While President Donald Trump made news at the World Economic Conference in Davos this week with his demand to be handed Greenland, followed by a rambling speech and the launch of his much derided “Council of Peace,“ Canada’s prime minister was lavished with the kind of praise and positive international attention the American president can only dream of.

According to Washington Post analyst Ishaan Tharoor, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s star has risen to dizzying heights after his speech at which he made the point, “Every day we’re reminded that we live in an era of great-power rivalry. That the rules-based order is fading. That the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.”

He later added, “The middle powers must act together because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.”

According to the Post, Carney made a huge impression that led longtime German diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger to hail the speech and report, “There are some people who are now saying, ‘why can’t we invite Canada to be a member of the E.U.?’"

Adam Tooze, who was the moderator when Trump Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick answered questions, agreed and admitted, “It was the only one of the leader speeches that I saw that, with weight and moral earnestness, expressed the shock which many of us are feeling here.”

Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, joined the praise, explaining, “We know that it reflects a change in the global order that we’ve almost all seen coming increasingly over the past years, but no major government leader was prepared to actually say it,” and then predicting, “people are going to be thinking back on [the speech] for quite a long time.”

The Post’s Tharoor reported that Trump appears to realize that he was shown up by Carney and lashed out by rescinding Canada’s invitation to the Board of Peace, which Canada had already rejected.

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The Trump White House has reportedly ordered federal agencies to conduct a sweeping review of funding to more than a dozen states carried by former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, a move that lawmakers from the targeted states condemned as unlawful political retaliation.

The review, first reported by RealClearPolitics, was outlined in a data request that the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) sent out on Tuesday. Every federal department and agency was included in the request except for the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington state, and Washington, DC are the jurisdictions targeted by the OMB.

The OMB memo, according to the Washington Post, “requests agencies provide detailed information on all funds to those states, including money routed for state and local governments, nonprofit organizations, and higher education institutions.” OMB claims it is trying to root out fraud.

“This is authoritarianism, plain and simple,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), whose state is the only one on the list with a Republican governor.

“The Trump administration is targeting states that didn’t vote for him—including my home state of Vermont,” Sanders added. “Using federal power to punish political opponents is anti-democratic and blatantly illegal.”

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) similarly condemned the funding investigation as “more political retribution from Trump, the authoritarian strongman, and his crony Russ Vought,” the head of OMB.

“This is a blatant and dangerous abuse of power,” Merkley wrote on social media. “Trump does not care how many people he hurts to score cheap political points.”

The OMB data request is just the latest instance of the Trump administration specifically targeting federal funds to Democratic-led states.

The White House budget office previously tried to cut off clean energy funds to Democratic-run states before being blocked in court. Earlier this month, the Trump administration froze $10 billion in childcare and social services funding for low-income families in five Democratic-led states, claiming fraud.

Sharon Parrott, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said the administration’s new funding investigation “follows a clear pattern” and marks “a harmful and shameful escalation of the administration’s corrupt politicization of basic governance.”

“Withholding federal funding can have grave consequences,” said Parrott. “Just take the five-state freeze on childcare. In just those states, those funds are used to provide care to nearly 340,000 children. Without funding, childcare providers close, kids don’t get care, and parents can’t go to work.”

Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce revoked his support for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations after one of his correctional officer recruits was detained.

In a Wednesday evening press conference, Joyce blasted ICE's handling of the recruit's detention in Portland, Maine.

"They all took off, leaving his car with the windows down, the lights on, unsecured and unoccupied," the sheriff explained. "They left it right on the side of the street. Folks, that's bush league policing."

"This was a show of force, a show of whatever they were trying to do with seven people," he continued.

Joyce said he had initially been supportive of President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement efforts, but that changed after the way ICE detained the recruit.

"We're being told one story, which is totally different than what's occurring or what occurred last night," he insisted, calling the correctional recruit "squeaky clean."

"I guess if you're not the card-carrying U.S. citizen, then you must be illegal because that's what they told me is he's illegal, and he's definitely not a criminal," Joyce added.