Merry Christmas!:And welcome to an abbreviated special Christmas edition of The Rooney Report because we don’t feel like working very hard this morning. The Norad tracker says Santa delivered 7,281,439,471 presents. Taking a Christmas eve phone call from a 7-year-old child President Trump said, “Are you still a believer in Santa? Because at seven it’s marginal, right?”

Poor Me:The Dow Jones took a sleigh ride yesterday, closing down 653 points. It was the single biggest Christmas eve loss for the Dow in history — 2.9 percent. 

  The big skid started at about the time President Trump went on a Twitter rampage, complaining about the government shutdown, lack of money for his border wall, and the interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.

  Trump wrote, “The only problem our economy has is the Fed. They don’t have a feel for the Market, they don’t understand necessary Trade Wars or Strong Dollars or even Democrat Shutdowns over Borders. The Fed is like a powerful golfer who can’t score because he has no touch – he can’t putt!”

  Yes, just like a golfer who can’t putt.

  Reports out of Washington say Trump has been rumbling about firing Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, his own appointee.

  Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who’s vacationing in Cabo San Lucas, said he had spent Sunday calling bank executives to reassure them that the markets were functioning properly.

  They are. Investors are getting their money out.

  First Lady Melania Trump headed back to the White House from Florida. Trump couldn’t go in the middle of the shutdown. He had tweeted, “I am all alone (poor me) in the White House waiting for the Democrats to come back and make a deal on desperately needed Border Security. At some point the Democrats not wanting to make a deal will cost our Country more money than the Border Wall we are all talking about. Crazy!”

  Yeah, Crazy!

  Don’t expect anything to get better soon. The Trump administration is in a meltdown. Paul Waldman notes in The Washington Postthat, “When the new year begins next week, President Trump will have an acting chief of staff, an acting secretary of defense, an acting attorney general, an acting EPA administrator, no interior secretary, and no ambassador to the United Nations.” 

Death be Not Proud:A federal judge has ordered North Korea to pay $500 million to the family of Otto Warmbier, the American college student tortured to death in a Hermit Kingdom prison.

  Visiting North Korea with a student group, Warmbier was arrested and convicted of stealing a propaganda poster. He was sentenced to 15 years hard labor.

  After a year and a half in custody, Warmbier was released in a coma in 2017 and died days later.

  US District Judge Beryl A. Howell for the District of Columbia said the large award was to punish and deter North Korea. “North Korea is liable for the torture, hostage taking, and extrajudicial killing of Otto Warmbier, and the injuries to his mother and father, Fred and Cindy Warmbier.”

The Unusual Suspect:Actor Kevin Spacey has been charged with felony sexual assault stemming from a 2016 incident in a Nantucket restaurant. He’s accused of getting an 18-year-old drunk and groping him.

  Spacey was written out of the HBO series “House of Cards” because of accusations of misconduct.

Merry Christmas Again!:  Laugh, eat good food, relax. And if you still believe in Santa, don’t call the White House. 

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