Ruth Marcus: “The former president once made an offhand remark about Charles Manson’s guilt. The reaction shows how aberrant Donald Trump’s rhetoric is.”

John Avlon interviewed Barbara Walter, author of How Civil Wars Start and How to Stop Them, about the dangerous warning signs in America today.

President Trump wanted to give King Charles one of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s swords during his state visit to the U.K., the New York Times reports.

The Eisenhower presidential library said it could not provide one because it is government property and illegal to give away. Now the library director has been fired.

“Not since America’s founding 250 years ago has a U.S. president expanded power — and punished critics — in more unprecedented ways than Donald J. Trump,” Axios reports.

“Yes, most presidents stretch the power of the White House and, on rare occasions, blatantly target U.S. critics on U.S. soil. But Trump has veered, often suddenly, proudly and loudly, into unprecedented territory in at least 15 different areas.”

“No president in peacetime has done this much in one year of one term.”

“Trump has done this in eight short months, often with the loyal backing of a compliant Republican-led Congress and validated by the conservative majority of the Supreme Court.”

New York Times: Trump’s remarks at Kirk memorial distill his politics.

Oliver North’s marriage to his one-time secretary Fawn Hall was a surprise to his adult children, Michael Isikoff reports.

The couple apparently renewed their acquaintance in November at the funeral of North’s wife of 56 years.

Said daughter Sarah Katz: “We were not at the wedding because we didn’t know it was happening. And mostly we hope it won’t impact our relationship with our dad because we do love him and we’re still in the process of mourning our mother.”

“Two key figures in the Iran-Contra affair quietly married last month, nearly 40 years after the scandal rocked U.S. politics and President Ronald Reagan’s administration,” CNN reports.

Scott Linciome: “When the populist strongman Juan Perón ran Argentina’s economy from his presidential palace in the mid-20th century—personally deciding which companies received favors, which industries got nationalized or protected, and which businessmen profited from state largesse—economists warned that the experiment would end badly. They were right. Over decades of rule by Perón and his successors, a country that had once been among the world’s wealthiest nations devolved into a global laughingstock, with uncontrollable inflation, routine fiscal crises, rampant corruption, and crippling poverty. Peronism became a cautionary tale of how not to manage an economy.”

“President Donald Trump seems to have misunderstood the lesson. His second term has begun to follow the Peronist playbook of import substitution, emergency declarations, personal dealmaking, fiscal and monetary recklessness, and unprecedented government control over private enterprise. And, as with Argentina’s Peronism, much of U.S. economic policy making runs directly through the president himself.”

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said the world during Donald Trump’s second presidency has entered a period of danger, The Guardian reports.

Said McConnell: “I think this is the most dangerous period since before World War II. There’s certain similarities right now to the 30s.”

He added: “Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill in 1930, widely believed by historians and economists to have taken the depression worldwide. Those who were totally anxious to stay out of all of what was going on in Europe were called ‘America First’. Sound familiar?”

More: “So what do we have today? North Korea, China, Russia, Iran and Iran’s proxies. They’re very different kinds of countries, but they have one thing in common: They hate us.”

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.

— Martin Niemöller, after being released from prison after World War II.

President Trump escalated his campaign to purge cultural institutions of materials that conflict with his political directives, alleging museums were too focused on highlighting negative aspects of American history, including “how bad slavery was,” CNN reports.

Said Trump: “The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future.”

“I think FDR would recognize him… The whole campaign was about affordability.” 

— Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, in an interview with Time, on Zohran Mamdani.

“The U.S. National Park Service will restore and reinstall the statue of a Confederate military officer in Washington, DC, after protesters toppled the monument five years ago,” CNN reports.