Letters from an American - January 22, 2026

Episode Date: January 23, 2026

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January 22, 26. Vice President J.D. Vance was in Minnesota for the administration today, trying to regain control of the narrative about the violence perpetrated there by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, and Customs and Border Protection, or CBP. A new poll out today from the New York Times and CNA University shows that nearly two-thirds of Americans, 63%, disapprove of how ICE is hand. handling its job, while only 36% approve. Even among white Americans, 57% disapprove while only 42% approve. 61% of Americans, including 19% of Republicans, think ICE agents have gone too far.

Just hours after ICE agent Jonathan Ross killed 37-year-old Renee Good on January 7th, and long before there was any official investigation of the shooting. Vance was out in front of the news, blaming good for her own death and claiming that the officer was clearly justified in shooting her. But even MAGA voters don't buy it. Podcaster Joe Rogan has compared ICE to the Gestapo and Greg Sargent of the New Republic noted that a majority of both young voters and those without a college degree, those who tend to be easy for MAGA to reach, disapprove of ICE enforcement. Media Matters reported that the senior judicial analyst on right-wing channel Newsmax, Andrew Napolitano, called the newly revealed secret ICE memo claiming the right to break down doors to arrest people in their homes,

a direct and profound violation of the Fourth Amendment, which expressly says people are entitled to be secure in their homes, and that security can only be invaded by a search warrant signed by a judge based on probable cause of crime. Today, a jury in Chicago acquitted a man charged with trying to hire a man to kill U.S. Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino. The Department of Justice claimed Juan Espinoza Martinez was a member of a street gang who had offered $10,000 to a his brother and a friend to kill Bovino. John Seidel of the Chicago Sun Times noted that 31 Chicagoans have been charged with non-immigration crimes tied to the federal action there. With Thursday's acquittal, Seidel notes, 15 of them have been cleared. None of the cases have led to a

conviction so far. Today, Vance continued to defend ICE agents, but walked back some of his earlier belligerence. He admitted that, of course, there have been mistakes made because you're always going to have mistakes made in law enforcement. Although he added that 99% of our police officers, probably more than that, are doing everything right. The vice president also denied his words from January 8th when he said of Ross at the White House, you have a federal law enforcement official engaging in federal law enforcement action. That's a federal issue. That guy's protected by absolute immunity. Moving the goalposts considerably today after it turned out that Americans don't particularly like the idea that masked agents can do whatever they want. He said, I didn't say that

officers who engaged in wrongdoing would enjoy immunity. That's absurd. What I did say is that when federal law enforcement officers violate the law, that's typically something federal officials would look into. We don't want these guys to have kangaroo courts. The New York Times-Syna poll had bad news for Trump more generally, too. It showed that his approval rating has fallen to 40%, while 56% disapprove of the way he is handling his job, and that 49% of registered voters think the country is worse off than it was a year ago, while only 32% think it is better off. In fact, the poll showed him underwater on every single issue, managing the government, Venezuela, immigration, the economy, relationships with other countries, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the cost of living, Russia's war against Ukraine,

and the Epstein files, on which only 22% of registered voters approve while 66, percent disapprove. The only area where he is not underwater by double digits is on the issue of the border between the U.S. and Mexico, where 50 percent of registered voters approve and only 46 disapprove. After news of the poll dropped, Trump's social media account posted that fake and fraudulent polling should be virtually a criminal offense. As an example, all of the the anti-Trump media that covered me during the 2020 election showed polls that were knowingly wrong. They knew what they were doing, trying to influence the election, but I won in a landslide, including winning the popular vote, all seven of the swing states, the electoral college was a

route, and 2,750 counties to 525. You can't do much better than that, and yet if people examine the failing New York Times, ABC fake news, NBC fake news, CBS fake news, low-rating CNN, or the now-defunct MSDNC, polls were all fraudulent and bore nothing even close to the final results. Something has to be done about fraudulent polling. Even the polls of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal have been, over the years, terrible. There are great pollsters that called the election right, but the media does not not want to use them in any way, shape, or form. Isn't it sad what has happened to American journalism, but I am going to do everything possible to keep this polling scam from moving forward?

Trump's social media account posted that he would add the Times-Siena poll to his existing lawsuit against the New York Times. Trump also threatened to sue J.P. Morgan Chase and Jamie Diamond, its chief executive officer, claiming it had broken the the law by closing his accounts in April 2021 after notice given just two months before, at the same time that many businesses were refusing to work with Trump after the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. The bank has refused to do further business with the Trump family, the lawsuit alleges, putting them on a blacklist. The lawsuit claims the family was debanked because of political and social motivations, and Trump wants at least $5 billion in damages,

an award of attorney's fees and costs, and any other relief this court deems proper. J.P. Morgan Chase says the suit is meritless, and that while it does not close accounts for political reasons, it does close accounts because they create legal or regulatory risk for the company. The 2020 presidential election is clearly on Trump's mind with former special counsel Jack Smith, who investigated Trump's attempt to overturn the results of that election and delivered a grand jury indictment of him on four counts, testifying today before the House Judiciary Committee. Smith was sworn in and testified under oath. Unlike him, representatives are not sworn in for such hearings. and are covered by the speech and debate clause of the Constitution that enables them to say virtually anything they want without legal repercussions.

That matters, as Republicans showed no inclination to engage with the evidence Smith uncovered that Trump conspired to defraud American voters of their right to choose their president and fraudulently seize another term. Instead, they appeared eager to discredit Smith, to fall back on Trump's narrative that former President Joe Biden and former Attorney General Merrick Garland weaponized the Department of Justice against Trump and MAGA Republicans.

Smith called the narrative spread about him and his team false and misleading and said, Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity. If asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so, regardless of whether that president was a Republican or a Democrat. That Republicans were not willing to engage with the actual evidence apparently frustrated the president, who openly threatened Smith, posting that deranged Jack Smith is being decimated before Congress. It was over when they discussed his past failures and unfair prosecutions. He destroyed many lives under the guise of legitimacy.

Jack Smith is a deranged animal who shouldn't be allowed to practice law. If he were a Republican, his license would be taken away from him and far worse. Hopefully, the Attorney General is looking at what he's done, including some of the crooked and corrupt witnesses that he was attempting to use, in his case against me. The whole thing was a Democrat scam. A big price should be paid by them for what they have put our country through. Meanwhile, the Democrats on the committee offered evidence from the events Smith had investigated, playing, for example, the recording of Trump demanding that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger fined 11,780 votes to steal the state of Georgia,

which had voted for Biden, for Trump instead. As the Guardian noted when Brad Knot, a Republican of North Carolina, observed that Smith had charged only Trump, suggesting that Smith had singled out Trump for political reasons, Smith answered that he had been in the process of considering charging others when Trump was elected president again and the case was then closed. He said that he and the lawyers on the case believed they did have sufficient proof to charge other people. This statement is likely to be uncomfortable for MAGA

figures who were deeply involved in Trump's efforts, but who were not publicly investigated. In both the House and the Senate, members have been furious at the information that the Department of Justice got the permission of a judge to obtain toll records for Trump's calls on and around January 6th. Many of them were on those calls. Now they are falsely claiming they were wiretapped, although toll records simply record the phones involved and the duration of the call. Meanwhile, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller suggested that he too is concerned about the law catching up to people on the Trump team. On social media, Miller posted, everyone serious understands that the justice system is rigged. Far left, prosecutors, magistrates, judges, and juries unhesitatingly shield their violent activists

and gleefully imprison their political opponents. Unrigging the system is necessary for the survival of the republic. Billionaire Elon Musk, whose work with Trump led to the government's dropping a number of investigations of his companies and lawsuits against them, chimed in, absolutely. Absolutely. Today, the United States officially withdrew from the World Health Organization, leaving behind $278 million in unpaid dues. We joined the organization in 1948. Tomorrow, people across Minnesota will stay home from work, school, and shopping areas in an ice-out day to protest the federal agents in the state. The general strike has to protest. has the support of businesses, unions, faith organizations,

Democratic lawmakers, and community activists. Record numbers all over the place, Trump's social media account crowed tonight. Should I try for a fourth term? Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead in Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss. You see.