Thursday, January 15, 2026
Good morning, and welcome to RedState’s “Morning Minute” — a brief glimpse at which stories are trending at the moment and a look ahead at what the day may bring. Consider this your one-stop shop for news to kickstart your day.
TOP O’ THE MORNIN’
Red-Hot at RedState
Nick Shirley Strikes Again, Drops Second Bombshell Video Exposing Rampant MN Fraud
In this new clip, running almost an hour long, Shirley teams up with a man he identifies as a local named David. David described what he called “transportation fraud,” whereby companies sign up to be “non-medical emergency transportation” entities. There are over 1,000 such companies, David alleged — adding that more than 90 percent were Somali-owned.
Watch: Raskin Shut Down After Hageman Exposes ‘Insurrection’ Myth at New J6 Committee
Hageman posted a clip of the xchange with Romano on X writing, “At the first @J6Select Subcommittee hearing, I demanded real answers, not political narratives.”
What a novel concept.
Trump Goes Nuclear on Walz: Stop the Violence Against ICE Now or I’ll Bring Out the Really Big Guns
Trump isn’t playing a game of chicken here, he means exactly what he’s telling Tim Walz – stop with the political theater and clean up your mess … or I will.
Trending Across Townhall Media
The Reality of Blumenthal’s Background Check Bill
With no mechanism in place to encourage proper staffing of NICS, future administrations could manage to stretch out delays indefinitely simply by reallocating resources within the FBI. Instead of maintaining sufficient personnel to meet the needs, they could strip the entire staff bare until it’s too much work for them to ever get done in a reasonable time.
Let’s Engage in Baseless Speculation for a Moment, Shall We? The Skies Over Iran Have Emptied MORE
The thing is with Trump, you don’t know, and the Iranians may have jumped the gun with what could turn out to be a very premature ‘everything is under control here, now’ statement.
When did we begin hiring such unthinking, ignorant, mental-midget-aspiring, woke dopes into public service? Stupidity is a choice, people.
Has Weaver’s mother sold her $1.6 million Tennessee home yet? Has Weaver herself moved out of Crown Heights after complaining about gentrification?
If a Republican was saying the things Walz is saying, the mainstream media would report breathlessly and ENDLESSLY about their being an insurrectionist while screeching about how we must DEFEND OUR DEMOCRACY. But since it’s dillhole Walz, crickets.
WHAT’S ON TAP?
Today on Capitol Hill…
We had some fascinating moments on the Hill on Wednesday.
SEE: Watch: Raskin Shut Down After Hageman Exposes ‘Insurrection’ Myth at New J6 Committee
Mind-Blowing: Josh Hawley Runs Circles Around ‘Expert’ Who Refuses to Answer If Men Can Get Pregnant
Will we see more of the same today? Here are the hearings/meetings set for Thursday:
- House Energy and Commerce, Communications and Technology Subcommittee — Subcommittee Markup of Six Bills
- Senate Judiciary — Business meeting to consider S.2132, to amend title 18, United States Code, to prevent and mitigate the potential for conflicts of interest following government service, and the nominations of multiple U.S. attorney and judicial positions
- Senate Armed Services — Hearings to examine the nominations of Lieutenant General Francis L. Donovan, USMC, to be general and Commander, United States Southern Command, and Lieutenant General Joshua M. Rudd, USA, to be general and Director, National Security Agency/Chief, Central Security Service/Commander, United States Cyber Command, both of the Department of Defense
- Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions — Business meeting to consider S.1157, to direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to conduct a review to evaluate the status of research on lung cancer in women and underserved populations, S.921, to direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to issue guidance on whether hospital emergency departments should implement fentanyl testing as a routine procedure for patients experiencing an overdose, S.2169, to require the development of a comprehensive rural hospital cybersecurity workforce development strategy, and S.272, to improve the safety of infant formula through testing of infant formula for microorganisms and toxic elements
- Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation — Hearings to examine the impact of technology on America’s youth
- Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs — Business meeting to consider H.R.3633, to provide for a system of regulation of the offer and sale of digital commodities by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission
On Wednesday, the House also passed another set of appropriations bills, and the Senate put the kibosh on the War Powers resolution.
SEE: House Passes New Treasury-State Funding Duo to Dodge Shutdown
White House What’s Up
President Trump has a busy Thursday on tap: He’ll receive his intelligence briefing late Thursday morning. Then he’ll have a lunch meeting with Venezuela’s Maria Corina Machado. At 4:00 PM Eastern, he’ll visit with the 2025 Stanley Cup Champions, the Florida Panthers, in the East Room.
Vice President JD Vance cast another tie-breaker vote on Wednesday, helping put an end to the aforementioned War Powers resolution.
At 1:00 PM Eastern, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt will host a press briefing.
Keeping Up With the Cabinet
U.S. Trade Rep. – Jamieson Greer — Greer just issued a statement regarding critical minerals negotiations.
Ambassador Greer issued a statement following @POTUS directing the United States to launch negotiations to address the threat posed to national security regarding imports of processed critical minerals and their derivative products from any country.
Read: https://t.co/xt0GmqHKVr pic.twitter.com/njJp8w2nIF
— United States Trade Representative (@USTradeRep) January 15, 2026
Full Court Press…
We had a few court decisions of note (in addition to the Supreme Court decisions handed down) on Wednesday:
- ↔️ State of Minnesota v. Noem (immigration enforcement) — Judge Katherine Menendez (Minnesota) declines to enter ex parte TRO; will treat as motion for preliminary injunction; gives Govt. until 1/19 to respond; plaintiffs until 1/22 to reply.
- ❌ Tangipa v. Newsom (challenging Prop. 50) — 3-judge panel DENIES plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary injunction (2-1 decision).
- ✅ Corporation for Public Broadcasting v. Trump (CPB terminations) — Judge Randolph Moss (D.C.) DENIES cross-motions for summary judgment and dismisses case as moot.
New: Judicial Panel Upholds California’s Prop 50 Redistricting Map, Almost Assuring Trip to SCOTUS
MORNING MUSING
Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman (WY-AL) is almost always a treat to behold in congressional hearings. I’ve written on some of her exchanges here before. But she is not someone to be trifled with. And I get the feeling that Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin (MD-08) was reminded of that on Wednesday during the first hearing of the GOP-led Select Subcommittee to Investigate the Remaining Questions Surrounding January 6.
As Rusty Weiss noted, Hageman basically shut Raskin’s insurrection rhetoric down right quick. She’s an experienced trial attorney, so one would expect her to handle the questioning of witnesses proficiently — which she does and did here. But it was the look she shot at Raskin after he lamely tried to interrupt her questioning that got my attention.
Check it out here:
.@RepHageman triggered a shouting response from Rep. Jamie Raskin when she asked a January 6th prosecutor an inconvenient question. pic.twitter.com/4N5EpjCcpt
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) January 15, 2026
Did you catch that there at the 34-second mark?
Hooo! All I know is I do not ever want to be on the receiving end of that look! 😂
LIGHTER FARE
Tiny frens..🦌🧒🏻😍 pic.twitter.com/Ha0pGxGXqJ
— 𝕐o̴g̴ (@Yoda4ever) January 15, 2026
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