Good morning! Congratulations to the Ford factory employee who racked up more than $300,000 in donations on a now-paused GoFundMe for getting suspended after yelling something, ahem, negative, at Trump as the president toured the Michigan factory. If anyone has inside info on how to get a job at whatever business Trump is going to next, please let us know ASAP

Programming note: Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The government’s off work, so we are, too. The next Elective will drop in your inbox one week from today: Thursday, January 22.

IMMIGRATION

🛑 U.S. suspends immigration from 75 countries

If you’re in the travel business, fear not. Tourists aren’t on the chopping block, and neither are students. People who want to move to the U.S. full-time, though? They may have a problem.

The State Department said Wednesday that it's suspending visa processing for immigrants from 75 countries whose immigrants tend to "take welfare from the American people at unacceptable rates." The pause takes effect on January 21.

• Students, tourists, and temporary workers are still gucci. This is only about people looking to immigrate permanently.

• For the record, the vast majority of visa applicants belong to that first group.

Why, again? The State Department sent out a notice to all of its embassies and consulates around the world. It chalked the issue up to the "uncovering of massive public benefits fraud across the United States." It also directed staffers to consider whether applicants may rely on public benefits once they get here.

• Immigrants are already screened for communicable diseases and other nasty health issues as part of the visa process.

• The administration also wants potential immigrants screened for English proficiency, age, finances, and potential need for long-term health care.

What countries are we talking about? The list includes most of the Caribbean, about half of Africa, the kinda icky countries of Southeast Europe, most of the Middle East, and a few in Southeast Asia. And here’s a map if you’d prefer.

And down in Venezuela, the U.S. government has completed its first sale since taking control of the country’s oil exports. The deal is reportedly worth $500 million. Meanwhile, China is reportedly pulling back its efforts at influence in Latin America in light of Maduro’s ouster.

GOVERNMENT

💊 The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) sent letters out on Tuesday to grant recipients announcing the termination of 2,706 grants. The cuts are valued at about $1.9 billion. SAMHSA officials say they're trying to "better prioritize agency resources" toward more effectively addressing "the rising rates of mental illness" and related issues. But nonprofit advocates say these cuts will cause a "severe loss of front-line capacity" to respond to these issues on the ground. SAMHSA is part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The agency provides data, grants, and other resources to states and nonprofits. As part of the ongoing reorganization of HHS, most of its functions will be merged into a new agency, the Administration for a Healthy America.

💣️ Mass anti-government protests are continuing in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the regime is cracking down with force. Witnesses claim government forces are driving through the streets and shooting unarmed protestors on sight. Estimates on the death toll vary wildly. Some are in the 2,400 range, while others are as high as 20,000. President Trump is still weighing how to respond. The likeliest scenario appears to be U.S. military strikes against Iranian government targets to aid the protestors. If that happens, Iran says it will retaliate with strikes of its own against American military bases in the Middle East. With that in mind, some U.S. personnel have been evacuated from a base in nearby Qatar.

WORLD

🧊 Vance, Rubio chat Greenland with Danes

President Trump jokingly compared Greenland's defenses to "two dog sleds" this week, and the island’s Danish owners appear to have taken that personally.

Denmark and its friends, including the Netherlands, Sweden, and Germany, are deploying "aircraft, naval assets, and troops” in and around Greenland for training activities and "maritime security tasks."

• To recap, Trump has said Arctic security threats from Russia and China are the primary reason the U.S. needs to control Greenland.

• For the record, the Danes do actually have an elite military sled dog team stationed there (but it’s not Greenland’s only defense).

The big meeting: Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat down for about 90 minutes with their Danish and Greenlandic counterparts at the White House on Wednesday to talk things over. Did they get anywhere? Not really.

• In the words of Lars Løkke Rasmussen, Denmark's foreign minister, the two (three?) sides "still have a fundamental disagreement.”

• Rasmussen said Trump's continued "threats" to Danish sovereignty make it difficult to “think innovatively about solutions."

• Ahead of the meeting, Trump noted that Greenland's position in the North Atlantic made it "vital" for his Golden Dome missile defense system.

They did at least agree to more meetings in the future. So that’s something. Greenland’s chief diplomat said she's still open to "cooperation" with the U.S. on security matters, but remains adamant that Greenlanders don't want "to be owned by the United States."

Cost: In the hypothetical world where the Trump administration lands the deal of all deals and is allowed to buy Greenland, it won’t be cheap. U.S. officials are working on a proposal just in case, and they expect the price tag to land in the $500 to $700 billion range.

Related: The New York Times takes a look at "Why Greenland Matters for a Warming World."

TRIVIA

Congratulations to everyone who’s off work on Monday for MLK Day. One of 11 federal holidays, its official name is the Birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. His actual birthday is today. But, thanks to a 1968 law — the aptly named Uniform Monday Holiday Act — most government holidays are celebrated on Mondays. MLK died in 1968 (RIP), so obviously MLK Day hasn’t been around for all that long. In what year was Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday first celebrated as a federal holiday?

Hint: Ronald Reagan was president and “The Golden Girls” was in its first season.

WORLD

⚖️ Peak Supreme Court season

Are you an NFL fan whose team is owned by a guy still high off a 1995 Super Bowl victory? Did they just go 7-9-1 and miss the playoffs again? Fear not. The NFL season is over, but the Supreme Court season is in full bloom. Let’s take a brief look at what’s happening over in Court Land this week:

Trans athletes: Twenty-seven states have passed laws banning transgender athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s sports. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case challenging those laws as illegal discrimination. Justices on the court’s 6-3 conservative majority appear likely to side with the states and uphold those laws. If that happens, the bans will remain in place. If they side with the challengers, these bans will be overturned. No matter how this falls, however, there won’t be a national ban. That would be up to Congress to decide. Expect the court’s opinion to drop sometime in the spring.

Election law: Justices ruled 7-2 on Wednesday that Illinois Rep. Mike Bost has a legal right to sue his state over its policies on whether to count mail-in ballots that are received after Election Day. Candidates for office have standing to sue because, Chief Justice Roberts wrote, they "have an obvious personal stake" in their elections. Illinois counts ballots up to two weeks after Election Day as long as they were mailed on time. Bost’s lawsuit, which can now continue, says that’s a violation of federal law.

BRIEFS

● South Korean prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for former President Yoon Suk Yeol. He's charged with insurrection after declaring martial law in 2024. If it's carried out, this would be South Korea's first execution since 1997.

● More than $1 trillion in wealth has fled California to avoid a proposed one-time 5% tax on billionaires’ assets. Silicon Valley investors say the idea, which Gov. Gavin Newsom opposes, is badly designed and would actually bankrupt many entrepreneurs.

● Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is rolling out the Grok AI chatbot, owned by Elon Musk's xAI, into "every unclassified and classified" network in the Pentagon. Last month, the Pentagon launched a military version of Google Gemini.

● Phase two of Trump’s plan to end the war in Gaza is beginning. The first phase included a ceasefire and prisoner exchange. The next will feature demilitarization and a new, technocratic government in Gaza. Most countries in the area are on board.

● FBI agents raided the home of a Washington Post reporter this week. The DOJ said it’s investigating the illegal leak of classified information by a government contractor, who has been arrested. The reporter is not the focus of the probe.

QUOTE

ANSWER

Congress passed, and President Reagan signed the law creating MLK Day in 1983. But it didn’t actually take place for the first time until three years later: January 20, 1986. It’s been observed on the third Monday in January ever since. Aaaaand because of course they do, two states* also observe Robert E. Lee’s January 19 birthday on the same day.

*Yes, Mississippi and Alabama. Obviously.