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Jan. 1, 2026 10:03-13:01 - CSPAN

02:57:57

Washington Journal Washington Journal

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Main

bobby cuza

07:10

john anthony

08:49

john mcardle

cspan 43:41

laura belin

06:52

mitch kokai

07:49

susan demas

08:14

Appearances

zohran mamdani

d 03:05

Clips

donald j trump

admin 00:16

Callers

mike in alaska

callers 02:18

mitch in new york

callers 05:17

rodney in arizona

callers 01:31

terry in tennessee

callers 05:34

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		Voting members and five non-voting delegates.
		Many will run in newly redrawn districts, including in states like Texas.
		Voters will also decide 33 U.S. Senate races and 36 governors contests.
		And consequential mayoral elections are on the horizon in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New Orleans.
		Cities where clashes with the Trump administration have shaped national debates.
		And the road to the White House begins to take shape as more potential 2028 presidential contenders hit the campaign trail.
		Follow it all on C-SPAN as Congress returns and the 2026 campaign season ramps up.
		C-SPAN, bringing you democracy unfiltered.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Last night, the ball dropped on January 1st, 2026, the start of America's year-long 250th birthday celebration.
		This New Year's Day morning, it's a three-hour Washington Journal on tap for you.
		We'll spend that time focusing on the political and public policy stories expected to drive the conversation in the new year.
		As we do, we're hearing from you about your view of the year ahead in politics.
		Are you optimistic?
		Are you pessimistic?
		Give us a call and let us know on phone lines split as usual by political party.
		Democrats, it's 202-748-8000.
		Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		Independents, 202-748-8002.
		You can also send us a text, that number 202-748-8003.
		If you do, please include your name and where you're from.
		Otherwise, catch up with us on social media on X.
		It's at C-SPANWJ on Facebook.
unidentified		It's facebook.com/slash C-SPAN.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And a very good New Year's Day morning to you.
		You can go ahead and start calling in as you're calling in.
		Before the ball dropped at the Mar-a-Lago New Year's Eve party, President Trump made these comments about the year ahead.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		We have more investment coming into our country than any country ever in the history of the world by a lot.
unidentified		It's not even toast.
		And that means a lot of good things.
		Factories are being built right now as we speak all over the country.
		And it's really exciting to see.
		So I think we're going to do well.
		You saw 4.3.
		They were predicting 1.9.
		4.3.
		We've taken in hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		We gave the military and the entire military $1,776.
unidentified		$1,776.
		That's not bad.
		They were extremely happy.
		But we're doing great as a country.
		We're back.
		We're strong.
		I didn't think it could happen as fast.
		It's happening a lot faster than anybody would have thought it was.
		We have a lot of leaders here, great leaders like Tom Ember.
		I watched him on television.
		He was talking about Somalia today.
		He was talking about the Somalian population and not very nicely.
mitch kokai ▲ ● ▼		It was not nice.
unidentified		But that's okay.
mitch kokai ▲ ● ▼		It isn't mine.
unidentified		The words come.
		He's great.
		What a great leader he is.
		We need you in Minnesota.
		We need you in Minnesota.
		He's actually a Washington, big, powerful congressman.
		But you did a great job today, John.
		Thank you very much.
		We all appreciate it.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		We want to take back our country.
unidentified		Can you imagine they stole $18 billion?
		That's just what we're learning about.
		That's Peter's in California is worse.
		Illinois is worse.
		And sadly, New York is worse.
		A lot of other places.
		So we're going to get to the bottom of all of it.
		It was a giant scam.
		Other than that, we're going to have a great guy.
		See, I knew that.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		I knew that as a reason for a good year because we're going to get to the bottom, but we're going to get that money back.
unidentified		It's all coming back.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		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.
		Happy New Year's.
unidentified		Oh, yes.
mike in alaska ▲ ● ▼		Happy New Year's, John, to you too.
mike in alaska ▲ ● ▼		And it is a balmy 45 below zero here this morning, John.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		I hope you're staying warm, Mike.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Despite that, do your warm feelings extend to 2026?
mike in alaska ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I like the progress so far on our border.
		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.
mitch in new york ▲ ● ▼		We're losing our sovereignty.
mitch in new york ▲ ● ▼		We're losing our culture.
mike in alaska ▲ ● ▼		The old West is disappearing under a carpet of wind turbines and solar refineries that are not working.
mike in alaska ▲ ● ▼		It's more carbon to build these things than they can mitigate.
unidentified		But anyway, I am optimistic.
mike in alaska ▲ ● ▼		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		But Mike, are you more optimistic today at the start of 2026 than you were at the start of 2025?
		Do you remember a year ago at the end of the Biden administration, waiting for the beginning of the Trump administration?
		Did you feel this same level of optimism?
unidentified		Oh, no.
mike in alaska ▲ ● ▼		It was, to me, it was four years of darkness.
		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.
unidentified		Let's clear this up.
unidentified		Get rid of the Epstein problem.
mike in alaska ▲ ● ▼		I mean, that's always going to hang over our head no matter what we do.
unidentified		It's always going to be there.
mike in alaska ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		I don't understand, John.
unidentified		I'm still optimistic.
mike in alaska ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		We need to prosecute.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Got your point, Mike.
		That's Mike in a very cold Fairbanks, Alaska this morning.
		Gregory is out in California.
		Sherman Oaks, Line for Democrats.
mitch in new york ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Hello.
		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Got your point.
		That's Gregory.
		This is Sarah out of Michigan, Republican.
		Sarah, the question is, how are you feeling about the new year in politics?
		Are you optimistic?
		Are you pessimistic?
unidentified		I hope everyone's having a happy new year.
		The biggest problem that we have, America, is we have a tech business that wants to stalk and spy on people.
		That's the problem we have, sir.
		This has been ever since COVID, and this is what COVID was for.
		It was for a business to spy.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Anything you want to add, Sarah?
unidentified		What I want to add is, you just cut me off, I believe.
unidentified		I'm not sure.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		No, you're still on, Sarah.
unidentified		The thing is, sir, is that all politicians have turned against us?
		That is obvious.
		In this country, we have Fourth Amendment rights.
		We have an expectation of privacy.
		And this is being forced in all different states.
		I'm in Michigan.
		The governor here has turned against the people of Michigan, along with all the other Republicans and the Democrats.
		We don't have a government anymore.
		We have a corporation, a corporation that wants to push these tech products on us without us even having a say.
		And then you want to create a whole new business of ticketing people with them that's just a citation.
		We have laws in this country that they are supposed to respect.
		We are citizens.
		We fund the government for services.
		We don't give them money to then take our money and give them to these tech companies that are mainly all products from China.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Got your point.
		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.
		Thanks for your time.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Kathleen out of Wisconsin.
		This is Trish out of Seattle, Washington, Line for Democrats.
		Good morning and happy 2026.
unidentified		Thanks, John.
		Hey, everybody.
		Well, I don't know.
		I'm not feeling any better than this time last year when the current White House occupant took the office again.
		So, no, it's even worse.
		My prediction is that the current White House occupant will have a huge medical event.
		I'm thinking CVA leading to aphasia and dysphagia will take him out, and that's a medical event.
		And then if that doesn't do it, F. Steven will be.
		I'm curious.
		I agree with pretty much everything everybody else has said.
		It's a big, hot mess here.
		I'm glad I'm 70, and I would never want to bring a child into this world with climate change.
		It's a hot, hot mess.
		Trish people that are, yeah.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You talk about the White House occupant.
		This New Year's Day, there's a new occupant of the mayor's mansion in New York City on the other side of the country from where you are in Seattle.
		What are your thoughts on Zorhan Momdani taking over as mayor and what it means for politics in this country?
unidentified		I think we need a new beginning.
		I'm just reading Andrew Ross Sorkin's 1929 book, and it's frighteningly scary, real that it's happening again there.
		So we need fresh blood.
		You know, come on.
		We don't.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Trish.
unidentified		It ain't working for them.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Trish in Seattle, Washington.
		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.
		This was Zorhan Momdani from late last night.
zohran mamdani ▲ ● ▼		Thank you so much for everyone for being here.
		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That was Mayor Momdani from late last night.
		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.
		David, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		A couple quick comments.
		I'm glad the last caller didn't wish somebody aimed better at the president.
		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		David, I.
unidentified		And if you stabilize those things, then things will be more stable when it comes to prices.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You got your thoughts on supply and demand.
		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?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Sure, quickly, David.
unidentified		Okay.
		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.
		Read about that guy.
		All right.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Thanks, David.
		In the Peach State, we'll head to Vitar Hill State.
		Joe is in Wilmington, Line for Democrats.
		Joe, happy 2026.
rodney in arizona ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		And we must be an optimist.
rodney in arizona ▲ ● ▼		Although I'm a Democrat, I am a moderate Democrat.
unidentified		Yes, I am.
unidentified		Yes, I am.
rodney in arizona ▲ ● ▼		And I've lived in Seattle.
unidentified		I've lived in Chicago.
unidentified		I've lived in Baltimore.
rodney in arizona ▲ ● ▼		Well, actually, Bethesda, much different than Baltimore, much more police over there.
rodney in arizona ▲ ● ▼		And I've lived in Florida and not in Miami, although I could afford Miami.
unidentified		But we must be an optimist.
rodney in arizona ▲ ● ▼		And I have never been or played golf a place down there with the POTUS.
		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		That's Joe in North Carolina.
		Tony is in Phoenix, Arizona, independent.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, sir.
		Happy New Year.
		So that's close to cracked me up.
		I'm both a pessimist, but I'm more optimistic.
		And it's a little nuanced.
		Let me explain how I look at this.
		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Tony, do you think it's very similar?
		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.
		And we'll pay for the highways.
		The states will kick in for the highways, for the U.S. Navy.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Justonian, Arizona.
		It's 7.30 on the East Coast.
		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Benito in Texas.
		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Robin in Richmond, Virginia.
		Back to the 250th conversation.
		One more article from today's papers.
		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.
		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.
		He's working on Ukraine in one year.
		It's pretty amazing what he's accomplished.
		And I think we all ought to just get behind him.
		He's got three more years.
		Why fight him?
		Let's just get behind him and see what he can do.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's John in the Golden State to Matt in the Empire State Line for Democrats.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Matt.
unidentified		Hey, how you doing?
		First, I'd like to say Happy New Year to everyone.
		Optimist, pessimist.
		Obviously, I guess my New Year's resolution was going to be to be an optimist, but it's already started off to be a pessimist.
		Obviously, because of Donald Trump, what happened to the Epstein files?
		Where'd they go away to?
		They just vanished.
		And I was watching the shows today, like the worst crimes in 2026.
		There wasn't any mention about him releasing all the people from the January 6th attacks on the Capitol buildings.
		It just gets hush-hush.
		Whatever he does.
		Where's Milani?
		Has anybody seen Milani?
		Should we do a wellness check on Milani or Ivana?
		Please, everybody, spread peace, equality, put Donald Trump in jail.
		It's time.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Matt in New York.
		This is the New York Times opinion page.
		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's John in New York.
		Go ahead and keep calling in this morning as we ask you about your level of optimism or pessimism in the year ahead in this 2026.
		As you continue to call in, we're kicking off the new year by checking in with prominent pundits and political commentators around the country.
		And we're beginning in Motor City this morning, where John Anthony joins us via Zoom.
		He's the host of Detroit's Morning Answer on WDTK Radio.
		He hosts the Black and Right radio show and podcast.
		Mr. Anthony, good morning to you, sir.
john anthony ▲ ● ▼		Hey, good morning and happy new year.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Happy New Year to you.
		Michigan in this new year has a term-limited governor and Gretchen Whitmer, a retiring senator, and Gary Peters.
		Of course, all 13 House seats are up in the midterm elections.
		What is the race in Michigan that you're most interested in in the coming year?
john anthony ▲ ● ▼		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		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?
john anthony ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, right now I think it's strong.
		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		For folks who aren't familiar with your show, talk about your audience and your view on politics there in the Wolverine State.
unidentified		Well, yeah, so that's very eclectic.
john anthony ▲ ● ▼		I am a conservative.
		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.
unidentified		I do that in Chicago, from Detroit and Chicago.
john anthony ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		You know, like Charlie Kirk, I'm a former state representative.
john anthony ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		I just recently, I lost my son to suicide about four years ago.
john anthony ▲ ● ▼		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.
		So this new year, I'm looking forward to it.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		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?
john anthony ▲ ● ▼		Well, I don't see really.
		I think I believe McMorrow, I don't forget if she's running for the governor's seat or the Senate.
		I think she's running for the governor's seat.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Mallory McMorrow, yeah.
john anthony ▲ ● ▼		I think Stevens, I think she stepped into it a few times.
unidentified		But I mean, it's still a purplish, close to bluish state.
john anthony ▲ ● ▼		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What is, you talk about Donald Trump's impact in Michigan.
		What policy will be most on Michiganders' minds as they enter the midterm election?
		What has been Donald Trump's biggest impact on the ground there in Detroit and the wider state of Michigan?
john anthony ▲ ● ▼		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?
unidentified		Blueberries, apples, asparagus.
john anthony ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		So especially the automotive community, they're still standing with President Trump.
john anthony ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		President Trump has done it in one year.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		I know we've got a short amount of time.
		I appreciate you getting up early with us this morning, but you talk about the callers calling into your show.
		Plenty of Michigan callers call into this program.
		And there's one on the line, David from Flint, Michigan.
		Do you mind chatting with him?
john anthony ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, please.
unidentified		Yes.
john anthony ▲ ● ▼		Hi, David.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		David, good morning.
		You're on the air.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Good morning, John, and to everybody in America.
		Happy New Year.
		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.
		So I got a different opinion than him.
		I think Michigan is going to go totally blue.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's David in Flint, Michigan.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		John Anthony, your thoughts?
john anthony ▲ ● ▼		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		John Anthony, for folks who want to hear your voice more, want to watch your show, how can they do it?
john anthony ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		I don't care what political party you're with, what sexual idea you're with.
john anthony ▲ ● ▼		My goal is to help as many people in this coming year.
john anthony ▲ ● ▼		And I think that should be a goal to help people to give them grace in this coming year.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		John Anthony, thanks for being our first guest in the new year.
john anthony ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
john anthony ▲ ● ▼		God bless you and a happy new year.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Happy New Year.
		Back to your phone calls this January 1st, 2026.
		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		But still being with us in all these years since that diagnosis, does it make you more of an optimistic person?
unidentified		And does that spill over?
		They use it for puberty blockers.
		And I didn't know if I was going to live or die, but I just left it in God's hands.
		And I didn't worry.
		And it tears me up because I went through, it wasn't too bad.
		It's really, they got it down pretty good now.
		And they put a port in your chest to give you infusion.
		They don't like, say, chemo.
		But they use it as a puberty blocker when they're messing with the kids to change their sex when the kids don't even know what they're going to be.
		You know, it says, Jesus says, suffer the little children.
		I'm a Christian.
		I believe in our Heavenly Father.
		This is God's Earth as God's footstool.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It's Stan in Oregon.
		This is Lou out of Chicago.
		Democrat.
		Lou, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I believe in science, And I am extremely pessimistic and terrified of the next three years.
		I'll ask one question.
		Can you imagine what would have happened to our country if Donald Trump had been in charge during the epidemic, during the pandemic of COVID?
		He was assembling people sitting next to each other, breathing on each other at rallies.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Donald Trump was in charge of the country for 2020 when the pandemic hit.
unidentified		Yes, but can you look at the rallies that he assembled?
unidentified		If that would have continued, we would have been destroyed.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So, Lou, Donald Trump has celebrated his Operation Warp Speed, the effort to come up with a COVID vaccine.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Do you think that was a worthwhile endeavor during the first Trump administration at the end of that administration amid the COVID pandemic?
unidentified		Absolutely.
		It was a terrific thing that he did.
		But after that, there was no science telling him it's okay to have people sitting next to each other.
		He himself had COVID, and he was sitting next to governmental officials.
		This is what I call stupidity.
		The man is not smart.
		And look at RFK.
		This man does not believe in vaccines, and he is in charge of health.
		I'm sorry, but I'm very upset and very pessimistic.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Lou in Chicago.
		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.
		And I'm certainly praying it'll happen that way.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It's Deborah Lee out of North Carolina.
		Mention National Park free entrance days in 2026.
		The list available on the NPS.gov website.
		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.
		Dr. Ralph Farrick did.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Rob, do you want to talk about 2026 or do you want to stay focused on COVID?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Because a lot of folks want to talk about 2026.
unidentified		John, I'm optimistic, but I brought this up because you brought this up with a prior caller, okay?
		So anyway, we stopped Joe Biden's invasion of our country.
		Trump did that.
		I feel really good about that.
		That makes me feel optimistic.
		But as far as this other stuff goes, you know, Mike from Alaska, your first caller of the day, he was right on, man.
		We need to see perp walks.
		We need arrests.
		Hillary Clinton, this Russia hoax, Brennan, Clapper, all these people need to be arrested.
		We need public, we need to have these people publicly perp walked.
		And by the way, that lady that said we're not at war, she didn't hear Iran's president say that he's at war with us right now, full-scale war.
		So these Democrats that call your show, you know, John, I just can't believe the low-information voters that are out there.
		And it's obvious.
		I mean, look at New York.
		Look at Mamdani.
		They just put a Muslim in charge.
		And who did he put as his top lawyer?
		The guy that represented the 9-11 terrorists.
		This is craziness.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Robin Port Crane, New York.
		This is Carolyn in Charlotte, North Carolina, line for Democrats.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Happy New Year, John.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Happy New Year.
unidentified		Personally, I'm optimistic.
		I keep myself that way.
		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
		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.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		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.
		Gene, before you go.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Gene, thanks for the call from Yorktown, Virginia.
		And go ahead and keep calling in on phone lines for Republicans, Democrats, and Independents this morning.
		As you do, we continue our New Year's tour around the country with prominent pundits, political commentators.
		We are joined by Laura Bellin from the Hawkeye State of Iowa.
		She's the editor of Bleeding Heartland, the website on Iowa politics and host of KHOI's Capital Week.
		Happy New Year to you.
laura belin ▲ ● ▼		Happy New Year, John.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It's not a caucus year in 2026, but there's plenty to talk about when it comes to Iowa politics.
		Start in the Senate in Iowa.
		Why is 55-year-old Joni Ernst retiring after just two terms in the Senate?
		And what are your thoughts on that race and how competitive it will be this midterm election?
laura belin ▲ ● ▼		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.
		And then there were some other issues.
		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And you mentioned the governor's race.
		Take us there.
		Governor Kim Reynolds is the governor of a state that doesn't have term limits for a governor, unlike some other states.
		Why is she stepping down and how competitive is that race?
laura belin ▲ ● ▼		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		How likely is it that some of these seats become the battleground seats that determine control of the U.S. House in 2026?
laura belin ▲ ● ▼		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You mentioned the economic hit to the Hawkeye State.
		How much of that is due or at least blamed on Donald Trump's tariffs?
		And I'm thinking specifically the soybean farmers in Iowa and the trade wars that we've seen in 2025.
laura belin ▲ ● ▼		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Laura Bellin is our guest, and we have plenty of viewers from the Hawkeye State who call in on a regular basis.
		They, and of course, all those around the country who are interested in Iowa politics, may be interested in Bleeding Heartland.
		Explain what that is, how long it's been around.
laura belin ▲ ● ▼		The website Bleeding Heartland has been around since 2007.
		It's a community website.
		So I'm the primary author, but I publish work by more than 100, close to 150 now, I think guest authors every year covering mostly Iowa politics.
		Also, I have a regular feature on Iowa Wildflowers, which is popular.
		And then you mentioned KHOI's Capital Week.
		That's a weekly show, 30 minutes covering Iowa politics that I do for KHOI Community Radio in Ames.
		And that's available on any podcast platform or SmartSpeaker.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And before you go, we were talking about the year ahead in politics with our callers.
		That last caller, you were listening in on talking about America's 250th birthday year and how that could impact this country.
		What do you think it means coming from the heartland of this country from Iowa?
		Your thoughts as we enter this birthday year, this semi-quincentennial.
laura belin ▲ ● ▼		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		K-H-O-I in Iowa and bleedingheartland.com is where you can find Laura Bellen and her work and her colleagues.
		Thanks for the time this New Year's Day morning.
		Happy New Year's to you.
		Hope you have a great 2026.
laura belin ▲ ● ▼		Thanks.
laura belin ▲ ● ▼		Best to you, John.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Back to your phone calls.
		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What's the elevator pitch on the amendment?
unidentified		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Scott, thanks for explaining it just now at Scott and Ithaca, New York.
		This is Steve out of Massachusetts Republican line.
		Steve, good morning.
unidentified		Hey, John.
		Good morning.
		Happy New Year.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Happy New Year.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		I'm optimistic for the year.
		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Steve, when you say bench, you're talking about election 2028?
unidentified		Yes.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Who's leading that bench in 2028?
unidentified		Well, for the Republicans?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
unidentified		Okay, well, I'd say it's JD Vance and Marco Rubio would be the ticket right now.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And you want Vance at the top?
unidentified		I love JD Vance.
		I think he's a great guy.
		I love his story, and I love him.
		And I think that, like, as great as Charlie Kirk was, and I loved Charlie Kirk, I think JD Vance is an equivalent to him.
		Steve, who is the smart man?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		On the Democratic side, who is the potential candidate that most concerns you?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Who's the one you don't want JD Vance and Marco Rubio running against?
unidentified		I would say Fetterman would be my biggest worry.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And why Fetterman?
unidentified		He's a great guy, and he's level-headed.
		You know, I mean, when you're putting your hand on the Koran to become mayor of New York, there's something wrong in our country, okay?
		I mean, it's sad.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Why is that a wrong thing, Steve?
unidentified		Because it isn't what we're based on.
		It isn't what our country is based on.
		He came here.
		He came here to us.
		We didn't bring people here.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Steve, do you think immigrants in general should be allowed to run for public office?
unidentified		I don't know what the answer is to that.
		I'm sorry.
		I don't have any.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Steve in Massachusetts.
		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.
		Social Security.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Ice Bam in North Carolina.
		This is Selena back in New York.
		It's Rochester.
		Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I am pessimistic.
		And the reason that I'm pessimistic is this year, last year, I finally discovered that there is no God.
		There is no God for black people.
		That's what I should say.
		Because I say that God would not allow Republicans to act the way that they do.
		You know, they're very hateful.
		So the other reason that I'm pessimistic is that the United States Senate and the House, Republicans, they hate me.
		I'm a black person.
		So what is there for me to be optimistic about?
		And the last thing that I would like to say is that everybody in the Republican cabinet, they hate black people.
		And finally.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		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.
		And the other thing that I say about black men who voted for Donald Trump, maybe they don't like their own black mothers.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Selena.
		I'm Rochester, New York.
		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And Ogis, you say that as a Republican?
unidentified		You said as a Republican.
unidentified		I didn't even voted for Trump.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You did vote for him in 2024?
unidentified		I did not.
		I never voted for him.
		As a Republican, he's the last Republican.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Who's the last Republican you voted for, Ogis?
unidentified		Every Republican I basically became cross was like, it's something about him.
		It was too shifty.
		Too shifty.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Did you vote for Kamala Harris in 2024?
unidentified		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.
		A woman can't do the job as president.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		We can move on.
		If you don't like anybody in the current Trump administration, who would you like to see join the administration?
		Is there a Republican official that, as a Republican, you would like to see advising the president?
unidentified		They're all followers right now, John.
		Everybody's following.
		There's nobody stepping out and said, me, I don't agree with the way we're going.
		Let's go.
		Let's go left.
		Let's try some of these ideas.
		Nobody wants to step out because everybody's afraid to be their own man or their own woman.
		Nobody.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Ogis out of Florida.
		This is Richard out of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Independent.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, John.
		I am optimistic all the way.
		However, I'm going to go a little different.
		I am sad.
		That woman called in said there is no God.
		There's not a God for black people.
		God loves the people.
		He hates the sin.
		The thing, I'm going to Minnesota.
		If there is fraud, that's sad also.
		However, the worst part of the whole thing is it's not going to the people that needed it.
		It's going to other nations and other people.
		They're just fraudulent.
		It's a shame.
		And as far as Trump goes, he's done a good job.
		He's closed the border.
		I hope the border wasn't closed now.
		And millions and millions are still coming in.
		Well, that creates inflation, first of all.
		That's why we have a housing problem.
		There's millions of people that don't have, you know, they don't have a place to live.
		And it just raises the price.
		And as far as the debt, it's $38 trillion.
		You know that's never going to get paid.
		And I think in a couple of years, you're going to see interest rates 10, 15% because of it.
		And nobody, and Social Security, another person brought up about Social Security.
		And they don't seem to do anything about that either.
		So that's why I'm sad.
		And God bless America.
		Thank you so much, John, for your time.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Richard out of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
		The current U.S. national debt, according to USDebtClock.org, is $38,552,654,000,000 and counting.
		USDeckClock.org website that C-SPAN viewers are probably very familiar with.
unidentified		This is Edward Muncie, Indiana.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Democrat, good morning to the Hoosier state.
unidentified		Yes.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, Edward.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Are you optimistic, pessimistic?
unidentified		A little pessimistic about everything.
		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.
		So I am very pessimistic about what is going on.
		Thank you very much.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Edward in Indiana.
		Back to the base state.
		This is James, Republican.
		Good morning.
mitch in new york ▲ ● ▼		Hi.
unidentified		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?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		All right, got your point, James.
		This is Carrie out of Missouri City, Texas.
		Democrat, good morning.
		Carrie, you with us?
		You got to stick by your phone.
		Go ahead and keep calling in.
		Phone lines.
		Democrats, 202-748-8000.
		Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		Independents, 202-748-8002.
		It's just about 845 on the East Coast.
		And we'll continue our check-in around the country with prominent pundits and political commentators as we look ahead to the year in politics of 2026.
		We're joined by Mitch Coke now from North Carolina.
		He's a political analyst at the Carolina Journal.
		Mitch Kokai, good morning to you.
		Happy New Year.
mitch kokai ▲ ● ▼		Happy New Year and thanks for having me.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Glad to have you this New Year's Day.
		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?
mitch kokai ▲ ● ▼		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		With Donald Trump playing such a big role in Tom Tillis leaving that Senate seat, is he playing a role in the Republican primary?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Has the president said this is who I want to see emerge from this primary?
mitch kokai ▲ ● ▼		Yes, Michael Watley.
		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That Senate race will be the headlining act, as it were, in politics in North Carolina in 2026.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		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?
mitch kokai ▲ ● ▼		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Mitch Kokai, our go-to expert on all things Tarheel State politics.
		Folks are seeing Carolina Journal and the John Locke Foundation in your ID that we're showing on the screen.
		For those who don't know, what is the John Locke Foundation?
		What is the Carolina Journal?
unidentified		Sure.
mitch kokai ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for asking.
		The John Locke Foundation is a free market public policy think tank based in North Carolina.
		We focus primarily on state government issues, what's going on with our legislature, executive branch, and the courts.
		Carolina Journal is our publication.
		We have a publication that comes out in a print edition about eight to 10 times a year.
		And we have material at CarolinaJournal.com daily, including lots of things about these elections that are coming up.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		All available for you to find on the internet.
		Mitch Kokai has been our guest in this past 10 minutes or so.
		We appreciate it.
		We're going to check in with you quite a bit throughout this year.
		Hope you continue to join us throughout 2026.
mitch kokai ▲ ● ▼		I'll be happy to do so.
mitch kokai ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for having me.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Happy New Year.
		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.
		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.
		And Jesse got the promotion.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What grade do you teach history to?
unidentified		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You know, that's Jesse out of Phoenix, Arizona.
		This is Mitch, Buffalo, New York, Democrat.
		Mitch, good morning to you.
mitch in new york ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
mitch in new york ▲ ● ▼		Thank you for taking my call and happy new year.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Happy New Year.
mitch in new york ▲ ● ▼		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.
		We need a cleansing.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Mitch out of Buffalo, New York.
		Mitch, you mentioned the books that you read in 2025.
		And you also mentioned that you're a retired postal worker.
		Made me think of a book that we covered in 2025 that you might be interested in.
		And it touches on some, a lot of the issues that you talk about about divisions in this country, about life in America.
		And it's from the perspective of a postal worker.
		The book is Mailman, My Wild Ride, Delivering the Mail in Appalachia and Finally Finding Home.
		Stephen Grant is the author of that book.
		We covered it on book TV.
		If you want to watch him talk about it, and the cover of the book looks like this.
		It is Mailman Again, My Wild Ride, Delivering the Mail in Appalachia and Finally Finding Home.
		This is Terry out of Knoxville, Tennessee, Independent.
		Excuse me, Terry, while I take a sip of coffee.
		Go ahead.
terry in tennessee ▲ ● ▼		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Who won, Terry?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Who won the trade war?
terry in tennessee ▲ ● ▼		Oh, the Chinese won.
		They definitely won.
		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Terry in the volunteer states to the Sunflower State.
		This is Rob in Stillwell, Line for Democrats.
		Rob, the question we're asking, are you optimistic or pessimistic about the year 2026?
unidentified		Thank you.
unidentified		Happy New Year.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Happy New Year.
unidentified		Very pessimistic.
		I feel like I was just looking this morning at Biden's State of the Union address when Marjorie Taylor Greene was screaming at him.
		He didn't have him treated like Mr. Green.
		But anyway, that's not the point.
		The point is, he said anyone who's going to touch Social Security, you know, and everybody just went crazy.
		And we all went like, oh, we're not going to bother.
		You're making something up.
		And then every single congressman and senator and everybody stood in favor of never, ever touching Medicare, Social Security.
		And it kind of makes me pessimistic because of the way they flip-flop so much.
		And I'm rambling now, but all the things that Trump has against him, just insurmountable Epstein files and all that, just doesn't make any sense.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Rob, what made you go back and rewatch that Biden State of the Union address?
unidentified		Well, I thought was as dumb as I am.
		And I'm not a real smart man, but I tell you what, every little kid can go back on everything Trump said and prove it a lie with Google.
		Every single thing that comes out of his mouth is a lie, and they can prove it.
		And it's systematic.
		And they're quicker than I am.
		I'm 70.
		I can go back on everything and see all the lies and the confusion and the ridiculousness and all for what.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Rob, what do you think about, you mentioned Marjorie Taylor Greene.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Rob.
unidentified		You know what I'm saying?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Rob in Kansas.
		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.
		It'll be all about him.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Jody, what about Americans?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What stands out to you about the 200th anniversary of this country as you think back to 1976?
unidentified		The division, I mean...
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		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.
		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.
		And let's take our chances with JD Vance.
		That's how I feel.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Jodi in Florida.
		Go ahead and keep calling in.
		Phone lines for Democrats, Republicans, and Independents as you're calling in.
		Let me show you this headline from the New York Times today.
		Welcome to the Mamdani era.
		Zorhan Mamdani getting ready to have his inauguration today in New York City.
		And for a conversation on that, we turn to New York One Spectrum News political reporter Bobby Cousa.
		Bobby Cousa, happy New Year's to you.
		Thanks for getting up early and joining us on New Year's Day.
bobby cuza ▲ ● ▼		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 we will, of course, be there to cover it all.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		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?
bobby cuza ▲ ● ▼		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Are we expecting Chuck Schumer to be at the inauguration today?
		New York Times reporting that Mayor Adams will actually be attending the inauguration today.
		I know there was some question about that.
		Who are some of the other celebrity appearances that we can expect today when we watch on that spectrum in New York One?
bobby cuza ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, that's a good question.
		Chuck Schumer, I don't know.
		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		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?
bobby cuza ▲ ● ▼		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		All right.
bobby cuza ▲ ● ▼		Thanks.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Back to your phone calls.
		About 30 minutes left in our program today.
		We've been asking viewers all morning long this question about whether you're optimistic or pessimistic about the year ahead in politics.
		202-748-8000 for Democrats to call in.
		202-748-8001 for Republicans.
		Independents, 202-748-8002.
		Just over 30 minutes left to get your calls in.
		This is Jalen, who's been waiting in Plano, Texas.
		Republican.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Well, happy new year, everybody.
		Just want to say that C-SPAN, thank you.
		It's a great service.
		Look, there is 135,000 mayors across the United States, 1,400 with populations of 30,000 or more.
		Who gives a damn about this Mondane guy?
		Who cares?
		Nobody cares.
		Okay?
		You care because he's a new face, right?
		He'll be gone in a year.
		He won't be able to do anything that he said he's going to do.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You don't think he's going to serve out his term?
unidentified		Ah, this guy's crap, man.
		Look, if anybody's listened to C-SPAN, if anybody's listening to C-SPAN every day, immigrants have to be cleaned out of the United States.
		They just have to.
		You know, look at every country around the United States, around the world.
		Jalen, you want anybody's focus on their culture.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You want all immigrants gone in this country?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Are you talking illegal immigrants?
unidentified		Immigrants are immigrants who violate our laws.
		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.
		And I do respect the guy.
		He's an upstanding guy.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Jalen in Plano, Texas.
		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Harry, got your point in Arizona.
		This is Martine in Laurel, Maryland, Independent.
		Good morning.
		You're next.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		Happy New Year.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Happy New Year.
unidentified		Thank you.
		I just want to say I'm a little bit pessimistic about what's going on in our country right now.
		Our leader is very negative.
		He's not doing anything to help the citizens.
		He's only doing things that benefit himself and his billionaire friends, from what I could see.
		Just putting his name on the Kennedy Center to tearing down half of the White House.
		None of those things has done anything to help the average American.
		When Joe Biden was president, he was trying to, you know, get student loan forgiveness to help people and other programs.
		So he was a true leader.
		I work as a teacher.
		I work with the immigrant population.
		So this year, I teach English as a second language.
		And this year, this is the first year I've never seen any newcomers.
		Those are kids that are brand new to the country.
		We haven't had any new kids register in our school since August.
		So last year, I know with Biden, there were a whole lot of newcomers.
		And we were quite busy.
		But like I said, this year, the only new students I have to the country came last spring.
		So as for me, I'm kind of concerned about my job and what's going to happen next year without that immigrant population.
		My job depends on it.
		I know there's been a lot of negative things about Afghans and the news.
		My favorite students, some of my favorite students that I work with are Afghan students.
		They're hardworking.
		They come with a skill set that many American kids don't have.
		They speak different languages.
		So I'm hoping that in this new year, Trump changes his tone on the immigrant population because he promised to go after criminals, which I agree with.
		But just the average citizen or the average immigrant population is suffering.
		I've lost a lot of students this year.
		So that's all I really wanted to say.
		Man, thanks again.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Mary in Las Vegas.
		We're continuing our conversation with you, our viewers, and we hope you continue to call in.
		It's 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, and Independents.
		202-748-8002.
		More of your phone calls in just a second.
		But we want to make one final stop on our tour around the country of prominent pundits and political commentators on this New Year's Day.
		We're joined by Susan Demas now of Lincoln Square Media.
		Susan Demas, happy new year to you.
		For folks who aren't familiar with Lincoln Square Media, explain what it is, how you're connected with the Lincoln Project.
susan demas ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		So Lincoln Square is a pro-democracy independent journalism outlet that we actually launched in March 2025.
		So we're very new.
		We did that alongside with the Lincoln Project, which is a super PAC that has been made up of anti-Trump Republicans since 2020.
		And we're dedicated to covering U.S. politics.
		We have shows.
		We publish articles and columns from Rick Wilson, Joe Trippey, Stuart Stevens, Michael Fanon, Miami, and others.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And you host a good number of those conversations yourself.
		And one of those recent ones on your substant asked the question, are Democrats ready for 2026?
		What do you think the answer to that question is?
susan demas ▲ ● ▼		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		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?
susan demas ▲ ● ▼		I think that's a huge mistake.
		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.
		They just go after Trump directly.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		One more question, though, on Democrats themselves.
		Who do you think the leader is of the Democratic Party right now?
		Is there one person that you could point to?
susan demas ▲ ● ▼		That's an excellent question.
		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		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?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		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?
susan demas ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Is affordability the message for Democrats in 2026?
susan demas ▲ ● ▼		I think that is one of the main messages.
		I mean, you go back to the Clinton campaign, you know, it's all about the economy, stupid.
		And when people are struggling, that is their number one issue.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		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?
susan demas ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think as long as you keep that at the center, that is a winning issue for Democrats.
		But you certainly can't ignore if we're at war with Venezuela.
		You can't ignore when he builds a $250 million ballroom as people are struggling.
		You can't ignore the fact that he signed a law that he would release all of the Epstein files and his administration is in violation of that law.
		I think it's always a balance, but one thing Democrats have struggled with is sticking with one message.
		And we will see how well they do with that.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Who do you see emerging from a Republican primary?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		I know we're a little early to 2028, but who are the top challengers to a JD Vance trying to step in to the Trump legacy?
susan demas ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think we can't be naive.
		I think that Donald Trump is able.
		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Is there a path for a traditional Republican candidate, a pre-Trump Republican candidate?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Is there a path back to leadership of the Republican Party?
susan demas ▲ ● ▼		I don't see that in 2028, perhaps after that, because Donald Trump has just so thoroughly dominated the Republican Party.
susan demas ▲ ● ▼		And pretty much, if you are a Republican who opposes him, you're either not in office anymore or not a Republican anymore.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Susan Demas, the executive editor of Lincoln Square Media.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What can folks expect in 2026 from Lincoln Square Media?
susan demas ▲ ● ▼		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What's your prediction today at the beginning of 2026?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		By the end of this year, who will be controlling the House and Senate once the new Congress is sworn in in 2027?
susan demas ▲ ● ▼		If I were to predict today, I would say the Democrats would have a healthy margin in the House.
susan demas ▲ ● ▼		And I think that the Republicans will narrowly control the Senate because the map is very, very unfavorable for Democrats this year.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		A healthy margin in the House.
		What does that mean?
		How many seats do you think their majority will be?
susan demas ▲ ● ▼		Well, Mike Johnson currently has, I believe, a three-seat majority.
susan demas ▲ ● ▼		With the absences, I would expect that Democrats could control with a 30 or 40 seat majority at this point.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		A wave election, as it's called.
unidentified		Yes.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Susan Demas, we won't hold you to the predictions, but we want to talk to you about them throughout the year.
		Let's chat again as we move through 2026.
		Thanks for your time on New Year's Day.
susan demas ▲ ● ▼		Oh, thank you so much for having me.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Back to your phone calls.
		About 10 minutes left in our program today, and we will end with your phone calls.
		Are you optimistic?
		Are you pessimistic about the year ahead in politics?
		202-748-8,000 for Democrats.
		202-748-8001 for Republicans.
		Independents, 202-748-8002.
		Kathy, Reading, California, Republican.
		Thanks for waiting.
unidentified		Good morning, and happy new year.
		I am very optimistic about the future.
		I'm very pleased with what President Trump is doing.
		I voted for him all three times.
		I went to the grocery store last week.
		I paid $2.59 for a pound of butter, whereas the week before it was $3.68.
		Prices are coming down.
		He's doing as much as he can, working against the Democrats who keep coming out and smearing him with all sorts of garbage.
		The Epstein file thing is done.
		It's over with.
		Why didn't the Democrats expose all of that for the four years they had all those files when Blackburn kept asking Dick Durbin for the files?
		Why didn't he turn them over?
		I don't understand it.
		But no, I'm very optimistic and I believe in his working with the people.
		He's doing everything he can to clean up the country and stop the drug issues that we've had.
		You know, it's amazing.
		We had drug issues for four years with the last president, and yet he did nothing to stop any of that.
		That was some of the conversation on this morning's Washington Journal.
		In just a moment, we'll bring you live coverage of the inauguration ceremony of New York City Mayor Zorhan Mamdani.
		Before the ceremonial swearing-in and inauguration ceremony starts, we'll show the official swearing-in.
		It was held around midnight last night at the old City Hall subway station.
		Administering the oath was New York City Attorney General Letitia James.
		Let us begin.
		Please repeat after me.
		Raise your right hand.
		I. Zoran Kwame Mandani.
zohran mamdani ▲ ● ▼		Zoran Kwame Mamdani.
unidentified		Do solemnly swear.
unidentified		Do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States.
zohran mamdani ▲ ● ▼		That I will support the Constitution of the United States.
unidentified		The Constitution of the State of New York.
zohran mamdani ▲ ● ▼		Constitution of the state of New York.
unidentified		And the Charter of the City of New York.
zohran mamdani ▲ ● ▼		And the Charter of the City of New York.
unidentified		And that I will faithfully discharge.
zohran mamdani ▲ ● ▼		And that I will faithfully discharge.
unidentified		The duties of the office of the Mayor of the City of New York.
zohran mamdani ▲ ● ▼		The Mayor of the City of New York.
unidentified		According to the best of my ability.
zohran mamdani ▲ ● ▼		According to the best of my ability.
unidentified		So help me, God.
zohran mamdani ▲ ● ▼		So help me, God.
unidentified		Congratulations, Mr. Mayor.
		Mr. Mayor, congratulations.
		Thank you very much.
		We're happy to be here.
		It's such a pleasure to have you.
		Please.
		Yes.
		Thank you, sir.
		And may I now ask for your $9 fine.
zohran mamdani ▲ ● ▼		You may ask for my $9.
unidentified		There we go.
zohran mamdani ▲ ● ▼		This should be exact change.
unidentified		Excellent, Mr. Mayor.
		Thank you very much.
		And the last thing, would you please sign the book?
		Absolutely, Ollie.
		Thank you, Mr. Hunter.
		Thank you, Mayor.
		Okay, so you're going to sign the first line here.
		You're going to put today's date.
		your signature okay printer sign right oh it could you do both Thank you.
		Crazy.
		City Hall?
		Okay.
		Should I leave that for you?
		You leave that for me.
		Okay, it is now official.
		Thank you.
		Mr. Mayor, congratulations.
		Thank you so much.
		It's the honor of a lifetime.
		Thank you.
		Thank you, sir.
		Thank you, my friend, thank you so much for everyone for being here.
zohran mamdani ▲ ● ▼		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.
		Thank you.
zohran mamdani ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Michael.
unidentified		Thank you.
unidentified		Congratulations.
zohran mamdani ▲ ● ▼		Thank you all so much.
zohran mamdani ▲ ● ▼		And I'll see you later.
unidentified		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.
		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.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		kicking off the new year by checking in with prominent pundits and political commentators around the country.
		And we're beginning in Motor City this morning, where John Anthony joins us via Zoom.
		He's the host of Detroit's Morning Answer on WDTK Radio.
		He hosts the Black and White Radio Show and podcast.
		Mr. Anthony, good morning to you, sir.
john anthony ▲ ● ▼		Hey, good morning and happy new year.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Happy New Year to you.
		Michigan in this new year has a term-limited governor and Gretchen Whitmer, a retiring senator and Gary Peters.
		Of course, all 13 House seats are up in the midterm elections.
		What is the race in Michigan that you're most interested in in the coming year?
john anthony ▲ ● ▼		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.

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