SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Of course, 2026 is just days away - a time to look backward at the year that was and forward to the year to come. NPR senior contributor Ron Elving has been thinking about the state of U.S. politics since President Donald Trump returned to power. And, of course, Ron is completely up to the task of looking both backward and forward. Ron, thanks so much for being with us.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Scott.
SIMON: I asked you last year what you were watching for in 2025, and you advised, buckle up. You some kind of psychic?
ELVING: If I were Scott, maybe I could find my cellphone more easily. But you didn't need paranormal powers to see Trump's second term would be anything but normal, even by the standards of his first term when he got impeached twice and indicted on both state and federal charges. Yet he came back, and despite all that. And there's little chance he's going to be cowed by threats of consequences this time around.
The balance between Trump's impulses and the restraints on his power was more conventional the first time around. He was finding his way for a while, relying more on people who knew the Washington way or were well established on their own in government or in the Republican Party. This time around, we have a Cabinet and White House staff dominated by dedicated enablers, willing to carry out orders the way Trump has always thought all his employees should.
SIMON: But there are cracks in what have been the president's support in his own party - over Ukraine, the economy, the Epstein files. Do you see those divisions widening?
ELVING: The conventional wisdom says the closer we get to the midterms, the more we will see vulnerable Republicans distance themselves from Trump on health care, on food prices or various other issues. That happens to any president who is down in the polls halfway through a term. Of course, there could be events, as there were in other midterm years, such as 2002 or 1998. Those reversed the usual dynamic.
But the elections coming in '26 are not the only source of stress in Trump's movement. There are tremendous divisions among some of his reporters who are not officeholders, especially among the cultural activists and people in the media - the podcasters and online influencers, the ones who have provided so much of the heat around Trump. They're at odds with each other over Israel, over Epstein, over Venezuela, and they're battling over who gets the MAGA megaphone when Trump begins to fade.
SIMON: One of the defining features of the second Trump administration is how it regards or disregards the rule of law. What are your thoughts?
ELVING: This term has featured serious policy shifts, like the Trump tariffs and the deportation drive and the military strikes, without congressional approval. We also see a lot of personal retribution against Trump's political enemies and provocative displays of will, such as the partial demolition of the White House and the Trump 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's open, see what happens and ultimately to see who will step up to enforce the law. In the year to come, we can expect these confrontations to continue and quite possibly escalate.
SIMON: What will you be looking at especially closely next year?
ELVING: Once again, this year, the focus will be on Trump, not just what he does and what he says and what he spreads online. The focus will also be on how he looks and acts and behaves in highly personal ways. We've already seen a lot of this attention, especially in the visual and social media. The president turns 80 on June 14. He's planning a lot of high-profile events around his birthday, but he would not need those events to bring attention to his age. Are people going to be asking, is this the same Trump? Does he still have his famous mojo? And when the midterms have passed, the spotlight must inevitably shift to the question of succession.
SIMON: NPR senior contributor, Ron Elving. Thanks so much, my friend. Happy New Year.
ELVING: Thank you, Scott. Happy New Year to you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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