Day 1819: "Well, I should have."

1/ The Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and served the Fed with grand jury subpoenas threatening a criminal indictment tied to his congressional testimony on the Fed’s headquarters renovation. “Those are pretexts,” Powell said. “The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President. This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions – or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.” The renovation project is about $700 million over budget and expected to cost roughly $2.5 billion. Meanwhile, Trump, who has repeatedly threatened to fire Powell, said he didn’t “know anything about” the investigation, but denied it was about punishing the central bank for setting rates based on economic conditions rather than his demands. Nevertheless, he said Powell was “not very good at the Fed” and “not very good at building buildings.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, however, privately warned Trump that the investigation had “made a mess of things,” and Republican senators said they’d block confirmation of any Fed nominees until the matter is resolved, complicating Trump’s pending choice to replace Powell when his chair term ends in May. (New York Times / Associated Press / Wall Street Journal / Bloomberg / NBC News / Axios / New York Times / Politico / Wall Street Journal / The Guardian / CNBC / Axios / NPR / Washington Post)

2/ The Justice Department fired a senior prosecutor over a disagreement about whether to pursue a re-indictment of former FBI Director James Comey. In November, a judge dismissed the Comey indictment after finding that Lindsey Halligan had been unlawfully appointed as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Robert McBride had declined to lead a renewed indictment effort, but also secretly met with federal judges in the district to try to get appointed acting U.S. attorney. (NBC News / New York Times)

3/ Trump is reportedly considering a military strike on Iran to punish the regime for killing hundreds of protesters. U.S. officials said no final decision has been made and diplomatic options remain under review, but Trump confirmed that “the military is looking” at “some very strong options.” Iran, meanwhile, said it is “fully prepared for war,” but also ready to reopen negotiations over its nuclear program, a move U.S. officials describe as an effort to de-escalate or delay military action. The protests began over the collapse of Iran’s currency and rising living costs, then spread after security forces used lethal force, turning economic demonstrations into calls for an end to clerical rule. The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said more than 500 people have been killed and over 10,000 detained, but the scale of the crackdown remains unclear because Iran has released no official numbers, and has imposed a nationwide communications blackout that limits independent verification. Trump also said that any country doing business with Iran will face a 25% tariff “on any and all business being done with the United States of America.” Iran’s major trading partners include India, Turkey, and China. (Axios / NBC News / Wall Street Journal / New York Times / Axios / Politico / Associated Press / Washington Post)

4/ Trump said he regrets not ordering the National Guard to seize voting machines after his loss in the 2020 presidential election, saying “Well, I should have.” Trump said the machines should have been taken to search for evidence supporting his baselessly false claim that the election was stolen from him, but questioned whether the Guard was “sophisticated enough” to do so, adding that they’re “good warriors” but not skilled in dealing with what he called “crooked Democrats and the way they cheat.” The idea was reportedly discussed during a December 2020 Oval Office meeting, but was rejected by senior officials, including then attorney general William Barr, who said there was no legal basis or evidence to justify seizing the machines. (New York Times / Washington Post / The Guardian)

poll/ 52% of Americans disapprove of ICE, while 39% approve. 51% said ICE’s tactics were too forceful, compared with 27% who said they were about right, and 10% who wanted more force. Separate data found that 42% of adults support abolishing ICE entirely – the highest support for abolition on record. (Strength in Numbers / Axios)

poll/ 45% of Americans identified as political independents in 2025 – the highest level recorded – while an equal share of 27% each identified as Democrats or Republicans. When independents were asked their partisan leanings, 47% of Americans identified as Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents, compared with 42% who identified as Republicans or Republican leaners. (Gallup)

The 2026 midterms are in 295 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 1,030 days.

✏️ Notables.

• A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from freezing more than $10 billion in child care and social services funding for five Democratic-led states. U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian didn’t rule on the legality of the funding freeze, but said the five states met a legal threshold “to protect the status quo” for at least 14 days, while the court considers whether the administration can withhold money Congress already appropriated. The administration claimed the states were providing benefits to people in the country illegally. (Associated Press / Politico / New York Times)

• Trump said civil rights-era protections left white people “very badly treated,” claiming without evidence that the Civil Rights Act produced “reverse discrimination.” He claimed that affirmative action and diversity measures unfairly blocked white people from college admissions and jobs, framing those policies as central to his campaign against diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. (New York Times)

• The Labor Department said the U.S. added 50,000 jobs in December – the weakest year of job growth since the pandemic. U.S. employers added 584,000 jobs in 2025 after revisions, well below the roughly 2 million added in 2024. (NBC News / NPR / Wall Street Journal / New York Times / Washington Post)

• The EPA will stop assigning a dollar value to lives saved and other health benefits when setting air pollution rules, instead focusing its cost-benefit analyses on the compliance costs faced by industry. The agency claims that prior health benefit calculations created “false precision” despite decades of use across administrations. (New York Times)

• San Francisco man who helped invent psychedelic rock and spent six decades playing guitar turning a long, strange trip into a shared cultural experience died at 78. Bob Weir, guitarist, songwriter, and founding member of the Grateful Dead, died after a July cancer diagnosis. His family cited underlying lung issues. Weir and the Dead reshaped American music, “building a community, a language, and a feeling of family” that turned concerts into gatherings and fans into participants. “We speak a language that nobody else speaks.” (Rolling Stone / New York Times)