The Narativ | Know Sooner
Thursday, September 17, 2026
Mark Carney stood in the European Parliament in Strasbourg today and told the chamber that "Europe and Canada are stronger together," and that "economic integration is now being weaponized — tariffs being used to exert pressure." He never said Trump's name. He did not have to. On Wednesday, Ursula von der Leyen had stood in the same chamber, with Carney watching, and proposed Canada as the European Union's first-ever associate member — an offer the Union has never made anyone. Trump answered from the tarmac at Charlotte Douglas airport: the idea was "laughable," Canada was "a terrible trade partner," and if he judged the arrangement "at all a hostile act" he would impose "very serious tariffs or stop trading with Europe on many things." Carney has accepted nothing. He welcomed the ambition and sent it to a vote in Canada's Parliament, where it will sit for months. Trump keeps making the case for him.
Olga Lautman went past the money on Narativ Live today and named the service. Umar Kremlev, who funded Donald Trump Jr.'s Bahamas celebrations on 23 and 24 May, was never a businessman, she said: "This is an intelligence operation at the highest level. This is even a higher level than FSB." Night Wolves leader Alexander Zaldostanov walked Kremlev to Alexei Rubezhnoi, chief of Putin's Presidential Security Service. Sean Wiswesser, a former CIA chief of station, did not soften her. "This is a breach of the inner sanctum," Wiswesser said. Trump Jr. calls the money a gift.
The House concurred on H.R. 5334 on Wednesday, 262 to 159; the Senate passed it 86 to 11 on 7 August. Section 115(a) lets the President waive any Title I sanction by certifying it serves the national interest — no congressional veto, no expiry. Hakeem Jeffries says the bill carries "so many loopholes" that nobody may ever apply them. The White House asked for exactly that in July.
Sara Hossain's U.N. mission has "reasonable grounds to believe" the United States committed a war crime at a school in Minab on 28 February. Investigators counted 157 dead, 123 children. On Lamerd she dropped the hedge: that strike "also amounted to the war crime." Hossain wrote to Washington three times. Nobody replied.
Russian operatives cloned Sarah Jessica Parker's voice, stamped CNN's logo on it, and aimed 16 videos at American Democrats, naming Sen. Jon Ossoff and James Talarico. They are now faking retractions from the reporters who caught them.
Carney went to Strasbourg to find Canada another partner. Hossain's investigators wrote down what an American missile did to a school in Minab. Congress wrote a sanctions law with a door built into it. Lautman traced the money at Don Jr.'s party to the men who guard Putin's body, and Russian operatives cloned an actress's voice to talk to Georgia Democrats. Everyone is adjusting to the same reality at the same time, and Russia sits underneath all of it. Hostile is not a word you use for a trade deal you benefit from.
Olga Lautman and Sean Wiswesser joined Zev at 12:00 noon ET today for a Narativ Live special on the Russian threat.
- Exclusive: The Plot To Steal 2026 Elections* — Russian operatives started on the midterms long before the deepfakes.
