THE WAR ROOM: Donald Trump blusters while he is unable to bring Iran to its knees. 

  The President said in the Oval Office, “ I could make a deal right now. Do you know that if I left right now we’ve had a tremendous success … it would take them 20 years to rebuild.”

  Following Iranian attacks on two cargo ships, Trump posted that, “I have ordered the United States Navy to shoot and kill any boat, small boats though they may be (Their naval ships are ALL, 159 of them, at the bottom of the sea!), that is putting mines in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz.”

  He said US mine sweepers are working to clear the strait. The US retired the four dedicated minesweepers stationed in the Middle East and has given the task to the newer littoral combat ships, which are considered a failure for the Navy and are getting mothballed as fast as they are built.

BY THE NUMBERS: Disapproval of President Trump has hit the highest level of his second term, according to The New York Times polling average, which found that 58 percent of Americans don’t like Trump’s  job performance while only 39 percent approve.

  It’s the highest disapproval rating Trump’s had since the end of his first term following his re-election loss and the January 6^th insurrection.

  Trump is still solid with Republicans, about 80 percent of whom still approve of his job performance.

THE AYATOLLH: CNN reported last night that Iran’s new ayatollah, Ali Khamenei, suffered severe facial burns and limb injuries in the opening attack of the Iran war that killed his father, the previous ayatollah, as well as his wife and children.

  The network reports that Khamenei is in seclusion with doctors, has trouble speaking, and communicates with his government and military through hand-carried notes. His situation appears to be a major contributor to disarray in his government.

SHRINKTECH: Meta says it plans to lay off 8,000 employees, roughly ten percent of its work force,  as it moves into artificial intelligence, while Microsoft is doing the same, offering buyouts to about seven percent of its workforce.

  “We’re doing this as part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we’re making,” according to a memo from Meta’s Janelle Gale, who holds the Orwellian title of “Chief People Officer.” Meta owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, and had 78,000 “people” at the end of 2025.

INFINITE SCROLL: 

— Fired Navy Secretary John Phelan clashed with President Trump and the Pentagon over Trump’s demand that he deliver the first of a new class of battleships by 2028, a near impossibility to design and build, according to reporting by The NY Times. The first of the Arleigh Burke class of destroyers, the backbone of the Navy, took 13 years to design and commission.

  Trump had promised only a few days before Christmas that his “Trump Class” of warships would be “the fastest, the biggest and by far — 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built.” In its $1.5 trillion proposed defense budget, the Trump administration is asking for $65.8 billion for shipbuilding.

 Phelan had been a champion of the new battleships, but reality got in his way.

— A member of the US special forces who took part in the raid that grabbed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has been arrested on charges that he used inside knowledge of the operation to place a prediction market bet that won him $400,000. Master Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke is accused of making a $32,000 long-shot bet that Maduro would be “out” by January. 

  Other big wins in recent months suggest people with inside information have banked a lot of winnings. 

HOME BOY: Indiana’s Heisman Trophy winning quarterback Fernando Mendoza was chosen first in the NFL draft last night by the Las Vegas Raiders. Mendoza did not go to the ceremony Pittsburgh. He watched at home with his mother, who’s in a wheelchair with Multiple Sclerosis.

  Mendoza is set to sign  a $54.6 million contract, the biggest rookie payout ever.

THE OBIT PAGE: Michael Tilson Thomas,  a prodigy in classical music who went on to become a fixture as a conductor, composer, pianist and director of the San Francisco Symphony for 25 years, died of brain cancer at age 81. He directed orchestras all over the world.

  Educated at USC, Thomas was a baby-faced young man in his 20s when he was tapped in the 1970s to be musical director of the Ojai Music Festival. 

  He was music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic for eight years in the 1970s; served as principal guest conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1981 to ’85; and was principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra from 1988 until 1995. 

  Thomas was openly gay throughout his career, becoming a hero in gay culture and community. In 2015 he married the man he had spent 50 years with after the two had met at the ages of 11 and 12.

  Thomas is quoted as having said that a conductor’s job requires “getting 100 people or so to agree where now really is.” 

THE SPIN RACK: Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, a Kuwaiti-American journalist, is expected to be released after 52 days in detention on charges that in reporting on the Iran war he had spread false information, harmed national security, and misused a mobile phone. In particular, Shihab-Eldin had reported about a US fighter jet mistakenly shot down by Kuwait. — The singer D4vd, who’s accused of murdering 14-year-old Celeste Rivas in California, was had a “significant” amount of child pornography on his cellphone, prosecutors say. 

BELOW THE FOLD: The world’s largest producer of condoms which makes about five billion of them a year says it is raising prices by 30 percent because of higher raw material prices and global shipping disruptions. That’s inflation before foreplay.

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