Letters from an American - January 8 2026

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

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Hello, this is Michael Moss. Heather Cox Richardson is unable to read the letter today, so I will be reading it in her place. January 8, 26. On MS. Now today, calmness Philip Bump broke down when talking about the shooting of Renee and Nicole Good yesterday in Minneapolis. I have a six-year-old, he said, and seeing the image of the stuffed animals in the glove compartment of her car. Really emotional for me, and what I take away from this is, for me, that's the thing that stands out,

that this was a family that could have been like mine. Bump went on to emphasize that there are a lot of situations, a lot of incidents that have involved ICE, have involved the government over the course of the past 13 months in which there was a resonance for other families in similar ways. But what he hit on in his first reaction to Good's killing was the one the administration must fear most of all.

Good was a white suburban mother, whose ex-husband told reporters she was a Christian stay-at-home mom, and Bump is a white man. President Donald J. Trump's people see that demographic as their base. If it turns on Trump, they are politically finished. As finished as elite southern enslavers were when, Harriet Beecher Stowe reminded American mothers of the fragility of their own children's lives to condemn the sale of black children. As finished as the second Ku Klux Klan was, when its leader kidnapped, raped, and murdered 28-year-old Madge Oberholzer.

As finished as the white segregationists were when white supremacists murdered four little girls in church in 1963. Evidence that President Donald J. Trump has sexually abused children would likely be enough to crater his political support from this group, making it no accident that the administration is openly flouting the law that required the full release of the Epstein files by December 19, 2025. The Department of Justice has released less than 1% of those files, and many of them were so heavily redacted as to be useless. In a court filing on Monday, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said that substantial work remains to be done before it can release them all. But there is no hiding the murder of Renee Good, captured on video by several witnesses as it was. And so the Trump administration is working desperately to smear Good and to convince the public that, contrary to widespread,

video evidence, the federal agent put in place by the Trump regime shot her in self-defense. The Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, Secretary Christie Noem, and Trump himself have all insisted that their false narrative is true. Media Matters for America compiled a timeline showing how the Fox News Channel first told viewers that Good had tried to ram officers whose vehicle was stuck in a snowbank, then moderated their language as video appeared, and then, by the evening, parroted the administration's talking points. Today, in a press conference on the shooting, Vice President J.D. Vance made even more extreme statements, claiming all evidence to the contrary, that the woman shot in Minneapolis was part of a left-wing network, and that nobody debates

that she aimed her car at a law enforcement officer and pressed on the accelerator. In fact, among those who debate Vance's version of events are the journalists at the New York Times, who today published a slow-motion analysis that demonstrated conclusively that the vehicle was turning away from the officer when he opened fire. White House Press Secretary Carolyn Levitt increased the attack on good, even more today, saying, the deadly incident that took place in Minnesota yesterday occurred as a result of a larger, sinister left-wing movement that has spread across our country, where our brave men and women of federal law enforcement are under organized attack. The administration appears to be trying to make

sure their narrative will get an official stamp of approval by silencing a real investigation. Today, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, BCA, a statewide criminal investigative bureau in the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, said the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI, has shut its officials out of the investigation into goods' death. The FBI will no longer allow the BCA to have access to the case materials, seen evidence, or investigative interviews necessary to complete a thorough and independent investigation. The BCA has, it said, reluctantly withdrawn from the investigation. Law professor Steve Vladick commented sarcastically, this is definitely how you behave when you're trying to bring every resource to bear rather than trying to cover up the unlawful behavior of

your own personnel. The FBI is housed within the Department of Justice, or DOJ, which is run by Trump, loyalists, Bondi, and Blanche. And as Vladic suggests, there is appropriate concern that it will not conduct a fair investigation. In an illustration of how Trump has tried to stack the DOJ, today U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield ruled that John Sarkone, Trump's temporary nominee as acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York, does not hold that position lawfully. For Sarkone, as for four other U.S. attorneys, Trump has ignored the law to keep his loyalists in control of key Department of Justice offices, where they have targeted people Trump considers enemies. Although judges have said five of Trump appointed U.S. attorneys are in office illegally, at least three have refused to step down. Hennepin County attorney Mary Moriarty issued a statement saying that her office is extremely.

exploring all options to ensure that a state-level investigation of the shooting of Renee Nicole Good continues. Today, Trump appeared to settle into his new role as an American dictator. He announced plans to make the ballroom for which he bulldozed the east wing of the White House even bigger, despite a long-standing norm that additions to the White House, the People's House, have a lower profile than the main building, Jonathan Edwards and Dan Diamond of the Washington Post reported today that Trump is now planning for his ballroom to be as tall as the White House. Trump's architect also said they're considering adding a one-story addition to the West Wing Colonnade that runs alongside what used to be the Rose Garden.

White House Director of Management and Administration Josh Fisher also said that administration officials plan to renovate Lafayette Square. north of the White House. And Trump told New York Times reporters David E. Sanger, Tyler Pager, Katie Roberts, and Zolan Cano Young's that, as commander-in-chief, he has only one limit on his power. My own morality. My own mind. It's the only thing that can stop me. He claims he gets to determine what is legal under international law and seems to stretch that authority to domestic affairs too, saying that he was already considering getting around a possible decision by the Supreme Court that his tariffs were unconstitutional by simply calling them licensing fees, and that he could

invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy troops in the U.S. if he felt the need to do it. Meanwhile, Hamid Aliaziz and Madeline Noe of the New York Times reported that the Trump administration is sending more than 100 Customs and Border Protection agents. and officers from Chicago to Minneapolis after yesterday's shooting. This afternoon, federal immigration agents shot and wounded two people in Portland, Oregon. According to Claire Rush and Gene Johnson of the Associated Press, the shooting took place outside a hospital where the two were in a car. Portland Mayor Keith Wilson and the city council asked ICE to end operations in the city

during a full investigation of the incident. Democrats have spoken out loudly against Trump's grab for dictatorial power since he took office, and today some Republicans began to push back as well. Representatives Roe Kana, a Democrat of California, and Thomas Massey, a Republican of Kentucky, the leading sponsors of the Epstein-Files Transparency Act,

asked U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmeyer, to appoint a special master and an independent monitor to compel the DOJ to produce the Epstein files as the law requires. Put simply, they wrote, the DOJ cannot be trusted with making mandatory disclosures under the Act. We do not believe the DOJ will produce the records that are required by the Act. Last month, House Democrats launched a discharge petition to force a vote to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits for three years. Frustrated that Speaker Johnson would not take up such a

measure, four Republicans signed the petition to force it to the floor. Today, 17 Republicans joined the Democrats to pass the measure by a vote of 230 to 196. It now heads to the Senate. The Senate also pushed back today. Senators voted to advance a bill that would stop the Trump administration from additional attacks on Venezuela without congressional approval. The vote was 52 to 47 with five Republicans joining all the Democrats to move the measure forward. Republicans killed a similar measure in November, but Trump's enormously unpopular incursion into Venezuela and threats against Greenland,

prompted five Republicans to reassert congressional authority over military action. CNN called it a notable rebuke of the president. The five Republicans voting for the bill were Susan Collins of Maine, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Todd Young of Indiana. Immediately, Trump posted on social media that the five should never be elected to office again. By reasserting the power of Congress, he wrote, they were attempting to take away our powers to fight and defend the United States of America. The Senate also unanimously

approved a resolution to hang a plaque honoring the police who protected the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021. In March 22, Congress passed a law approving the plaque and requiring that it be installed. but House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican of Louisiana, has refused, and the Department of Justice has complained that because the plaque lists departments and not individual officers, it does not comply with the law. On this year's fifth anniversary of the January 6th attack, the Trump administration blamed the police officers themselves for starting the insurrection, making the Senate's vote appeared to be a pointed rebuke of the president. In response to Trump's calling the rioters, patriotic protesters,

retiring Senator Tom Tillis, a Republican in North Carolina, called the January 6th rioters thousands of thugs, according to reporter Scott McFarlane. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican of South Dakota, has agreed to let the plaque hang in the Senate until the architect of the capital, the federal agency that maintains, operates, and preserves the U.S. Capitol, determines its permanent location.

Today, as there were yesterday, there were protests against ICE around the country. Tonight, as there were last night, there are vigils for Renee Good. Letters from an American was written by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead in Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.