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TODAY'S HEADLINES:

President Donald Trump lashed out at public servants Alexander Vindman and Gordon Sondland, who testified during the House impeachment trial, firing both men from their positions in his administration.

Meanwhile, Ireland’s leftist Sinn Fein party won big in the country’s national elections this weekend according to preliminary results, giving the progressive left a real voice in Irish politics for the first time in decades.

And lastly, Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg trade jabs while on the campaign trail in New Hampshire, as the gap between them narrows in polls and the primary looms just one day away.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

President Donald Trump has never seen a high road he wanted to take. On Friday, the president lashed out at two public servants who were subpoenaed during the course of his impeachment trial, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman and Gordon Sondland.

Sondland, the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, was fired from his position on Friday. Vindman was also fired from his place at the National Security Council and was escorted from the White House by Security.

To add a further level of insult, Vindman’s twin brother Lieutenant Colonel Yevgeny Vindman, was also fired from the NSC. Ironically, he was an ethics lawyer there!

The firings are plain, open revenge for perceived slights during the president’s impeachment trial.

Sondland testified under oath that he did think there was quid pro quo involved in the President’s dealings with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and Vindman testified that Trump’s infamous phone call was quote “improper.” This did not go over well with the president.

According to the New York Times, some Republicans stuck up for Sondland, personally asking the President not to fire him because it would look bad, and because Sondland was on his way out anyway. The President, of course, did not take that route.

Why would those senators stick their necks out for Sondland, you may ask? Well, the former Ambassador to the E.U. is a wealthy businessman in his own right with a long history of political donations, largely to Republican candidates and causes. Sondland personally donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration shortly before receiving the Ambassador post.

Republican Senators did not try to rescue the Vindman brothers, who are career military servicemembers and public servants, not independently wealthy political donors. Funny how that works.

**In an historic election, Ireland’s leftist Sinn Fein party made massive gains this weekend, breaking up the right-wing dominated Irish parliament for the first time in almost a century. **

Sinn Fein, which today functions as a center-left or leftist party in Ireland’s political system, was for years linked to the Irish Republican Army, which allowed its right-wing opponents to largely ostracize it from electoral power for decades.

But on Saturday, Irish voters decided to take a chance of Sinn Fein’s modern democratic socialist policies, handing the party an expected 37 seats in Parliament. Sinn Fein campaigned heavily against Ireland’s high rent prices and corporate kickbacks and tax breaks, positioning itself as the party most in touch with Ireland’s working class. Sound familiar?

For years, control of Ireland’s politics have been passing back and forth between two center-right parties, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.

Fine Gael is currently in power, but both center-right parties now face a choice of whether to form a coalition government with their rivals or with the left-wing Sinn Fein, giving progressives more leverage in Ireland than they’ve had in years.

Full results in the election are expected Monday or Tuesday, but it certainly appears Ireland’s left has new life.

**Here we go again folks: the last day before a major Democratic primary contest. Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders traded jabs on the campaign trail in New Hampshire over the weekend, as the two prepare to go head to head in the state’s primary on Tuesday. **

Buttigieg has surged since his sort-of-not-really victory in Iowa, but Bernie retains a lead in most polls. Buttigieg pivoted hard to, for lack of a better word, fiscal conservatism, hammering Bernie on the same arguments around the price of Medicare for all, saying that voters quote “deserve somebody who can actually deliver math that adds up.”

Bernie shot right back, pointing out that Buttigieg has taken money from over 40 billionaires and seems intimately comfortable with the political establishment’s financial backers.

Bernie’s communication’s director Mike Casca told NBC News that Buttigieg’s calls for lowering the national debt were quote “a blatant effort to appease his billionaire donors,” endquote, and claiming that Pete was quote ”parroting the same corporate talking points to justify cuts to Social Security and Medicare that have been used for decades.”

Buttigieg and Sanders are by far and away the two frontrunners in New Hampshire, but Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, and Amy Klobuchar will also be in the hunt for a strong finish to bolster their flagging campaigns after poor showings in Iowa.

All the candidates have events planned across the state for Monday, so be on the lookout for more snipes and jabs flying in between contenders as everyone looks to head into Tuesday with some power.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

The Trump administration is due to release its 2021 budget request on Monday -- and it’s a far cry from the lofty promises he made in 2016. Hey, remember when Mexico was supposed to pay for his wall?

Bong Joon Ho’s story of capitalism, class, and social conflict, Parasite, won best picture at the 2020 Academy Awards last night. The director, who has been explicit in his critiques of Hollywood and the ruling classes, also took home awards for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Foreign Language Film.

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, which is supposed to ferry humans into space and the ISS for decades to come, is still in dire straights, as a NASA probe found numerous inconsistencies and problems at fault for a dangerously-near miss during a test flight in December, which almost resulted in losing the craft.

Renowned Malian musician Ballake Sissoko claims that U.S. customs officials broke his kora, a traditional African instrument that resembles a harp. When Sissoko arrived in Paris after a stint in the U.S., he found his instrument in pieces, accompanied by a note from customs saying the case had been inspected.

And lastly, the Coronavirus hits a devastating new milestone: it has officially killed more people than the SARS virus outbreak in 2002. The Coronavirus is now responsible for at least 908 deaths.

#AMQuickie: Feb 10, 2020

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Jack Crosbie

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn