THE SMOG OF WAR

Note to readers: The newsletter squad is off this Monday, January 19 for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Lord knows we all need a three-day weekend… See you Tuesday!

Donald Trump’s EPA is a “laughingstock,” the environmental agency’s former chief tells What A Day. But even Trump can’t stop the green energy revolution, she said.

• The world just saw its third-hottest year on record. There’s zero indication that President Donald Trump gives a hoot. Since taking office, he has effectively transformed the public organization best equipped to help battle climate change, the Environmental Protection Agency, into a tool to literally attack the agency’s former priorities. Under Trump, the EPA has claimed that climate pollution doesn’t endanger humans and rolled back regulations on cancer-linked chemicals found in drinking water, for example.

• We’ve seen eye-popping headlines in the past week alone, like this one in the New York Times: “EPA to Stop Considering Lives Saved When Setting Rules on Air Pollution.” The agency is also close to scrapping its landmark finding that allows the U.S. to regulate climate pollution. Welcome back, smog!

• “They’ve made it just a farce, a laughingstock,” Gina McCarthy, the EPA administrator under Obama, told What A Day. “We’re now no longer supposed to even think about the climate as an issue that EPA should take into consideration … It’s mind-boggling, the bravado it takes to pull these things together and put them out as if people are going to be stupid enough to believe it.”

• Trump and his hand-picked EPA Chief, Lee Zeldin, are working hard to relieve the agency of the burden of making decisions that are based on real science. Instead, they want to loosen regulations enough to make dirty fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, the dominant source of American energy for the foreseeable future.

• The president’s “understanding of these issues is really at a level of grammar school,” McCarthy said. “Maybe high school, if I give him huge amounts of credit.”

• How much damage could Trump do to the EPA in the next three years? “He’s already succeeded in doing a lot,” McCarthy said. Among her top concerns: A failure to regulate data centers, which use lots of water and cause pollution; and the possibility that Trump’s team could risk the safety of America’s drinking water.

And yet McCarthy is surprisingly optimistic about the agency’s future, despite the constant barrage of doomsday headlines.

• Her hope lies primarily with the courts. Trump’s wildest attacks on the environment will likely be stopped cold by judges, McCarthy predicted.

• States are fighting back, too. Last year, scores of Democratic governors and attorneys generals successfully challenged, slowed, or blocked the administration’s attempt to enact its energy and climate agenda.

• McCarthy predicts the green energy sector will outlast Trump’s money-hungry brand of nihilism, too. “It has proven to have been stable in 2025. I see that only growing as new technologies get laid out,” she said. The cost of renewable energy is falling, and has become cheaper than fossil fuel in many cases. The national conversation about “affordability” could give green fuel a further lift, McCarthy said.

• Over the next year, McCarthy plans to travel the world reminding allies that Trump’s EPA won’t last forever. “The United States isn’t simply about a Trump administration,” McCarthy said. “It is about the people who live here, the states that have leverage, the local communities that want their communities to be healthy and safe and secure. So, we’re going to just keep fighting every step of the way.”

“We’re working hard … to make sure that the United States doesn’t look like the skunk at every garden party,” she added.

LOLLAPA-ROOMBA

People love their robotic vacuum cleaners. Don’t believe me? You should see my inbox.

Earlier this week, after reading an article about the little vacuum robots going haywire, I asked if any of you had named your Roombas. Turns out: Hell yes, you have. More than 80 readers sent me emails with names ranging from bizarre to adorable. Several made me laugh out loud. Here are just a few of my favorites:

Two readers named their vacuums “Suck Norris.” Six named theirs “Rosie,” after the robot maid in “The Jetsons.” One person named their robot “Mayor Pete,” while a Texan opted for “Beto,” and even slapped a Beto O’Rourke sticker on the vacuum.

“My Roomba has been named ‘RoboCop’ for years. It runs my house. And my life. And frightens/unsettles both dogs and Boomer parents alike,” Karen wrote.

“My mom named hers ‘Harry Putter’ and I just think that deserves some appreciation,” Allie wrote. “My sister’s is ‘Martha,’ as in Martha Stewart.”

“We call him ‘Toby,’ but when he gets ‘in trouble,’ like he gets stuck somewhere, we call him Tobias,” Jennifer wrote.

“My Roomba’s name is ‘Scruffy the Janitor.’ My fridge is ‘Chilly Willy’ and my dishwasher is ‘Washy McSrubadub.’ My TVs name is just ‘TV,’” Eleanor wrote.

“‘Clean Elizabeth ll’ (RIP),” Rich wrote.

“Dustin Beeper.” “Janis Moplin.” “Roombastilskin.”

I made a document of all the responses, for your viewing pleasure.

WHAT ELSE? 👀

Donald Trump and his top goons have committed “breathtaking” violations of the Constitution, U.S. District Judge William Young declared in fiery remarks from the bench during a Boston hearing yesterday. Trump is an “authoritarian,” the Reagan appointee said, and his cabinet secretaries “unconstitutionally conspired” to crackdown on pro-Palestinian students last year. “The big problem in this case is that the Cabinet secretaries and ostensibly, the president of the United States, are not honoring the First Amendment,” Young said. Say what you mean, Judge!

Trump accepted a second-hand Nobel Peace Prize yesterday from Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who gift-wrapped the shiny medallion in an ornate gold frame alongside a glowing dedication to Trump. “To President Donald J. Trump, In Gratitude for Your Extraordinary Leadership in Promoting Peace through Strength, Advancing Diplomacy, and Defending Liberty and Prosperity.” Crooked’s own Dan Pfeiffer remarked: “I can’t believe they don’t realize how fucking pathetic this looks.”

Norwegians are stunned over the re-gifting of a Peace Prize: “That’s completely unheard of,” said a professor in Oslo, home of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. “It’s a total lack of respect for the award, on her part,” the prof said, describing the gesture as “meaningless” and “pathetic.” Reminder: The prize can’t actually be transferred to Trump.

Trump’s team is nervous about the public’s growing disenchantment with its immigration agenda, according to Axios. “What [Trump] doesn’t want is what people are seeing,” one of his advisers said. “He doesn’t like the way it looks. It looks bad, so he’s expressed some discomfort at that.” Maybe don’t let masked ICE agents drag a woman from her car, pepper spray protestors… or shoot a mother multiple times?

The Trump administration accused the European Union of trying to secure a “monopoly” on meat and cheese in South America. Personally, I think if the U.S. is going to invade countries, strike boats, plunder oil, and kidnap a president, the Europeans should be allowed to sell a little roquefort and camembert. Besides, did we think America would tempt them with Easy Cheese?

LIGHT AT THE END… ☀️

A video of a woman in Iran lighting a cigarette from a burning photograph of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is going viral, and turning into the country’s new resistance symbol.

Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of Elon Musk’s children, is suing Musk’s AI company, alleging that Grok’s ability to digitally undress people is “unreasonably dangerous as designed.” She’s also seeking a temporary restraining order to get Grok to stop allowing users to undress photos of her. Musk’s company didn’t respond to What A Day’s request for comment.

GOP lawmakers are pushing back against Donald Trump’s Greenland ambitions. The president’s obsession with the territory is “the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) told Politico. It’s easier for this dude to talk smack because he’s retiring, but that shouldn’t matter! The U.S. wants to seize another country’s island by conquest.

A MAGA merch store in Philadelphia is closing after six years because sales slumped. “He’s not running again,” the owner told the New York Times. “When something’s happening like an election’s coming up or something in the news happens with Trump, the sales jump. But since there’s no election coming up, things have slowed down.” You know, I’m starting to like the way this guy thinks….

The CEO of Ryanair bashed Trump in a rare public rebuke from a corporate boss, describing the president as a “liar” who is “historically wrong” on major geopolitical issues. I think I have a new favorite airline!

The Dropkick Murphys drop-kicked a new song called “Citizen I.C.E.”, making fun of people who join the federal agency. The lyrics are delightfully blunt: “Come celebrate dictatorships/And bolster the regime/While abusing helpless immigrants/A bully’s wet dream/You’ve joined the traitors’ ranks/To play the hand of God/In a scumbag grifter’s kidnapping squad.”

A dog won an award for best performance in a horror or thriller movie, beating out actors including Ethan Hawke. This good boy’s movie? “Good Boy.”

Singer John Mellencamp is getting a lot of credit for helping turn Indiana University’s struggling football team into a championship contender. His contribution? A $1.5 million check to build a new practice facility. In exchange for the gift, the team lets Mellencamp smoke cigarettes in a wooden shack atop the stadium.

A female turtle hatched from an egg that its mother camouflaged in its nest, surprising staffers at the Smithsonian National Zoo. It’s a huge deal, because this isn’t just any turtle: She’s a painted river terrapin, which is a critically endangered species. Without zookeepers noticing, the newborn “journeyed about five feet, around a log, up and down sand dunes, carefully past a 12-foot-long tomistoma — a type of crocodile that could have easily eaten it — and then over the lip of a three-foot-deep pond and swam,” the Washington Post writes. I don’t even know if I would survive that journey!

Say hello to Bean!

“This is Bean Burrito doing her best taco impression. I rescued her when she was about 4 or 5 weeks old. She is almost 4 months old now! She has to be involved in everything I am doing.”

— Christy