Good morning. Despite her best efforts, Nikki Haley’s campaign wasn’t quite Kenough to take out Trump in New Hampshire. But Ryan Gosling’s performance as Ken was more than enough to net him a nod for Best Supporting Actor.

 GOVERNMENT 

⚖️ SCOTUS sides with feds in fight with Texas

Texas is Texasing with the federal government right now. And the U.S. Supreme Court just told them to cut it out. Two conservative justices sided with the three liberals to deliver a 5-4 win for the feds.

Background: Texas has the longest border with Mexico of any state — 1,254 miles. And they say the federal government has failed in its duty to protect that border. So they’ve taken matters into their own hands.

In 2021, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott launched Operation Lone Star. This uses Texas National Guard troops, Texas Rangers (no, not the baseball team), and others for border enforcement, arrests, and bussing tens of thousands of migrants to Democratic states. It also, controversially, includes razor wire fencing near the border.

The case: The federal government didn’t like that last bit (razor wire is obviously dangerous). So they started removing it. But Texas didn’t like that. The whole thing ended with a standoff wherein Texas troops blocked federal agents from accessing part of the border.

The case quickly hit the Supreme Court. The U.S. solicitor general (the government’s lawyer) argued the Biden administration’s case in a written filing. And it worked. The court sided with the federal government. The ruling was unsigned, but four conservative justices (Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Thomas) indicated they disagreed.

Future: This decision is not permanent. It simply allows the feds to cut the wire while a lawsuit over the issue works its way through the system. Conservative justices dominate the Supreme Court. But decisions like this could give Democrats a glimmer of hope in future cases.

 2024 

🙃 New Hampshire surprises no one

New Hampshire’s storied primary turned out to be not much of a story at all. Former President Donald Trump defeated former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley by about 10% (despite her 100% win in Dixville Notch).

• Trump’s speech featured remarks from two former rivals, Sen. Tim Scott and Vivek Ramaswamy. He wants to end this primary ASAP and move on to general election mode.

• Haley thanked everyone under the sun and vowed to fight on, saying “New Hampshire is first in the nation. It is not the last in the nation.” She hit both Biden and Trump on age, called for mental competency tests for politicians older than 75, and challenged Trump to a debate (not likely).

The Democratic primary, as is typical for incumbent presidents, was much less of a contest. Despite spending $5 million of his own cash, President Biden trounced Rep. Dean Phillips, about 70%-20%. Author Marianne Williamson got 5%.

• Rep. Phillips touted his share of the vote, calling it a success against an incumbent president. He vowed to fight on, saying the campaign is “just getting started.”

Nevada: The next state is sort of Nevada. The Democratic and Republican primaries there are Feb. 6. But Phillips isn’t on the Democratic ballot. And Trump isn’t on the Republican ballot — he’s running only in the Republican caucus on Feb. 8. Due to a weird disagreement, R’s have both a primary and a caucus in Nevada this year.

South Carolina: This is the next real contest and the one the candidates all referenced last night.

• Ds vote Feb. 03. Joe Biden is likely to do well here — he won it big in 2020 and reorganized the primary calendar around this contest.

• Rs vote Feb. 24. This is Nikki Haley’s home state. Anything less than a big win here could be her undoing. Polls show Trump up by 30%.

 POLITICS 

🔵 President Biden recorded a robocall to voters in New Hampshire. Weirdly, he asked them not to vote in yesterday’s primary. Except…it wasn’t him. It was an AI-generated deepfake. The state Attorney General’s office is investigating the source of the call. They say it was an illegal attempt at voter suppression.

🔴 A Florida state senator proposed using up to $5 million of state money to pay the legal fees of presidential candidates "subject to political discrimination." That obviously refers exclusively to Donald Trump. She quickly dumped the idea after Gov. Ron DeSantis said he'd veto it (if it passed).

🔵 Four California U.S. Senate candidates debated this week in a bipartisan brawl. Three Democratic U.S. representatives took on each other and one Republican (former MLB player Steve Garvey). California uses a funky electoral system. Every candidate, no matter their party, appears on one big primary ballot together. The top two finishers move on to the general election. This being California, a Democrat is 99% likely to win the seat in the end. So the strongest Democrat has dual motivations: come in first and ensure Garvey comes in second.

🔴 Gov. Doug Burgum, who briefly ran for president last year, won’t run for a third term as governor of North Dakota. Thirteen states have no term limits whatsoever for their governors (including NY, IL, and TX). North Dakota passed term limits in 2022, but Burgum’s service thus far doesn’t count toward his limit.

 TRIVIA 

The second most nominated person in Oscars history notched #54 this week. But he’s unlikely to ever take first place. Who (dead or alive) has more Oscar nominations than anyone else?

 WORLD 

🇸🇴 Somalia: Drama alert. Landlocked Ethiopia signed a deal with neighboring Somaliland for long-term use of a port on its coast. But Somalia’s not happy. What’s the problem? Somaliland is a breakaway region with nearly zero international recognition (despite being far more stable than Somalia itself for the past 30 years).

🇨🇲 Cameroon: Cameroon (in Central Africa) is the world's first country to give free malaria vaccines to all young children. Malaria kills more than 600,000 Africans each year. The vast majority are children. This comes days after the WHO declared Cape Verde (an island) the first sub-Saharan African nation in 50 years to eradicate the disease.

🇦🇷 Argentina: Much of Argentina will shut down today from noon to midnight. Labor unions believe the mass deregulation proposed by new libertarian President Javier Milei undermines workers. So they've called for a general strike. Most of the nation's unionized workers (40% of the workforce) will take part.

🇮🇱 Israel: The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) lost 24 soldiers in one day this week. This comes as they surround the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza. Israel says it’s lost more than 200 soldiers in the war. Hamas says more than 25,000 Gazans have died — but they don’t separate civilian deaths from soldiers.

 BRIEFS 

• Humanoid robots (by Figure) will begin working in a BMW factory in South Carolina

• The CIA is trying to recruit Russian spies via social media videos

• TikTok is laying off 60 people amid slow growth (still growth, though)

• Turkey approved Sweden’s NATO membership application, leaving Hungary as the last holdout

• Netflix will pay $5 billion for the right to livestream some WWE events

• Chrome is getting built-in AI features (like writing help) in next month’s update

• The “Doomsday Clock” that measures the chance of a nuclear war won’t change yet — it remains 90 seconds to midnight

 QUOTE 

 SNACKS 

🍿 Oscars: GOAT composer John Williams grabbed his 54th Oscar nomination for Indiana Jones 5. He’s got more nominations than any other living person. At 91, he’s also the oldest-ever nominee. Check out the full list of noms here.

🧳 Travel: Apparently some people don’t just stay at a Holiday Inn or sus AirBnB. Take a look at GQ’s list of the best hotels in the world.

🗨️ Woah: TikTok voice is slowly changing the way we all speak the English language.

 ANSWER 

John Williams is number two. But, at 91, he’s unlikely to get the extra six nominations needed to overtake number one, Walt Disney. From 1932 to 1968, Walt was nominated for 59 Oscars.

 SURVEY