Politics

Former congressman Matt Gaetz kicked off the 119th Congress by not showing up and taking the Capitol Hill press corps to school. After weeks of drama, Mike Johnson was reelected as speaker of the House on the very first ballot — exactly as Gaetz predicted. Some Hill reporters, such as Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman, and even Congressman Thomas Massie, had tweeted in response to Gaetz’s declarative prediction that he was wrong. Heading into the vote, everyone knew that Massie was implacably opposed to Johnson — but everyone else’s opposition proved to be quite placable. The drama kicked off almost immediately, when Democratic congressman Hank Johnson failed to show up before roll was called.

Jimmy Carter will be remembered as a decent, honorable man of faith, who lived a productive life according to those high standards, both publicly and privately.  He was an outlier in his forging of a productive life after leaving office. Instead of grifting and selling access to policymakers, like so many former politicians do today, he had a distinguished second career promoting and monitoring democratic elections around the world. That legacy will live on in the work of the Carter Center in Atlanta. So will his work with Habitats for Humanity, building homes for the poor.  He will be remembered, too, for his long, loving marriage to Rosalynn, whom he married in 1946, when he was a young naval officer. She died only a year ago.  It was a remarkable life.

It turns out that the campaign was the easy part. For Donald Trump, winning the election was just securing the beachhead. Now the real work begins. Cities must be retaken. The enemy’s fortifications stormed. Subject populations must be liberated. As I write, Trump is still trying to assemble his cabinet. You will probably know at least the major dramatis personae by the time you read this. Matt Gaetz, Trump’s embattled pick for attorney general, has bowed out of the confirmation process to avoid “becoming a distraction” for the Trump/Vance transition. How about RFK Jr.? Will he be confirmed as secretary of the sprawling Department of Health and Human Services? Will Tulsi Gabbard make it as director of national intelligence? Will Pete Hegseth become secretary of defense?

President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday gave his first rally speech since winning the 2024 presidential election, delivering the keynote address at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest conference for young conservatives. The former and future president spoke for more than an hour and made plenty of headlines with his suggestion that the United States take back control of the Panama Canal, a rejection of the Democrat attack that he is a shadow puppet of billionaire Elon Musk, and a renewed promise of his second-term priorities.

Congress is once again trying to avoid a holiday-eve government shutdown by ramming through a last-minute continuing resolution to fund the government through the new year. The process, per usual, is angering various factions within the House of Representatives as Democrats, budget-hawk Republicans and the establishment GOP are at odds over how much to spend and what to spend it on and whether or not to raise the debt ceiling.Johnson’s “Plan A,” which was a 1,500-page boondoggle negotiated primarily with Democrats, would have funded the government until March.

The tenure of Christoper Wray as FBI director represents a missed opportunity.  After the problematic directorship of James Comey, Wray’s appointment by President Donald Trump on May 9, 2017, was welcomed by most current and former agents as well as the American people, who wanted the Bureau restored to its position of trust. With a ten-year term and the principal malefactors of the Russian collusion farce already fired, Wray was in a position of strength.   Under the Mueller/Comey cabal, the bureau culture had changed from that of a law enforcement agency to an intelligence mindset. That’s what led us into the ugly morass of the Russian collusion narrative and ensuing fiascos.

Last night’s White House Christmas party with digital creators resulted in a cacophony of posts from social media influencers praising Hunter Biden. The swath of pro-Hunter posts following President Joe Biden’s hugely unpopular pardon of his son gave the impression that the Democrats were keen to rehab his image and tamp down accusations of nepotism. “Just met Hunter Biden at the White House Holiday Party.” Majid Padellan, or “BrooklynDad_Defiant!,” posted to his 1.2 million followers on X. “Super nice guy.”“This one is dedicated to all my favorite meme-making trolls out there!” Joanne Carducci, or “JoJoFromJerz” wrote with a picture of her and Hunter Biden. “Merry Christmas!” She has almost a million followers on X.

Could 2025 give Democrats a do-over for how they misplayed the results of Donald Trump's first election? Early signs point to yes — and that could come at the consternation of some conservatives. Let's consider some political alternative history for a moment. In the immediate aftermath of the 2016 election, it's easy to forget how many Democrats started sounding a note of reconciliation with the incoming president. Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders were all open about their willingness to find common ground with the new White House on infrastructure and other policy areas, hoping their views would be closer to Trump's than more fiscally conservative Republicans.

ABC News will pay Donald Trump $15 million to settle a defamation case the president-elect filed against the media outlet after one of its star anchors made false statements about him. This past March, anchor George Stephanopoulos repeatedly stated on air that Trump was “found liable for rape” in the E. Jean Carroll civil case during an interview with Representative Nancy Mace. Stephanopoulos said, “judges and two separate juries have found him liable for rape” when asking Mace, a sexual assault survivor, if she had misgivings about Trump’s alleged abuse of women. A jury in the E. Jean Carroll case explicitly rejected the woman’s claims that Trump had raped her, instead reaching the conclusion that he had sexually abused her.

The nightly news is replicating Orson Welles’s 1938 broadcast of War of the Worlds, which scared Americans by describing an invasion of space aliens. Listeners who tuned into the broadcast a little late didn’t hear the disclaimer that it was fiction. Now, they are tuning in on time and hearing real broadcasts about mysterious objects flying over our skies. And people are asking the same questions they asked long ago, “What are those things?” They have heard the government’s disclaimers, but they are not sure whether to believe them.  The public is frightened, and bland reassurances from Washington aren’t helping.

America’s incoming border czar, Tom Homan, is already taking his job more seriously than his predecessor ever did. Unlike Kamala Harris, Homan does not need to be goaded into doing the job assigned to him by the president. Homan, the former director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is already hitting the trail, telling prospective illegal immigrants to turn the caravans around and warning America’s bluest cities that a new sheriff is coming to town. During a swing through Chicago, Homan told the Windy City’s residents that “your mayor sucks and your governor sucks.” Both Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker have suggested that they plan to resist President-elect Donald Trump’s broadly popular immigration plans.

As Americans, we aren’t exactly famous for our love of the government. But how is the reelection of Donald Trump affecting our attitudes?In what they are touting as the first such poll released since the presidential election, GW’s Graduation School of Political Management and Schoen Cooperman Research are revealing “shocking findings about the state of Americans’ trust in the government and media” — namely, that nearly 40 percent of the public says they trust the government less going forward.