Open source monitors as well as US and Middle East media have confirmed that the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, has entered the Mediterranean Sea, having sailed passed the Strait of Gibraltar on Friday.

This is the second carrier strike group expected to soon operate directly in the CENTCOM area of responsibility, amid the massive military build-up and pressure campaign against Iran. It was sent from the Caribbean earlier this month, extending its planned deployment.

The USS Mahan Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, which is accompanying the USS Gerald R. Ford, is also now crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, maritime tracking analysis shows.

The aircraft carrier will likely take several more days to reach the Middle East and be poised to operate against Iran – so it looks to be in place by start of next week.

According to Bloomberg and other outlets, the US has now amassed the biggest force in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. There is administration talk of “limited strikes” – but clearly Washington is getting ready for all escalation scenarios.

The Ford’s entry into Mediterranean waters took longer than expected because it was reportedly conducting replenishment-at-sea, again suggesting the nuclear-powered vessel is readying for a long, or sustained campaign.

Diplomacy seems to be continuing, but also with Trump himself on Friday confirming that he’s considering ‘limited’ strikes on Iran in order to force an Iran deal on Washington’s terms:

The reports come after Trump publicly told Iran that it has “10 to 15 days” to cut a deal over its nuclear program, as the US continues its vast military build up in the region.

“We’re either going to get a deal, or it’s going to be unfortunate for them,” Trump told reporters on board Air Force One yesterday. He added that negotiations could be allowed to continue for another 10 to 15 days, a deadline the president described as “pretty much” the “maximum”.

“I would think that would be enough time,” Trump said.

So there is perhaps time to breathe, while Iranian officials continue to scramble, hoping to stave off attack. According to fresh Reuters reporting:

Iran to present its draft in 2–3 days, with further talks expected within a week, its foreign minister says -adding a diplomatic deal with the U.S. is “within reach” and could be achieved in a very short time.

But once a potential attack starts, Iran’s response is entirely unpredictable, especially after this firm warning communicated formally to the United Nations:

In a letter to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, Iran warned that if attacked, all bases, facilities and assets of the hostile force in the region would be considered legitimate targets in its defensive response.

The letter added that the United States would bear full and… pic.twitter.com/I7mYTzQERE

— SafetySwipe (@SafetyNotorious) February 19, 2026

Iranian leaders may consider that they have no choice but to inflict as much pain as possible on American bases and forces in the region, seeing this as a matter of existential survival.

“It will be very hard for the Trump administration to do a one-and-done kind of attack in Iran this time around,” said Ali Vaez, an Iran expert at the International Crisis Group. “Because the Iranians would respond in a way that would make all-out conflict inevitable.”

But the Pentagon seems to be readying for just such a scenario, also while Congress is still days away from belatedly debating a resurrected War Powers push – driven by Reps Khanna and Massie.

The Supreme Court on Friday struck down Trump’s tariffs. In a 6-3 decision (170-pages), the court ruled that Trump’s use of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) – which constitute about half of the tariffs we’ve seen under Trump – was not lawful. Kavanaugh, Thomas and Alito dissented. 

“IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs,” wrote the court. 

The ruling stems from a consolidated challenge brought by small businesses and multiple states, including Costco, who argued that the statute – originally intended to authorize sanctions and asset freezes during national emergencies – does not grant the executive branch the power to levy taxes on imports. The Court reasoned that the Constitution vests the authority to impose duties and tariffs with Congress alone, and found that IEEPA’s authorization to “regulate … importation” cannot be interpreted to include the distinct taxing power required to enact broad-based tariffs. The ruling affirms lower-court decisions blocking the challenged measures, concluding that the administration’s emergency-based tariff framework exceeded the limits of the statute.

Trump invoked IEEPA to impose his ‘reciprocal’ tariffs on nearly every foreign trade partner to address what he called a national emergency over US trade deficits. He invoked it again to impose tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico over fentanyl trafficking into the United States. 

Friday’s decision rests on the notion that tariffs are not merely a tool for regulating trade, but also a a form of taxation that the Constitution reserves to Congress. Citing Article I, Section 8, the majority stressed that the power to impose tariffs is “very clear[ly] … a branch of the taxing power,” and that the Framers gave Congress “alone … access to the pockets of the people.” The administration had argued that IEEPA’s grant of authority to “regulate … importation” permitted the President to impose tariffs in response to declared national emergencies. The Court rejected that interpretation, noting that while “taxes may accomplish regulatory ends, it does not follow that the power to regulate includes the power to tax as a means of regulation.”

The majority also pointed to the statute’s text, emphasizing that IEEPA authorizes the President to “investigate, block … regulate, direct and compel, nullify, void, prevent or prohibit” certain transactions – yet makes no mention of tariffs or duties.

“Had Congress intended to convey the distinct and extraordinary power to impose tariffs,” the opinion states, “it would have done so expressly, as it consistently has in other tariff statutes.”

The Court further highlighted a lack of historical precedent  – noting that that in the nearly 50 years since IEEPA’s enactment, “no President has invoked the statute to impose any tariffs,” and that combined with the sweeping economic impact of the measures at issue – it was a “telling indication” that the asserted authority falls outside the President’s legitimate reach.

Trump appointees Gorsuch and Barrett went against the president. He will not be happy https://t.co/o3z6v04x12

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) February 20, 2026

Applying what it characterized as the “major questions” framework, the Court reasoned that Congress would not delegate such sweeping control over trade policy through vague language. The President’s claim that two words – “regulate” and “importation” – authorize tariffs “of unlimited amount and duration, on any product from any country,” the majority wrote, would represent a “transformative expansion” of executive authority over tariff policy and the broader economy.

Tariff Refunds?

Notably, the Court’s ruling does not address what happens to the billions of dollars in tariff revenue already collected under the now-invalidated IEEPA framework, leaving open the possibility of a wave of refund litigation in the months ahead. There are currently hundreds of tariff refund lawsuits pending in US trade court.

While the majority opinion strikes down Trump’s use of IEEPA, it offers no guidance on restitution, repayment, or whether importers may be entitled to recover duties paid pursuant to tariffs the Court has now deemed unlawful. That omission is likely to shift the next phase of the dispute into the U.S. Court of International Trade, where importers may seek retroactive relief through administrative protests or refund actions.

Justice Kavanaugh’s dissent notes that the process is likely to be a “mess,” warning that “the Court’s decision is likely to generate other serious practical consequences in the near term,” adding “One issue will be refunds.” 

Trump’s administration has not provided tariffs collection data since December 14. But Penn-Wharton Budget Model economists estimated on Friday that the amount collected in Trump’s tariffs based on IEEPA stood at more than $175 billion. And that amount likely would need to be refunded with a Supreme Court ruling against the IEEPA-based tariffs. –Reuters

Any such claims could involve complex questions of sovereign immunity, administrative exhaustion, and the availability of equitable relief – particularly where duties were paid without timely protest. Whether courts ultimately require repayment of unlawfully imposed tariffs may depend not just on the validity of the underlying statute, but on the procedural posture of individual importers and the statutory refund mechanisms available under U.S. customs law.

During arguments on Nov. 5, the court seemed skeptical over Trump’s authority to use IEEPA, leading most observers observers, including betting markets, to conclude a high probability they’re struck down at least in part. The Trump administration is appealing lower court rulings that he overstepped his authority, while Trump himself said a Supreme Court ruling against the tariffs would be a “terrible blow” to the United States.

Other Options

That said, even if that happens, the Trump administration has several other legal avenues they can pursue. As Deutsche Bank noted last month; 

For instance, the sectoral tariffs (e.g. on steel and aluminum) aren’t covered by the court ruling, whilst another option would be to use Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act, which permits temporary 15% tariffs for 150 days. 

 And Goldman:

This won’t be the end of tariffs… the administration will almost certainly roll out alternative legal frameworks. Net result is probably slightly fewer tariffs, materially more trade uncertainty, and some incremental deficit concerns. Net-net, that’s mildly supportive for equities and mildly negative for bonds… but largely priced for both.

Trump called the ruling a ‘disgrace,’ and told governors at a White House breakfast that he has a ‘backup plan’ in mind, though no details on that. 

ZH Premium Members – stay tuned for an in-depth look at these options…

Meanwhile, prediction markets got this one right. 

After rebounding strongly in preliminary February data (as Democrats came to their senses over the fearmongered Trump tariff-flation), the final UMich sentiment survey print slipped lower with the headline lowered from 57.3 to 56.6. Both Current Conditions and Expectations were lower than the flash print with the latter falling to 2 month lows and the former holding at 4-month highs…

Does anyone else think its weird that all the numbers were exactly the same at 56.6

Source: Bloomberg

Democrats and Republicans led the decrease in inflation expectations…

Source: Bloomberg

UMich Survey Director Joanna Hsu noted that “all index components posted insignificant movements this month; overall, consumers do not perceive any material differences in the economy from last month.”

Democrats confidence is at its highest since July 2025…

Year-ahead inflation expectations fell from 4.0% last month to 3.4% this month, the lowest reading since January 2025.

Hsu concludes that “A sizable month-to-month increase in sentiment for the largest stockholders was fully offset by a decline among consumers without stock holdings. Similar divergences were seen across income and education, where higher-income or college educated consumers exhibited increases in sentiment while lower-income or less-educated counterparts did not. With their much stronger income prospects and investment porfolios, wealthier and higher-income consumers feel better insulated from any possible risks to the economy.”

Finally, why all this is nonsense (h/t @MikeZaccardi via FundStrat)

Why did UMich suddenly starting weighting their survey to Democrats when Trump was elected?

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

London Mayor Sadiq Khan is facing renewed criticism after a major BBC investigation found that vulnerable girls as young as 14 are being lured into forced sex by gangs operating across the capital.

The investigation, based on weeks of reporting and interviews with dozens of people, including five survivors of gang-based violence, concluded that exploitation by organised groups is rife in parts of London.

Some victims told the BBC they were raped by multiple men as “payment” for unpaid drug debts run up by gangs that controlled them. Others said they had been groomed solely for sex. The investigation also found that girls were often drawn into criminal activity such as drug dealing, weapons trading, and phone theft before being sexually exploited.

One Metropolitan Police officer described young girls and women as the “lowest rung” within gang hierarchies, saying they were groomed and exploited “for everything.”

Public debate over grooming gangs in the U.K. has often focused on northern towns such as Rotherham and Rochdale. A government-commissioned report last year found that in Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire, and West Yorkshire, there was evidence of “disproportionate numbers of men from Asian ethnic backgrounds amongst suspects for group-based child sexual exploitation.”

Further investigations have found the same in other towns and cities, including Telford, Oxford, Derby, Birmingham, Halifax, Peterborough, and countless others.

Last year, Khan said there was no “indication of […] grooming gangs” of the type seen in Rotherham operating in London. Following the BBC findings, a spokesperson for the mayor said he wanted to support police to tackle “all child sexual exploitation in the capital, including grooming gangs.”

Survivors told the broadcaster how exploitation often targeted girls from broken homes or troubled backgrounds.

“I didn’t feel like I was groomed or exploited. I didn’t think I was a victim. It’s taken me a while to realise I was used and manipulated,” one victim told the BBC.

Another survivor, Milly, said she was 15 when she was passed between different men.

“I was getting passed around different men every night – sometimes 10 or 15 a month,” she said, describing how she was plied with drink and drugs before being taken into bedrooms by different men.

“I don’t remember their names really. It sounds horrible, but I just know they were Asian. Sometimes they just said, ‘Oh, you’re a nice, young White girl,’” she added.

A third victim, Ruth, said: “They didn’t want anything but sex. I was low and they gave me expensive things so I felt wanted and then slept with them. It felt like I had multiple boyfriends giving me attention.”

Detective Sergeant John Knox, head of the Metropolitan Police child exploitation team in Lambeth and Southwark, said girls inside gangs “cannot say no to sex.”

“Within that gang world, the girls are at the lowest rung and they have to do as they’re told. And that includes sexually,” he said, adding that if a girl cannot refuse, “she’s being raped and that’s how we look at it as the police.”

Knox estimates at least 60 children in his south London area are currently being exploited by gangs, some as young as 13.

The BBC findings prompted sharp criticism from political opponents.

BREAKING: Susan Hall lashes out at Sadiq Khan over his reluctance to launch a grooming gangs inquiry 🔴#dailyexpress #sadiqkhan #groominggangs pic.twitter.com/YryxmEIN5X

— Daily Express (@Daily_Express) January 29, 2026

Susan Hall, leader of the Conservatives in the London Assembly, said the report was “shocking” and accused the mayor of dismissing concerns.

Shadow Justice Secretary Nick Timothy wrote that the mayor had claimed there were no rape gangs in London and that “everyone knew that was nonsense.”

Last month, Hall pressed the mayor on whether grooming gangs were operating in London and called for funding for a dedicated inquiry. She accused Khan of previously dismissing her concerns, telling him, “I asked if we had grooming gangs in London. You dismissed my question by saying you didn’t know what I meant. I have to tell you, the rape victims knew exactly what I was talking about.”

Hall urged the mayor to apologize to victims who, she said, felt their experiences had been downplayed.

Khan refused to concede the point, replying during the exchange that the issue was too serious to “play party politics.”

Previously, he argued that the “specific type of systemic cases” seen in some northern towns were not the same as the more “complex” patterns of exploitation in London, refusing to acknowledge that the phenomenon of Asian grooming gangs raping White girls as seen across many U.K. cities was not prevalent on the London scene.

In October, the Metropolitan Police announced it will re-examine at least 1,200 child sexual exploitation cases following a national review, and previously confirmed it was reviewing 9,000 cases spanning 15 years.

An independent inquiry into grooming gangs chaired by Baroness Longfield is expected to begin later this year, with the Home Office stating it will have full powers to compel evidence and conduct local investigations.

Read more here…

US and Chinese fighter jets engaged in a brief aerial standoff over waters near the Korean Peninsula this week, according to South Korean media, in a rare and dangerous incident that underscores ongoing simmering tensions between Washington and Beijing.

Yonhap, citing military sources, reported that China scrambled aircraft on Wednesday after roughly 10 US jets took off from an American airbase in South Korea for planned drills. The US had reportedly filed its flight plan in advance.

F-16 fighters assigned to US Forces Korea (USFK) launched from Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, about 60 kilometers south of Seoul, and flew near the overlapping air defense identification zones (ADIZ) of South Korea and China. The US aircraft did not enter China’s ADIZ, according to the report, but alarm bells still went off for the Chinese PLA military.

In response, “The Chinese People’s Liberation Army organized naval and air forces to monitor and effectively respond to the activities throughout the process in accordance with laws and regulations,” China’s Global Times reported Friday.

The outlet described the episode as US warplanes operating in airspace facing China over the Yellow Sea – a move that prompted Beijing’s rapid response.

“The F-16s reportedly flew to an area between the respective air defense identification zones of South Korea and China, prompting the Chinese military to dispatch its own fighter jets to the scene, but no clash occurred,” Yonhap writes.

According to more unusual aspects to the incident:

The paper also noted an “unusual” number of US jets in the air, adding that it could suggest that the exercise had been “aimed at signaling deterrence toward China.”

Yonhap news agency said that Washington had informed Seoul of the planned mission, but did not elaborate.

China’s Global Times acknowledged the incident, saying that Beijing’s military “organized sea and air forces to conduct continuous monitoring… and effectively responded to and handled the situation.”

In the background, President Trump has continued to positively tout his highly anticipated trip to Beijing the first week of April. On China’s red lines concerning handing over to Taiwan record-breaking arms packages, Trump has remained ambiguous…

Trump says he “wouldn’t answer” a question on how the US would respond if Taiwan were attacked by China.

“I would have just said that it’s none of your business right now … When it comes to war, you don’t talk about your strategy,” he says.pic.twitter.com/kcih0jRPBI

— Rosie Birchard (@RosieBirchard) February 20, 2026

As for other tensions, Beijing is not happy that Washington is accusing it of conducting banned nuclear weapons detonation tests.

The CCP has responded to the accusation of an alleged 2020 test via state mouthpiece (@HuXijin_GT), saying there is an ulterior motive for the timing of this announcement: “Trump is eager to resume nuclear testing and needs a plausible reason, and accusing China of conducting nuclear tests is the perfect pretext.”

Authored by David Parsons via BondVigilantes.com,

The sharp sell‑off across software names in recent weeks has prompted questions from investors, many centred on whether the rapid rise of agentic artificial intelligence marks the beginning of a deeper structural shift in enterprise technology.

The catalyst was the latest demonstration from Anthropic’s Claude platform, whose new “Cowork” and “Code” capabilities promise to automate tasks that were once firmly in human hands, from drafting documents and synthesising research to generating production‑ready code. Equity markets were quick to draw conclusions, punishing enterprise software companies without drawing any distinctions, based on the assumption that their software tools and embedded long term relationships were significantly devalued.

Discussions among technology specialists, both within M&G and across the broader industry, agree that the market move has been overdone. Rather than reflecting the pace or scale of disruption in the software environment, prices have been driven lower by perceived risk rather than evidence that software company valuations have been impaired by the AI revolution. The degree of weakness bears little resemblance to what is actually happening inside real enterprise businesses. Instead of a measured repricing based on a quantifiable change in credit quality, this has been a largely sentiment-driven reaction to a headline‑grabbing demonstration.

Source: M&G, Bloomberg Indices (Ref. S5SOFWTR, NDX, SPX, SISCSE, SXXP) as at 13 February 2026.

Most enterprise software vendors have already embraced the need to incorporate AI into their architecture. Many large vendors have spent years developing their products, integrating machine learning into their platforms and automating processes in compliance, risk management, customer analytics, IT operations and more. The emergence of tools like Claude sits within this longer term evolution rather than representing a sudden and existential shock. While impressive in isolation, few AI tools are ready for large scale integration into client processes. Corporate buyers, whilst keen to embrace the latest technologies, struggle to keep pace with the constant rollout of AI-led applications. In practice, procurement cycles, organisational constraints, audit trails and governance requirements will continue to slow adoption, particularly in regulated, core business processes or critical IT systems.

Existing enterprise software systems sit at the heart of major businesses, making software companies more resilient than current market pricing would suggest. Enterprise platforms anchor trading desks, risk management, regulatory reporting, client‑servicing infrastructure and internal control frameworks. They are embedded in workflows and integrated within legacy systems creating substantial financial, operational and regulatory switching costs that represent a significant ‘moat’ for software businesses. For most large organisations, reliability and continuity matter far more than theoretical productivity gains.

Despite the noise around AI agents, there is little evidence of customers abandoning incumbents. A more likely scenario is the opposite, that new AI tools reinforce the competitive position of established software vendors. Incumbents also hold decades of proprietary, structured, client specific data. This could materially improve AI model performance and suggests that partnerships between software vendors and AI agent developers such as Anthropic is a likely out-turn. Far from being disrupted, many Software companies could actually become strategic partners in the development of next‑generation AI tools and systems.

As with any period of rapid technological change, there will be winners and losers. Vendors offering more client-centric or commoditised applications with low switching barriers may potentially face challenges. Pricing structures will likely evolve and we may see linkages to cost savings or productivity introduced alongside more traditional licence based models may evolve too. Change is inevitable from the introduction of AI into almost every business over the next few years, but it is too early to assume AI is sounding the death-knell of large parts of the software sector, or as we have also seen recently, the wealth management sector.

M&G, Bloomberg Indices (Ref. LUACTRUU, I00394US, I40257US) as at 13 February 2026

For credit investors, the more important question is whether the equity‑led repricing signals underlying stresses in cashflows, leverage or financing risk. On this point, the picture remains reassuring. Credit spreads have widened and valuations have compressed, especially among lenders to private software companies where sentiment is fragile, but the underlying credit characteristics of most public issuers remain solid. Software revenues are sticky, renewal rates remain high, and long‑term contracts continue to anchor client relationships. What the sector is experiencing reflects sentiment rather than a permanent change in credit fundamentals.

Markets seems likely to continue trying to anticipate winners and losers across the sector, with software currently at the centre of concern. Current market price action feels overdone and without evidence to the contrary should correct. AI will embed itself into many (possibly most?) industries in the next few years, and market participants will have to inevitably become more pragmatic and discerning as to the likely winners and losers based on evidence rather than over-hyped expectation. Our view remains that AI will enhance rather than replace incumbent software, strengthening rather than weakening the sector’s long‑term foundations.

The narrative that “AI will eat software” has run far ahead of reality. Agentic AI tools marks an important evolution, but it does not constitute an existential threat to the core of the enterprise software industry. For bond investors, this sentiment‑driven repricing may create pockets of value in fundamentally strong issuers whose long‑term strategic positioning remains intact. The foundational advantages enjoyed by enterprise software providers should prove far more durable than current market pricing suggests.

There was a big surprise at 8:30am ET when the BEA reported the (delayed) GDP print for the last quarter of 2025: With consensus expecting a 2.8% print  (and the Atlanta Fed GDPNow model even higher) which would already be a big drop from the 4.4% in Q3, the BEA instead reported that the US economy grew at just 1.4% in the fourth quarter, the slowest growth since the tariff shock of Q1 2025.

According to the BEA, the contributors to the increase in real GDP in the fourth quarter were increases in consumer spending and investment. These movements were partly offset by decreases in government spending and exports. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, decreased. 

Overall, the economy expanded 2.2% last year, data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis showed.

Specifically, the Q4 breakdown was as follows:

• Personal consumption slowed notably, from 2.34% of the bottom line GDP to just 1.58% or more than 100% of the final 1.42% GDP print
• Fixed Investment contributed to 0.45% of bottom line GDP, up from 0.15% in Q3
• Change in private inventories added 0.21%, up from a decline of -0.12% in Q3
• Net exports (exports less imports) continued to normalize and in Q4 added just 0.08% to the GDP number, down dramatically from 1.62% in Q3
• Last and definitely worse, government was actually a major drawdown, reducing the Q4 GDP by 0.9%, a sharp reversal from the 0.38% addition in Q3.

And visually:

Of the above, the most notable variable was government spending, which due to the government shutdown in Q4 tumbled by 5.1% – the biggest drop since covid – and subtracted 0.9% from the final GDP number.

Knowing in advance how bad the number would be due to the shutdown, less than an hour before the data were released, Trump posted on social media that the shutdown would cost the US “at least two points in GDP.”

That may be an exageration, but it is modest: if one takes the average growth in recent quarters due to government which is about 0.5-0.6% and subtracts the 0.9% hit in Q4, the actual swing is about 1.5%. 

Of course, this is just a delayed reversal, and expect to see Q1 GDP offset by this much if not more, meaning Q1 GDP will likely print around 4%.

Government slowdown aside, perhaps an even more notable print is the continued explosion in spending on computers/peripheral equipment courtesy of AI, which has surged 70% in the past year and has more than doubled to $300BN at the end of 2025, more than double since the launch of chatGPT in 2022. 

Despite the year-end slowdown, the data capped a solid year for the US economy, which shrank in the first quarter amid a monumental pre-tariff surge in imports, only to round out 2025 with one of the strongest growth rates in years. The turnaround came after Trump backed off of his most punitive levies and the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates, helping drive the stock market to record highs and enabling wealthier Americans to keep spending.

Separate monthly data out Friday showed the Fed’s preferred measure of underlying inflation — the core PCE index — rose 0.4% in December, the most in nearly a year. On an annual basis, the core PCE, which excludes food and energy, climbed 3%, compared to 2.8% at the start of 2025. All of these prints were hot…

… suggesting that all else equal, the US is once again flirting with stagflation, although as has so often been the case, the Q4 GDP print is an outlier, as is the December PCE, the first impacted by the government shutdown the second heated up by higher commodity prices which will reverse as soon as the geopolitical circus involving Iran quiets down. 

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

FBI Director Kash Patel said on Feb. 18 that the law enforcement agency uncovered what he said are funding sources tied to antifa organizations, suggesting that more enforcement actions could come against the left-wing movement.

“Whether it’s antifa or any other violent criminal organization—we know their operations don’t exist alone; they operate with heavy funding streams,” he wrote in a post on X, along with a clip from an interview with former deputy director Dan Bongino, on his show.

Patel said that the FBI is “finding them and those who fund their criminal activity.”

The FBI chief did not provide more information about the organizations, the source of the funding, or specific donors who may be involved. However, he said the FBI is looking into any financial backers linked to violence committed by alleged antifa operators.

Agents are looking at whether funding was sent through U.S.-based nonprofit groups and whether any of those nonprofits had tax-exempt status. They are also evaluating potential foreign funding streams, he said.

“Money doesn’t lie,” Patel told Bongino in the interview, saying that the FBI is right now “following the money” and that the law enforcement agency is “starting to arrest people who used their funds to incite violence in the guise of political peaceful protest.”

Last year, Patel told The Epoch Times’s Jan Jekielek in an interview that the FBI is mapping out the entire antifa network and indicated that funding streams are being traced, coming months after the Trump administration designated antifa as a domestic terrorist group.

The executive order, issued by President Donald Trump on Sept. 22, called antifa a “militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law.” The administration also designated foreign antifa groups as foreign terrorist organizations in November 2025.

The State Department, in its designation, stated that “groups affiliated with this movement ascribe to revolutionary anarchist or Marxist ideologies, including anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity, using these to incite and justify violent assaults domestically and overseas.”

In his first term, Trump signaled that he would designate antifa a terrorist group in the midst of anti-police riots, violence, and demonstrations in the summer of 2020. At one point during the 2020 unrest, Trump warned that he would invoke the Insurrection Act that was last used during the Los Angeles riots in 1992, and he again suggested invoking the law as National Guard deployments were sent to multiple cities last year.

Patel on Feb. 18 also dismissed longstanding claims that antifa is only an ideological framework and said that dozens of people in Texas have been arrested in connection with the left-wing organization.

Federal officials in October 2025 targeted antifa and filed terrorism charges against five people in Texas, citing the order issued by Trump. In November 2025, the five defendants pleaded guilty in response to charges that they were accused of supporting antifa in a July shooting that wounded a police officer outside a Texas immigration detention center.

Patel previously said the charges in Texas are the first time a material support to terrorism charge has targeted antifa.

Bongino, who was the FBI deputy director before leaving the government in January, returned to hosting his podcast this month.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The Fed’s favorite inflation indicator – Core PCE (a measure of price changes in consumer goods and services that excludes volatile food and energy costs) – rose 0.4% in December (the latest data released today), slightly hotter than expected (+0.3% MoM). That lifted YoY inflation up 3.0% (above the prior month and hotter than expected) – the highest since April 2025…

Source: Bloomberg

The headline PCE rose 0.4% MoM (more than expected too) driving prices up 2.9% YoY (the highest since March 2024)

Source: Bloomberg

The much watched SuperCore PCE rose 0.3% MoM (the last MoM decline was April 2020). But the SuperCore PCE YoY printed +3.3% – very much unmoved in the last year…

Services prices continue to dominate the price gains but Goods costs also accelerated in December…

Many were fearful of the recent surge in oil prices impacting inflation, but as the chart below shows, the government’s measure of energy costs has recently (oddly) decoupled from actual energy costs…

Higher prices were accompanied by higher incomes and higher spending…

But Spending continues to outpace incomes (even though the former is decelerating)…

Wage growth is slowing, especially for government workers…

But, putting it altogether, the savings rate is tumbling to afford all this…

We look forward to President Trump explaining how affordability is ‘fixed’ next week at the SOTU.

Since 1997, U.S. defense spending has moved through multiple cycles, but the long-term trajectory is upward.

This chart, via Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, tracks National Defense (Function 050) budget authority in constant 2025 dollars and shows how totals changed under each president and party, culminating in a proposed record $1.5 trillion budget for 2027P.

Data is sourced from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Historical Tables, Table 5.1 (National Defense budget authority), supplemented by Reuters reporting for the 2027 proposal. It also leverages analysis from the Council on Foreign Relations.

Steady Growth Through the 2000s and 2010s

In the late 1990s, under President Clinton, U.S. defense spending sat around the mid-$500 billion level in real terms.

Spending rose significantly in the 2000s during the Bush years amid the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, reaching levels above $900 billion before 2010.

Continued high budgets carried throughout the Obama administration, driven by ongoing post-9/11 commitments and modernization efforts.

Recent Trends and Record Levels

In the early 2020s, spending remained high under Presidents Trump and Biden, with budgets around $900 billion to over $1 trillion in real terms. The 2026 defense budget approved by Congress reached $901 billion, while proposals for 2027 have pushed that figure even higher.

Recently, President Donald Trump announced a proposal for a $1.5 trillion military budget in 2027, representing roughly a 50% increase over current levels, aimed at expanding capabilities and accelerating modernization.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out America’s $38 Trillion Mountain of Debt on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.