Good morning! Happy second day of Hanukkah and happy, like, 25th day of the Christmas music season to all the musicians out there. Plenty of long-dead artists still rake in millions from old Christmas hits, and one major music manager compared having one to having your own personal ATM.

AI

🤖 Trump signs order to ban state-level AI regulations

Everyone wants a piece of the AI pie, and state governments are no different. Unfortunately for them, the feds reign supreme.

President Trump signed an executive order that he hopes will prevent states from issuing a patchwork quilt of AI regulations and ensure a smooth, national framework.

What does it do? Congress has tried and failed twice to pass a ban like this into law. And the president can't just whip up laws out of thin air. But, as the nation's chief executive, he can order the federal agencies that he presides over to behave in certain ways.

Here's a quick look at what Trump wants some of those agencies to do:

Department of Justice: The DOJ will set up an "AI Litigation Task Force" to challenge state AI laws that may interfere with America's "global AI dominance." For good legal measure, they're also targeting state AI laws that "unconstitutionally regulate interstate commerce" (the Constitution gives that job to the feds).

Department of Commerce: Commerce needs to take a look at existing state-level AI laws and identify any that might, again, interfere with America's "global AI dominance." States with "onerous" laws might just not be eligible for federal broadband funding.

Federal Trade Commission: The FTC has rules that prohibit "engaging in deceptive acts or practices affecting commerce." Trump wants them to release a policy statement explaining where AI models fall on that front.

Federal Communications Commission: The FCC is supposed to think long and hard about whether to write federal "reporting and disclosure" standards for AI models, which would conveniently overrule conflicting state laws.

Trump's "Special Advisor for AI and Crypto" is to be consulted on most of this, too. That's Silicon Valley prince and PayPal cofounder David Sacks.

Why? Trump believes winning the AI race is a critical geopolitical issue for the United States. To that end, American AI companies "must be free to innovate without cumbersome regulation." Dealing with 50 different AI laws, he says, would kneecap AI startups before they can get off the ground.

• His order also singles out a Colorado law that claims to ban discrimination as potentially forcing AI to "produce false results" to avoid discrimination.

Dozens of states have already passed their own AI laws covering every facet of the business. This thing is basically guaranteed to be challenged in court, and plenty of Republican governors could end up on the anti-Trump side of this battle.

In other AI news: Some Christian groups hope to use the power of AI to translate at least part of the Bible into all 7,000 living languages by 2033. The world’s most translated book is currently available in full in 750 languages.

GOVERNMENT

📝 Who does and doesn’t count as one of the 574 legitimate Native American tribes is up to the Interior Department’s Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). One of those tribes, the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, is facing heavy backlash after signing a $30 million contract to help design deportation detention centers for the feds. The Kansas-based tribe has 4,500 members, and pretty much all of them are up in arms over the contract. Tribal leaders have since fired the economic development team that signed the deal and is now trying to back out of it. Despite the controversy, they aren’t the only tribe to sign deportation-related contracts. Companies owned by tribes in Alabama and Alaska also have multimillion-dollar federal contracts to provide everything from administrative help to security at detention facilities.

🚛 Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy oversees the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). And his trucking regulators are cracking down on commercial driver's licenses. Duffy is threatening to withhold $73 million in federal highway funds from the State of New York. The problem? "More than half" of the licenses they reviewed were "issued illegally." New York is one of at least eight states issuing long-term commercial licenses to immigrants with short-term visas. The result? Illegal immigrants behind the wheels of semi trucks on highways across America. New York is a Democratic state, but Duffy is an equal opportunity withholder. He's also hanging $182 million over Texas's head and $160 million over California's.

🇺🇸 President Trump promised "very serious retaliation" after U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed that two U.S. soldiers and one civilian interpreter were killed on Saturday by an ISIS fighter in central Syria. CENTCOM is the unified cross-branch command overseeing U.S. military activity in the Middle East. Around 900 U.S. troops are stationed in Syria. A Syrian government spokesperson said the attacker was a low-ranking member of Syria's national police force. The Pentagon noted that the attack took place in an area not controlled by Syria's government, and President Trump said Syria's new president (himself a former terrorist) is "extremely angry."

POLITICS

🩺 Congress bats around healthcare ideas

Well, they’re certainly doing a lot. But they aren’t necessarily getting a lot done.

Healthcare: Federal subsidies for Obamacare plans purchased on the exchange are ending at the end of the year, and nobody in Congress seems to agree on what to do about it. Both chambers of Congress are batting around a thousand competing ideas.

• A guy from Michigan wants to let small businesses and the self-employed band together to buy group coverage.

• An Oklahoman wants to let employers give employees cash to buy their own insurance instead of offering group insurance plans.

• Others would rather go with the easy solution of flat-out extending the Obamacare subsidies, but a vote for a three-year extension just failed.

Whatever they decide on, they’d better get to it if they want it done before those subsidies expire. The Senate has just four working days left on the 2025 calendar.

Elsewhere in American politics…

1. Trump is losing the burbs. According to a new poll, support for the president among suburbanites has tanked by 13% since September, putting him firmly underwater with the group at -16%.

2. Indiana’s Republican-dominated legislature refused to join the Great Gerrymandering War of 2025 and rejected a Trump-backed plan to redraw the state’s congressional map.

3. Congressional Democrats dropped a stack of photos from Epstein’s estate. And congressional Republicans might charge the Clintons with contempt for refusing to testify on the matter.

TRIVIA

Thanks to the hard work of American diplomats, 123 political prisoners were released by the dictatorial government of Belarus. The group included a Nobel Peace Prize winner, journalists, activists, and opposition politicians. Upon their release, 114 of the freed dissidents were taken to Ukraine. Nine were taken to the U.S. embassy in neighboring Lithuania. That embassy is, of course, in Lithuania’s capital city, Vilnius. Which brings us to today’s question: What is the capital of Belarus?

Hint: In the first season of "Friends," Phoebe's boyfriend moves here for work.

TRADE

💰️ Costco wants its money back

If there’s one thing the government hates more than not getting its hands on your money, it’s getting that money and having to give it back.

The U.S. government has raked in more than $230 billion in tariff revenue so far this year. But Trump’s tariff policy, based on his reading of a 1977 emergency powers law, is facing a hefty legal challenge that’s already been argued at the Supreme Court. If they declare his tariffs illegal, what happens to all that money?

The process: Tariffs are collected at ports of entry by Customs and Border Protection — this is the “Customs” part of their job. It takes time, but eventually CBP sends that money to the Treasury Department in a process called liquidation.

• Once the Treasury has its grubby hands on the money, the legal process of getting it back is far more difficult.

• If the Supreme Court strikes down the tariffs, it’ll be easier to get refunds if your tariff payments are still chilling at CBP.

Trade court: That’s why dozens of companies, including Costco, just asked the special New York-based U.S. Court of International Trade to stop CBP from sending their tariff payments to the Treasury.

• The Department of Justice responded on Friday. They want the trade judges to deny the request in part because the issue is still under “active consideration" at the Supreme Court.

Will the trade court force the customs collectors to hang onto Costco’s cash? Will the Supremes upend Trump’s entire trade regime? Will Taylor and Travis finally go public with a wedding date? We’ll find out all this and more … eventually.

• The trade court should respond ASAP, but the Supreme Court may not release its opinion until June.

BRIEFS

● Some Chinese billionaires are having dozens of U.S.-born babies via paid surrogacy. Since the babies are all American citizens by virtue of their American birth, many wealthy Chinese citizens view it as their way into the United States

● The latest round of peace talks is underway in Berlin between U.S. and Ukrainian officials, and has already yielded fruit. In exchange for Western security guarantees, Ukraine will agree not to join the NATO defensive pact — a key sticking point for Russia.

● Australian officials say Sunday’s shooting at Sydney's famous Bondi Beach was a terrorist attack "designed to target" Jews. About 150,000 of Australia’s 27 million residents identify as Jewish, and 1,000 were at the beach celebrating Hanukkah.

● Two people were killed, and nine were injured on Saturday after a nutjob opened fire during a final exam at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Federal agents detained a suspect but released him late Sunday evening.

QUOTE

ANSWER

Since 1994, dictator Alexander Lukashenko has ruled his country from the presidential palace in Minsk, Belarus. The Soviet Union’s demise was a real “out of the frying pan, into the fire” situation for the people of Belarus. They were freed from Soviet dictatorship aaaand thrown right into an all-natural, home-grown dictatorship of their very own.

In exchange for the prisoners’ release, the U.S. dropped its sanctions on the key Belarusian export of potash (an ingredient in fertilizer). Other sanctions remain in place for now. But they’re likely on the chopping block, too, as the U.S. hopes to win the release of another 1,000 Belarusian political prisoners in the coming months.