That was President Trump last night at his Mar-a-Lago New Year's Eve party.
Some news from the president from his Truth Social page yesterday before that party.
Here's the headline this morning in the Washington Times: Trump pulls the National Guard from three American cities.
President Trump said Wednesday after a setback at the Supreme Court that he's abandoning his efforts for now to deploy National Guard troops in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland, Oregon, despite his belief that their presence there brought down crime.
It was yesterday at about 4 p.m. Eastern that President Trump said this on his Truth Social page about that move: quote: We're removing the National Guard from Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland, despite the fact that crime has been greatly reduced by having these great patriots in those cities and only by that fact.
Portland, Los Angeles, and Chicago were gone, the president said, if it weren't for the federal government stepping in.
We will come back, he said, perhaps in a much different and stronger form when crime begins to soar again.
President Trump on his True Social page yesterday.
That's the news from the president from True Social, from Mar-a-Lago.
We're talking to you this morning on the Washington Journal, getting your view about the year ahead in politics.
Are you optimistic?
Are you pessimistic?
Give us a call.
We want to know either way.
Democrats, 202-748-8000.
Republicans, 202-748-8001.
Independents, 202-748-8002.
And we will start all the way in the last frontier.
Fairbanks, Alaska.
Mike, Independent, a very good early morning to you.
Immigration, we need to settle out our population.
And zero immigration is a good goal.
I think the melting pot has exploded and it's really messed up our country.
We're losing our sovereignty.
We're losing our culture.
The old West is disappearing under a carpet of wind turbines and solar refineries that are not working.
It's more carbon to build these things than they can mitigate.
But anyway, I am optimistic.
I like the tariffs, how we're increasing our reserve, our money reserve, trying to pay off our debt.
I like that we are filling our oil reserve right now instead of depleting it.
I like America first because when America is first, the rest of the country benefits because we are the most benevolent country ever created by mankind with the help of God and Jesus Christ, in my opinion.
And I just had a bad feeling inside my body, John.
Like my soul was crying out that we're losing our country.
Everything that that last administration did and before is now turning out to be crooked.
And it just, it just, that, I mean, it blows me away.
I think what we need to do, John, is get down to the bottom.
Let's clear this up.
Get rid of the Epstein problem.
I mean, that's always going to hang over our head no matter what we do.
It's always going to be there.
But let's get rid of this Russian hoax and the state dossier.
Like Alex Jones says, Barack Obama might go to prison for treason, for seditious treason.
And also Hillary and Brandon, because they set up the Russian hoax.
They paid for a fake dossier.
We went through five years of pure hell, John.
And look what they did, the fake impeachments, the fake arrests.
Now we've got judges that are oast in to some kind of fraternity because they're all pulling the same stuff.
I don't understand, John.
I'm still optimistic.
I love our president, but I really appreciate him listening to Infowars.com and Alex Jones more now because we're starting to head in the right direction.
I am not particularly optimistic about the year ahead, but more significantly, I'm not very optimistic about the decade ahead or even the century ahead.
We are relentlessly doing stuff in this country and in other countries that guarantee an ever harder world for everybody ahead.
We're stuffing the atmosphere with heat-trapping gases that are going to accumulate, even if we stop now for the next 100 years, creating even more of the extreme weather that's basically ruining lives across the globe.
We've dismantled the ability of our government to handle a whole lot of challenges that would have us preparing for the future.
We're not so benevolent when we've just ripped apart our major foreign assistance program, leaving millions upon millions of people, most of them women and children, in the lurch.
We're creating generational pain and trauma that's going to affect the next generations of all of the people being predated by this predatory right-wing government being hauled away by the secret police like something that we thought would happen in Nazi Germany or in today's world.
Gregory, fair to say that you think America's best days are behind it?
unidentified
I think that for now they're behind this.
I'm hoping that in the coming year, we will lay out a program, we on the Democratic side, that's the line I'm calling on, with a great big first ever midterm year Democratic National Unconventional Convention that will lay out a whole bunch of great policy ideas that are just lying fallow for now,
while also detailing the massive corruption and stupid moves and destructive policies and the big bad bill that's tearing apart health care and environmental protection, education, child care infrastructure, you name it.
We're ripping apart huge investments in clean energy and replacing them with dirty energy that's going to ruin the landscape.
We're creating a junkscape, both literally and figuratively, in this country and around the world.
That's Sarah in Michigan on tech companies and the rise of AI in the past 12 months and the future of it.
Here's a story from the business section of the New York Times: AI boom underpinned the market's rise during 2025 for investors and traders.
It's hardly been a smooth and predictable journey.
But the one big idea is that artificial intelligence will be a generational force, the market said, underpinning the stock market because of the scale of investment needed to build out the infrastructure that powers it and technology's expected productivity gains.
A story on that in the New York Times.
If you want to read more, we're hearing about your level of optimism or pessimism about the new year, this New Year's Day.
Kathleen in Wisconsin, Independent, happy 2026.
Go ahead.
unidentified
Happy New Year, John.
And I just have to tell everybody how grateful I am for C-SPAN's effort to balance out the news.
The previous caller did talk a lot about the tech industry and AI, and I think that is going to further color how it is we communicate.
And it's going to be really hard to know in the future what is real.
I have some very big concerns about that.
And for the world that is going to be my sons and grandsons, I just wish there was a better way to try to find truth.
Specifically, I wanted to find out from C-SPAN, John, if there's a way to find Jack Smith's full testimony.
I would really like to hear what he had to say during his hearings.
Just, I think I am very concerned about the future.
I don't know how optimistic or pessimistic I should be, but staying well informed is just so incredibly difficult right now.
Is Zorhan Momdani the fresh blood that you're referring to?
unidentified
Well, we've got Katie Wilson in Seattle kind of styled on the same belief system.
And, you know, we're pretty progressive out here, and we're just like, you know, this isn't working.
The homeless problem here is real.
It's ongoing.
No solutions that are really working on a long-term basis.
I just feel like throwing, you know, good money after bad.
But no, I'm like, let's bring something new in because this capitalistic system that we've got working right now, it ain't working for most of America.
This is the lead story in the New York Times today with Steep Task.
Mamdani arrives at a lofty moment.
This is the lead graph.
One year ago, Zoran Momdani was a little-known mayoral candidate so desperate to raise his profile that he spent New Year's Day plunging into the icy waters at Coney Island, hoping to use the social media stunt to promote his rent-freeze pledge.
Now, as the calendar turns again, there is no doubt that he has New York's attention.
On Thursday, up to 40,000 people are expected to crowd into City Hall to watch his swearing in as New York's next mayor, the largest inaugural crowd in decades.
He had a formal swearing in very late last night at the stroke of midnight at an old subway station in New York City.
And he made some brief comments afterwards about his new administration and who will be joining him.
Happy New Year to New Yorkers, both inside this tunnel and above.
And I cannot wait to see everyone tomorrow as we begin our term.
This is truly the honor and the privilege of a lifetime.
And after just having taken my oath to become the mayor of the city of New York, I do so also here in the old City Hall subway station, a testament to the importance of public transit, to the vitality, the health, and the legacy of our city.
And I can think of no better moment to announce our new Department of Transportation Commissioner than this.
So I would ask Mike Flynn, if you would please join me.
It is an honor to have Mike here alongside me as we embark on an administration that will take seriously the responsibility and the opportunity we have to make this streetscape and the public transit of the city we call home the envy of the world.
And it will require someone who's experienced, who is fluent in the landscape as it is, and who is ambitious and imaginative towards the landscape as it could be.
And I can think of no better person than the man alongside me.
And I'm so proud to have him joining our administration as the next head of our DOT.
Much more expected from him today at his inauguration ceremony.
And we'll have live coverage of that ceremony from New York City.
It's expected to feature Senator Bernie Sanders, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, along with other elected officials.
Courtesy of Spectrum News, New York 1, you can watch live at 1 p.m. Eastern here on C-SPAN.
Also on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, and of course, online at c-span.org.
That's later today, this morning on the Washington Journal.
We are asking you on this New Year's Day about your level of optimism or pessimism about the year to come in politics.
Here's how you can call in: Democrats 202-748-8000.
Republicans 202-748-8001.
Independents 202-748-8002.
We're also going to be checking in with political pundits from around the country throughout our program today, but it's mostly just hearing from you, including David in Georgia on the Republican line.
I'm glad the last caller didn't wish somebody aimed better at the president.
Supply And Demand Debate00:05:17
unidentified
At least she hoped for a natural cause of his demise.
So thanks for that.
And two or three callers ago, those ladies have a point about technology and spyware and artificial intelligence.
But if you don't read or study, even human beings, normal, I guess, intelligence can lie about history through the regular press.
So I encourage people to read actual books rather than rely on what comes over through their filtered electronics.
So, but my point, and what I try to explain when I call him once a month, is about price inflation and why I'm optimistic that things will at least be stable rather than high inflation is because two of the main drivers of the current pricing, or you want to call it affordability in general, is there was trillions of dollars printed to pumped into the economy for COVID release.
Remember the CARES Act and then the America Care Rescue Plan, and that there may have been one more.
And politicians, as soon as they saw these, they predicted great inflation.
And maybe it could be helped, but I mean, that is just objectively a cause.
And the second one is we added 15 to 20 million or so, depending on new consumers, unexpected, unnatural growth driving demand on all goods and services that people just need.
So it's just objective.
It's not Democrat or Republican.
It's just a fact of extra money in the money supply, which is called monetary inflation, which can drive price inflation.
And then just simply the law of supply and demand with an unexpected spike in demand for all kinds of things from food, vehicles, housing, you name it.
Before you go, you mentioned books at the top of your comments.
Are there any nonfiction books coming out in 2026 that you're particularly interested in, or ones that you read in the past year that folks should read to help understand the issues that you're interested in?
unidentified
Well, there's an interesting one.
It's called Trump's Enemies.
That was interesting.
It was by Bossi and Lewandowski documenting even before the second election what the, you know, called deep state, but you say the network of enemies he had trying to bring them down.
And surprising how well they documented.
It's just a collection of facts.
So it's called Trump's Enemies.
It wasn't a huge seller.
I don't know.
My father gave it to me.
So just understand, can I squeeze in one more point?
People should read about the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 60.
People don't know about them.
They think about 64 and Johnson.
But when he was Senate Majority Lee, he opposed the Civil Rights Acts of 57 and 60 under Eisenhower until he realized he wasn't going to stop that train and he jumped on board.
So read about those two.
And they were Republican efforts.
And also the Chips and Science Act.
That was under Trump's Deputy Security Advisor, I think, Keith Cratch.
And he introduced that to Schumer and then another senator.
So that Chips Act, of course, it was signed under Biden, but it was Keith Cratch.
In the Peach State, we'll head to Vitar Hill State.
Joe is in Wilmington, Line for Democrats.
Joe, happy 2026.
unidentified
Yeah, I caught you at that fallpaw of 2025, but my literary professor at Yale would not be so harsh.
And I or the will I. John John, I'm the farmer's son who went to Yale and became a more knowledgeable individual, learning that squash is not a vegetable, but is a game played by the Epicurean State.
I get up early at the break of dawn because I grew up on a farm with cattle and soybeans and wheat and cowboys and all manner of things.
And we must be an optimist.
Although I'm a Democrat, I am a moderate Democrat.
Yes, I am.
Yes, I am.
And I've lived in Seattle.
I've lived in Chicago.
I've lived in Baltimore.
Well, actually, Bethesda, much different than Baltimore, much more police over there.
And I've lived in Florida and not in Miami, although I could afford Miami.
But we must be an optimist.
And I have never been or played golf a place down there with the POTUS.
Soviet Collapse and Beyond00:03:50
unidentified
But world events can relate that no one politician or his administration can solve unemployment alone.
It must be a community action, John.
John, I only call in about once every two months, so you got to recognize my voice there.
A lofty, icy plunge into New York City's East River is just a means to get Gamogobulin shot in your buttocks.
I think you have to separate the country from the empire.
And there's lots of historical empires.
Everybody that listens to this show understands that.
But we have a nation of 50 states, and we also have an empire.
And I think the empire is crumbling, right?
Because we have hundreds of thousands of troops all over the world.
And we're spending, you know, god-awful amounts of money and we're never-ending wars.
And we're losing the wars more and more and more.
So that's the bad thing.
But the good thing is, as empires collapse, there's the nation underneath it where the majority of people just want to get along with their families and their friends and their neighbors.
And I just think we're, so I'm positive for, you know, I'm a middle-aged guy.
I'm positive that over the next 30 years, and I think it's going to happen really pretty quickly because the collapse is quicker.
And I happened to eyewitness when the Soviet Union collapsed.
And I went over there and did business with Russian friends of mine who had defected previous to it.
And when an empire, and the Soviet Empire was a different structure, but it was a worldwide empire fighting us in a Cold War.
Do you see this country on the verge of a breakup with a collapse as well?
Does this no longer become the United States of America?
unidentified
No, In fact, I made a bet with my friends in 2018.
No, no, no.
Because I just see that we're going to, that the states, people are going to start demanding that the states deliver to them, you know, benefits, right?
Like, you know, good highways and good policing and all that kind of stuff that people like.
But that will just go back to, because this is, let's just call it in historical concepts, let's say a pre-1860 set up where the 50 states are already set up.
The federal, the states will kick in for, let's call it the U.S. Navy, right?
Which is actually constitutional, not the standing army that's unconstitutional.
Articles of Confederation Redux?00:15:19
unidentified
And we'll pay for the highways.
The states will kick in for the highways, for the U.S. Navy.
So it's more an Articles of Confederation situation?
unidentified
Well, not even Articles of Confederation.
No, no, no.
That's going back, which I do actually kind of, because I'm really like a libertarian, you know, not a, I'm a libertarian and I love local government.
And here, you know, Nassim Taleb in his book, the guy that wrote The Black Swan He's Famous War, and his other books are even better.
But he sums it up this way.
You should act like a libertarian at the national level, okay?
At the state level, you should act like the state and local level, you should act like a Republican.
And I mean a Republican in the old sense of like, you know, 30 years ago or 75 years ago.
And at the local level, city and state, city and county level, you should act like a Democrat, meaning you want, you know, good government locally that'll pick up the garbage and bring you clean water, et cetera.
And then at the home level, at your household, close friends level, act like a Marxist, Leninist, communist.
We're talking to you this New Year's Day about your view on 2026.
The year in politics ahead.
Are you optimistic?
Are you pessimistic?
202-748-8000 for Democrats to call in.
Republicans, 202-748-8001.
Independents, 202-748-8002.
And this is the article from today's Washington Times about America's biggest priorities in the year 2026.
Looking at a new AP poll that asks people to share their top priorities for the government to address in 2026, immigration and broader worries about rising costs remain pressing issues, according to that December poll.
And about four in 10 U.S. adults named health care or health issues, as in that open-ended question that asked respondents to share up to five issues that they want the government to work on in the coming year.
That's up from about one-third a year ago.
Health care is particularly high concern for adults between the ages of 45 and 59.
About two in 10 U.S. adults want the federal government to focus on housing costs in 2026.
Immigration was the top issue Americans wanted the government to focus on two years ago in 2024, with about half of U.S. adults citing it in that election year.
A new AP poll out looking at Americans' biggest priorities for the new year.
This is Jerry out of Missouri, Republican.
Jerry, good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
Yeah, I'm optimistic when it comes to Trump's agenda, you know, the things he's wanting to get done.
I really believe it's going to happen as the gas prices sink and that starts affecting everything in the country.
I think good things are coming on the economy and all that.
Politically, I'm a little less optimistic.
I get online anywhere, and nobody can talk to anybody with different ideas.
It's hard to get a conversation going and debating and come to the middle on anything.
And that's got me a little depressed when it comes to us getting along.
We need more love in this world to be able to discuss the things that need to, you know, here we are talking about Epstein files over and over and over.
And we've got some major problems that we've got to deal with in this country.
And we're spending more time talking about Epstein.
And it's just driving me nuts.
I think we need to just tone it down and start talking to each other and hashing out this health care deal, which isn't easy.
But as far as President Trump, I think we need to pay more attention to what he's doing and less what he's saying.
And it seems like every critical thing is about what he says.
Forget that.
Just pay attention to what he's doing.
You know, he's got China influence out of the Panama Canal.
He did that real quick.
NATO's doubling their defense spending.
You know, he's working out peace throughout the world.
And here we are talking about Epstein.
It's like people want to sabotage the good that's going on.
And I think we just need to focus on the things that's going to better America.
And I really feel Trump's trying to do that.
I wish everybody would just get on board, see what happens these next four years.
And as for climate change, let's just adapt.
I don't think there's anything we're going to do to reverse course.
Let's just adapt.
Let's not break the country trying to make up for what China or India is not doing.
Jerry, on the discourse and polarization in this country, this is also from today's Washington Times, but from the opinion section.
It's Randolph May, president of the Free State Foundation.
His piece, Let's Make This Year, 2026, about We the People. He writes: The rifts in America's body politic run deep.
Indeed, America at times appears to be coming apart at the seams as the divisions deepen between those on the political left and the political right.
The center of the political spectrum continues to shrink, with the extremes on both sides becoming more entrenched, he says, if not gaining strength, as 2026 begins, it's not beyond the pale to worry about America's ultimate fate.
If we worry thus, we should ask ourselves how might we as American citizens revitalize our sense of common purpose of the general welfare, as the Constitution's preamble puts it, while reconciling a wide diversity of opinions on matters of public importance.
In 2026, the year in which we celebrate America's 250th birthday, I suggest an excellent place to begin is with a reflection on the Constitution's first three words, we the people.
For the Constitution's drafters, the phrase we the people was not chosen casually.
He says those three words needed to be more than a memorable open.
They needed to be an expression of sovereign will of the people consistent with the Lockean social contract theory familiar to the Constitution's framers.
We the people was intended to signify at the document's very beginning that the powers exercised by America's new government would be derived from the consent of the people and not from a monarch or even from the government itself.
If you want to read more, that's Randolph May in today's Washington Times.
Back to your phone calls.
This is Benito out of Rio Grande City in the Lone Star State.
Democrat, good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
You know, as far as being optimistic or pessimistic, I'm a little bit on both.
Okay.
I think President Trump should really focus on what he needs to be doing for the people here in the U.S. Instead of going after politicians and, you know, suing people left and right.
He could do a lot of good things.
I mean, he is capable, but he just won't.
He's stuck in retributions and the sort.
Again, you know, I am both pessimistic and optimistic.
I'm not really optimistic about the economy, the way it's going.
And I hope it does get better.
Again, President Trump, you can do a lot better.
You can be for the people and not just for certain people.
Robin is just down Interstate 95 in Richmond, Virginia.
Independent, go ahead.
unidentified
Hi, I guess I would have to say, being an independent, this won't surprise you.
I'm cautiously optimistic.
I believe what lands in your lap, what comes to you, you're engaged in it, and it's your job to do something about it.
I would say that to either party in power.
I do think that there's a lot of resistance to Trump for the sake of Trump, and the big mistake is making it about Trump.
The gentleman before me is absolutely right.
Trump could do better, but the guy before him was good too, because he said we the people, and that is what it's about.
Nobody's guaranteed tomorrow, no one's promised tomorrow.
So I think it's really important that we all recognize that the individual in the House for four years is not the big picture.
People want to talk with their grandkids, their great-gandids, blah, blah, blah, but then they constantly complain about today and what's going on today.
Robin, do you think America's 250th birthday will help change the conversation in this country this year to make people more reflective on these issues, this we, the people.
unidentified
Oh, God, I hope so.
I think that needs to be the drive the narrative because I look back, I'm old.
I was in my 60s, and so I remember 1976.
And it was a really tough time personally.
My family, my father was, he ended up dying that year of cancer.
I was a kid.
I was 13, but I was a pretty smart kid.
I had a big family, so I had a lot of influence of people older than me having conversations in my presence.
But having said that, I remember 1976 and how important that was in the country, and how everyone seemed to embrace how proud we were.
And now here we are, and it's the 250th, and everybody's in fighting.
But not to get off on a tangent, one of the things I wanted to say was, you know, there's all this talk about either or, and I think that's a big mistake.
And stop talking about either or, you know, either taxes or tariffs.
I think it's a mistake.
I think a lot of President Trump's approaches are very different, but I think they're great ideas.
I think he's wrong for the narrative of eliminate taxes.
But let's use those to fund the infrastructure that's been so horribly neglected by party after party after party.
And let the taxes, you know, not be what they are, but sure, reduce them.
Americans need help.
But use those tariffs to boost that funding as an income stream, quite frankly.
But I think if you explain it that way, and if you still hammer out that waste, fraud, and abuse, that's really critical.
I think people will start to understand that.
Taxes can help keep the, excuse me, tariffs can help keep the taxes low.
The rich can pay a little more in taxes, but then they're also making a little more in their businesses with tariffs.
This is the Washington Post, Theodore Johnson's call for moral patriotism during America's 250th birthday.
This is what Theodore Johnson writes.
Moral patriotism critiques the nation on where and how it has fallen short, but does so from a place of respect and affection for it and for the people, the sort of moral patriotism practiced by Abraham Lincoln and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., among scores of others.
He says the most durable expressions of patriotism didn't emerge from the founding generation's exemplars or the institutions that designed, they designed, that have persisted, but more from the most harmed by their shortcomings.
The abolitionists, the suffragists, the civil rights activists, veterans who returned home to unequal treatment, immigrants in search of opportunity.
They all understood that loving the country requires confronting it and the institutions that govern it.
Our institutions are not self-correcting, he writes.
They do not inherently work to close the gap between the nation's professed ideals and its actions.
Instead, they must be compelled to change, transformed by the patriotic people who love the country enough to make it work a quarter millennium after its creation.
Theodore Johnson in today's Washington Post to John in Santa Paula, California, Republican.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning, John.
Happy New Year to everybody.
I'm very optimistic about 2026, and the real reason is that I'm glad that Kamala didn't get elected.
And if Kamala were in office, we would still have an immigration problem.
If Kamala were here today, all of our taxes would be going up.
Gas prices would be high.
She was going to tax unrealized gains in the stock market, so the stock market would be a very high risk right now.
And there would be a lot of fraud.
But I'm glad that Trump is in because we're going to have the Olympics, going to have the World Cup, 250-year celebration.
Stock market is going phenomenal.
Companies are making a lot of money right now, which is good because they pay most of the taxes anyway.
And I see a main thing I like the most is that we've got a working man as a president.
The guy works his butt off, gets up every day.
Every day we can expect him to do something new and to change and to work for the American people.
And for that poor lady in Seattle who is a progressive, you know, she's one of the people that caused all this homelessness, high taxes, all this stuff that they're putting through.
Free this, free that.
That's just not going to happen.
And I'm really excited that that's not going to happen.
I'm really excited that we're going to, a man can go to work, earn some money, and have a great life in America.
Why We Should Support Trump00:06:25
unidentified
That's what America's about.
You work hard, you keep your nose clean, and you can have a really good life here.
You look at all the other countries, foreign aid, foreign policy.
Trump has stopped wars all over the world.
That Gaza thing, where there are missiles flying, there are no more missiles right now flying back and forth.
It's the 2025 politics yearbook, Michelle Cottle, with the best and worst, the winners and losers of 2025 as we enter the new year.
Among the most surprising dropouts award that Michelle Cottle gives, it goes to Marjorie Taylor Greene, she writes, until the past several months in the Georgia Republican was one of Congress's loudest and rawest MAGA mad dogs.
Who can forget her Cruella Deville cosplay while heckling Joe Biden at his 2023 State of the Union address?
But she and Mr. Trump got to feuding, and suddenly she was announcing her early departure from Congress in January.
Ever scrappy.
She's throwing punches at the president on her way out the door like a seasoned anti-Trumper.
The New York opinion writer Michelle Cottle gives the hottest newcomer to Zorhan Mamdani.
That smile, that charm, she writes, that social media savvy, New York's mayor-elect is the undisputed shiny new star of the Democratic Party, even if he's making many in the party exceedingly nervous.
Not Taylor Swift level yet, but definitely Sabrina Carpenter, is what he says.
And one more on specifically Donald Trump and the best Trump impersonator.
She gives that to Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California, upped his national profile in 2025 and earned social media love with his brutal, all-caps, tongue-in-cheek trolling of the president.
Vaguely childish and obnoxious, maybe, but she says it helped turn Mr. Newsom into the Democratic frontrunner for 2028.
If you want to read more about Michelle Cottle's awards for the best and worst in 2025, it's in today's New York Times.
This is John, also in New York, Independent.
Good morning.
unidentified
Yeah, good morning.
I think I'm feeling pretty good.
I mean, it's happy new year to everybody in the United States or across the world, let's face it.
But I don't see any problems with the economy.
We're bouncing along.
We're getting by.
Things aren't as bad as everybody says.
Some people say it's worse, this, that, and the other thing, but we're okay.
But I just, like I said, this division between the Republicans and the Democrats, and I think a lot of it has to do with the media and what they promote every day and feed to the American people.
I don't think Donald Trump's all that bad.
I think he's a businessman.
I mean, I'm not saying I wouldn't want to deal with that guy.
I mean, he's a tough guy, but he grew up in New York City and he had the construction business with dealing with union laborers and the plumbing departments and the builders and all that.
That couldn't have been fun, I tell you what.
But anyway, that made him a tougher guy.
But he's doing good for that.
I think he's doing okay for our country.
And Biden, I think he should have went a little sooner.
And I don't know why that went by so long without that going on.
But as far as the Democrats accusing Republicans of this, and oh, the Republicans, Trump, he should go after his political opponents.
What are you kidding me?
They went after him.
They impeached him twice.
They had the Russian collusion thing.
They had everything they could possibly do, the media, the Times, and everything, and the people that were in office.
But I'm just saying, it'd be nice to be honest.
And I tell you what, I wish the Washington Journal.
You guys are in Washington, D.C., and we expect you guys to really be a little bit more.
I want to say, just say, okay, the Republicans are right, the Democrats are right, but try to be a little bit more accurate on the way you broadcast the news.
The New York Times will give you accurate news.
The Washington Post doesn't give it to you.
And neither do the Republican-leading news sources that you quote.
But at least we get three or four different ideas, and we can choose for ourselves which one we believe.
Well, I think the governor's race and the Senate seat and some of these House seats, because I really do believe that power for the Congress is going to come through Michigan.
And when you look at a lot of this, especially the U.S. Senate seat, there's an opportunity for Rogers to possibly pick up that seat.
And if that happens, we already know that the Republicans will maintain the Senate, at least we think.
But if Rogers picks up that Senate seat, we know for sure that that will happen.
So I think having, when you look at what the Matt Hall, the Speaker of the House of Michigan, what he was able to do, and he only had one half of the House, he had the House and then the Republican Democrats had the Senate and the governor, and he was able to reduce a budget by over a billion dollars.
Imagine what happens if he has a governor and quite possibly the Senate in Michigan.
I think you'll see Michigan becoming such a powerhouse across this country.
You mentioned former Congressman Mike Rogers running for that Senate seat that Gary Peters is stepping away from and retiring.
Is there an appetite for his return?
And as somebody who closely watches Republican politics up there in Michigan, what do you think about the primary for him to earn the chance to run in the general election?
I think you have GPS, Genevieve Peter Scott, who I actually had the opportunity to interview.
She's a very powerful and impactful person.
And I think she does have the grassroots on her side.
So I think that's one of the things that Mike Rogers is going to have to figure out.
How does he get a foothold into the grassroots?
Because Genevieve Peter Scott has that.
And I do, I think there's an appetite.
There's always an appetite to win.
And I think a lot of the pundits here and a lot of the political aficionados, they're looking to push Mike Rogers.
And we'll see.
I think time will tell.
I think the messaging of what Mike Rogers puts out there and how much money he's able to raise, I think that a lot of those things.
I've yet to, he's the one Senate candidate I've yet to interview just yet.
So I'm looking forward to interviewing Mike Rogers to see and getting my audience to hear why they should send him as the Republican candidate to represent them in TC.
I do radio for Monday through Friday in Detroit, Detroit's Morning National with John Anthony.
But they also have a show called Black and Right, which I've been doing seven years.
I do that in Chicago, from Detroit and Chicago.
And that market, I'm heard, in pretty much 50 states and almost 64 countries.
So with Detroit, I've gained a huge influence in Canada, Cambodia, Thailand for some reason, because I've been reporting on the split between and the fighting between Cambodia and Thailand.
So that's drawn a huge interest from both those countries, Australia, Israel.
I just recently got back from Israel and did a real long expose on what's really happening in Israel.
So what I try to do, I try to bring conversations together.
You know, like Charlie Kirk, I'm a former state representative.
I've always liked to bring both sides of an argument together and then let the people decide where they want to walk and where they want to stand in positions.
I just recently, I lost my son to suicide about four years ago.
And so I'm starting to see the world a little bit differently, especially as it relates to politics.
I don't allow politics to run my life.
I have five girls, married, and I have a grandson.
That book about your son, Letters to John Boy, a book that viewers can check out if they want to learn more about your family and your story.
Can I come back to Michigan politics for a second and that Senate race that we started with?
Congresswoman Haley Stevens, also running for the Senate.
What do you think her chances are to emerge from the primary on the Democratic side and her chances against a potential matchup with the former Congressman, Mike Rogers?
I think Stevens, I think she stepped into it a few times.
But I mean, it's still a purplish, close to bluish state.
But I think it's President Trump and what he's been able to do here in Michigan, a lot of the things that he's promised to Michigan, you know, with Selfridge Air Force Base.
I think she has an opportunity to win.
I mean, Michigan Democrats sort of kind of like her.
I personally thought Gretchen Wigmore would win to the seat, but I think she would have won it hands down.
But I think there's a possibility that Ms. Stevens could potentially be the Democrat nominee.
And I think that's going to make for a very good battle as it relates to becoming the next senator from the great state of Michigan.
I think manufacturing, I think the farmers, just everybody that I've interviewed who are farmers, who are in the auto industry, who are in the farming industry in some fashion, some form, that has been like everything that's been talked about, especially as it relates to those who are calling into my show.
A lot of the farmers are so ecstatic about this terrorist.
I've yet to interview one farmer, one farming community family who have looked at what President Trump has done.
Because you know, Michigan is known for what?
Blueberries, apples, asparagus.
And people are really, really excited because it's opened up the market for them.
And they were tired of getting picked on and beat up on and not allowing their product to be sent around the world.
Whereas so many people, the same farmers who they were competing against were allowed into Michigan and they didn't see that as a fair.
They didn't see that as fair.
So especially the automotive community, they're still standing with President Trump.
I know there's a lot of this noise out there that there's a split in BAGA in America first, but I'm going to tell you, what people are seeing, what this president's been able to do in just this short amount of time, most presidents don't get to see in four years or even eight years.
And I would like to say that I live in Flint, Michigan, 60 miles north of Detroit.
And I got a different opinion in the guy that you have than John.
I play in the church and I play at a funeral home.
And the talk in Michigan is that I know the black population is very upset with what Trump has done this year.
And it's the talk in the churches, it's talking the barbershop, wherever you go.
They can't wait till the midterms to go all the way against the Republican Party.
We're not going to have a Republican governor coming up.
I think Trump runt all that.
And, you know, he got Michigan pie as a squeaker.
But now after the way he's dealt with the Hispanics, which I don't even know that many Hispanics, but seeing on TV them crying and getting put in cages and stuff, it just had made people so upset they can't believe this is the United States anymore.
Well, you know, I would agree with David in some aspects as it relates to, especially some of the black churches.
But one of the things I'll tell you, people that tune into my show, I literally have people who call into my show and say, I never looked at it from that perspective.
I think when you post questions and you really get to the nitty-gritty of what it is that they don't like about President Trump, and you heard what he said, what they're doing to the Hispanics, they're not doing it just to the Hispanics.
And I actually called on the Trump administration to show who they're actually arresting.
They're actually out there arresting people who have committed crimes, people who, I mean, sex offenders and things of that nature.
These are the people.
To say that Republicans are not for immigration, Republicans and this president is for immigration.
We're just against illegal immigration.
Those who have come into our nation, especially after the last administration, allow some say 10, 15, 20 million people.
These people have come here.
And we're not speaking to those people who have come here, who are running, who are trying to fight for their lives and seeking asylum and things of that nature.
We want them here.
I have said on my show that it's going to be the immigrant that saves this nation.
It's going to be the immigrant, the black community, and white men who are finally fed up with people dictating how they should think, feel, and go about their life.
I really believe that those are the people that are going to help save this nation, specifically the immigrant, because the immigrant has come from countries where they've been just chastising and destroying, and they're looking for a better way.
And America, that city on the hill that Ronald Reagan talked about so many years ago, still has that shiny light, requesting those who want to come to this country and live a life that they would have never lived in their own country.
That's what I'm hearing.
That's what we're talking about.
And as it relates to, and this is the biggest problem with our media, the stories that they feed to people and people believe it.
And that's why my voice is so important to combat, to bring people from both sides of an issue and have a robust conversation.
We've got to get back to doing that in America.
I just recently had somebody that was on another show, and I had an individual, she sent me a message just talking about how much she hated me.
I'm an idiot.
And I just reached back out to her and I just said, hey, listen, why don't you let's have a conversation.
This lady now listens to my show.
She hates almost everything that I stand for.
But because I reached out to her and had a conversation, that's what we need to do more of in 2026.
Let's have conversations because when we stop talking, violence ensues.
Yeah, so I'm on theask of detroit.com, and then I'm on Black.
You can follow me anywhere, Detroit's Monet Asset with John Anthony, or Black and White Radio.
If you want to get the book, an autograph out of blackandrightradio.com, it's getting ready to become a movie.
I'm really excited about it.
That my son, who committed suicide four years ago, his legacy will not just be that he committed suicide, but be a legacy of how many people live he can change because we've been able to change so many lives.
Fathers will reach out to me and say, I look at how I look at how I raise my kids differently now because of reading your book.
And that's the goal.
My goal for 2026 is to save and help as many people as possible.
I don't care what political party you're with, what sexual idea you're with.
My goal is to help as many people in this coming year.
And I think that should be a goal to help people to give them grace in this coming year.
We've been asking you this morning and will throughout our entire program today.
Are you optimistic?
Are you pessimistic about the new year?
Give us a call on phone lines split by political party.
Democrats, 202-748-8000.
Republicans, 202-748-8001.
Independents, 202-748-8002.
It is just after 8 a.m. Eastern time, eight hours into the new year this 2026.
This is Stan out of Grants Pass in southern Oregon.
Republican, good morning.
unidentified
Good morning, John.
Nice to hear your voice.
It's kind of been a while ago since the Yale guy was on.
And June 6th or July of 2019, I blew past stage five in prostate cancer.
And I was, if you're over four, it's bad.
And before I started having chemo, I was over 200.
Well, the urologist took six of my samples and kept them.
And then he took six other ones because my posterate was so swelled up.
And six of them went to Yale Medical University.
And that was to fight the prostate cancer.
Well, I found out that they use the same kind of shot that they must have used my DNA because Miel said they had a better way to fight prostate cancer.
This is Deborah Lee, Black Mountain, North Carolina, Independent.
Good morning.
Happy 2026.
unidentified
Yes, good morning, and happy new year to all.
Well, I am actually, I'm not a Democrat.
I'm certainly not a Republican hater.
I'm not a Trump hater.
But, you know, your first guest of the year, I wonder if he understands that this administration is blatantly racist.
And one example, to me, a glaring example, is that starting this year, starting today, there are certain free days of the year for our national parks.
Well, starting today, Trump has changed.
He has eliminated Martin Luther King's birthday as a free day and also Juneteenth.
But he's given us another one, his birthday.
I'm optimistic because I have faith that there's enough intelligent, sincere people in this government that this gentleman, Mr. Trump, God bless his soul, is going to be removed.
I mean, my God, war crimes, we're not at war with Venezuela.
So I made a mistake in saying war crimes.
It's flat-out murder, these Venezuelan votes, this ignoring the courts and saying, you don't have a right, no one has the right to say, oh, I'm not going to ignore the court because it's a political, it's leaning in some political direction.
You know, no, no.
This gentleman and all of his exceedingly unqualified crew must be removed.
And I have faith that truth, beauty, and goodness will win out.
And I believe that he's going to be removed this year before the year is out.
They include President's Day or George Washington's birthday on February 16th, May 25th, Memorial Day, June 14th, Flag Day, which is also President Trump's birthday.
July 3 through 5, Independence Day weekend, of course.
August 25th, the 110th birthday of the National Park Service.
September 17th, Constitution Day, October 27th, Theodore Roosevelt's birthday, the president who created the country's first national park in Yellowstone.
And then November 11th, Veterans Day.
Those are the free entrance days at the national parks this year where you can go free of charge and see America's treasures around the country.
This is Rob in Port Crane, New York, Independent.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning, John.
I hope you give me a minute.
I just wanted to say a few things.
You brought the COVID vaccine.
There's a court case going on in the Netherlands where they're trying to determine whether or not it was a bioweapon, which obviously it was.
Bill Gates and Albert Borla have been ordered to appear.
I haven't heard anything about that on your network.
But the COVID vaccine, that whole thing was, John, that whole COVID thing was just such a load of crap.
We all know it came from Chapel Hill, UNC, Chapel Hill.
But publicly, with the government the way that it is, I'm very pessimistic because I am sick and tired of the Republicans trying to sell Donald Trump to me, a Democrat, as a normal person because I do not believe the president is normal.
Either he has no ethics at all, never has, never has had any.
And these one-ish voters, I think, are going to be the detriment of the United States government because they can't see the forest for the trees.
This man has established his own private police force with ICE.
He's dismantling the Constitution.
I can't see anything positive about that because it reminds me of something that we have gone through in history before.
I think it was during the 1930s.
This man is a McCarthyism 2.0.
And it is ridiculous for these people to sit back and let this man dismantle this country and using the weakest point that we have, which is racism, to get it done.
In Charlotte, North Carolina, on this first day of America's 250th birthday anniversary year, we head to Yorktown, Virginia to Jean.
Independent, good morning.
Go ahead.
unidentified
Yes, good morning, America.
I am very optimistic about our country.
I'm optimistic because I hear so many people calling in because they're concerned. about the direction of our country and the things that are going on within our country.
As a retired soldier, veteran, 20-year Army, I represented the United States of America, not red, not blue, not independent.
And I carry that today.
I'm an American.
So that's why I'm optimistic.
Because times before, you know, our country has gone through things.
And we're going to go through these things and we're going to come through these things.
And why we're going to do that is because people are starting to get more involved.
They're coming to the understanding that we are citizens committees that are going to have more oversight of what the government is doing.
Remember, we put them in office.
Therefore, our legislators, our representatives at all levels, from city, state, up to the federal government, we're going to make sure that they're doing what we put them in office to do.
We're going to have more oversight.
I do want to know where our money is going.
And that's something I'm raising with my congressional representatives, Warner and Senator Warner in Virginia.
Where are our federal dollars going?
Have we had a closed budget?
Have our budgets been closed out each fiscal year?
Those things are important that we keep accountability of our money as well as keep accountability of our people within the United States.
Before you go, Gene, we mentioned you're in Yorktown, Virginia.
On America's 250th birthday this year, how much do you think that might change the conversation in this country?
We've had callers already today talking about their hopes for a more united America, less division in our political discourse.
Do you think this 250th anniversary of America's founding and a look back at the Revolutionary War, do you think it'll change people's hearts and minds and how we talk to each other?
unidentified
Absolutely.
And again, a part of that being optimistic, I absolutely do.
That's a great question.
And I'm glad you mentioned that.
And I think that's what we need to be focused on.
We had issues.
Yes, we did.
We have issues.
We have things that are of great concern for the country.
But it's going to take, as we start preparing for our 250th anniversary, it's going to take that united, united.
People being involved within the government with oversight of our government.
Continue doing that, Americans.
Remember, not red, not blue, not independent.
We are Americans, and we are going to get through this because we're going to start having more oversight of our government.
They need to come out, Office of Management and Budget, and show where our money has gone, a closed fiscal year budget for the past 10 years.
If you can't do that, at least start with the fiscal year that ended in 2025.
Well, just to set the scene for your listeners, 2026 is the first time since 1968 that Iowa's had open races for U.S. Senate and governor in the same year.
So it's just wide open.
Senator Joni Years, I think she had a lot of reasons.
She lost her leadership position after the 2024 election in the Senate Republican caucus.
She was under tremendous pressure with a lot of nasty emails and threatening calls during that Pete Hegseth confirmation.
I'm sure everybody remembers her saying at that town hall meeting, well, we all are going to die when challenged about the Medicaid cuts and the impact that that could have.
And I think that she just decided that even though she certainly would have been favored for reelection in Iowa, but I think she decided it just wasn't worth it to her.
This state has trended toward Republicans.
So I would say it's still, certainly Republicans are favored in this open U.S. Senate race.
Ashley Hinson is the strong favorite to win the GOP nomination.
She's been a member of Congress for the last five years from Northeast Iowa.
The Democratic primary is a three-way race, very open right now.
Zach Walls, Josh Turek, and Nathan Sage.
And there's a lot of excitement among Democrats to have an open seat.
We haven't had a Senate race without an incumbent for decades.
Oh, yeah, that was a big surprise to almost all of us in the political press corps because Governor Reynolds had signaled that she was likely to run for reelection.
So it was a big surprise in April when she rolled it out.
We have, by the way, Terry Branstad, who was Kim Reynolds' predecessor, is the longest serving governor, not only of Iowa, but in U.S. history, because as you say, we don't have term limits.
The Democratic nomination, there are two candidates, but the strong favorite is our state auditor, Rob Sand.
He's been elected twice statewide.
He's currently the only Democratic elected official.
And then there's just a wild five-way GOP primary that's unlike any primary race I've ever seen.
I guess you could say the frontrunner would be U.S. Representative Randy Feenstra, who in 2020 was elected to Congress from the strongly Republican Northwest part of Iowa.
But there's a lot of animosity toward Randy Feenstra in Republican circles, and he's been kind of running a quiet campaign.
He's avoiding open public meetings.
He's avoiding multi-candidate forums.
And a lot of Republicans are not happy about that.
So I think that the governor's race is going to be extremely competitive, probably even more so than the Senate race, because we've seen in other states like Kansas and Kentucky and Louisiana that we've seen even Republican-leaning states elect Democrats as governor more often than we've seen them elect Democrats to the U.S. Senate.
So now you have Randy Feenstra running for governor, Ashley Hinson running for senator, leaving two of the four seats, the congressional house seats in Iowa open.
How likely is it that some of these seats become the battleground seats that determine control of the U.S. House in 2026?
Well, one interesting thing about Iowa, and a reason I love covering politics here, is we don't have gerrymandering.
So we have four U.S. House districts, and almost every cycle, at least two of them are competitive.
So even before any of this reshuffling happened, the first district in Iowa, which is Marionette Miller-Meek, she won by about 0.2% of the vote.
And the third district, which is the Des Moines metro area, that's Representative Zach Nunn.
They were already considered among the most competitive U.S. House races in the country, top targeted.
Now, as you mentioned, Ashley Henson leaving that second district in Northeast Iowa open.
And I think depending on who wins the nominations there, I think that that could be a very competitive race.
All four districts voted for Donald Trump.
The third district, which is that central Iowa, voted for him by the smallest margin, about four points.
And I would guess that at this point, Donald Trump's approval is probably underwater in central Iowa.
But the second and the first district, which cover the eastern part of the state, I think that Iowa's been hit really hard economically.
And it's way too early to know what the prevailing political wins will be like in November.
But I expect at least two, if not three, of those congressional districts to be competitive.
Now, in that fourth district where I mentioned Randy Feenstra is running for governor, there are competitive Republican and Democratic primaries, but that is a very, very Republican district.
So whoever wins the Republican primary, almost is sure to replace Randy Feenstra in Congress.
Well, we had, let's go back to the first Trump administration.
Trump's tariffs really cost farmers a lot.
The federal government did do a big bailout of farmers, but at that time, Iowa farmers lost about 25% of their soybean export market to Brazil.
And basically it never came back.
So what's happened this past year is China has almost completely stopped buying soybeans.
That was a major export market for Iowa.
And instead, I mean, I've heard in my contacts in rural Iowa say people are very aware that the Trump administration offered a bailout to Argentina, which is basically our competitor now in exporting soybeans to China.
Now, the Trump administration, the USDA did announce a $12 billion bailout, but you have to understand that only a small percentage of Iowans are directly engaged in farming.
And then there's a much bigger part of the economy that might be related to agriculture.
So I'm thinking of farm equipment dealers, farm equipment manufacturers, and other industries that are supported.
Well, they don't get any of that bailout money.
And I've heard even from farmers that whatever comes in through that $12 billion bailout, it's not going to make up for what they're losing by not having an export market.
So Iowa's economy was already underperforming relative to a lot of our neighbors even before Donald Trump came back to the White House.
So I don't want to say that this is solely because of his tariffs, but certainly it has affected Iowa in a negative way.
Yeah, well, Iowa is newer than the country as a whole, but Donald Trump actually did a big rally right before the 4th of July of last year to kind of kick off those 250th year celebrations.
And I think that Iowa politicians have definitely been talking about that and the pride in the state.
I don't think that that's going to have a major impact on the politics this year.
I feel like the economy and what's going on in people's everyday lives is always more important than a major milestone anniversary.
We're about halfway through our program this morning on the Washington Journal.
We've been hearing from you as we've been checking in with political commentators and pundits from around the country this morning on our program.
The question we've been asking you is, are you optimistic or pessimistic about the year ahead?
202-748-8,000 for Democrats to call in.
Republicans, 202-748-8001.
Independents, 202-748-8002.
And we go back to New York.
It's Ithaca.
Scott is on our line for Democrats.
Scott, how would you answer that question this morning?
unidentified
Hopefully make you laugh here a little bit.
I'm a little bit politically bipolar, I guess.
I think I have some hopes and some pessimisms, but I want to rattle off something very, very quickly.
We're a real spectrum of people that call in, some very lucid and some far out there.
I feel like I'm a problem solver with 36 years as a health care provider.
I've called in before explaining how and why the Affordable Care Act and private insurance premiums go up every year.
I'm very concerned that congressional members like my mine, Josh Riley, don't really listen to someone like myself who has written an amendment to the Affordable Care Act that would have long-term beneficial financial stability for over 22 million Americans.
Even your show could have me on to explain, and there would be an overwhelming number of people that I believe would support my amendment.
Basically, the mistake that's been made is for decades, the insurance companies have petitioned the states for insurance premium hikes.
And it's not the federal government who does this.
And so the states, like in the case of New York State, it's the Department of Financial Services, they approve it lockstep almost every single year.
And what we need to do, just like the student loan program has caused colleges to say, oh, we're just going to raise the rates for your tuition because you're going to pay the extra amounts and extra students, they keep lockstep doing that.
So I want my amendment would cause Congress to take over the process of regulating the premiums, the premium levels for health care insurance premiums.
And we would dial it back to like May 2017, 2018 premiums, which would save people a lot of money.
We'd have a temporary six-month subsidy that would help the Americans in the meantime before this bill.
So, Scott, this is something you think the federal government can do better than the states themselves.
unidentified
Yeah, because they're elected officials, and it would take, and in my amendment, it would take a super majority vote to raise health care premiums, and they would be accountable to the American public.
It's much more detailed.
It's only a page of an explanation, and it's less than a page of an amendment.
And I really feel like I should be on your show to explain it to Americans.
I want to say, like, last year, I went to the inauguration, and I was very optimistic.
We had a great time down in D.C.
It was freezing, but it was great.
And the thing that worries me about the year is watching C-SPAN and watching all the manic Democrats that haven't given up on Donald Trump or the Republicans.
And I really thought that they were going to give a chance, but they haven't.
And it's, you know, the fact that no one will stay in their own lane.
For four years, you know, Biden was president and my family and us, we basically talked about what was going on in our family and us.
We didn't throw darts at the other side, but I'm still optimistic because I know that our team and our the amount of people that we have in the administration, and I love the transparent administration that we have and how they have the meetings.
And our bench is so much stronger than the Democrats.
And I really think the Democrats better start looking at their bench and who they have.
This is Ice Bam in Gastonia, North Carolina, Independent.
Good morning.
unidentified
Hey, how are you doing, John?
This is Ice Bam.
I feel very pessimistic about the year coming up because neither party right now is addressing the Social Security issue that's going to come in 2035, I believe, when the funds run out.
And I'm 62 years old, and nobody's talked about it, and they kicked me can down the road.
I'm like, well, I want to get my fair share.
And I'm talking about both sides.
I'm no party affiliation.
You know, except for when this guy just now called and talked about, you can't be a Muslim to be mad.
That's kind of scary.
But besides that, yeah, I'm pessimistic about the preach about that.
Selena, how do you explain Donald Trump making gains among black voters in 2024, doing better in the modern era than other presidents, Republican presidents, among black voters and black men specifically?
unidentified
Black people have to get along with white people.
And those, and in a psychological sense, I think that the black men or even the Latino people or men who voted for Donald Trump, since we are the underdogs in America, we always have to be looking up.
We have to do the things that we think that's going to make us equal or have people respect us more.
Tom Tillis Retirement Insights00:15:29
unidentified
And the other thing that I say about black men who voted for Donald Trump, maybe they don't like their own black mothers.
This is the story on the Washington Times this New Year's Day about the new laws in 2026 that are taking effect.
Plenty on the public policy side that you might be interested in.
One in Hawaii, many cities and states, the story notes, impose special taxes on hotel stays and vacation rentals.
Hawaii will become the first state in the country to hike its tourist lodging tax specifically to help cope with the effects of a changing climate.
State officials hope to use the proceeds from an additional 0.75% daily room rate tax for projects like replenishing sand on eroding beaches or removing invasive grasses, similar to those that fueled the deadly wildfire in Maui in August 2023.
Officials estimate the green fee, as it's being called, will generate nearly $100 million annually.
There's a minimum tax in this country, the minimum wage tax in this country, now topping $17 an hour.
It's the annual inflationary adjustment in the state of Washington, raising the statewide minimum wage to $17.13 an hour, making it the first state to exceed that $17 threshold.
Others aren't too far behind.
The statewide minimum wage will raise to $16.94 an hour in Connecticut, $16.90 in California.
Some cities have even higher minimum wages.
The rate will rise to $21.30.
In Seattle, at least a dozen states will have minimum wages of $15 or more.
And then one more for you, new specialty vehicle license plates.
In the state of Georgia will display an image of the American flag with the words, America First.
That plate will cost you $90 the first year, $55 to renew it compared to $20 yearly for the standard license plate fee.
The new license plate gives people an opportunity to, quote, show your support for President Trump and his movement with every mile that you drive.
That was Republican Senator Steve Gooch, who sponsored that legislation.
Other states are also introducing new patriotic license plate time to the nation's 250th anniversary.
Michigan will have a new red, white, and blue license plate.
South Carolina will have a Liberty flag plate with the words, Where the Revolutionary War was won.
Pennsylvania got a head start on the celebration earlier this year, printing a Let Freedom Ring license plate featuring the Liberty Bell, the wrap-up of new state laws from today's Washington Times.
This is Ogis.
Hope I'm getting that right in Florida, Republican.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning, Brother John.
Good morning.
Good morning.
New year.
New year.
Same problems, different year.
I'm kind of optimistic and pessimistic about the year going forward because we already started the year off kind of crazy with blowing the boats again.
I mean, he needs real leadership around him.
He needs someone that will be able to tell him, no, you can't do this and stand on business.
The vice president is not doing his job.
Congress is not doing his job.
Nobody is looking out for the American people either.
I definitely voted for Kamala because I said, okay, we never gave a woman a chance to see what she can do as leader other world, other country, other states have given them a chance.
Let us give them a chance, give her a chance to see what she can do.
Four years.
In four years, let's see what she can do.
If she can't do the job, okay, then we'll have our answer.
I just think that we should have a leader in the country.
It seemed like that the leader that we have now, anything that happens, it just doesn't seem like I don't know anything about that.
Each time, and then the Attorney General, it's almost the same thing.
And, you know, you can't put the American people down because the great majority of us, we are very intelligent.
And so you just cannot pull the wool over on them like they are trying to do.
So I hope that maybe he can wise up and then don't be working so much for you have a private company and we all see that you're trying to make money just for that country.
And we are too wise for that sort of thing happen.
And the famous words of JD Vance says, you don't have to apologize for being white.
So I'm going to tell you why you have to apologize because your goddamn CIA is funding Nazis in Argentina and Ukraine, and you've got the Zionists at the horn of Africa trying to invade it.
So I got a question.
Where is it where a brown man or a black man can go on this planet without getting invaded by white supremacists and Nazis by your OSS, MI5, MI6?
North Carolina's gubernatorial state constitutional elections don't take place until 2028, but there is a very big Senate race in North Carolina in 2026.
Remind folks why Tom Tillis is retiring from Congress, or retiring from his Senate seat after two terms, and how competitive do you see this seat in the new year?
Well, to answer the second question first, it's going to be incredibly competitive.
It was going to be competitive even if Tom Tillis had decided to stay in the race, and I'll get to that in just a bit.
But back to the first question, I believe that Tom Tillis, after a couple of terms, realized a couple of things.
One is that he was going to have a very tough road to reelection, and it was going to be even tougher if President Donald Trump continued to speak out against him.
We know that anytime Tom Tillis, as a Republican, took a stance that was even slightly off of the Trump reservation, he would catch heck about it from the folks in North Carolina and from the Trump administration.
And after a final battle over a piece of legislation in which Tom Tillis told Donald Trump, you know, if you want me to go this way, I'm not going to go this way.
You should start looking for my replacement.
Trump came out on social media, said, you know, it's time to get someone other than Tom Tillis.
And Tillis said it was time for him to retire.
So he's going to finish up his second term and go off into some other field.
But even if he had stayed in this race, this was going to be a tough race because North Carolina is incredibly competitive year in and year out.
And the most likely person to have faced Tom Tillis and now the likely candidate for the Democrats in 2026 is our former two-term governor, Roy Cooper, who has won six statewide elections and never lost one.
And if you were pooling North Carolina Democrats or even North Carolina Republicans that said, who is the number one Democratic candidate in North Carolina who you would want on the ballot to win an election, I think people would say Roy Cooper.
So you have Roy Cooper.
He's got that name recognition.
He has support.
When he ran on the same ballot as Donald Trump, there were quite a few number of Cooper Trump voters who would vote Republican for president, but also vote for Cooper for governor.
So he has that going for him.
And on the other side now, you have no Tom Tillis and the likely Republican candidate, although there's going to be a contested primary, the likely Republican candidate would be Michael Watley, who has served as both the North Carolina Republican Party chairman and the Republican National Committee chairman, much less well known to people in North Carolina, except for folks who really follow politics closely.
The last poll that our organization did on this race in November had Cooper with about an eight and a half point lead.
And so it's going to be a tough road ahead.
We know that there are going to be tons of money thrown into this election from all sides.
So Watley will get some help on that front.
And I suspect that we're not going to have an eight and a half point final result.
But you certainly have to go into 2026 thinking that Roy Cooper has at least some advantage and that this is going to be a race that some have predicted will be $750 million.
I've even seen a couple of predictions that this could be a billion-dollar race for one single Senate seat.
And that's one of the reasons why I've said that Watley is the likely candidate, because from the first moment that Tom Tillis decided to get out of this race, the question was, okay, well, who's going to replace him?
And will Donald Trump get involved?
Both of those questions were answered fairly quickly.
Trump, not too long after Tillis got out of the race, said, wouldn't it be great if Michael Watley got into this race?
And that was a signal to anyone else who was not only a potential candidate, but also a funder in this race that don't throw your good money after bad over a candidate other than Michael Watley.
So Watley is the presumed frontrunner.
Now, there are some other names out there that have been mentioned, and probably the most interesting in some respects is a woman who got into the race very late, Michelle Morrow, who was a candidate for state superintendent of public instruction, an election that we have on the statewide level.
And she was the Republican nominee and lost last time around and had quite a bit of support among activist Republicans.
And so if there are some who look at Michael Watley as the establishment candidate, even though he has the Trump endorsement, if they look at him and don't like him as much, they might turn to someone like a Michelle Morrow or another candidate who's out there named Don Brown.
But it's presumed that because Michael Watley has a lot of resources, has the Trump endorsement, that he is almost certainly going to be the candidate who will be nominated when folks go to the polls in March.
That Senate race will be the headlining act, as it were, in politics in North Carolina in 2026.
But remind viewers, with all of the House seats up, as they always are every two years, what is going on with redistricting in North Carolina right now?
Yeah, so before we had any sense of redistricting, North Carolina has 14 members of the U.S. House.
We had a delegation with 10 Republicans, four Democrats.
It is a gerrymandered map, but even without gerrymandering, the breakdown likely would have been something like 8-6 or 9-5 in Republicans' favor.
So they had a gerrymandered map in their favor, but not too heavily in their favor.
When President Trump came out earlier this year and said he wanted to have Republican-controlled legislatures redraw their maps to help boost the likelihood that Republicans would maintain control of the U.S. House of Representatives, our legislature responded very quickly, said, yes, we will try to do that.
They drew a new congressional map that basically tries to squeeze one more Republican seat out of the map.
That's about all they could do.
They really couldn't get it better than 11-3, but that's what they're attempting to do now.
The first district, which under the old map was really the only competitive district that's in northeastern North Carolina, now represented by a Democrat, Don Davis.
They have now made that district, meaning the Republican legislature, has made that district more Republican.
To do that, they made the third district, now represented by Republican Greg Murphy, slightly less Republican, but now both of those districts lean Republican.
And in a normal year, you would expect that probably Republicans would win that first district seat and win 11-3.
But of course, 2026 being a year that's likely to have some Democratic headwinds, there is some thought that not only the Democrats could defend that first district, but maybe have a little bit better shot at the third district since it's a little bit less Republican.
They're also eyeing the far western district in North Carolina, the 11th district, which leans pretty heavily Republican, but Democrats think they might have a chance to knock out Chuck Edwards in that seat.
So right now, 10-4 in Republicans' favor.
The Republicans hope that they can make it 11.3, but Democrats are hoping that maybe they can cut that margin and make it 8-6 in Republicans' favor.
Back to your phone calls with just about five minutes before 9 a.m. on the East Coast here on this New Year's Day.
And we've been asking you throughout the morning, are you optimistic?
Are you pessimistic about 2026 in politics?
202-748-8000 for Democrats to call in.
Republicans, it's 202-748-8001.
Independents, 202-748-8002.
Jesse's been waiting out of the Grand Canyon State Republican.
Jesse, go ahead.
unidentified
Oh, hey, good morning, John.
So I am very optimistic about this upcoming year.
I am so excited, you know, that this is the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, which I truly believe is one of the greatest documents in history.
Inspiring Expression00:03:04
unidentified
And I say that as a history teacher.
A great quote I just wanted to put out there.
It was the best of times.
It was the worst of times.
I highly recommend everybody read A Tale of Two Cities.
I think that would be a great book for everyone to read this year.
You know, it just showcases what was kind of going on in the French Revolution and American Revolution and how people were working together in both those at the same time.
And anyways, I just wanted to say I started a business also.
And my big question is, have you heard of Pencil Pals, your brain's best friends, the newest, coolest, funnest pens and pencils?
And I truly look up to Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin in my company's aspirations.
You know, I have some beautiful red and blue color ink pens, disability awareness, color grip pens.
So right now I'm a special ed teacher, and I teach English, math, social studies, and science to a group of kids who have like medical needs, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, some incredible, this one kid has trisomy or mosaic trisomy 8.
So anyways, it's amazing being able to work with kids.
Special education is amazing.
I highly recommend anybody who wants to learn how special kids are, get into special education, and it will change your whole world.
Do you think that's one of the things that makes you an optimist, Jesse, your work with special ed kids?
unidentified
Oh, I mean, my work with kids in general is like you just learn kids, they aren't thinking about all this stuff that all these adults are thinking about.
They're thinking about Valentine's coming up.
They're thinking about the spring coming up.
They're thinking about kids and seniors.
They're thinking about college.
You know, they got big time stuff coming.
So, you know, I just, and that's what I was talking about.
I was saying, you know, the business mission is to inspire everyone to express themselves the best they can.
And I know as a teacher, I can always express myself better.
And I just wanted to say that I hope our politicians, legislators, Donald Trump, and all people in the media just always try to express themselves the best we can and be humble and admit that you can improve your speech.
What I'd like to say is this: well, first of all, I'm a retired postal worker.
I'm an elections inspector here in Buffalo.
I volunteer at a refugee resettlement facility here.
And I've been watching Ken Burns' American Revolution documentary.
And I see a lot of parallels between the fractured relationship that America had with the king in England and the fractures and the divisions here in America today.
There's a lot of parallels.
And what I've come to realize is that there's a symbiotic relationship between politics and religion.
And I'm not just talking about the Judeo Christian faith.
This is a nation of many that are come together as one, e plurbasunum.
And as such, we have always been a welcoming nation to all peoples.
And if you read the gospel of Jesus, and I am an Orthodox gospel-believing follower of Jesus Christ, I do not call myself an evangelical because that word, I believe, has been taken hostage and it no longer has the same meaning, which really is to bring good news, okay?
And I think that there has been kind of a need in this country for a real revival of spirit and a real reviving of the heart.
Okay, because when you think about that word or how a medical person would see how a person is like on life support, okay?
This country, this country, this nation, this nation, if you can keep it a nation, this democracy, if you can hold it, has to have a coming together of spirits.
Okay.
It isn't politics per se that are going to save our nation.
It is this breathing, a new breath that would be blown into the hearts and minds of this people to bring a real revival of love and community.
I've been reading a wonderful book by the president and CEO of Sojourners, Adam Russell Taylor's book, A More Perfect Union.
And he continually talks about the beloved community, the beloved community.
There's a quote by Martin Luther King that says, we must learn to live together as brothers and sisters or perish together as fools.
So there is much to be said in terms of how we have become distracted, deceived, and the division amongst Americans.
And I do not feel that this president has shown any congruence demonstrated by his life and example or influence.
He is devoid of all these principles.
And Jesus came looking for fruit in people's lives.
And he said, no good tree bears bad fruit.
No bad tree can bear good fruit.
We have to stop this demonization and weaponization of the demonization of peoples, whether they're Muslim, Christian, Jews.
It's terrible what's happening to all these good people of different creeds.
And until America comes to deal with the gun issue, we will continually see murders upon all our good citizens.
It's time that America comes together in the soul and spirit.
Well, good morning and happy new year to everyone.
I am optimistic and I can relate to your guest you just had on about North Carolina politics.
I live in Knoxville, but my company that I own is based in North Carolina.
And I can tell you that from my interactions this year, I've seen what a phrase called a sea change.
In January of 2025, when I would meet with state and even at the federal level, officials, I'm a contractor for the federal government, different agencies, or my businesses.
And in January, there was a lot of some arrogance, but the Republican members at the federal level and the state level I would meet with and their staff, you know, they were off to conquer the world.
And there was a lot of narrative like the entire country is going to change.
And, you know, we're and there were some arrogance there.
We're going to punish the Democrats and people who stood against us.
And now a year later, when I meet with the same officials, none of that exists.
There's none of that braggadiccio and, you know, we're going to punish them and this and that.
It's an entire change in their when they talk.
It's funny because the Democrats I would meet with Democrat staff and officials, they were very timid in January and very just, you know, want to stay quiet.
Now the Democrats have the wind behind them and the Republicans are, oddly enough, are talking a lot more about, well, we got to work together.
We have to collaborate.
You know, we all have to realize the country's divided and we have to work together for the country.
And I am very optimistic.
One that's not really talked about a lot, this trade war with China is over.
And I think you guys had talked about this previously, new quadrenal.
Their influence was greatly expanded throughout the globe.
And what I will also say is consumers won.
Consumers in America have won in this trade war in the sense that China won.
The tariffs are going to be dropped.
They're going to say they're posting.
My company, we do quite a bit of work in Asia.
I have quite a large project for the Department of Defense in the Philippines.
And they don't even talk about China as an emerging threat militarily any longer.
I mean, they still talk about China's expanding influence throughout the world and particularly in South and Central America.
And a lot of, as you guys have talked about in the past, in the economic realm, you know, China has greatly expanded its influence economically in the Asia Pacific.
And, you know, we're all, America doesn't remember one of the ways that the Japanese initially had massive success in World War II is they overran all the American and British forward-deployed bases in the Asia-Pacific.
And then as the Western allies took those locations back, they built massive infrastructure to fight the Cold War in the Asia Pacific in forward-deployed defense assets.
And then after the Cold War ended, they let a lot of those nations' infrastructure fall to disrepair because they didn't see the economic advantage of having those forward-deployed assets anymore.
Well, China has swooped in and spent billions of dollars on infrastructure projects in the Asia Pacific.
And I think the current government has finally realized America, you know, I realize a lot of people want to say America first.
And they have this idea that somehow that that's going to bring prosperity to them.
We don't live in that world any longer.
We live in a world where trade helps the average American that works at minimum wage.
I'm blessed.
My company is very successful.
I'm successful enough to hire people to do my job so I could spend my time on C-SPAN.
But without these consumer products being made in foreign countries with very cheap labor, without Americans being able to buy foodstuffs, whether it's perishables or canned or preserved food from international locations, Americans would struggle a lot in their day-to-day life.
Rob, what do you think about, you mentioned Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Marjorie Taylor Greene's path from that moment that you mentioned going back and forth with Biden at a State of the Union address in the House of Representatives to where she is today, one of Donald Trump's critics and leaving Congress at the end of his term.
unidentified
Well, you know, I was a hateful sinner most of all my life and did anything for my own benefit or foolish pressure.
And I think that she really honestly flip-flopped like I did.
And as, you know, maturity comes on you, or actually you finally have an eye-opening event like Epstein files.
And the little girls are telling her their story, crying.
Boys ain't got the kahoonas to step up and say, yeah, we were raped by Mr. Trump and Epstein.
They just darn tough.
Like, you know, women, they finally get to their emotions and get it out there.
But and your point was, what made her change?
She finally saw the light that he's a big-ass liar.
Rob, I should note that Marjorie Taylor Greene, not leaving at the end of this term, it's next week when she's expected to step down early from Congress.
So not serving out the end of this term.
Let me go to Jody, waiting in Lake City, Florida.
Jody, good morning to you on the Independent line.
Good morning.
unidentified
John, and good morning, and Happy New Year to everybody.
I was 12 years old in 76, and Jimmy Carter was the president at that time.
And I'm sitting back trying to compare him to the president that we have now.
And I just, there is no comparison.
I believe that Trump is the divider.
I don't know if everybody remembers how he wished a Christmas to half of the country.
He called everybody on the left radicalist scum.
I believe that when it comes to our 250-year anniversary, he'll make it all about himself like he does everything else.
He puts like he's doing with putting his name on the building, putting his picture up on the agriculture building.
But in terms of how we celebrated the anniversary in 1976, I guess is what I'm saying.
unidentified
Oh, well, I suppose it was great here in Jacksonville Beach.
You know, the fireworks, everybody, it was just fantastic.
I mean, Jimmy Carter just became president.
Everything was just so great.
And now it's just like it's such anxiety.
You don't know what's happening left or right.
I mean, every day it's just something else.
I mean, I just, this man, he was, remember, this is the man that deferred inspections with his bone spurs.
He, you know, on Howard's turns, he said that his Vietnam was he didn't get any venereal diseases.
And now it's coming out all this about Epstein.
I just don't understand why people are not doing the same as they did back with Clinton when he did what he did with Monica Lewinsky in the White House.
And here, this is a president with the most notorious serial rapist trafficker in the world.
And they're not looking at that.
And they're just, they're making excuses for it.
Delivering On Promises00:15:41
unidentified
I mean, look how he's turning on his own party.
I mean, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, and everything.
I'm just real sad for the country.
But I am ostimetered for my family.
And good luck, America.
But I don't think that we're going to, I honestly think he should be impeached.
Of course, happy New Year's to you and Zorhan Mamdani getting right to it.
Mamdani, of course, this 44-year-old Democratic socialist, he was a virtually unknown state assemblyman here in New York when he shocked the political world, both here in New York and nationally when he won the mayor's race in 2025.
First, the Democratic primary in June, and then, of course, the general election in November.
And now he's on the job as of just after midnight early this morning.
He is officially the mayor of New York City.
There was the official swearing in, which happened just after midnight.
He was sworn in on a copy of the Quran, of course, the first New York City mayor and really one of the first elected officials anywhere to be sworn in on the Quran.
And then that made it official.
He was the mayor.
This, by the way, happened in an old subway station here in New York City, an old decommissioned station.
It's the old City Hall station underneath the City Hall Plaza down there in Lower Manhattan.
And then this afternoon is when we get to the ceremonial swearing in, and that'll be the one with all the pomp and circumstance on the steps of City Hall.
So that's where he will get the ceremonial swearing in and administering the oath of office will be Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator, who is, of course, one of the most eminent voices on the political left.
And he's an inspiration for Momdani.
He also has some ties to New York.
Bernie Sanders was born and raised in Brooklyn, so he'll be there.
And then another leading light of the political left, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, will also be there.
She'll be doing introductory remarks during the event.
So this will be closely watched.
Mamdani, of course, will be giving an inaugural speech, which will be really his most high-stakes address since his election night victory speech.
So a lot of people will be watching to see what he has to say.
And then because Mamdani wants to do things differently, it won't just be the city hall ceremony where the political class will be in attendance.
He also wanted to do something for the general public to make this more of an open, welcoming event that anybody could attend.
So he's actually opening up Broadway where it runs past City Hall down there in Lower Manhattan.
This is sometimes the stretch of Broadway is sometimes referred to as the Canyon of Heroes here in New York.
That's where we have big celebratory parades.
And anyone will be welcome there.
There'll be screens so they can watch this ceremony from there.
I don't know that the attendance is going to be as high as maybe had been anticipated given the fact that the windchill is in the teens here in New York.
So we'll see how many brave the weather.
So that block party will be taking place alongside the official festivities, all that happening this afternoon.
And C-SPAN viewers can watch as well, courtesy of our friends at Spectrum News, New York One.
You can watch live starting at 1 p.m. Eastern Time here on C-SPAN, C-SPAN.org, and of course, our free C-SPAN Now app.
Doran Mamdani expected to give that address after this ceremony today.
Do we have any insight into what he's going to say in that address from especially the brief remarks that he gave last night after that official swearing in just after midnight?
Yeah, I mean, I think we're going to hear a little bit more about his vision.
I mean, we know what direction he wants to take the city because he has had this singular focus from the time he launched his campaign back in late 2024 on the affordability crisis, right?
I mean, that is what he talks about constantly is the cost of living here in New York City, how difficult it has become for working class New Yorkers to make ends meet and to raise a family here in New York.
And so, you know, he has made some big campaign promises, which New Yorkers are all too familiar with.
I mean, he repeats them ad nauseum.
He wants to freeze the rent here in New York City on rent-stabilized apartments, of which there are about a million.
He wants to make buses free, the public buses here in New York City.
He wants to provide free universal child care.
And these are very expensive programs.
But that's what he got elected on, was these big campaign promises.
And now that he's the mayor, he has to begin delivering on these promises.
And so he will not have a minute to waste.
You know, from day one, he's going to have to go up to Albany and lobby the state legislature and the New York governor, Kathy Hochul, to try to get money from the state for a lot of these initiatives.
So, you know, we'll probably hear something about that.
I think we're going to hear a lot more flowery language in this inaugural address about his vision for the city and the break from the past that he believes he represents.
I don't have any information on whether he'll be in attendance.
But I mean, every political luminary typically shows at these events.
The New York State Attorney General, Letitia James, who has made a national name for herself as the chief antagonist of President Donald Trump, will of course be there.
She's actually the one who administered the oath of office to Mom Dhani at midnight during that official swearing-in ceremony.
So she'll be there, as I mentioned.
AOC will be giving introductory remarks.
And yes, former Mayor Eric Adams, there was a lot of question as to whether he was going to show up today, which would be quite a break from tradition for the former mayor to spurn the incoming mayor and not show up at the inauguration.
There's been a lot of bad blood between these two.
In fact, Mayor Eric Adams has done some things on his way out the door.
He has done some things to sort of thwart Mom Dhani's agenda as he takes office, but he said this week he will be there.
Another former mayor, Bill de Blasio, will also be there in attendance.
But like I said, the entire political class, city, state, federal lawmakers from here in New York are expected to be in attendance.
There will also be a poet who will be giving a poem.
He'll be reading from that at the event as well.
And of course, faith leaders will be in attendance as well and leading an invocation.
So yeah, there's a whole program we don't know yet, but we'll be watching.
Any chance of a Trump administration delegation going, especially after that unexpectedly friendly appearance between Mom Dhani and the president in the Oval Office late last month?
That I find hard to believe there will be any White House representation on hand.
Although yes, Mamdani and Trump seemingly have this now warm relationship, at least temporarily, after that White House meeting back in November, I believe it was.
So we'll see if there's any sort of congratulatory phone call from the White House to Mamdani.
Listen, I also wouldn't be surprised to hear Mondani point some criticism at the Trump administration in his remarks.
I mean, New York has been under attack in a lot of ways from the federal government, from the Trump administration.
You know, at one point, Trump threatened to send federal troops into New York to cut federal funding to New York City.
And though he has sort of backed off of those, there's a lot of animists there.
New York has pushed back against federal immigration enforcement.
So Mondani has not been afraid to criticize Trump, even after that very cordial White House meeting they had a couple of months ago.
So he may have some tough words for Trump during his inaugural address.
So I don't think we're going to see anybody from the White House here in New York City today.
Bobby Cusa and his colleagues at Spectrum News, New York One, covering it all today in the Big Apple, and we appreciate your helping us bring it to C-SPAN viewers as well.
Coverage begins 1 p.m. Eastern.
We'll look for you there and hope you have a great new year.
For instance, the guy who was on yesterday, who had, you know, married a woman from Columbia or something like that, and she stole green cards and threatened to slap his kid.
I don't know if anybody listened to that yesterday.
Horrible story on your show yesterday.
Probably the worst thing I've ever heard.
I have children who are going to Texas Tech, and they're trying to make it in Texas Tech, but the city of Lubbock is corrupt, right?
So corrupt governments have to go.
Illegal immigrants, people who violate our laws, they have to go.
The president is doing a great job.
He's doing a great job.
I don't care about his personal issues.
Now, what I do care about is what Jack Smith talked about yesterday.
I was watching that yesterday on C-SPAN.
Horrible things that he's accused the president of.
If it's true, obviously he guaranteed a conviction.
Everybody needs to watch that because that is one thing.
Even though I support President Trump, if what Jack Smith is saying, I think he's an upstanding guy, then I think the president is, you know, we have to kind of look at that because I think that Jack Smith was telling the truth.
To New York City, sorry, to Sierra Vista, Arizona.
Next, it's Harry on the Democratic line.
Good morning.
unidentified
Morning to you.
I've got a few things.
Am I pessimistic?
Only on the national level.
On a personal level, I'm kind of optimistic.
But President Trump, well, gosh, what can you say?
He's not doing the country a whole lot of favors, but he is doing himself a lot of favors.
But the thing that's bothering me that I would like to mention to you is the border wall that he is installing down here in southern Arizona.
I live so close to Mexico, I actually see the mountains of Mexico every single day when I go out of my back door.
And they are built a wall across the San Bernardino Wildlife Refuge.
And according to the paper that I read in the Arizona Republic, they were using 7,000 gallons of water a day in order to mix cement and suppress dust from blasting rock.
Now, this is an area that's been in drought since the 90s.
And using that amount of water is now drying up the springs and destroying the purpose of a wildlife refuge.
Now he's building one in the San Rafael Valley, which is the last area for wildlife to cross in and out of our borders.
They just discovered another jaguar in our, what we call Sky Islands down here.
But with a border wall, nothing can go through.
And this is 25 miles from the nearest road in Mexico.
So it serves no purpose.
It's just a waste of money.
It's drying up the springs and destroying the wildlife.
And also, the Native Americans down here, especially the Yaquis, they didn't recognize the national border.
They lived on both sides of it.
So that would like to bring attention to the border wall because everybody talks about sealing off the border, but it does no good to build a wall in the middle of nowhere in a wildlife refuge.
Martine, two of the topics that you bring up in your comments are referenced in Michelle Cottle's 2025 politics yearbook, her superlatives, as it were, on the politics of 2025.
One was the changes made to the White House, specifically the tearing down of the East Wing.
She describes it as worst makeover of 2025.
The public has been unimpressed with Mr. Trump taking a wrecking ball to the White House, she writes, to make way for a mammoth ballroom.
The National Trust has filed suit to stop the carnage based on what we know of his plans and his dictator chic aesthetic.
She writes, the redo is more likely to scream czarist Russia than American democracy.
The other thing you mentioned was the Trump Kennedy Center, as it's now being called.
Michelle Cottle calls it the worst rebranding of 2025.
Rarely has a president seemed so desperate for attention, she says, from the cultural elites that he claims to loathe and who he suspects loathe him right back.
Michelle Cottle in today's New York Times, if you want to read it.
This is Mary in Las Vegas.
Democrat, good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
I just wanted to find out what Trump is going to do here for Las Vegas because he has nothing done for us out here in Vegas.
We're all struggling.
Everything is so expensive.
The rent is so expensive.
The food and everything.
Also, my pets, my pets, when I take them to the vet, they're so expensive.
Nothing is cheap out here, and we kind of survive out here.
And we can't even survive.
He's not even caring for Las Vegas.
He's caring only for the other countries, but nothing down here.
I didn't hear anything for Las Vegas.
Nothing at all.
He's not helping us at all.
We're struggling out here.
There even is a lot of homeless out here.
We got to watch our doors so nobody come and steal whatever from us because there's so many homeless.
There ain't nothing happening out here for none of us.
You know, I would say a year ago, when if we would be chatting, I would say no, certainly not.
But it's been a good year for Democrats.
They started out very slow.
I think there was a lot of debate within the party about how to respond to a second Trump presidency.
And a lot of Democratic leaders were not showing up to protests.
Some of them, like the governor of my state, Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, committed to working with President Trump this time around when she could.
But we've seen the Democrats have had really good performances in special elections in 2025, not just in the big ones like Virginia and New Jersey, but also in smaller state legislative races from Georgia to Mississippi.
So they do seem like they are pretty prepared going into 2026, as long as they're able to maintain that momentum.
In terms of being prepared and learning the lessons of the past, what did you think about Democratic officials not releasing the autopsy report, as it was called, the Democratic National Committee study of what went wrong, why Democratic candidates and the president specifically lost in 2024, why Kamala Harris didn't win in that election?
Transparency is important to build trust with people because despite the fact that Democrats have done very well in these special elections, if you look in polling, the party is still very unpopular.
People still have a lot of doubts.
And a lot of people still want to know what exactly went wrong with the 2024 election, which was close, but Democrats still did lose the presidency, both houses of Congress.
And people want to know why.
And I think the question here is why did they decide not to release it?
What was in that report?
Was there some really damaging information on policies like how Democrats went about messaging on the economy or on immigration?
And you might have interest groups that don't want that information out.
So I hope that that is a decision that they rethink.
And that's why I think there are groups out there like the Lincoln Project that aren't waiting for the Democrats to get their stuff together.
We asked our readers who the winner of the year was.
And the overwhelming favorite was California Governor Gavin Newsom.
I'm not sure you could say he's the leader of the party.
You know, he's a governor.
He's not in Washington.
He doesn't head up the DNC, but he certainly is running for president in 2028 and has been more prominent than most of the Democratic voices in Congress, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries.
What about the name Zorhan Mamdani and how much you think it's going to come up in 435 House races around this country outside of the state of New York, outside of the city of New York?
How much do you think it's going to come up in Senate elections this cycle as the Senate is very much up for grabs as well?
Well, there's no doubt that Mamdani had a very impressive victory and the way he's been able to rally voters, especially younger voters, even some voters who decided that they were going to go with Trump in 2024.
I think those are lessons in terms of persuasion that Democrats can learn from.
If the lesson that Democrats learned from his election is that everyone needs to run as a Democratic socialist from Wyoming to West Virginia, I think that would be a damaging lesson because when Democrats win, it's when they care about the issues that their constituents care about.
And those are very different across the country.
I think Republicans see a very good opportunity in trying to tie him to the Democratic Party, make him the face of it, and say, see, they are a bunch of socialists, and this is why you need to stick with the Republican Party.
They're consistent and you can count on them.
However, when the president mainly campaigned on fixing the economy and we have seen, as one of your callers from Las Vegas was talking about, that prices are still high, people are still struggling.
That's a hard message to sell.
But certainly that's going to be a tactic that Republicans will deploy.
How much do you think Democrats will be able to stay focused on that issue?
Donald Trump becomes a magnet for a lot of other issues for Democrats that they seem to very much prefer going after some of his personal issues, the comments he makes, his ability to bring up new topics from week to week or day to day.
How much do you think they can stay focused on the affordability issue?
He has indicated that he will try and run for a third term.
So I think that is the overall factor that we can't ignore in this and why you haven't been seeing as much traditional jockeying as you would at this point.
Because even though JD Vance is the vice president and would be considered in traditional times the heir apparent, we've proven for the last decade that we certainly don't live in traditional times.
Certainly, you've seen moves from people like Josh Hawley, who is a senator from Missouri, Ted Cruz, senator from Texas.
They have made no bones about the fact that they're interested.
Marco Rubio is.
And then there's always the idea of an outsider candidate as well.
Who knows if we'll see Stephen A. Smith.
We don't know what party he would run from.
He might be looking to take the outsider approach that Donald Trump did very successfully in 2016.
We will continue to cover U.S. politics and give you in-depth analysis of what's going on.
We are laser focused on the midterm elections and what they'll mean for everyone and not just big marquee races going on for Congress, but also looking at what's happening in states across the country.
I'm a journalist who spent a lot of time covering state politics and that's very important to me.
But most of all, you know, we are committed to making sure that our democracy survives and we're trying to play a small role in that.
Happy New Year to New Yorkers, both inside this tunnel and above.
And I cannot wait to see everyone tomorrow as we begin our term.
This is truly the honor and the privilege of a lifetime.
And after just having taken my oath to become the mayor of the city of New York, I do so also here in the old City Hall subway station, a testament to the importance of public transit, to the vitality, the health, and the legacy of our city.
And I can think of no better moment to announce our new Department of Transportation Commissioner than this.
So I would ask Mike Flynn, if you would please join me.
It is an honor to have Mike here alongside me as we embark on an administration that will take seriously the responsibility and the opportunity we have to make this streetscape and the public transit of the city we call home the envy of the world.
And it will require someone who's experienced, who is fluent in the landscape as it is, and who is ambitious and imaginative towards the landscape as it could be.
And I can think of no better person than the man alongside me.
And I'm so proud to have him joining our administration as the next head of our DOT.
Please.
unidentified
Thank you, Mike.
Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor.
Congratulations.
It's especially meaningful to be here tonight in this incredible station.
I can't help but think back to the childhood me who was endlessly fascinated by the city's subways, bridges, tunnels, and other infrastructure.
But that's only one of the many reasons that I'm thrilled to be joining Mayor Mondani and the team who fundamentally understand the role that transportation plays in the day-to-day lives of New Yorkers.
And I know firsthand that New York City DOT has some of the most passionate, talented, and committed public servants in the country, if not the world.
And they're ready to think big and deliver big on our ambitious agenda.
So I'm grateful, Mr. Mayor, for entrusting me with this critical role, which I consider the job of a lifetime.
And I'm ready, I'm excited to hit the ground running and deliver real results for New Yorkers.
And in just a few minutes, we'll take you back live to New York City for the inauguration of Mayor Zorhan Mamdani.
40,000 people are expected in the crowds where the high temperature today is 26 degrees.
New York's Youngest Mayor00:01:37
unidentified
A look here from earlier this morning at the people lining up in the public viewing area.
The new mayor is a 34-year-old former state assembly member and self-described Democratic socialist.
He becomes the youngest mayor of New York City in a century.
The ceremonial swearing-in will be administered today by Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders.
Mr. Momdani campaigned for him in Iowa in 2020.
And Senator Sanders went on the campaign trail for the mayor during his run, as did New York City Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who's also expected to speak today.
While we wait for things to get underway for the inauguration, we'll show some of the conversation from today's Washington Journal.
Well, I think the governor's race and the Senate seat and some of these House seats, because I really do believe that power for the Congress is going to come through Michigan.