Leland Vittert’s War Notes: End of Times 🚨

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NewsNation Chief Washington Anchor and On Balance host Leland Vittert was a foreign correspondent for four years in Jerusalem. He gives you an early look at tonight's 9 p.m. ET show, delivered straight to your inbox.

Editor's note📝: Based on recent reporting, we might not all make it through this weekend's snow storm — it was nice knowing you all.

The cycle❄️: There is a reason why storms that were routine two decades ago are now national emergencies.
- 🌨️Yes, it starts with a storm coming — but it can't just be a storm, it must be an event.
- 🤣Some local news is actually becoming the Simpsons.
📺Watch
📈Big weather drives big ratings for local (and national news), so storms get hyped.
🧻Americans love being freaked out by impending doom, so they panic-buy toilet paper (and everything else) like aliens are coming.
🛒Store shelves in D.C. were literally empty –– they will be restocked before the storm gets here.
📺Local and national news and social media covers the freak-outs and asks politicians AKA leaders what they are going to do about it.
👀"Leaders" can't be seen as under-reacting, so they hold news conferences with dire warnings.
- 🧢Nothing says emergency like a new outfit — my favorite so far is this D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser wearing a new camo hat with the D.C. flag.
  - 🤣Is the camo so she can be seen in the snow drifts she will personally shovel?
  - 🤣It's not partisan — just look back to Governor Ron DeSantis in his brand-new white boots surveying hurricane damage.
- ❄️Yes — snow storms can and will be dangerous — but when I grew up, our leaders trusted us to know that. We didn't need news conferences.
🤷🏼‍♂️Something changed, of course — every leader is just looking for the next TV news hit, fundraising email and election. Storms are a great time to show leadership.
- Post-pandemic, we live in a world where nobody can be too careful.
  - ‼️Pro tip…yes you can be too careful.
The worst part😭: The only thing good about snow storms were snow days — but thanks to the pandemic's experiment with remote classwork – those are a thing of the past, too.

What you wish for🧚‍♀️: Gavin Newsom is getting what he wants — attention.

🗣️Everyone is talking about him — his Davos trip is like Trump saying outrageous things to get max social media clips
- 🎤Saying other world leaders should bring knee pads for their treatment of Trump
- 🎤Accusing Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino of playing Nazi dress up
- 🎤Comparing Trump to a T. rex dinosaur
🤷🏼‍♂️Nothing kills a bad product faster than good advertising
- 🤔Reminds me of two recent presidential wanna-bes:
  - 🤷🏼‍♂️Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Ron DeSantis
    - 🗣️Everyone talked about them
    - 🤷🏼‍♂️And how did it work out for them? Not so good.
Watch tonight📺: California exile Jillian Michaels on her governor.
- Bonus➕: Movie great James Cameron is leaving America for New Zealand
  - 🎤Cameron: "This is why I love New Zealand. People there are, for the most part, sane as opposed to the United States…Where would you rather live? A place that actually believes in science and is sane and where people can work together cohesively to a common goal, or a place where everybody's at each other's throats…I'm not there for scenery, I'm there for the sanity."

What's in a Coat (?) 🧥

🧥Few things better symbolize the debate over ICE tactics and Trump's deportation policies than U.S. Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino's coat.

📰Even The New York Times did a story on the border patrol chief winter coat as he walked with his men in a frigid Minneapolis
The Left led by Gavin Newsom claims he is cosplaying Nazis — the media pile on was immediate.
The Right claims the Left is, at best, taking things wildly out of context to make Trump look bad.
- Completely lost is the real policy debate.
- Be fair: The Right does it too. Just Google "Terrorist Fist Bump."
Look back🔙: In our segment last night with Bovino, we asked him about Newsom's allegation and the coat.
- 📱Watch here
- 🗣️He told us he wore the same coat to a ceremony during the Biden administration in 2022 and got compliments.
  - 📱Even Newsom tweeted about our segment
- 📸Today, he sent us the picture of him in the same coat back then — tune in tonight to see the proof.
✏️So let's recap —
- 💻Our research shows Border Patrol agents wearing the same coat going back to the 1920s.
- In 2022, at the height of woke, Bovino wore a regulation uniform coat to a Biden Department of Homeland Security ceremony
  - 🤦🏼‍♂️They put diversity, equity and rainbow happiness ahead of everything.
  - 🤦🏼‍♂️And nobody said anything.
- But in 2026, he wears the same coat and gets called Gestapo.

Zoom out🌎: When do you think Greg Bovino will get an apology?

Watch tonight📺: Dan Kanninen and Laurie Watkins on whether elected Democrats have jumped the shark and that's why even their own party hates them.

What's the Democrats plan? 🤷🏼‍♂️

📸The criticism of Trump's administration's immigration policy is obvious —- it's all based on images

The 5-year-old boy
The Renee Good shooting
Border Patrol Chief Greg Bavino's coat

🗣️Democrats love to trash ICE but have zero plan to fix our immigration situation —

🎤Virginia Governor Mike Sherrill: "It is now fully a militia that Trump is running…Every single American should be against this."
🎤Sen Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz.,: "ICE needs to be totally torn down… People want immigration enforcement that goes after criminals…not the goon squad from Stephen Miller…"
🤦Yes — there is a legitimate policy debate –– but Democrats don't seem to have their own plan. Just criticism of Trump.
- Is giving illegal immigrants free health care and child care a good idea?

‼️Actually, we know the Democrats plan — they defended President Biden's open border policy.

The open border — that they said wasn't
Thousands of migrants flooding American cities
The Americans like Laken Riley killed by illegal immigrants
- 🤦We forget all that.

‼️There is an obvious solution to this —- end sanctuary cities and states

👍Agree to deport anyone here illegally who committed a crime.
👍Honor ICE detainers
🚓Local police help arrest anyone here illegally who has an issue.
- 🤦They are sitting there complaining yet they are not offering anything.
- 🤷You eliminate sanctuary cities, you eliminate sanctuary states — ICE raids basically end tomorrow…Why won't Democrats do that?

Watch tonight 📺: Rep Suhas Subramanyam, D-Va., and Rep James Walkinshaw, D-Va., on why Democrats won't offer any meaningful policy solutions.

We already have ISIS 🚨

🗣️A common refrain from apologists for the Ayatollah says if the U.S. intervenes in Iran, ISIS will take over.

Just watch📺: The barbarity of ISIS is already in Iran.
- 📱Here are videos that prove it — watch the rows of body bags, hear the screams of mothers
  - https://x.com/niohberg/status/2014711896146837866?s=12
  - https://x.com/emilykschrader/status/2014718916564812004?s=12
  - https://x.com/NiohBerg/status/2014698359601160413?s=20
    - 🚨The regime is executing the wounded in hospitals and gang raping women — the atrocities are often too graphic to explain.
- Double cross👎🏼: Far from honoring its pledge to stop the killing, the Iranian regime is doubling down.
  - 📰Fox News headlines: "Iran's top prosecutor criticizes Trump's announcement that 800+ executions were halted: 'Completely false'"

Moral Clarity‼️: The ayatollah and his henchmen should be treated like ISIS — it's that simple.

Bigger question⁉️: The world revolted because of "genocide" during a full-on war in Gaza — it wasn't genocide but the world came together. The New York Times ran front page after front page story
- 🤷🏼‍♂️In Iran there is a full on slaughter of unarmed pro-democracy demonstrators and there is utter silence.
🤷🏼‍♂️I am paid to ask questions – why is that?

Painful wait⏰: Jen Griffin from Fox News reports it could be days or even a week before the Lincoln carrier strike group is in striking distance of Iran.

Watch tonight📺: Dr Kian Tajbakhsh who was in solitary confinement in Iran

Plus➕: U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker.

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Every night during On Balance, Leland Vittert asks "why?" about the most pressing matters of the day, with an intellectual, balanced and sometimes irreverent take on the news.

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