The NPR Politics Podcast - Year In Review: Congress' Successes & Failures

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

As we approach 2026, the NPR Politics Podcast is taking a look back at the year that was in different political areas. Today, we look at what lawmakers were able to get done -- or not -- in 2025, and how that may influence their 2026 agenda.This episode: political correspondent Sarah McCammon, congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh, and senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith.This podcast was produced by Casey Morell & Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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cover politics. I'm Deirdre Walsh. I cover Congress. And I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And today on the show, we want to take a look back at the year that was for Congress. Deirdre, let's just start with the numbers. Republicans, of course, hold majorities in both chambers of Congress, but those are very narrow majorities. How has that affected the ability of Congress to get things done this year? It's made it incredibly tough. I mean, right now, House Speaker Mike Johnson has a three-seat majority. It's sort of hovered around those numbers throughout the year when people have retired, left early, et cetera. It has been really tough for Mike Johnson to hold the House Republican Conference together. I think the one thing he relies on throughout this process

is President Trump holding the House Republican Conference together. In the Senate, Republicans have a majority. They have a three-seat majority. You need 60 votes to get most legislation through. That has made it tough to get a lot of things through in the Senate. But I will say the one exception, obviously, is the massive tax bill that Republicans passed on the Hill through a process known as reconciliation where they just needed a simple majority. So in that sense, they got a major thing done despite their small majority. It was tough and it was painful, but they got it through. Okay. That's one big thing. What else has Congress managed to do this year? I mean, I would say the tax bill is the big marquee legislative accomplishment. The so-called big

beautiful bill. Oh, the one big beautiful bill. Yes. Which has already been rebranded as the working family's tax cut because I think a lot of leaders and rank and file members on the Hill realize that most people in their districts don't know much about that bill, don't know what's in it, haven't felt the impact of it yet. I think this is a dynamic that Democrats dealt with under President Biden when they passed billed back better, which was rebranded as the Inflation Reduction Act. That bill was designed to sort of head off inflation lower inflation, and people apparently, as we saw in the election, didn't feel the effects of that. This bill is a massive tax cut. And most people aren't seeing the impacts of that,

plus the other pieces of the bill haven't been implemented yet. So I think that Republicans realize they need to sell the parts of the bill and do additional things to show the American people that they are trying to deal with issues of continued high prices, especially after Democrats did so well in the off-year elections in November, Republicans are very mindful of this. Right. And you saw Democrats make the issue of affordability, the buzzword that everyone's talking about now, the issue, the thing that the 2026 midterms is going to be about. So, Tam, how is the White House feeling about this? I mean, the president has managed to get some of his biggest policy goals through despite all of this inaction, right?

Yeah. In that one big, beautiful bill, which as Deirdre alludes to, Trump did very little work selling that to the American people. In the lead up to its passage, he was just focused on sort of forcing Republicans to do what he wanted them to do in Congress, which was give him the bill. And he didn't really sell it to the American people. And since then, I mean, he has literally been to more sporting events than he has done events out in the country trying to tell people what's in this thing. The White House position has become sort of, we need patience. You guys will feel this soon. We swear, it's coming. It'll be great. Just file your taxes and you'll notice. But I think there's kind of an open question of how much people actually will notice. And it's,

you know, a little bit of what have you done for me lately? Because that was passed back in July. There's been very little to show for it since then, other than a lengthy government shutdown that pretty much no one liked. And Tam, what else does President Trump want to do? I mean, there's a long time before the midterms. Well, that's a really good question. And it's not clear. Certainly, there are some things he would like to see related to immigration, though a lot of that, they got a huge amount of funding in that one bill to hire more ICE agents. You know, really, he doesn't have that. that much of a forward-looking agenda, at least that he's talked about. There's the issue of health care. He's kind of said, oh, well, you know, I'd like to do something. ObamaCare is terrible.

They've been saying that for like 10 years. I mean, I think the other issue that Republicans in Congress, especially those running in competitive districts, want to see is Congress pass bills, targeted bills that get at the price of energy, the price of health care, as Tam mentioned, the price of groceries. And I think that there are all kinds of ideas that members have been putting out there, but they don't feel like their leadership or the White House really has a blueprint to show like this is what we're going to do to prove that we're responding to the concerns that our constituents have back home. Beyond selling what they've already done, which even Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said we haven't done a good job of selling that. I think there is a

feeling from members, especially in competitive races, that they need to show their listening and pass more targeted things. Things like permitting reform that they believe will help lower energy prices, very targeted things as opposed to this massive tax bill, which is super hard to explain. You know, Tam, I'm curious how successful do you think that Republican members of Congress will be in getting the White House on board. I mean, ahead of the midterms, they need to get some things done that they can sell to their constituents, right? And arguably, the White House needs them to do that, too, because Trump wants to maintain control of Congress. But you just said he's been very focused on getting Congress to pass his agenda. But he's also been very hands off other than, you know,

twisting arms and saying, we've got to pass this government funding bill to reopen the government. We've got to, you know, we've got to pass my one big, beautiful bill. He really hasn't gotten into the nitty-gritty details. He hasn't had much of a forward-looking agenda. The House of Representatives was out of session for more than a month. And the White House was perfectly okay with that during the government shutdown. The House just went home. Deirdre can talk about the frustrations of members of Congress who are like, hey, we've got this majority for a time-limited period. We have this trifecta. Let's do something with it. But truly, President Trump is high on his executive authority, he believes he can do almost anything through executive authority,

including things that typically would require legislation. It's sort of remarkable to me that there hasn't even really been a push to try to memorialize some of his executive actions in law. I mean, there was talk of that at the beginning of the year when Trump signed a bunch of executive actions and the House Republicans were like, we're going to codify those. The one other thing that Congress did this year that the president and the Trump administration pushed was to claw back money that Congress itself had already approved. This doesn't happen a lot, but Congress did pass a $9 billion rescissions package over the summer that clawed back money that they had passed in their own spending bills for foreign aid, for public media. And that was one thing that the White House pushed and got through narrowly got through this Congress. I mean, the one other thing that Congress is supposed to do each year is past annual spending bills.

We saw during the shutdown, once again, they failed to do that. They did not get a deal to package their spending bills. So there was this government shutdown, which we can talk about sort of the issues that triggered that. I do want to talk about that. You both touched on health care a moment ago. And that was, of course, the big reason for the extended shutdown, the fight over whether or not to extend those Affordable Care Act subsidies. How do you see Congress dealing with that going forward? I think it's fair to say that this is the big issue at the end of the year that Congress is grappling with.

Everyone on Capitol Hill knew this cliff was coming. These enhanced ACA tax credits that were put into place in 2021 under the Biden administration that were backed by Democrats who at the time had the majority on the Hill, they are expiring at the end of December. There was talk about dealing with this in some form during the tax bill. but Republicans decided they didn't want anything to do with that. Remember, when the Affordable Care Act was passed into law in 2010, not a single Republican on Capitol Hill voted for it. So this is a law that they essentially say Democrats own this. They're the ones that enhance these tax credits. It's on them. And they've tried many times to repeal it. Right. And failed and have also said they were going to replace it. But in 16 years have not shown an actual viable replacement plan, which many of their own now say, was a failure and that they should have come up with something to replace it. So Democrats during this 43-day shutdown insisted that Congress deal with these, that there should be some extension. And there were various proposals of a year, et cetera, to try to do something about them. Republicans completely said no. So a small group of Democrats caved in the Senate and reopened

the government with the promise that there would be a vote in the Senate to renew them. it is unlikely that any significant extension is going to pass this year. There is a big push by Republicans members in competitive districts to do something and to head them off and to at least extend them for a year, 18 months, etc. Unless President Trump gets involved and convinced that this is something that he needs to cut a deal on and push Republicans on the Hill who don't like the ACA to deal with, premiums are going to increase dramatically in January. And either way, this is going to be a massive issue in the 2026 midterms. And on this front, the president has also been just unbelievably

disengaged. Tam, you mentioned, and I remember, you know, back to the 2016 campaign, Trump has been talking about this for a long time, but here we are. I mean, do you see him getting engaged at any point? It's possible. It's certainly possible. But at the moment, he has just been coming back to the same idea of Obamacare is terrible. Hey, maybe we could somehow give money straight to the American people to pay for their health care. Insurance companies are terrible. But there isn't a plan. There isn't something to sell. There isn't a legislative language. And we talked about this at the beginning. But really, getting anything big done in Congress requires a bipartisan compromise. There has been so little bipartisan action in Congress this session.

It is unbelievable. It's almost like a dirty word. There's no ambition to do big, hard things in any sort of bipartisan fashion. We need to take a quick break. We'll have more in just a moment. And we're back. One of the things I want to talk about is the president's desire to go around Congress. He has fired or threatened to fire leaders of federal agencies who,

whose jobs were confirmed by Congress. He's enacted tariffs and withheld funding for programs he does not like. That's despite Congress having the power of the purse. His administration has carried out boat strikes against alleged narco-traffickers in the Caribbean and Pacific. And largely Republicans in Congress have let Trump do all of these things with little to no oversight. Deirdreau, why? And are you seeing any signs of pushback? Well, I think it all comes back to the fact that Republicans view President Trump as the leader of

Republican Party. They see what happens to Republicans that break with the president, that there are angry social media posts, that there are primary threats and challenges that come to Republicans who separate themselves from the president. When it comes to tariffs, I think that is the one that I have been the most surprised about. Republicans, traditional Republicans, main street Republicans, obviously the party's changed a lot in the last decade, have always opposed tariffs. Top leaders on Capitol Hill have been very careful to not criticize the president's tariff policy, but to, in a way, say, let's see how it goes. This is the president's approach. He's, you know, a disruptor. We'll see how it goes. But they are very concerned farmers in their districts,

meat producers in their districts are constantly appealing to Republican lawmakers that represent these various industries, that the tariffs are really hurting them. We saw the president announce a policy to give a bailout to farmers because of the economic impact. The other thing about the tariffs is that in a way, the House Speaker protected the president because he slipped this provision in a random procedural rule blocking anyone from trying to undo the tariffs. Once that there were some Republicans that were saying, we don't like this, we're going to push back. The House Speaker essentially blocked any action. So that just shows you how much he's in lockstep with the president.

I think the other thing that's fair to say about the way that Trump administration has approached Congress is they have completely weakened Congress's power of the purse because Congress can't get its act together to pass spending bills, major decisions about how money is spent across the federal government for various agencies. they have a lot more discretion, and that is a weakening of Congress's power of the purse. Yeah, the relationship between Congress and the White House is sort of a one-way street. Trump wants them to do what he wants them to do. And that's about it. And the Republicans generally do it. Right. I think there have been a couple of places where we've seen pushbacks. The main one is the bipartisan support for forcing a vote to release the Epstein files.

This is something that Trump promised that he would do. This is something that the MAGA base has been talking about for years. Democrats quickly recognized once the DOJ and the FBI sort of tried to pull back on that promise that this was an opening, a political opening, and they exploited it. They got together with Republicans to force a vote in the House and force the president's hand. And then a bill quickly went through. And then the Senate unanimously passed. That stuff never happens on Capitol Hill. It was sort of land speed record that it went through. So that shows an area where Republicans saw calls from their constituents from their base as something strong enough that they could break with the president on. And the president's public comments on this put him in a box. Yeah, what made that issue different, just the way it was sort of landing on the ground with their constituents? For sure, for sure. And I think that in the last couple of weeks, the other place where we've seen putting.

back is on the issues of these boat strikes. There is a big debate on Capitol Hill. Are we at war with narco traffickers? There hasn't been a war powers debate. There hasn't been a congressionally approved war declaration. And, you know, questions about the way that this was handled and how they've cut Congress out of briefings on this matter and the arguments. This is where you saw Republican chairman of the House and Senate Armed Services Committee come out publicly with their Democratic counterparts and say we're vowing vigorous oversight. We'll see where that lands, but this has been a place where you've seen some division. And foreign policy is an area where a Republican Party is split, but the traditional Republican strong foreign policy

crowd on Capitol Hill has been reemerging on this issue. I would say, however, that it is still pretty tepid by way of pushback on the administration. And what I mean by that is they wanted oversight. There was a private briefing with the admiral who oversaw the strike on that first boat on September 2nd that had a follow-up strike. There were survivors. There were additional strikes that took out the survivors and the remaining bit of the boat. And going in, Republicans and Democrats were like, we have really serious concerns here. Coming out, they were divided along partisan lines about whether.

they thought what happened was a problem or not. So Republicans have to walk this very careful line. Most of them don't want to offend the president. Well, because there are consequences. There are consequences like we just described. Of course, Democrats are in a very different situation. They have regularly objected to these moves. Some of their base would say, not vociferously enough. Looking ahead, do you see them being more targeted in these attacks or changing tack in some way? Democrats? I think Democrats are only motivated to take a more aggressive stance towards the president and towards Republicans. I think that they are going to go full bore at Republicans over the issue of affordability and health care. I think the challenge Democrats have is that they tend to not stay on the same page and

fight amongst themselves on messaging issues. Focus a little bit on Trump as a personality, which a lot of the base disagrees with Trump and have strong feelings about him. But I think if Democrats are going to be successful and replicate the kinds of success they had in these off-year elections, that debate was more about we all think that things are too unaffordable. We all think the parties need to do more. And there was a recognition to have positive proposals to deal with housing, to deal with health care, to deal with education. Energy costs. Right. And if they make it all about Trump, who's not on the ballot in the midterms, they risk being a little off message. Look, a lot of Democrats think this is just going to be like the 2018 midterms where, you know, he was in the White House and they won back control of the House. He is essentially going to be a lame duck. His approval ratings are very low. I think if they make it more about affirmatively what we're going to do differently than the Republicans in charge of Congress now, they probably have a better argument. If they make it mostly about Trump, they

risk turning off some of the Republicans who are frustrated with their economic situation. Yeah, and independents who have broken from Trump in a really dramatic fashion in the last few months. And, Deirdre, speaking of the midterms, let's talk about some of the things you're going to be watching for. What's on your radar? I think it's going to be hard to get much, if anything, done on Capitol Hill. Yeah. With this thin margin and with Republicans who represent competitive districts more willing to criticize their leadership publicly, we saw a bunch of them. criticize the House Speaker for his decision to essentially recess the House for 43 days and let

the House basically not do any work during the shutdown. Those members need to show that they're representing their districts and not necessarily in lockstep with the House Speaker or even the president. A lot of them realize that they have a better chance of getting reelected if they show some distance from the president. So the idea that you're going to get anything through the House is a challenging factor. You know, you saw some of the members like Marjor Taylor Green openly criticize the president and then just decide to leave early. We'll be watching to see what else happens. Also like life happens. People get sick. Family members have issues. All of these things are unpredictable. And every day, House Speaker Mike Johnson wakes up with a new problem beyond like

the policy issues of what he could get through. The Senate Majority Leader has a similar issue where he's protecting incumbents that have tough races. A lot of those people aren't like Susan Collins of Maine, who we believe is running for reelection, aren't in lockstep with the president and break with him as a show of independence. So I think the pivot next year is going to be a lot of political messaging votes, a lot of forward looking to like, here's what we would do. If we stay in charge, here's what we would do if you put us in charge and not much legislating. And the thing I'm watching is, will President Trump be welcome in these swing districts? Will these members of Congress whose jobs are at risk be willing to campaign with this guy? Because a lot of times people are like, oh, thank you so much, but please don't come to my district. And many presidents, you know, President Biden certainly among them, were like, yep, I understand. I realize my approval rating is in the dumps. I want to avoid hurting my party.

I want to do my best to, you know, keep the majority or limit the losses. But that isn't really Donald Trump's style. So that's one thing I'll be watching for. We're going to leave it right there for today. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover politics. I'm Deirdre Walsh. I cover Congress.

And I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. Thank you.