An interesting thing happened last weekend, President Trump went golfing with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. {SOURCE} Simultaneously, President Trump released the following statement from his Truth Social account.

(Via Truth Social) – “The Board of Peace has unlimited potential. Last October, I released a Plan for the permanent end to the Conflict in Gaza, and our Vision was unanimously adopted by the United Nations Security Council. Shortly thereafter, we facilitated Humanitarian Aid at record speed and secured the release of every living and deceased Hostage.

Just last month, two dozen distinguished Founding Members joined me in Davos, Switzerland, to celebrate its official formation, and present a bold Vision for the Civilians in Gaza, and then, ultimately, far beyond Gaza — WORLD PEACE!

On February 19th, 2026, I will again be joined by Board of Peace Members at the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C., where we will announce that Member States have pledged more than $5 BILLION DOLLARS toward the Gaza Humanitarian and Reconstruction efforts and have committed thousands of personnel to the International Stabilization Force and Local Police to maintain Security and Peace for Gazans.

Very importantly, Hamas must uphold its commitment to Full and Immediate Demilitarization. The Board of Peace will prove to be the most consequential International Body in History, and it is my honor to serve as its Chairman.” PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP

I said a few weeks ago that I would not be surprised to see President Trump announce the appointment of Ron DeSantis to be the Chief Executive Officer of the Board of Peace.  DeSantis’ executive experience in combination with his relationship with Israel functionally makes him a good fit.  Just a guess.

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Secretary Marco Rubio went out of his way in this joint presser to emphasize the personal relationship between Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and U.S. President Donald Trump.  Orban is facing a serious election challenge this April and all of the EU/NATO systems are actively trying to create pressure points to remove him.

Secretary Marco Rubio is in Budapest today for meetings with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his government to include the signing of a civilian-nuclear cooperation agreement heralded by the Trump administration. Hungary is one of the few voices within the European Union who is pushing back against Brussels efforts to go to war against Russia.

Prime Minister Orban has been very critical of Ukraine, openly stating his opposition to EU membership for the embattled country. In response President Zelenskyy has weaponized Ukraine’s geographical stewardship of oil and gas pipelines to shut down Hungarian energy and drive-up prices. VIDEO:

[Transcript] – MODERATOR: (Via interpreter) Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.  May I extend my most cordial welcome to all of you, and may I extend my most special welcome to His Excellency Mr. Marco Rubio, Secretary of State of the United States of America, at the press conference and signing ceremony organized on the occasion of his visit to Hungary.  Let me also extend my warm welcome to Mr. Viktor Orban, Prime Minister of Hungary, members of the U.S. and Hungarian delegations, and all our esteemed guests.

At today’s event, the agreement between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of Hungary to facilitate cooperation on the civilian nuclear program in Hungary will be signed.  The signatories to the agreement on behalf of the United States of America, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and on behalf of Hungary, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Mr. Peter Szijjarto.

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Through the years I didn’t really have much of an opinion of Steve Bannon, I approached any story of interest that surrounded him by simply looking at the factual details of the current event in question.

CTH well understood that Bannon, and subsequently his expressed opinion and objective, was simply an outcome of his position – downstream from the billionaire of the moment who paid him.

In essence, Steve Bannon always seemed to be, much like Kellyanne Conway, an advocate for whoever was financing him. From Robert/Rebekah Mercer at Breitbart forward to any endeavor thereafter, it always just appeared the same.

That said, with the release of the Epstein files, the relationship between Steve Bannon and Jeffrey Epstein is something CTH did not expect. {HERE} Bannon and Epstein were very close and talked to each other about seemingly everything.

I can never unsee what I have read.  Nor will CTH ever entertain the possibility that Bannon was ever a good element within the MAGA effort.  There is a solid argument to be made that the Bannon War Room was funded, or organized in the funding mechanisms, by Jeffrey Epstein. {HERE}

The files of messages between them contain some shocking stuff happening in the background while Steve Bannon was in very close proximity to candidate and President Trump.  The level of disdain Bannon had for Donald Trump’s family and for Donald Trump himself is really something CTH did not expect to see. {examples: HERE and HERE}

I am left to wonder now how much of the vitriol against Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, ie. “Javanka hatred”, actually originated from the Braintrust behind Bannon and the assembly of people in his immediate orbit. {HERE}

Initially, I saw some Twitter accounts attempt to defend Steve Bannon by saying Epstein did all the talking in their text exchanges and Bannon was less communicative. However, that only applied to the first batches of files reviewed.  As a few days went along and people started citing files, reading them gives a much more fulsome picture of the relationship.

Steve Bannon may have been focused on the financial gains and perhaps networks of people in his association with Epstein; but he certainly got deep into it and expressed extreme praise for Epstein, even going so far as to call him a god. {LINK} These were two men in a very close friendship. There is no political or ideological distance between Bannon and Epstein.

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In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the Donald Trump Administration and Presidency.

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

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Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.

For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

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Border Czar Tom Homan appears on CNN for a friendly discussion about Minnesota ICE operations, deporting illegals with the help of Democrat governors, the looming DHS shutdown and other matters.

CNN’s Jake Tapper dropped his customary combative technique during the interview and heaped praise upon Mr Homan for being a great DHS official and working collaboratively with Democrats.  The polite nature of the questions and conversation seems odd coming from Tapper who heaped effusive praise on Mr Homan.

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Kentucky congressman Thomas Massie appears on ABC This Week with Martha Raddatz to assert his position as our nation’s ultimate judge of morality and righteousness and pass judgement upon any individual that does not meet his expectation or standard.

Against the backdrop of billionaire leftist Reid Hoffman who has financed most of the claims promoted by Epstein victims for use by Representative Massie, the congressman pledges to remain on task.  Hoffman never called as a witness. Video and Transcript below.

[TRANSCRIPT] – RADDATZ: I’m joined now by Republican Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who helped lead the efforts to release the Epstein files.

Good morning to you, Congressman.

I would like your overall reaction to the hearing this week and Pam Bondi’s performance, combativeness.

REP. THOMAS MASSIE, (R) KENTUCKY & JUDICIARY COMMITTEE MEMBER: I don’t think she did very well. She came with a book full of insults, one for each congressperson. She obviously had one for me.

And, you know, I’ve been there when Merrick Garland was there. Obviously, politically, I don’t agree with him, but he performed much better in terms of at least not looking bad. And, unfortunately, we didn’t get the answers we wanted about the Epstein Files Transparency Act from her.

RADDATZ: You — did you get any of the answers you wanted?

MASSIE: No, but she did come off her script and engage with me about this production of documents where she admitted that 40 minutes after I pointed out to the DOJ that they had over-redacted some of the documents, they did unredacted documents. So, it’s clear they’ve made mistakes in the document production. At least she acknowledges that tacitly. And it’s clear that their work is not done here yet.

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio took a different path on his European visit than Brussels wanted to see. After his time at the Munich Security Conference, Rubio headed to Slovakia and Hungary for conversations with the two nations who are not at all in alignment with Brussels leadership on the issue of Ukraine.

UPDATE: Better video and Transcript Added

Rubio speaks very bluntly on the topics that are of key concern to Prime Minister Robert Fico, including the topic of energy which is a major problem for both Slovakia and Hungary right now.  Toward the end of the presser, the very last response by Fico [44:20 of video] is very interesting.

Prime Minister Fico directly claims that Ukraine is purposefully withholding oil and gas from pipelines that travel from Russia through Ukraine, into Slovakia.  Fico notes he is not going to blame either Ukraine or Russia for previously detonations at the oil refinery and transport hub, but he is very sure Ukraine is purposefully withholding energy products from Hungary as blackmail until Hungary changes their position on Ukraine achieving status in the European Union.

You can tell from the way Fico presents the subject and from the prior points of Rubio this hot button issue is why Fico flew to Mar-a-Lago a few weeks ago for a talk with President Trump.  WATCH:

MODERATOR: (Via interpreter) Hello, ladies and gentlemen.  Please, welcome to our press conference after mutual meeting of the Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fico and Secretary of State of the U.S. Marco Rubio.  So, Prime Minister, please, you have the word.

PRIME MINISTER FICO: Thank you. (Via interpreter) Dear Secretary of State, dear Marco Rubio, please allow me to welcome you once again – you and your whole delegation – to Bratislava and our office of the Government of the Slovak Republic.  Dear ladies, dear gentlemen, we had a shared, short tete-a-tete meeting with the Secretary of State, and then we had delegations’ discussion when we went into details, where we discussed topics that are the point of our today’s meeting. I’ll try to briefly sum up the conclusions of our discussions, be it in Four Eyes or, let’s say, in our meeting of delegations.

First of all, I deeply appreciate the fact that this visit comes quickly after our meeting in Florida, where I had a chance to speak with the President of the United States Donald Trump with Mr. Rubio being present.  So, it’s a great follow-up and great country, nation.  And after a short while when we met in Florida, we could discuss how much we achieved during those few weeks about topics we discussed.

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In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the Donald Trump Administration and Presidency.

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

(more…)

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.

For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

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