Week 60 — The Return

As we close out 2025 this week there is a marked shift in sentiment, not only among the American people, but also by Trump himself. A year ago as I restarted this project, the conversation was, will he ever leave? We’re not having that conversation anymore.

Not only do polls show that the American people are souring on Trump as the year comes to a close, the Republicans too are starting to turn on him, even if at the fringes, for their own self-preservation. One GOP member of the House mused this week that House Speaker Mike Johnson is “hanging on because Trump wants a weak speaker,” as the 2025 Congress was the least productive in modern history. By week’s end Rep. Lauren Boebert also spoke out publicly against Trump, after he retaliated against her, and the state of Colorado, for not freeing Tina Peters.

Trump tried to play grown-up, or at least appear engaged, by hosting two world leaders at Mar-a-Lago, with little to show for either. But more notable was his lack of focus on what Americans want, and his unhinged behavior, back to rapid-fire posting on Christmas Eve, and striking out at his perceived enemies, including Boebert’s Republican-leaning district. This is the disorganized, scattered behavior reminiscent of his first regime. While Trump was able to follow the Project 2025 roadmap for most of 2025, now that the Heritage Foundation has, as conservative WSJ Editorial Board pronounced, “blown up,” Trump too seems rudderless.

The mood of the country remains gloomy as the year comes to an end. Just 24% believe the country is heading in the right direction. The vast majority feel Trump and his billionaire beneficiaries are out of touch with the regular people. Trump increasingly is losing the tight grip of control he had for most of 2025. I wrote more about what I expect for 2026 here.

1. On Wednesday, the annual Christmas Eve jazz concert at the Kennedy Center was canceled after the show’s host, musician Chuck Redd, called off the performance due to Trump adding his name to the Center. The annual concert had taken place for the past 20 years.
2. Kennedy Center President Richard Grenell sent a scathing letter to Redd, saying his decision to withdraw “is classic intolerance,” adding, “This is your official notice that we will seek $1 million in damages” for what he called a “political stunt.”
3. Nielsen ratings for the 48th Kennedy Center Honors, hosted by Trump, averaged roughly 2.6 million viewers on CBS, the lowest rating ever for the show, and a 35% decline from the 4.1 million who watched in 2024. Trump had bragged about his hosting prowess prior to appearing.
4. On Friday, Trump posted images of marble armrests for the Kennedy Center on Truth Social, adding they were “unlike anything ever done or seen before!” The ornate images contrasted with American’s concern over affordability.
5. On Monday, a veteran jazz ensemble, the Cookers, and a New York dance company canceled their New Year’s Eve performances at the Kennedy Center. The Cookers said in a statement, “Jazz was born from struggle and from a relentless insistence on freedom,” and alluded to the name change.
6. WAPO reported that Trump quietly changed the Kennedy Center bylaws in May, limiting voting to presidentially-appointed trustees, while excluding ex officio board members who are designated by Congress. Legal experts said the move may conflict with the center’s charter.
7. On Tuesday, after the death of Tatiana Schlossberg, the granddaughter of former President John F. Kennedy, Trump posted a series of X posts on Truth Social critical of both the Kennedy family and the Kennedy Center.
8. On Wednesday, Christmas Eve, Trump posted a diatribe on Truth Social, wishing a Merry Christmas to all “including the Radical Left Scum” who he claimed are trying to destroy our country.
9. Trump also posted that comedian Stephen Colbert “has actually gotten worse,” adding that he is “a dead man walking! CBS should, ‘put him to sleep,’ NOW.” CBS’s parent company Paramount is seeking the Trump regime’s nod for their Warner Bros. takeover bid.
10. After midnight on Christmas Eve, Trump posted and reposted more than 100 times on Truth Social, in many cases sharing messages that disparaged his perceived enemies.
11. On Thursday, Christmas Day, Trump reposted a message claiming Attorney General Pam Bondi has evidence “regarding the 2020 election,” saying that the people “demand accountability,” and former president Barack Obama should be “charged and prosecuted.”
12. Trump also reposted a video of a Georgia state senator who was running for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s House seat, that baselessly claimed, “You know, Donald Trump was right the entire time. The election in 2020 was stolen.”
13. Trump also spent Christmas reposting negative posts about CA Gov. Gavin Newsom, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and several posts disparaging Somali immigrants and Rep. Ilhan Omar, including questioning her citizenship and to “Throw her out of the U.S., Now!”
14. Trump closed the day with a long post wishing a Merry Christmas “to the many Sleazebags who loved Jeffrey Epstein,” comparing the files to “the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax,” and chastising the NYT, “who should be “forced to apologize for their bad and faulty Election “Reporting.””
15. The Atlantic reported House Republicans are unhappy, both with Speaker Mike Johnson and their prospects for midterms. One said, Johnson is “hanging on is because Trump wants a weak speaker…He [Trump] wants a speaker that essentially functions like a staff member.”
16. WAPO reported that the Republican-led House and Senate have passed fewer than 40 bills into law in 2025, making it the least productive Congress in modern history. The House cast just 362 votes, the fewest in the 21st century.
17. WAPO reported that Trump regime agency heads have refused to testify before lawmakers, or were only willing to do so behind closed doors, in what Democrats called another way the Trump regime is snubbing and taking away power away from the legislative branch.
18. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem refused to come before the Senate to testify. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio refused open sessions on the controversial boat strikes.
19. PBS reported according to tracking efforts, the Trump regime had implemented roughly half of the goals in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint to remake the federal government, in areas including reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, education, and the military.
20. NBC News reported judges who have ruled against Trump have been forced to make changes to their lifestyles, including upgrading their home security, changing routes they drive, and limiting what they post online, after facing harassment and threats.
21. On Wednesday, Christmas Eve, four ICE officers arrested a man at a Walmart parking lot in Washington state, while he was loading a cart full of food into his car. The agents refused to allow a bystander to notify his wife, and then proceeded to split up his groceries between them.
22. On Thursday, a federal judge blocked the Trump regime from detaining Imran Ahmed, a British researcher who runs the Center for Countering Digital Hate, after Rubio’s threat to impose visa restrictions and expel those who research online hate.
23. Elon Musk had sued the Center for Countering Digital Hate in 2023, after the group documented a rise in hate speech on X in the aftermath of Musk acquiring Twitter. The case was dismissed, but an appeal is pending. Ahmed is scheduled for a hearing on Monday.
24. Palau, a Pacific nation with a population of 18,000, made an agreement with the Trump regime to take up to 75 “third country” migrants who cannot be returned to their home nations, in exchange for $7.5 million and other aid.
25. On Tuesday, newly released emails revealed that the DOJ, and specifically Deputy AG Todd Blanche, had a direct role in charging Kilmar Abrego Garcia in Tennessee, contradicting the DOJ statements to the judge that local prosecutors had acted alone in charging him.
26. On Tuesday, a federal judge blocked the Trump regime from ending temporary deportation protections for 230 migrants from South Sudan, citing “serious, long-term consequences, including the risk of deadly harm” they would face if expelled.
27. WAPO reported ICE plans to spend $100 million in 2026 on a recruitment push to add agents, targeting gun shows and military enthusiasts through online influencers and geo-targeting.
28. On Wednesday, a federal judge blocked the Trump regime’s efforts to strip security clearance from whistleblower attorney Mark Zaid, after Trump had targeted Zaid and 14 others in a memorandum. Zaid accused the Trump regime of “improper political retribution.”
29. On Wednesday, a federal judge ordered the Department of Homeland Security to restore counterterrorism and security grants to Democratic states, after the regime removed them from states that refused to cooperate with Trump’s immigration enforcement policies.
30. On Wednesday, the DOJ said it had discovered more than one million additional Epstein documents, delaying the full release by weeks. The documents were uncovered by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan. No detail was given as to how they were found.
31. Trump ranted about the documents on Friday in a lengthy Truth Social post, claiming the DOJ “is being forced to spend all of its time on this Democrat inspired Hoax,” and blaming “The Radical Left” for focusing on the Epstein files, calling it “Just another Witch Hunt!!!”
32. On Wednesday, the American Academy of Pediatrics sued the Department of Health and Human Services over $12 million in grant cuts for children’s health programs, saying without funding it would need to end “dozens of programs that save children’s lives every day.”
33. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data showed U.S. measles cases had surpassed 2,000, the highest number in more than 30 years. The CDC also said 11% of measles patients were hospitalized.
34. WAPO reported U.S. vaccination rates have fallen since the pandemic. As of the end of 2025, just 28% of kindergarten classes have a measles vaccination rate of the 95% or more required to reach “herd immunity,” with 5.2 million kindergartners below immunity threshold.
35. WAPO reported that 438 days after Hurricane Helene, more than 800 flood victims had applied for help under FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, including 600 making buyout requests, with more expected. So far FEMA has not approved a single application.
36. WAPO reported Social Security has had a year of turmoil under the Trump regime after nearly 7,000 employees, or 12% of the workforce, were pushed out. The agency struggled with 18 million pending cases, and record backlogs that have delayed basic services to millions.
37. The disability system has also deteriorated with just 66% of disability appointments scheduled within 28 days as of December, down from nearly 90% at the start of 2025. Many disability payments now take three to six months to process, up from weeks at the start of 2025.
38. WAPO reported that corporate bankruptcies soared in 2025, with at least 717 companies filing for bankruptcy through November, the highest level in 15 years. Companies cite inflation, interest rates, disruption in supply chains, and higher costs from Trump’s tariffs.
39. WSJ reported Trump’s sudden decision to ease marijuana restrictions came after large donations from Kim Rivers, CEO of Trulieve, a Florida-based marijuana company, who also enlisted lobbyists. The move came despite pushback from Speaker Johnson and conservative groups.
40. NYT reported that Trump reversed his campaign promises in order to give big technology companies, who have also been big donors, including Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla, almost all their wishes on issues that impact their businesses.
41. Conservative activists say Trump’s moves violate free market orthodoxy. Changes include eliminating limits on A.I. chip exports, fast-tracking data center buildouts, enacting cryptocurrency legislation, and signing an executive order to block state A.I. restrictions.
42. FBI Director Kash Patel posted on X that the FBI headquarters would be moved to a building once occupied by the USAID, after blue state Maryland was promised in 2023 that the headquarters would be located there. Maryland state officials filed a lawsuit to prevent the change.
43. According to court papers released Sunday, the suspect who confessed to planting pipe bombs outside Democratic and Republican headquarters on Jan. 6 said in his confession he felt the need to “speak up” after Trump lost the 2020 election, believing the results had been “tampered with.”
44. CNN’s fact checker reported in the first year of his second regime, Trump retold the same, smaller subset of lies repetitively, in different settings, even after being debunked, on topics including public safety, the economy, foreign affairs, elections, healthcare, and Democrats.
45. On Sunday, prior to a planned meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at Mar-a-Lago, Trump spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin for more than two hours. Trump told reporters he bonded with Putin over the federal investigation into the Russia “hoax.”
46. On Monday, after a successful summit between Trump and Zelensky, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov alleged that Russia had intercepted 91 drones that were on their way to Putin’s residence in the northern Novgorod region. Russia provided no evidence.
47. Lavrov’s statement contradicted Russia’s defense ministry, which provides a daily tally of Ukrainian strikes. Later Monday, the defense ministry updated to include the alleged drones. Lavrov called Zelensky’s denial and doubts raised by Western media as “completely insane.”
48. Trump said Putin called him on Monday morning about the alleged attack, telling reporters, “It’s one thing to be offensive, it’s another thing to attack his house. It’s not the right time to do any of that,” adding, “I was very angry about it.” Trump later said, “I don’t like it, it’s not good.’
49. On Monday, while meeting with Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago, Trump told reporters that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell “should resign,” and that he would “love to fire him,” adding, “Maybe I still might.”
50. Trump also claimed that he might sue Powell, for what he baselessly claimed was “gross incompetence” related to his management of renovations at the Fed’s Washington headquarters, saying, “Bibi, he’s up to $4.1 billion to do a renovation of a few small buildings.”
51. Trump also said his White House ballroom project, which he baselessly claimed was “under budget” despite it doubling in cost, had increased cost estimates “after realizing that we’re gonna do the inauguration in that building”, which required “all bullet-proof glass.”
52. Trump also weighed into Israeli politics, saying Bibi was “a wartime prime minister who’s a hero. How do you not give a pardon?” Trump claimed that Israeli President Isaac Herzog had told him a pardon was “on its way” for Bibi, a claim that Herzog’s office later denied.
53. On Tuesday, a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration must continue to fund the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a blow to the regime, which had argued the agency had run out of cash after acting director Russell Vought refused to take appropriated federal funding.
54. On Monday, the Trump regime sued Virginia, over the state granting unauthorized immigrants in-state financial aid at public colleges and universities, claiming it violated federal law because it discriminates against U.S. citizens living in other states.
55. WSJ reported that the DOJ launched civil probes under the umbrella of the False Claims Act, meant to target contractors who bill for work not performed, to instead target companies’ DEI programs, by claiming that holding a federal contract while embracing diversity amounts to fraud.
56. The DOJ launched investigations into Google and Verizon, as well as companies in the automotive, pharmaceutical, and defense industries, demanding information about their workplace programs, based on politically appointed officials who believe the companies embrace DEI.
57. On Monday, the Trump regime pledged $2 billion for U.N. humanitarian aid, a small fraction of the $17 billion that the U.S. typically provides. Rubio said the agency must “adapt, shrink or die,” adding, the “new model” will share the burden with other developed countries.
58. CNN reported that the CIA secretly carried out drone strikes earlier in December on a port facility on the coast of Venezuela, where the regime alleged Tren de Aragua was storing narcotics, marking the first known U.S. attack inside the country. No one was present at the facility.
59. Asked by reporters about the strike, Trump claimed, “There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” adding, “we hit all the boats…It’s the implementation area, that’s where they implement, and that is no longer around.”
60. On Monday, the U.S. Southern Command said in a social media post that it had targeted a boat sailing along a “known narco-trafficking route” in the eastern Pacific, killing another two men, and bringing the death toll to 107.
61. MS NOW reported that Trump did not learn that his so-called Border czar, Tom Homan, was under investigation by the FBI for a bribery scheme until days before Trump’s inauguration, because Trump resisted standard FBI background checks for his appointees.
62. On Tuesday, the Trump regime’s Department of HHS froze federal child-care funding to blue state Minnesota, citing a multiyear social-services fraud scandal that Trump and his regime had harped on. The Biden administration started charging fraud cases in 2022.
63. Trump also used his first veto of the second regime to kill funding for a major drinking water project in Colorado, in retaliation for keeping Tina Peters in prison. The pipeline is in GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert’s district, who voted for the discharge petition to release the Epstein files.
64. Boebert responded, “President Trump decided to veto a completely non-controversial, bipartisan bill that passed both the House and Senate unanimously. Why? Because nothing says “America First” like denying clean drinking water to 50,000 people in Southeast Colorado.”
65. On Wednesday, the DOJ said the number of Epstein file documents totaled 5.2 million, the most precise number given so far. The DOJ sought 400 lawyers to help review the documents. On the December 19 deadlines for releasing files, just 100,000 had been released.
66. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene told the NYT when she asked Trump about his intransigence on releasing the Epstein files, he replied, “My friends will get hurt.” On her suggestion to invite Epstein’s victims to the Oval Office, Trump angrily said they had done nothing to reserve the honor.
67. WSJ reported not only was Epstein a frequent visitor to Mar-a-Lago in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Trump also sent spa employees to Epstein’s mansion for massages, manicures, and other spa services, according to former employees.
68. Mar-a-Lago spa employees warned each other that Epstein was known to be sexually suggestive and exposed himself during the appointments. Although Epstein was not a member of Mar-a-Lago, Trump told employees to treat him like one.
69. The Journal identified five Mar-a-Lago employees listed in Epstein’s address book. In the mid-1990s, Trump’s former wife Marla Maples had warned Trump something was off with Epstein. Trump has given various rationales for cutting his ties with Epstein.
70. On Tuesday, in a special election, Democrat Renee Hardman was elected to the Iowa state Senate by 43 points in a district Harris carried by 16 points, preventing a GOP super majority, further showcasing a continuing move away from Trump and the GOP ahead of midterms.