Presented by BP.

Good morning, everyone. It's Playbook co-author Eugene Daniels. It is Wednesday, January 8th.

Here is what's driving the day. President-elect Donald Trump is in Washington today ahead of

tomorrow's funeral, a former president, Jimmy Carter. While here, he will be meeting with

Senate Republicans to discuss the party strategy on reconciliation, you know, this one bill, two-bill

discussion that we've been talking about and that's kind of been taking over Capitol Hill.

But the items on Trump's agenda, rather than the kind of boring process questions that will be driving a lot of the conversation today. First is Trump's agenda rather than the kind of boring process questions that will be driving

a lot of the conversation today. First is Trump's fascination in recent days with this

expansion of America's borders, his suggestion that he could be willing to use military force

economic coercion to get it. At a press conference yesterday at Marlago,

the president-elect talked about annexing Greenland, reclaiming the Panama Canal, and making Canada

the 51st state. All of those things he's talked about before, so as you know, Denmark,

Panama, and Canada aren't on board for any of that, and all of this seems unlikely to happen.

But as with much from Trump, there's the question of whether to take him literally or just seriously.

And even if it isn't something, he literally intends to do it, signals the seriousness about his commitment to a foreign policy in his second term

that is from kind of the Nixon era. For Nixon, it was called the madman theory, that the U.S.

would gain an upper hand on the international stage if it made communist countries think that Nixon

was so temperamental and volatile that they should avoid provoking the U.S.

Less Nixon respond with fury and force.

This is something that we saw a little bit in his first administration, but seems to be something

that he's really leaning into, possibly as he heads into his second term.

So stay tuned for a lot more on that. And also there's the

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