THE SHOW NOTES: GOP Border Wars, Biden Loses Africa To Russia, & Taking Drugs With Elon Musk

Welcome! Killer Mike was arrested at The Grammy’s after winning three awards. I sat down for an interview with him two years ago.

NEW: Tesla board members were pressed into taking drugs with Elon Musk.

RUSSIA: Is Tucker Carlson in Russia to interview Vladimir Putin?

HEADLINE: Biden aides panicked over classified document report containing 'embarrassing details’ - Fox News

DIP: Markets are falling after Jerome Powell said the Fed isn’t in a rush to cut interest rates.

WATCH: Biden’s National Security Advisor has no idea who was killed in US airstrikes on Friday.

AGAIN: Joe Biden is refusing to do a pre-Super Bowl interview… again.

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Biden Polling

In what seems like a weekly headline, Joe Biden’s team is panicked over a brand new bipartisan poll from NBC that claims voters prefer Donald Trump to Joe Biden when it comes to handling the economy by a jaw-dropping margin of 20 points.

Bad to worse: Voters were even more negative towards Joe Biden when asked about immigration, giving Donald Trump a 30-point edge. Voters also gave Trump a 16-point edge when asked which candidate would be more effective while in office.

Explained: Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt explained Biden’s worries this way, “What is most concerning is the erosion of Biden’s standing against Trump compared to four years ago. On every measure compared to 2020, Biden has declined. Most damning, the belief that Biden is more likely to be up to the job — the chief tenet of the Biden candidacy — has evaporated.”

Read my morning piece on the poll here.

Russia’s Africa Play

Russia is recruiting and deploying military assets to Africa to formally consolidate control of the former Wagner Group’s vast military empire.

Context: The notorious Wagner Group served as Russia’s private military in Africa and the Middle East until the “accidental death” of its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin following a failed coup attempt in June of last year. Despite its vast and expanding influence in Northern Africa, the group has been in a state of flux since the death of Prigozhin.

Why this matters: Under the thinly veiled guise of autonomy, Russia avoided international sanctions for the litany of human rights abuses perpetrated by the Wagner Group in Africa. Now, Biden’s hands-off foreign policy approach has emboldened Russia to shrug off the threat of international sanctions and formally consolidate power in Africa while exploiting its resource-rich Sahel region.

Putin: The news comes as Putin continues to squelch opposition leaders in Russia jailing them or forcing them to flee the country. Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent anti-Putin activist, was poisoned multiple times before being jailed over trumped-up charges. A new story from The Wall Street Journal (paywall) today says that candidates who Putin allows to run against him, do so on principle but under no illusion that they can win.

GOP Border Wars

Republican leaders in the US Senate unveiled a $118 billion bipartisan border security bill yesterday that would provide mechanisms to ostensibly limit border crossings while funding Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.

Response: House Speaker Mike Johnson said the bill was “worse than we thought” while House Majority Leader Steve Scalise blasted the bill claiming it would not get a vote in the House.

Biden’s Worst Energy Decision

The Energy Department is required by law to approve permits to export LNG to countries with which the U.S. doesn’t have free-trade agreements if they are in the “public interest.” The department has never rejected a permit. But now the Administration plans to do so by redefining “public interest” to include the potential impact on the climate.

The White House says the pause will only affect a handful of projects that are currently seeking Energy Department permits, but this is dishonest. It will also freeze about a half a dozen projects seeking Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approvals and could halt another dozen or so that have been permitted by previous Presidents.

That’s because the Energy Department in December announced that projects not yet operating will have to reapply for permits if it’s been seven years since they were authorized. So projects in the works could get deep-sixed—even if they have billions of dollars in committed capital and contractual agreements with customers.

The Administration is deliberately creating uncertainty about permit approvals and extensions to chill investment and discourage foreign governments from signing long-term contracts. Why risk investing in or signing a purchase agreement with a Gulf Coast project that may later be killed? Smarter to link up with the Qataris.

Full story at The Wall Street Journal (paywall).

Trending news:

• Trump’s legal battles are at a critical moment with major implications for the 2024 election - CNN

• A 639-year concert? - The Conversation

• The other war that’s killed 50,000 people. - Newsweek

• Taylor Swift announces new album at 2024 Grammys - NBC

• Drag queen resigns as school principal after Libs of TikTok exposes prior child porn charges - Twitter

• Diplomatic tensions between Ecuador and Russia over military equipment threaten banana exports - AP

• El Salvador's Bukele re-elected as president in landslide win - Yahoo

• Government extends ban on foreign buying of Canadian housing - CBC

• The S&P’s top stocks haven’t been this concentrated in 50 years - Axios

• The IRS has all our tax data. Why doesn’t its new website use it? - Washington Post (paywall)

• Dartmouth Reinstates SAT Requirement in First for Ivy League - WSJ (paywall)

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