The Daily Wrap Up

13 Feb. 2026

[Transcript edited for clarity, length and flow]

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Unfortunately, I must begin today with more bad news.

Climate catastrophe and gun violence are issues I usually try to avoid because they are so disturbing and overwhelming that even discussing them feels unbearable.

Yesterday, Donald, recently crowned “King of Clean Coal,” announced something extraordinary. He is rescinding the federal government’s 2009 scientific determination known as the Endangerment Finding. This determination concluded that greenhouse gas emissions pose a danger to Americans’ health and welfare in more than 200 pages of research.

For nearly 17 years, the Environmental Protection Agency used the Endangerment Finding as the legal foundation to regulate carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases from oil and gas wells, tailpipes, smokestacks, and other fossil fuel sources. It also allowed the government to place restrictions on certain kinds of activity and force corporations that violated regulations to pay fines, which could help mitigate damage.

By this elimination, the Trump regime is effectively removing the government’s authority to limit wildfires and extreme weather events like hurricanes.

Donald’s Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum, went on Fox to tell Americans to celebrate the elimination of greenhouse gas limitations. He said:

Doug Burgum: This Endangerment Finding was on top of it was a house of cards. This knocks over the whole thing. This has been since the Obama administration forward, there’s been 20 years of cost placed on the American consumer, but it wasn’t like they had a chance to vote on it. It wasn’t like Congress had a chance to have a say. I mean the cost of whether it was your automobile that you were driving or the gas heater that you were putting in your home. Any of these things just raise the cost on American consumers without their choice, and then some states following suit and then banning consumer choice and saying, it must be a certain type of product like it has to be electric, it can’t be natural gas. All of these things driven by the Endangerment Finding, this is a huge, huge break for every American. This is part of President Trump making things affordable again in this country and a policy of energy abundance and energy dominance. I mean, this is just a massive change. Kudos to all the team that worked on this thing to put this together. It really exciting. Every American should get up tomorrow and hold a celebration.

The cost of regulation was never borne by ordinary Americans. It was the corporations that felt the pinch, and that is why they resisted it. Here is the paradox: the obscenely wealthy CEOs of these companies seem to believe they will somehow be fine when the climate apocalypse hits. Perhaps they plan to live in bunkers indefinitely.

According to the Environmental Defense Fund, this change could increase U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 10 percent over the next 30 years. It could potentially contribute to as many as 58,000 premature deaths and 37 million additional asthma attacks by 2055.

Who among us needs to breathe?

Donald stood at the White House alongside his handpicked EPA chief, former New York congressman Lee Zeldin, who knows nothing about protecting the environment and even less about how the EPA is supposed to function. When Donald was asked what he would say to Americans who are worried, his response was as contemptuous and dismissive as expected. He said:

Donald: Science? Yeah, I tell ‘em, don’t worry about it because it has nothing to do with public health. This was all a scam, a giant scam. This was a ripoff of the country by Obama and Biden, and let’s say Obama started it and got a rolling and a terrible ripoff. They’ll have more money to spend for healthcare if you look at it now, they can go out and spend under something that’s meaningful, and nobody’s doing more for healthcare than the Republican party.

Right. The same Republican Party that has been trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act from the moment it became law is also the party actively working to dismantle Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security, while stripping away every remaining social safety net that helps millions of Americans stay out of poverty.

Lee Zeldin also appeared on Fox to justify the rollback. He said:

Lee Zeldin: When you’re putting forth tens of billions of dollars to pay off your well-connected former Obama, Obama and Biden admin officials and democratic donors wasting taxpayer dollars. Yeah, that’s a problem. Trillions of dollars of regulation and costs on American families, that’s a big problem. It has been a job of using this for more power and control.

He did not answer the question, because he cannot answer it honestly.

Meanwhile, a shutdown is looming, and Republicans fled town. They cleared the Capitol a day early before tonight’s midnight deadline to fund the Department of Homeland Security. Lawmakers are deadlocked over new limits on immigration officers.

Republicans are back to being combative, petulant, and recalcitrant after they briefly appeared to soften their stance following the killing of two U.S. citizens by federal agents. Democrats argue public opinion favors them, citing polling showing broad disapproval of ICE tactics. Leaders of both parties said there was no reason to keep members in Washington without legislation ready for votes.

The stalled bill funds DHS agencies including FEMA, which has been rendered toothless by the Trump Regime, and the Coast Guard, which has been blocked from performing its mission in the Caribbean. Who needs the Coast Guard when you can just blow boats up?

Meanwhile, ICE and CBP will continue operating without interruption. They were funded and refunded to such an extreme degree that even a prolonged shutdown would not affect them.

Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican from Alaska, said, “We’re not even going to pretend that we’re trying to figure it out. It doesn’t look great.”

There is leadership for you.

I want to focus on a tariff vote that may be a sign of things to come.

On Wednesday, Donald posted the following on his failing social media site. He wrote:

Donald: Any Republican in the House or the Senate that votes against tariffs will seriously suffer the consequences come election time, and that includes primaries. Tariffs have given us economic and national security, and no Republican should be responsible for destroying this privilege. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Politico reports a small group of House Republicans triggered votes on Donald’s tariff policies, giving Democrats new leverage ahead of the November midterms. Six Republicans joined Democrats to overturn Canada tariffs after three defied Speaker Mike Johnson to block the vote. These battles are squeezing farm-state Republicans and hurting farmers, which is entirely the result of the Trump Regime’s economic policies.

If Republicans think tariffs are such a great idea, they can vote for them, but Democrats are going to make sure they are held responsible.

In this moment, accountability looks like momentum.

Democrats are winning elections they likely would have lost just a year ago. We must ensure that 2026 becomes the largest wave election in modern American history. Beyond that wave lies the accountability we have long anticipated, a future where our leaders answer to the people and true progress becomes possible.

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