IN BLACK AND WHITE: Donald Trump on Thursday posted an abjectly racist meme showing former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle with their faces superimposed on the bodies of apes … then took it down when the posting caused an uproar.

  Depiction of Black people as apes is a classic racist trope. 

  Trump said he had seen a video meme then passed it along to a staffer to do something with it. “I just looked at the first part, it was about voter fraud in some place, Georgia,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. “I didn’t see the whole thing.” And when challenged on it he said, “No, I didn’t make a mistake.”

  Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended her boss. “This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as king of the jungle and Democrats as characters from the lion King,” she said. “Please stop reporting the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”

  Both Trump and his administration have a record of posting racist memes, some of them portraying an idealized white America in the style of the mid 20^th Century.

BLOOD SIMPLE: Authorities in Arizona say they received a new message yesterday regarding the kidnapping of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, mother of NBC “Today Show” anchor Savannah Guthrie. They did not reveal the contents.

  Today is the 7^th day of the hunt for Guthrie and pleas for two-way communication with the kidnapper that has not occurred so far.

  Reports say investigators confiscated an SUV parked inside Nancy Guthrie’s and removed what may have been a camera from the roof of the house after they received a tip from a neighbor.

FIVE RINGS: American racer Lindsey Vonn the downhill training run yesterday with a torn ACL, the most crucial ligament in the knee that she ripped in a crash just a week ago. Vonn says the knee is stable and she will be in the starting gate for tomorrow’s downhill event. At 41, even without the injury, Vonn would go down as one of the greatest of all time if she wins a medal.

  The elaborate and endless opening ceremonies were yesterday at multiple locations in the geographically scattered Olympics. Mariah Carey sing the popular Italian song “Volare.” One critic said she was “dressed like a meringue.” Opera singer Andrea Bocelli did the always stirring “Nessun Dorma”  from Puccini’s Turandot. 

  Switzerland’s rising star Franjo von Allmen won the first gold medal of the 2026 games the frightening Stelvio course in the men’s downhill.

SLIDE RULE: The NY Times has been tracking the Trump administration keeping a sliding scale of zero to 10, rating the administration’s trend toward becoming an autocracy. They just moved the slide to 4.

  The Times says, “The crackdown on dissent and speech in Minnesota this winter follows a pattern that is common in countries that slide from democracy to autocracy: A leader enacts a legally dubious policy. Citizens protest that policy. The government responds with intimidation and force. When people are hurt, the government blames them and lies about what happened.”

  The Times says, “The Trump administration is conducting a military-style operation in an American city under dubious pretenses. The stated goal is immigration enforcement, even though the state is home to relatively few undocumented immigrants. The true goal seems to be instilling fear in people who oppose Mr. Trump’s agenda.”

THE REGIME:

— Federal agents made the opening moves to investigate the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis as a violation of civil rights then shut it down on the orders of FBI Director Kash Patel, the NY Times reports.

  The US attorney’s office had sought a search warrant for Good’s car to examine blood spatter and other evidence. The Times reports according to anonymous sources that investigating Good’s death as a violation of civil rights would have been considered contrary to President Trump’s claim that Good “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer” who killed her.

  The top criminal prosecutors in the Minneapolis office of the Department of Justice have subsequently resigned.

— A federal judge yesterday blocked the Trump administration from suspending $16 billion in funding for a rail tunnel under the Hudson River as work stopped earlier in the day. 

  This came the same day that the NY Times reported that administration officials offered to release the tunnel money if Democrats agree to re-name Dulles Airport in Washington and New York’s Penn Station after President Trump. 

— Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced yesterday. That the Pentagon will sever all academic ties with Harvard University. 

In a vitriolic statement and video, Hegseth attacked Harvard as a politically liberal institution and that starting in September  the Defense Department will “discontinue graduate-level professional military education, fellowships and certificate programs at the school.” 

  there are several graduate-level programs for military officers at Harvard, including the Kennedy School which Hegseth attended.

  “For too long, this department has sent our best and brightest officers to Harvard, hoping the university would better understand and appreciate our warrior class,” Hegseth said in his statement. “Instead, too many of our officers came back looking too much like Harvard — heads full of globalist and radical ideologies that do not improve our fighting ranks.”

THE OBIT PAGE: Sonny Jurgensen, who as a quarterback threw the football for the 255 touchdowns in a career with the Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Redskins, died on yesterday in Naples, Florida. He was 91.

  Jurgensen played seven seasons for the Eagles and 11 for the Redskins. Legendary coach Vince Lombardi said back in 1969, “He may be the best the league has ever seen.” 

BELOW THE FOLD:  Grammy winning pop megastar Bad Bunny performs tomorrow in Santa Clara, California with the crowd warmed up by the opening act, the first half of the Super Bowl.

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