President Trump started the year with huge plans and the Republican Party in lockstep, but as 2026 approaches, cracks are appearing in his support that could affect how much his administration gets done.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Of course, there are only a few days left until 2026 – time to look back at the past year and forward to the year ahead. NPR senior correspondent Ron Elving reflects on the state of US politics since President Donald Trump returned to power. And, of course, Ron is quite capable of looking both backwards and forwards. Ron, thank you so much for being with us.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Scott.
SIMON: Last year I asked you what you were looking forward to in 2025, and your advice was: buckle up. Are you some kind of psychic?
ELVING: If I were Scott, I might have an easier time finding my cell phone. But you don't need psychic powers to realize that Trump's second term will be anything but normal, even by the standards of his first term, when he was twice impeached and charged at both the state and federal levels. And yet he returned, and despite all this. And it is unlikely that this time he will be intimidated by threats of consequences.
The balance between Trump's impulses and the limits of his power was more traditional the first time around. For a time, he found his way by relying more on people who knew the Washington way or had done well in government or the Republican Party themselves. This time, the Cabinet and White House are dominated by dedicated aides willing to carry out orders as Trump expects all his staff to do.
SIMON: But there are cracks in what has been the president's support within his own party – on Ukraine, the economy, the Epstein files. Do you see these differences widening?
ELVING: The conventional wisdom is that the closer we get to the midterm elections, the more we'll see vulnerable Republicans distancing themselves from Trump on health care, food prices or various other issues. This happens to any president whose poll ratings decline mid-term. Of course, events could have occurred as happened in other intervening years, such as 2002 or 1998. They changed the usual dynamics.
But the upcoming election in '26 is not the only source of stress in the Trump movement. There are huge divisions among some of his non-official reporters, especially among cultural activists and people in the media – the podcasters and online influencers who have generated so much buzz about Trump. They're fighting each other over Israel, over Epstein, over Venezuela, and they're fighting over who gets the MAGA megaphone as Trump starts to fade.
SIMON: One of the defining features of the second Trump administration is the way it treats or ignores the rule of law. What are your thoughts?
ELVING: This term marked major policy changes like Trump's tariffs, deportations and military strikes without congressional approval. We also see plenty of personal retaliation against Trump's political enemies and provocative displays of will, such as the partial demolition of the White House and Trump's rebranding of the Kennedy Cultural Arts Center and the Institute of Peace.
In all of this we see a willingness to test the boundaries, try the locks on the doors, see what is open, see what happens, and ultimately see who will step in to enforce the law. Next year we can expect these confrontations to continue and, quite possibly, escalate.
SIMON: What will you be watching most closely in the next year?
ELVING: This year the focus will be on Trump again, not just on what he does, what he says and what he spreads online. The focus will also be on how he looks, acts and behaves in a very personal way. We've already seen a lot of this attention, especially in visual and social media. On June 14, the president turns 80 years old. He's planning a lot of big events for his birthday, but he doesn't need those events to draw attention to his age. Will people ask if this is the same Trump? Does he still have his famous mojo? And once the midterm elections are over, the spotlight must inevitably shift to the question of succession.
SIMON: NPR senior staffer Ron Elving. Thank you very much my friend. Happy New Year.
ELVING: Thank you, Scott. Happy New Year to you.
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