Leland Vittert’s War Notes: What Did We Win? 🤷

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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.

Rotten Lemons 🍋: My reporting shows it's very possible the Department of Justice will indict former CNN anchor Don Lemon for his part in the anti-ICE mob that stormed a Minnesota church Sunday.

Be smart 🤓: For all his pearl-clutching, there is nothing that would help Lemon's Substack subscriptions more than getting charged by the Trump DOJ.
Watch tonight 📺: Former federal prosecutor Shan Wu joins us.

Alarm Bells🚨: The "Pod Save America" crew warns the polling is bad for President Trump but worse for Democrats:

🎤"This is a big splash of cold water on the face to every Democrat that thinks they're just going to run off the midterms"
😱Wow! As we showed you Monday, the new Democratic governor and majority in Virginia have a long to-do list, including massive tax increases, banning gas-powered leafblowers and renaming Columbus Day
Watch tonight📺: Rep. Lori Trahan, D-Mass.; Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas; and Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, D-Va., on how the midterms are slipping through the Democrats' hands.

No, Madam President ‼️: Noted cultural observer Michelle Obama says America isn't ready for a woman president — really?

🤦From the same woman who calls America racist after it elected and reelected her husband, but I digress.
Tonight📺: Nina Turner and Isabel Brown on if America is ready for a female president in 2028.

Trump Always Wins 🥇

📅Today, Donald Trump got exactly what he wanted — in many ways.

🏆He declared victory because there is a framework for a deal on Greenland.
- To be fair ⚖️: We have absolutely no idea what that means.
  - 🗣️Trump says it will be amazing.
  - 🤝Trump promises there won't be tariffs or an invasion.
    - 🤷Because he won — how? We aren't really sure.
      - 🎤Trump: "We have a concept of a deal. I think it's gonna be a very good deal for the United States. Also for them. And we're gonna work together on something having to do with the Arctic as a whole, but also Greenland."
📺Every cable news show — even MS NOW — spent breathless hours reporting a framework for a deal, so he looks like he won.
🗣️He got to lecture the world's elite at Davos.
- 🎤Trump: "Without us, right now, you'd all be speaking German and a little Japanese perhaps."
😂He made all those who spent the last few days losing their minds look foolish … remember them?
- 🎤Al Gore: "It was a classic Trump performance. I would hate to be the fact-checker to go through that speech."
- 🎤Sweden's deputy prime minister: "It's time to calm down. ...We will not be blackmailed."
- 🎤California Governor Gavin Newsom: "He's a T-Rex, you mate with him or he devours you…This guy is a wrecking ball… He's unmoored. It's the law of the jungle. It's the rule of Don… The goal is the world in his image."
- 🎤Canadian prime minister: "We have a recognition of what's happening and a determination to act accordingly… We know the old order is not coming back. We shouldn't mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy."

📖The Trump playbook is predictable – in fact, he writes about it in "The Art of the Deal."

🗣️Make maximalist demands
😡Threaten wild consequences or actions to get them
👀Watch everyone lose their minds
🏅And then declare victory
- Look back🔙: Remember the tariffs when everybody lost their mind and said he would crash the U.S. economy? The stock market is up about 20% and at record highs.

Who is talking 👀: While our "allies" like Britain, the United Kingdom, Canada, etc. all trashed Trump, NATO's secretary-general praised him.

🎤NATO's secretary-general: "Trump is right. We have to do more there! We have to protect the Arctic against Russian and Chinese influence!"
🎤NATO's secretary-general: "I am not popular with you now, because I am defending Donald Trump. But I really believe we can be happy that he is there, because he has forced us in Europe to step up, to face the consequences, that we have to take care more of our own defense. Without Donald Trump this would have never happened."
Hint💬: The secretary-general actually understands the danger (as we laid out) of a Europe far more concerned with progressive toxic empathy than actually defending the values they PURPORT to believe in.

Watch tonight 📺: NewsNation's Chris Cillizza, Yemisi Egbewole and Annalyse Keller on Trump's playbook on Greenland.

Plus ➕: NewsNation's Robert Sherman joins us tonight from Davos.

WATCH ON BALANCE WEEKNIGHTS AT 9P/8C

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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