks over arms control.

“In the meantime, there is no reason why the United States and Russia should not and cannot continue to respect the central limits of New START,” he said.

The Trump administration will not comply with a court order requiring due process for hundreds of Venezuelan migrants deported to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador last year, DOJ lawyers said. It sets up a heated clash in court next week in a case that is almost certainly headed back to the Supreme Court.

The status and plight of 252 Venezuelan migrants deported to a Salvadoran prison last March under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act have emerged as one of the defining court fights of Trump’s second term, allowing the administration to test its mettle against the federal courts and the practical limits of judicial authority, on one of Trump’s biggest policy priorities.

It’s a fight that has also put U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who is overseeing the Alien Enemies Act case, squarely in the Trump administration’s crosshairs as he attempts to determine what due process protections, if any, the administration is legally obligated to provide and how far the courts can go to enforce them.

A new filing from the Justice Department made clear the administration believes it owes the migrants no additional due process at all. Should the court try to order otherwise, lawyers for the administration said they would promptly seek intervention from higher courts.

SUPREME COURT FREEZES ORDER TO RETURN MAN FROM EL SALVADOR PRISON

In its filing Monday, the Justice Department argued again that the administration is powerless to return the Venezuelan migrants who were summarily deported last year. The department rejected the notion that the U.S. could “facilitate” due process proceedings for the migrants in question as previously ordered by the court, describing the options to do so as either legally impossible or practically unworkable due to national security concerns and the fragile political situation in Venezuela after the U.S. capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro during a raid in Caracas last month.

The DOJ also reiterated its argument that bringing petitioners back to the U.S. would harm “critical” foreign policy negotiations with Venezuela and carry “profound” national security risks, citing the alleged gang member status of the migrants in question. (The alleged gang member status of many of the individuals has been called into question.)

DOJ lawyers also rejected the notion of conducting the proceedings overseas, including at the U.S. embassy in Venezuela, citing the U.S. capture and arrest of Maduro and his wife.

The U.S., they said, lacks custody to conduct the habeas proceedings on foreign soil and doing so would risk “injecting an extremely complicated issue into what is already a delicate situation” in Venezuela, potentially “negatively affecting U.S. efforts toward stabilization and transition that aim to benefit tens of millions of Venezuelans.”

The deportations, carried out under the Alien Enemies Act despite an emergency court order from Judge Boasberg, prompted an eleven-month legal battle that reached the Supreme Court in April and months of fights in the lower courts, including a subsequent order from Boasberg in December for the government to “facilitate” due process for the deported migrants.

DEFIANT MADURO DECLARES HE IS A ‘PRISONER OF WAR’ IN FIRST US COURT APPEARANCE

The Supreme Court said then that individuals removed under the Alien Enemies Act must have the ability to contest their removal and have a meaningful opportunity and notice to do so before they are removed.

Boasberg has spent the months since attempting to determine the status of the hundreds of CECOT plaintiffs and what ability the U.S. has to facilitate their return or to provide the class of migrants with due process and habeas protections, including the ability to challenge their alleged gang status.

His December order required the Trump administration to submit to the court in writing its plans to provide due process to the class of migrants deported to El Salvador. Boasberg said the administration could do this by either returning the migrants to the U.S. to have their cases heard in person or facilitate hearings abroad with members of the class that “satisfy the requirements of due process.”

APPEALS COURT BLOCKS TRUMP ADMIN’S DEPORTATION FLIGHTS IN ALIEN ENEMIES ACT IMMIGRATION SUIT

Lawyers for the Justice Department previewed similar arguments last month before an “en banc” 17-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which convened to weigh the legality of the Trump administration’s use of the 227-year-old law.

The Justice Department told judges then that the U.S. indictment against Maduro “reinforces the Proclamation’s findings that the Maduro regime and TdA have formed a ‘hybrid criminal state’ directed by the regime” and justified the decision to use the Alien Enemies Act law to quickly deport them to the third-country prison.

“These new developments underscore the Maduro Regime’s control over TdA and TdA’s violent invasion or predatory incursion on American soil. As a result, it is even clearer that the President’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act was part of a high-level national security mission that exists outside the realm of judicial interference.”

ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt told the judges during the same hearing that the Alien Enemies Act does not give the administration “a blank check” for a president to “use his war powers any time he considers it valuable.”

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Regardless of how Boasberg rules, the new filing made clear that the Trump administration views the fight as far from over.

“If, over defendants’ vehement legal and practical objections, the Court issues an injunction, defendants intend to immediately appeal, and will seek a stay pending appeal from this Court (and, if necessary, from the D.C. Circuit),” the Justice Department said.

Breanne Deppisch is a national politics reporter for Fox News Digital covering the Trump administration, with a focus on the Justice Department, FBI and other national news. She previously covered national politics at the Washington Examiner and The Washington Post, with additional bylines in Politico Magazine, the Colorado Gazette and others. You can send tips to Breanne at Breanne.Deppisch@fox.com, or follow her on X at @breanne_dep.

Republicans condemn Trump’s racist video portraying the Obamas as apes

February 6, 2026 / 5:01 PM EST / CBS News

Washington — Republican lawmakers condemned President Trump on Friday for sharing a video that portrayed former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes.

The criticism continued even after the White House removed the video after the initial backlash.

Several GOP lawmakers publicly urged the president to remove it, including Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who is the only Black Republican in the Senate.

“Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” wrote Scott, who leads Senate Republicans’ campaign arm. “The President should remove it.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt initially defended the video, which amplified false claims about the 2020 presidential election. Leavitt said the footage that showed the Obamas’ heads edited onto the bodies of apes was part of an “internet meme video” that portrayed Mr. Trump as “King of the Jungle” and Democrats as characters from the Lion King.

Sen. Pete Ricketts, a Nebraska Republican, said: “Even if this was a Lion King meme, a reasonable person sees the racist context to this. The White House should do what anyone does when they make a mistake: remove this and apologize.”

GOP Rep. Mike Lawler of New York called the post “wrong and incredibly offensive.” Sen. Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican, said it was “totally unacceptable.” Both said Mr. Trump should apologize.

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Several shared their condemnation after the post — which was shared by Mr. Trump on Thursday night — was removed Friday afternoon. A White House official said a staffer “erroneously made the post.”

Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said it was “appalling.” Sen. Dan Sullivan, an Alaska Republican, said he was glad the White House removed the “offensive” post.

Sen. Katie Britt, an Alabama Republican, said the video “should have never been posted to begin with, and is not who we are as a nation.” Sen. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, wrote that the post was “racist and offensive and not who we are as a nation.” Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, said it “sent the wrong message despite how it may have been originally intended.”

Republican Sen. John Curtis of Utah shared a similar sentiment as his colleagues, referring to the post as “blatantly racist and inexcusable.”

“It should never have been posted or left published for so long,” Curtis said.

GOP Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio also weighed in: “I do not feel the need to respond to every inflammatory statement made by the White House. However, the release of racist images of former President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama is offensive, heart breaking, and unacceptable. President Trump should apologize.”

GOP Rep. John James of Michigan, who is Black, defended the president as “not racist,” but said he was “shocked and appalled” by the post.

“I’m glad to see that trash has been taken down,” he said.

Rep. Burgess Owens, a Utah Republican, added to the chorus on Friday afternoon, saying “we all have a responsibility to use care and good judgment with the content we produce and distribute.”

“The imagery was wildly offensive and inappropriate, and as a Black man, I find it especially troubling,” he said. “It never should have been shared or even created, and I’m glad it has been taken down.”

GOP Rep. French Hill of Arkansas also said he was glad the post was removed, explaining that “racism and dehumanizing rhetoric have no place in our country. Every American deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.”

Kristin Brown contributed to this report.

Trump’s quest to name things after himself takes an even more desperate turn

Analysis by Aaron Blake
PUBLISHED Feb 6, 2026, 2:26 PM ET

President Donald Trump speaks during a stop in Urbandale, Iowa, on January 27.

Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

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Donald Trump’s insatiable desire to name things after himself has been clear for a very long time. And as president, he’s rapidly pushed the envelope in that regard, naming things after himself in ways it appears no previous president ever has.

But even by his standards, this quest has taken a desperate — and seemingly politically unwise — turn.

Trump last month sought to have Congress rename Dulles International Airport near DC and New York City’s Penn Station after himself.

CNN’s Manu Raju and Adam Cancryn report that Trump pitched the renamings to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer as a condition for releasing billions of dollars in frozen funds for a major New York infrastructure project. Schumer, a New York Democrat, turned it down. The news was first reported by Punchbowl.

In a way, this might sound par-for-course. Trump has already applied his name (legally or otherwise) to a bevy of things — from the Kennedy Center, to the US Institute of Peace, to a class of battleships, to savings accounts for children. He even launched a “TrumpRx” prescription drug platform on Thursday, the very same day we learned about his designs on slapping his name on major transportation hubs in DC and New York.

While things are named after presidents, experts have said there is simply no precedent for naming things after a sitting president like this. The New York Times recently dug into the data, backing up that other presidents have almost always had to wait until after leaving office.

Why this is different

But even by the standards Trump has set for himself, his bid to rename this train station and airport are on another level.

The key difference here is that the president has sought to name these things after himself not by executive action, but through leverage — by effectively trading it as a political favor.

There’s good reason he appears to be going down that road. His previous bids to slap his name on buildings, like the Kennedy Center, are quite possibly illegal, and they could just as easily be reversed — especially once he leaves office. It would be altogether shocking if the next Democratic president didn’t remove Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center.

A person and a dog walk in front of the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, on January 10.

Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

In order for the Trump brand to have lasting power on government entities, he really needs Congress to codify the changes. But Congress is not good at acting — especially when there’s not much in it for them.

Trump is not trying to leverage the New York infrastructure project for some conservative policy win — something that matters to the Republican base or GOP members of Congress ahead of the 2026 midterms. He’s trying to leverage it for his own personal tribute and glorification.

The president could seemingly use this as leverage for any number of other purposes, but he’s sought to use it for himself.

He has been transactional about lots of things, especially in his second term. He’s even used his leverage recently to get a Venezuelan opposition leader to gift him her recently awarded Nobel Peace Prize. As I wrote back then, that raised the prospect that Trump was in effect trading his personal glorification for major foreign policy decisions.

But usually his efforts to leverage his authority for personal glorification are a little more subtle like that — with the quid pro quo a little less direct. His proposition to Schumer practically slaps you across the face in its degree of blatant self-dealing.

Republicans should probably start asking themselves how much they’re willing to entertain this level of self service.

And it’s a political loser, too

But even beyond the “yuck” factor, there’s good reason to believe this is a rather poorly conceived move. Indeed, Trump’s efforts to glorify himself appear to be a major and growing problem for him right now.

We don’t have much high-quality polling on his bids to name things after himself specifically.

But polling early last year showed around two-thirds of Americans opposed his effort to unilaterally rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.” That suggests Americans overwhelmingly don’t think he should just be able to do things like this by himself.

And a CNN poll last month asked about Trump “making changes to cultural institutions such as the Kennedy Center and the Smithsonian.” Fully 62% of Americans said he had “gone too far” on this count.

That question wasn’t specifically about renaming the Kennedy Center, though it’s logical to assume many had heard the board had voted to add Trump’s name in December. About 7 in 10 independents and even 3 in 10 Republicans said the president was going too far with those cultural changes.

But that might not be the worst and most relevant finding from that CNN poll.

The survey also found Trump hitting a record low on the percentage of Americans who said he “cares about people like you.” Just 33% said that applied to Trump. A whopping 77% of independents disagreed.

And Americans said 63%-37% that they disagreed with the idea that Trump “puts the good of the country above his personal gain.”

To put a fine point on that: Nearly two-thirds of Americans said Trump is mostly out for himself.

That may be fueled, in part, by perceptions Trump is enriching himself financially in office. (The White House has repeatedly maintained it’s committed to ethics and transparency.) But potential conflicts of interest are a lot more difficult to explain than PLASTERS HIS OWN NAME ACROSS A BUILDING.

And Trump’s quest to name things after himself seems especially ill-timed given the state of the economy. We’re currently in the midst of what the vast majority of Americans regard as bad economic times, and about three-quarters of Americans don’t think he’s done enough to lower prices.

The usual course for a president in such times would be to focus like a laser on righting the ship — and making people view him as worthy of bestowing honors upon him. And then, at some later date, Congress does just that.

But Trump would apparently rather slap his name on whatever he can, however he can — and hope it somehow sticks.

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Wes Moore warns Noem ‘federal occupation’ of new ICE compound now under state investigation

By Charles Creitz | Fox News
Published February 6, 2026 2:43pm EST

Dem Maryland Gov. Wes Moore joins ‘The Sunday Briefing’ to discuss the response to the dangerous winter storm and his criticism of federal immigration enforcement operations after the deadly shooting in Minneapolis.

Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore warned Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem Friday that her agency’s recent purchase of a warehouse-like building in Williamsport will be scrutinized by the Old Line State’s legal arm.

Moore, running for re-election this year, added his voice to the chorus of state Democrats expressing outrage over DHS’ reported plans to use the space to house illegal immigrants. Maryland has been front and center in the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda with the saga of illegal immigrant Kilmar Ábrego García.

Moore described DHS’ status at the property, sandwiched between the city of Hagerstown and the Potomac River on the West Virginia border, as a “federal occupation” of a space that was originally zoned as a commercial site.

The governor said the agency’s use of the area presents a “significant loss of economic opportunity” for Washington County and the state at large.

MINNESOTA SUES TRUMP ADMIN OVER SWEEPING IMMIGRATION RAIDS IN TWIN CITIES

The site stands near the confluence of Interstates 70 and 81, and Moore said it uses up precious space in an area key to the 4,000-job “manufacturing, logistics and distribution” sector across the region.

Moore said Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, a fellow Democrat, will be reviewing the purchase to “ensure full compliance with all applicable state and federal laws.”

“I have grave concerns about any holding facility that denies basic human needs and dignity,” Moore said.

NOEM DEPLOYS TO BOTH BORDERS, SAYS ICE WON’T BE DETERRED BY SANCTUARY OFFICIALS WHO ‘WANT TO CREATE CONFLICT’

Kristi Noem, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, speaks at the Mexican border, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026, in Nogales, Ariz.(Ross D. Franklin/AP Photo)

“I am directing state agency heads to assess all available actions to protect the community’s infrastructure, public safety, health and long-term economic stability, including review of permitting requirements; water and sewer demands; hazardous waste disposal; and the availability of emergency medical services, among other considerations.”

He added that Annapolis still seeks to work with the Trump administration on areas they can find common ground such as economic opportunity, crime and infrastructure, noting Maryland has a long history of being a federal partner, housing the headquarters of NASA-Goddard, USDA, NSA, NIH and installations like Fort George Meade and Andrews Air Force Base.

“We urge the administration to move past unilateral actions and join us in a transparent and collaborative effort to enhance the safety and well-being of Marylanders.”

Moore also criticized Noem’s refusal to grant FEMA funds for Maryland Panhandle communities ravaged by 2025 flooding from Georges Creek and the Potomac River.

In recent comments to Fox News Digital, former GOP state Del. Neil Parrott, who long represented the area where the ICE site sits, countered that it was Maryland Democrats’ posture toward the Trump administration that squandered the opportunity to get FEMA funds for his area.

Additionally, Total Wine billionaire David Trone, who is running for his prior U.S. House seat in the area where the future detention center will be, filmed a video outside its property saying DHS is “literally executing people on the streets.”

“We know one thing. We don’t need another ICE prison here or anywhere else in America,” Trone said.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore in Annapolis, Md., Feb. 7, 2024.(AP Photo/Steve Ruark)

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Just across the Potomac River from the site, West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey told Fox News Digital the collective outrage over the new ICE center is a “representation of the generalized idiocy of most of the Democrats in Congress who have sat on their hands for the last 25 years and done nothing about the very immigration laws that they’re very angry about being enforced.”

To the south, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., echoed some of Moore’s concerns this week, saying in a statement that he spoke directly with Noem about concerns over a proposed ICE facility near the border with Tennessee.

“I relayed to her the opposition of local elected and zoning officials as well as economic development concerns. I appreciate her for agreeing to look elsewhere,” Wicker said of the planned transformation of a Byhalia, Mississippi, warehouse, which he said he “strongly oppose[s].”

“I am all for immigration enforcement, but this site was meant for economic development and job creation. We cannot suddenly flood Byhalia with an influx of up to 10,000 detainees.”

Fox News Digital reached out to DHS for comment.

Charles Creitz is a reporter for Fox News Digital.

He joined Fox News in 2013 as a writer and production assistant.

Charles covers media, politics and culture for Fox News Digital.

Charles is a Pennsylvania native and graduated from Temple University with a B.A. in Broadcast Journalism. Story tips can be sent to charles.creitz@fox.com.

Trump called Sen. Tim Scott after lawmaker condemned image of Obamas

February 6, 2026 / 5:05 PM EST / CBS News

President Trump called Sen. Tim Scott on Friday after the South Carolina Republican publicly urged the president to remove a reposted video depicting former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes, according to sources familiar with the call.

During the conversation, Mr. Trump told Scott, who is chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, that the repost was a staffer’s mistake and said he would take it down.

The post was removed shortly after the call. Scott, the Senate’s lone Black Republican and a close Trump ally, had earlier said on X that he was