Halfway through the 119th Congress, it’s time to take a look at Republican leadership’s report card. With razor-thin majorities in both Houses, Republicans have succeeded in extending President Donald Trump’s tax cuts and defunding public broadcasting and foreign aid. But there are storm clouds on the horizon. Democrats are looking to take back the lower chamber in the 2026 midterms, while Republicans are engaged in a health care policy push, the fate of which is very uncertain. With the new year upon us, it’s worth looking back at the moments when Republicans have triumphed and struggled in getting results out their unwieldy coalition. Johnson’s Reelection Bid The first item on the agenda for Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., was getting reelected as the chamber’s top-ranking member in January. Just as the gavel was difficult to come by when former Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted in 2023, it was difficult to maintain. In the first round of votes, Republican Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Keith Self of Texas, and Ralph Norman of South Carolina all cast their votes against Johnson, while Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, defiantly abstained from voting. Eventually, after communication with the White House and with Johnson, enough holdouts agreed to elect him, but with the understanding that he would commit to fiscal conservatism. After Johnson was reelected, fiscal hawks made clear they expected an aggressively conservative approach from Johnson throughout the Congress.  “I think we had some reservations that are sincere, based on the speaker’s past 15 months as the speaker,” Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., told The Daily Signal in a phone interview at the time. “But we have steadfast support of the president and his timely certification, and so we don’t want to imperil that. And so, it’s a balance. But we also wanted to send a signal that business as usual around here is not going to stand.”  He added, “The speaker is on notice that if he’s going to continue to lead like he has over the last 15 months, it’s not going to end well,” he continued. The ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ The “Big, Beautiful Bill” stands as the most important piece of legislation passed in the 119th Congress thus far. The first few months of President Donald Trump’s new administration were consumed by feverish debates over a budget reconciliation bill that would extend and expand on Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, put work requirements into the Medicaid program, and reverse much of President Joe Biden’s green energy policies, and fund mass deportation efforts. The bill started out in the House, where for months leadership faced pressure from various camps within their narrow majority. The benefit of a budget reconciliation bill is its immunity to the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold, allowing leadership to focus solely on acquiring Republican votes. On the one hand, there was the SALT faction. These blue-state Republicans demanded an increase to the cap on state and local tax deductions for their constituents, which allow Americans to deduct their local taxes on their federal tax returns. The SALT faction emerged with a win, as the bill boosted its deduction cap up to $40,000 a year, up from $10,000 in 2024. Then there was the House Freedom Caucus, which exerted pressure on the speaker every step of the way. From the beginning, they made their demands clear: matching new tax cuts to spending cuts to make up for potential revenue losses, ending the subsidization of green energy, and cost-saving reforms of Medicaid. The House was able to perform a balancing act between these and other factions, sending the bill to the Senate before Memorial Day. Left to right: House Freedom Caucus Reps. Chip Roy of Texas, Chairman Andy Harris of Maryland, and Clay Higgins of Louisiana. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images) In the Senate, leadership had a shorter time frame for turning the bill around. Surprisingly, the Senate included new conservative health care provisions, such as capping the health care provider tax—a tool used by states to extract more federal funds. Additionally, the Senate expanded on the House’s tax cuts, making some conservatives in the House nervous about a departure from the House’s insistence on matching tax cuts with spending cuts. On the other hand, the Senate aggressively cut out green energy tax incentives in the big, beautiful bill. Ultimately, there were winners and losers in the Senate. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., voted against it due to the provider tax cap, and subsequently announced he would not be seeking another term when Trump threatened a primary challenge. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., also voted against it due to complaints over its increase to the debt ceiling, and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, voted nay due to its entitlement reforms. Others emerged with wins that ensured it passage, such as Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who voted for the bill after a number of Alaska-related provisions were included, such as a tax deduction for Alaskan whaling captains.  At the end, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., succeeded in getting it across the finish line when Vice President JD Vance’s tie-breaking vote allowed it to pass by a 51-50 margin. The bill then made it over to the House, where, despite significant changes in the Senate that made both moderates and hardliners uneasy, it finally passed on July 3 and was signed into law on Independence Day, July 4. The Shutdown This Congress made history for the wrong reasons this year, too. Democrat demands over health care for illegal aliens and an extension of President Joe Biden’s COVID-19-era increases to premium tax credit levels resulted in the longest federal government shutdown ever. The shutdown spanned 43 days from Oct. 1 to Nov. 12. Republicans, under the leadership of Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., refused to the very end, arguing the subsidies are inflationary, prone to fraud, and prop up a broken system. What ensued was weeks of repeated voting on a government funding stopgap mechanism. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., compared the ordeal to the movie “Groundhog Day,” as Republicans continued to put funding bills on the Senate floor and Democrats continued to reject them. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images) There were many unusual things about this shutdown, though. For one, Johnson decided to keep the House out of session up until the end.  Additionally, Trump’s trolling of Democrats went into overdrive with the president posting artificial intelligence-generated videos of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both D-N.Y., in sombreros demanding health care benefits for illegal immigrants. The shutdown eventually came to an end when a coalition of Democrats agreed to pass a funding package consisting of a clean funding extension combined with a package of appropriations bills and a promise of a vote on extending the premium tax credits. It was soon thereafter passed by the House and sent to the president, ending a shutdown which strained every part of the federal government. An Inconclusive Finish It is an awkward moment for Republicans at the halfway point in this Congress, and especially in the House. Although Democrats eventually gave in to Republicans in the shutdown battle, they did succeed in turning the Capitol’s focus towards the issue of the expiration of premium tax credits. Therefore, it is still an open question who won the messaging battle during the shutdown given the health care emphasis has triggered both parties to propose health care cost solutions to close out the year. Democrats are seldom confronted with the fact that they voted twice—without any Republican support—to have the current health care premium credits expire. But Republicans still need to get a premium-slashing piece of health care legislation to the president’s desk. On Dec. 17, the House passed a health care package by a vote of 216 to 211 that could lower premiums by more than 10%. There are potential signs of unease ahead of the midterm elections. Having been consigned to a background role for the first half of the year, Democrats priorities have now retaken the Capitol Hill spotlight—namely, government subsidized health care. What’s more, House GOP members have started to regularly go behind Johnson’s back to sign on to discharge petitions—a mechanism used to bypass leadership and force consideration of a bill.  Multiple bills have already passed the House after being advanced by petition—a bill to compel the release of files on the now-deceased convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and another restoring federal workers’ union rights. On the Wednesday before Christmas break, a group of moderate Republicans signed on to a petition backed by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., which will force a vote on a three-year extension of the enhanced premium tax credits. In some ways, the House is operating as one would expect it to with such narrow margins. The Republican party is an ideologically diverse coalition, yet leadership has done a relatively effective job of calming intraparty drama up to this point. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. (Heather Diehl/Getty Images) There have also been high-profile announcements of retirements in the House.  The most prominent was Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., once one of Trump’s favorite House members before an ugly falling out. Greene will resign her seat on Jan. 5, 2026. Midterm Madness Heading into 2026, expect affordability to be the top concern on Capitol Hill leading up to the 2026 midterms. On Dec. 17, Trump spoke directly to the American people in a televised speech from the White House, in which he touted the Republicans’ success in slowing inflation, as well as securing the border. The speech followed rallies held by both Trump and Vance in important Pennsylvania swing districts. What comes next is a mystery, but historically, the party in the White House suffers in the midterms. However, there is no clear indication Democrats have mended the fractures in their coalition that were exposed in 2024—which saw Hispanic and Middle Eastern voters shift to the Republican Party, as well as dismal turnout for Democrats from black voters.  Democrats also saw their positions on immigration and transgenderism thoroughly rejected in 2024, while narratives on abortion access and Trump as a threat to democracy did not yield results. Additionally, the House map includes many more Democrat-represented districts won by Trump than Republican-represented districts won by Kamala Harris.  Republicans also have a Senate pickup opportunity in Michigan, where former Rep. Mike Rogers narrowly lost in 2024, as well as in Georgia, where they hope to unseat Democrat Sen. Jon Ossoff. There are also very real Democrat pickup opportunities in Maine and North Carolina. The onus is now on Republicans in Congress to pass popular legislation and effectively counter Democrat messaging.  Should they fail and lose control of one chamber in Congress, the results are predictable: impeachment efforts, congressional investigations of the administration, and an inability to advance conservative legislation. Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell contributed reporting. The post Republicans’ 2025 Rollercoaster Comes to an End. Or Is It Just Beginning? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Daily Signal senior contributor Victor Davis Hanson announced on his popular podcast that he will have a major medical operation this week. His show will continue with co-host Jack Fowler as Hanson recovers. “I’m having a major operation, and I’ve been presented with a serious problem, but I’m going to do all I can to solve it. And that’s all I can do and trust in the power of prayer, and faith—and in a wonderful surgeon,” Hanson said. “I finally ended up going to the best medical center that I know, Stanford Med, and the people there have been absolutely wonderful. It’ll work out one way or the other.” Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Wayne and Marcia Buske distinguished fellow in history at Hillsdale College. He joined The Daily Signal as a senior contributor earlier this year, providing daily video commentaries. His popular podcast, “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” is available four times throughout the week. At the start of Friday’s episode, Hanson announced that he would have an operation Tuesday to address an ongoing health problem. “I don’t want to talk about my own problems, but I’ve had people call me and say, ‘You don’t look well, you’re hoarse, or you’re coughing.’ But it’s been a nine-month odyssey because the problem I had for a nonsmoker and nondrinker was a rare type and very hard to diagnose, so it’s no one’s fault other than my own perhaps for not realizing why I was not getting well,” Hanson said. After recently having a biopsy, Hanson decided to proceed with an operation that will interrupt his work—but hopefully not for long, he said. “I’ll be fine. At least I’ll do my best for everybody,” Hanson said. “I think I have an obligation to all of our readers and listeners from whom I get wonderful letters expressing support and good wishes; our listeners and viewers are extraordinarily kind people.” Fowler noted that Hanson’s legion of fans left hundreds of comments offering their prayers. In addition to his podcast and syndicated column, Hanson writes exclusive content for his website, Blade of Perseus, at victorhanson.com. While he is recovering, Fowler will continue to host the show in Hanson’s absence. The post Victor Davis Hanson: ‘Not Yet and Not Today’ appeared first on The Daily Signal.

As the year draws to a close, Fox News Channel once again dominated its cable news competition—and challenged broadcast networks for ratings supremacy. Leading the way, Fox News’ popular 5 p.m. show, “The Five,” claimed the top spot for the fourth consecutive year. “The Five” averaged 4.1 million viewers in 2025. This year marked the show’s best performance since its 2011 launch. The show features hosts Greg Gutfeld, Dana Perino, Jesse Watters, Jessica Tarlov, and Harold Ford Jr., along with rotating guests, who discuss the day’s top news stories. Not only did “The Five” trounce other cable news shows, but it also beat broadcast programs like CBS’ “Hollywood Squares” and “The Neighborhood” and ABC’s “Who Wants to be a Millionaire.” Overall, Fox News delivered its highest ratings in a non-election year in the channel’s history. It marked the network’s second-best year ever with an average of 3.2 million weekday primetime viewers—beating NBC and rivaling ABC and CBS, even though those networks are more widely available. Throughout the week, average primetime viewership on Fox News reached 2,718,000 viewers, a 14% increase from 2024, according to according to Nielsen Big Data + Panel. EXCLUSIVE: Fox News Scores Record Ratings in 2025 https://t.co/W51i217gbX— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) December 16, 2025 MS Now dropped 25% in 2025, reaching an average of 923,000 primetime viewers. CNN finished down 15% and averaged 580,000 viewers. The decline of its cable news rivals gave Fox News a commanding 64% of the cable news audience in primetime and across the day—its highest audience since since its launch in 1996. Fox News not only dominated on TV but also expanded its reach on YouTube, garnering 4.3 billion views across the platform. These numbers also outpaced MS Now, CNN, NBC, ABC, and CBS, according to Emplifi. “Delivering another record-breaking year, outpacing broadcast networks, and reaching new highs on YouTube is a testament to the strength of our brand and our ability to meet the audience where they are,” Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott said. “I am incredibly proud of our unrivaled team on and off camera, whose journalism, global newsgathering skills and powerful voices continue to set the standard in news and connect with Americans nationwide,” Scott added. The top 1,080 cable news telecasts in 2025 were aired by Fox News. The network also produced the top 12 most-viewed cable news programs: “The Five” “Jesse Watters Primetime” “Hannity” “Special Report with Bret Baier” “Gutfeld!” “The Ingraham Angle” “The Will Cain Show” “Outnumbered” “The Faulkner Focus” “America’s Newsroom” “The Story with Martha MacCallum” “America Reports” Each of the 12 shows had double-digit year-over-year growth with viewers. Fox News also has the most politically diverse audience in cable news, serving as the choice for more Democrat and independent viewers than its competition, according to Nielsen/MRI Fusion. The post Fox News’ ‘The Five’ Is Once Again Cable TV’s Big Winner appeared first on The Daily Signal.

About 70% of Americans said they didn’t have “very much” or any trust that news outlets would fairly cover President Donald Trump’s second term, according to a YouGov poll. Media Research Center found that 92% of the major network media coverage of Trump during his first 100 days in office was negative. As Trump’s second administration nears its one year anniversary, here are five stories about the president’s achievements that you won’t find in legacy media coverage. 1. Pardoning the FACE Act Prisoners On Jan. 23, Trump pardoned the 23 pro-lifers who were convicted for actions including praying outside abortion clinics and encouraging women in unplanned pregnancies to choose life. “They should not have been prosecuted. Many of them are elderly people. They should not have been prosecuted,” the president said. The predecessor Biden-Harris administration’s Justice Department had brought criminal or civil cases under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act against at least 50 pro-life advocates. Twenty-three were convicted. Ten were released from prison after the pardons. The Daily Signal spoke to several of the pardoned pro-life advocates, who thanked the president for setting them free. “I’m very thankful to the Lord to be pardoned and to get back into the fight against baby-murdering and to serve the Lord and to be with my family,” Calvin Zastrow, 64, told The Daily Signal. “I really believe that President Trump saved my life,” Paulette Harlow, 75, told The Daily Signal. “Because if I had ever gone to prison, I don’t think I would have made it. And I certainly would not have been able to have my back surgeries and everything that I needed to have and have taken care of.” 2. Expanding the Mexico City Policy On Jan. 24, President Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy after President Joe Biden rescinded it. The State Department announced in October that it was working to expand the scope of the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars for foreign abortions. “The department will soon take additional steps to close loopholes that allowed taxpayer funding for promotion of abortion in previous iterations of the Mexico City Policy and expand the scope of the policy to ensure every penny of U.S. foreign assistance prioritizes American values, not the woke agenda,” a senior State Department official told The Daily Signal. The expanded policy will prohibit U.S. funding for gender ideology, and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. For example, the State Department is ending a $2 million grant to fund gender-affirming operations in Guatemala. The new provision restricts a broader range of nongovernmental organization programming, such as those for HIV/AIDS, President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, maternal and child health, nutrition, and infectious diseases like malaria and tuberculosis. This scope of the policy will apply across all non-military foreign assistance. Trump also renewed America’s membership in the Geneva Consensus Declaration, a 40-nation coalition of countries that declare that there is no international right to abortion. 3. Classifying Transgender Procedures for Kids as Human Rights Violations As of November, the State Department is classifying “destructive ideologies” formerly promoted by the Biden administration in the United States as human rights violations. The State Department’s annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices will now account for transgender procedures for minors, DEI hiring, attacks on free speech, and state-funded abortions, a State Department official told The Daily Signal. The State Department submits Human Rights Reports on all countries receiving assistance and all United Nations member states to Congress in accordance with the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Trade Act of 1974. Member states will be required to count the number of abortions taking place in their countries, and they will be denounced for funding abortions or the distribution of drugs which end an unborn baby’s life. 4. Ending Taxpayer-Funded Abortions for Illegal Migrant Children The Department of Health and Human Services is moving to roll back a Biden-era regulation that allows taxpayer dollars to pay for unaccompanied illegal alien children in the U.S. to travel to get abortions, The Daily Signal first reported. HHS is cleaning up the Biden administration regulation so that it is in compliance with the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits taxpayer funding for abortions, HHS officials told The Daily Signal.  “HHS is reviewing the relevant regulations and guidance to ensure they align with all applicable laws, including the Hyde Amendment,” an HHS official told The Daily Signal in a statement. On Nov. 10, 2022, the Biden administration proposed the “Unaccompanied Children Program Foundational Rule,” which required the Office of Refugee Resettlement to “ensure unaccompanied children have access to medical care, including transportation across state lines and associated ancillary services if necessary to access appropriate medical services, including access to medical specialists, family planning services, and medical services requiring heightened ORR involvement.” The Biden rule violates the Hyde Amendment, the 1976 law prohibiting the use of federal funds to pay for most abortions, according to a July memorandum of opinion from Trump’s Office of Legal Counsel, a branch of the Department of Justice.  Now, the Department of Health and Human Services is undergoing the task of challenging a final rule on a topic with a history of court precedent.  5. Upgrading Human Trafficking Hotline The Trump administration has chosen a new provider to run its human trafficking hotline after complaints that the Biden administration’s provider failed to answer calls from victims, The Daily Signal first reported. HHS’ Administration for Children and Families announced a five-year, projected $35 million grant to Compass Connections to run the National Human Trafficking Hotline. HHS received complaints from victims and state attorneys general that with the previous provider under the Biden administration, wait times were too long, calls were dropped, and victims could not rely on the hotline to deliver the necessary quality of service. “State attorneys general were telling us that third-party tips were not getting delivered to law enforcement, so their investigations into human trafficking were hindered,” acting Administration for Children and Families Assistant Secretary Andrew Gradison told The Daily Signal, “and they had a much harder time getting criminals off the streets of human trafficking, to get information where it needs to go on time in an accurate way, so that law enforcement can make arrests and end human trafficking.” The award includes an increase of $1 million annually and will bring annual funding to $7 million, showing Trump’s commitment to protecting survivors of human trafficking, according to Gradison. This article was originally published Dec. 27, 2025. The post 5 Trump Moves From 2025 You Didn’t Hear About From Legacy Media appeared first on The Daily Signal.

For millions of Venezuelans, Cubans, and Nicaraguans living in South Florida, the question is no longer whether change will come to their homelands, but when—and at what cost. As United States pressure intensifies on Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, the potential collapse of one regime could reshape the future of all three. The U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean has exposed Venezuela’s role in the drug trade contributing to 100,000 American deaths annually since 2021. But at minimum, Cuba is an enabler, providing thousands of intelligence, military, and other security “advisors” to Venezuela and despot Daniel Ortega’s government in Nicaragua. Cuba also exports its doctors to Venezuela and other countries, selling their forced services (aka “modern day slavery”) for billions of dollars in foreign exchange. As brought to light in recent days with the U.S. seizure of a sanctioned tanker on its way to Cuba, Venezuela also sends cheap oil to its two allies to keep those regimes in power. The three regimes, under a banner of faux socialism, are actually a criminal alliance of entitled groups of civilian and military elite profiting from greed. Researcher Juan Antonio Blanco calls the criminal element in Cuba a “modern day mafia” holding billions of dollars in secret accounts during a time when Cuba blames the U.S. embargo on a financing shortfall for annual food imports. Human rights atrocities and collapsed living conditions have systematically erased any lingering public support for Fidel Castro’s Marxist-Leninist Cuban policies, the “21st century” Venezuela socialism of Hugo Chavez, and Ortega’s Sandinista revolution. Not surprisingly, along with Haiti, the three countries have the highest rates of extreme poverty in the hemisphere. According to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, the faux socialist “triad” of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela share a common tactical playbook: harassment of religious communities, legal obstruction, favoritism toward certain religious groups, and closure of civic space. U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom says they are among “the most flagrant violators of religious freedom worldwide” and international observers say the violations amount to “crimes against humanity.” The regimes’ motive for these abuses? Faith leaders and churches, who defend human rights and democracy, are far more respected than these corrupt government leaders—as such, the regimes feel compelled to silence their voices. These regimes continue to thumb their noses at religious rights advocates. On Dec. 10, Venezuela detained Cardinal Baltazar Porras, a staunch regime critic, and banned him from leaving the country. The next day, in Cuba, a Mexican priest, Father José Ramírez, who led feeding programs for senior citizens, was expelled from the country after he rang church bells in solidarity with community members protesting intolerable living conditions. In Nicaragua, the Ortega government crushes freedom of religion, imprisoning and deporting Catholic and evangelical leaders, confiscating their schools and other property, and shutting down over 2,000 faith-based organizations. The Venezuela regime’s days may be numbered, and with it may go Cuba’s junta as it runs out of regional supporters. As well, last month the U.S. Trade Office surveyed stakeholders on a proposal to eject Nicaragua from the U.S. trade agreement with Central America, CAFTA-DR, possibly in early 2026. A forced exit could be a deathblow to Daniel Ortega’s tenuous relationship with Nicaragua’s business community. In the unlikely scenario that Maduro survives the next few months, Venezuela should be added to the U.S. Department of State’ list of Countries of Particular Concern for its “systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom,” joining Cuba and Nicaragua on the list since 2022. My organization, Outreach Aid to the Americas, has defended religious freedom and provided for the humanitarian needs of persecuted peoples in the region, working through our extensive faith community networks, for more than 30 years. While we promote peacebuilding and non-violent solutions, we recognize the tragedy of totalitarian rule in these three countries and the regimes’ firm lock on power. As such, we fully stand by tougher measures to end these criminal operations and restore democracy and essential human rights for the people of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. Originally published by The Washington Stand. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post If Change Is Inevitable in Venezuela, Will Cuba and Nicaragua Soon Follow? appeared first on The Daily Signal.