Was 2025 the End of ‘Teflon Trump’?

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Opinions

Episode: Was 2025 the End of ‘Teflon Trump’?
Date: December 20, 2025
Panelists: Michelle Cottle (host), David French, Jamelle Bouie

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Episode Overview

This episode, the last roundtable of 2025, features Michelle Cottle, David French, and Jamelle Bouie reflecting on what may be the waning days of “Teflon Trump.” They discuss Trump’s latest speech on the economy, the overall political and social climate of 2025, underreported stories, and what gives them hope for the future. The conversation is rich with insight, sharp critiques, and the panel’s characteristic blend of seriousness and wit.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Trump “Economic” Speech: A Primal Scream

Timestamps: 01:45 – 08:13

• General Impression:
  Trump’s address is described as less a policy speech and more a harangue or “primal scream” of frustration. The panel notes the overwhelming use of false claims and performative, grievance-laden rhetoric.

  • David French: “It was less an address than a harangue…hard to identify anything that was, like, true. He's throwing out all these statistics…none…are true.” (02:12)
  • Jamelle Bouie: “I would call it banana Republic flavored Soviet propaganda…” (03:30)

• Performance & Audience Response:
  The panel speculates that Trump’s staff simply wants to keep him “busy,” giving him a speech to perform without clear strategic objectives.

  • Michelle Cottle: “I mean, are you just suggesting they're trying to keep grandpa busy?” (06:15)
  • David French: “I think they're trying to keep grandpa busy and this is one way to do it.” (06:18)

• Racism & Scapegoating:
  Trump’s attacks on the Somali American community of Minnesota are called out as crude, dangerous, and “unbecoming of the office of the presidency.” The panel notes his strategy of taking a real issue and weaponizing it into broad-based hate.

  • David French: “It’s really worth emphasizing the kind of just crude and base racism of these attacks…truly unbecoming of the office of the presidency.” (06:18)
  • Jamelle Bouie: “He takes a real thing that actually occurred that is a problem and then turns it into something else entirely…injecting this incredibly toxic hatred into the body politic.” (07:12)

2. Trump’s Economic Record & Governance

Timestamps: 08:13 – 12:34

• Economic Reality vs. Rhetoric:
  The panel breaks down the disconnect between Trump's self-promotion and economic indicators—unemployment is up, wage growth has slowed, and tariffs are hurting.

  • Michelle Cottle: “He hasn't actually made a great case to anybody who hasn't already been drinking the Kool aid that he has rescued the economy.” (08:13)

• Checked-Out Leadership & The “Unitary Deputy”
  Discussion about Trump’s disengagement from governance, resulting in unaccountable aides wielding power without democratic checks.

  • David French: “We don't have so much like a unitary executive as we do have like a unitary deputy White House chief of staff.” (09:39)
  • Michelle Cottle: “Oh my God. The deep state is quite literally running the government.” (09:57)

3. 2025 in Review: A Year of Rule-of-Law Onslaught

Timestamps: 12:34 – 16:58

• Yearly Ratings:
  The panel rates 2025 poorly—a 2 or 3 out of 10, citing political chaos and assaults on democratic norms, but noting it could have been worse.

  • David French: “This year is pretty solidly at 2. Obviously not the worst possible, but…pretty bad, you know, pretty suboptimal.” (12:52)
  • Jamelle Bouie: “I'm gonna go maybe slightly higher…a three. But…the thing that we're going to look back on…is…the Trump onslaught on the rule of law.” (13:06)

• Erosion of Institutions:
  They warn about the future consequences of attacking the civil service and slashing foreign aid (e.g., USAID), which is already costing lives and will have lasting impacts.

  • David French: “The destruction of USAID is, I mean, I think one of the great tragedies of recent memory. Researchers are already expecting…death tolls in the hundreds of thousands…” (14:14)

• Healthcare in Crisis:
  Immediate effects seen in ongoing cuts to Medicaid and Obamacare subsidies, representing a deep misreading of public needs.

  • Michelle Cottle: “The assault on healthcare…is just a devastating, just misreading of the American public and what it needs.” (15:04)

4. Under-the-Radar Stories

Timestamps: 16:58 – 20:42

• Culture of Intimidation:
  Not enough attention has been paid to the climate of fear pervading government—judiciary, Congress, and especially at the local level. Threats and intimidation are now a routine tool to enforce Trump’s will.

  • Jamelle Bouie: “The atmosphere of threat that pervades now the judiciary as well as Congress…all of American politics was distorted by fear in this moment…” (16:58)
  • David French: “The extent to which one of the enforcement mechanisms for Trumpism is just death threats…we're going to look back and identify this as one of the key mechanisms behind Trump's control over the entire Republican Party.” (18:24)

• Private Sector Meddling & AI Regulation:
  Concerns about Trump’s interference in the private sector and the shortsighted squashing of AI regulation at the state level.

  • Michelle Cottle: “I could bring up my kind of personal terror of AI and say that his executive order stomping on states efforts to kind of step back and think about regulation for this strikes me as just shortsighted.” (19:33)

5. Is the “Teflon” Wearing Off?

Timestamps: 20:42 – 24:56

• Political Gravity Returns:
  Despite Trump’s previous seeming immunity to consequences ("Teflon"), political norms and “gravity” are reasserting themselves as his popularity wanes and resistance inside and outside the GOP grows.

  • David French: “The Teflon Trump thing seems to maybe apply during election years or…when he is on the ballot…outside of that, people don't like this stuff.” (20:52)
  • Jamelle Bouie: “The silver lining…is…majority revulsion at what we're seeing…people have seen that this era will, in fact, end.” (21:34)

• Limitations of Executive Orders:
  The reliance on executive orders rather than legislation may actually make most Trump initiatives easy to unwind in the next administration.

  • Jamelle Bouie: “By coming out of the gate with an executive order agenda…they have turned a lot of the actual legal elements of Trumpism into vaporware…” (24:17)

6. Looking Ahead & Personal Resolutions

Timestamps: 25:36 – 28:09

• Each shares optimistic resolutions for the new year:
  • Jamelle Bouie: “Move more than the year before.” (25:56)
  • David French: Aims to continue improving healthy habits, e.g., “a little less sugar.” (26:41)
  • Michelle Cottle: Plans to get more involved with a local charity or nonprofit. (27:32)

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Memorable Quotes & Notable Moments

• On Trump’s Address:
  “It was about an 18 minute version of the one to one and a half hour riff that Trump does when he's at a rally.” — Jamelle Bouie (04:23)

• On Rule-of-Law Damage:
  “We're going to pay some real prices and people are already paying the price with their lives for the cuts to USAID, for example. And…the tail end effect of a lot of that is we're not even close to experiencing it yet.” — Jamelle Bouie (13:25)

• On Fear & Intimidation:
  “It seems to not be taken as seriously as what it is…Republican lawmakers are just being threatened with violence to themselves and to their families if they don't fall in line.” — David French (18:24)

• On Teflon Trump’s End:
  “The Teflon Trump thing…outside of [election years], people don't like this stuff.” — David French (20:52)
  “The knowledge that this era will, in fact end means…you’re going to start to see some…alternatives peeking out.” — Jamelle Bouie (21:34)

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Recommendations & Cultural Notes

Timestamps: 28:09 – 31:51

• The group fondly remembers director Rob Reiner, recommending:

  • A Few Good Men for its timely critique of the ends-justify-the-means defense of brutality. (David French, 28:12)
  • The Princess Bride and This is Spinal Tap, recalling their wholesome qualities, wit, and cultural longevity. (Jamelle Bouie, 29:44; 30:38)
  • When Harry Met Sally—Michelle’s all-time favorite. (Michelle Cottle, 31:10)

• “Spinal Tap gives us the quote for this podcast that is the most useful during the Trump era: ‘This goes to 11.’” — Michelle Cottle (30:58)

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Episode Flow & Tone

The conversation is critical and sobering, but leavened with humor and cultural references. The panel’s frustration with Trump’s presidency is clear, yet so is their hope in possible renewal. Their language remains direct, at times sardonic, and always deeply informed.

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For Those Who Missed It

This episode offers a comprehensive, candid diagnosis of the state of American politics at the end of 2025—Trump’s fading “Teflon” act, the damage done to institutions, and a public no longer buying the old narratives. The hosts urge vigilance against intimidation and racism, lament deep policy failures, but close by encouraging engagement and anticipating that, even after “going to 11,” political normalcy may slowly return.

Transcript

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[Podcast Host Intro/Outro]

This is the Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times opinion. You've heard the news, here's what to make of it.

[Michelle Cottle]

I'm Michelle Cottle. I cover national politics for New York Times Opinion. This week, as usual, I am joined by my delightful colleagues, David French and Jamelle Bouie. Guys, how you doing?

[David French]

Hello. Hello.

[Michelle Cottle]

This is our last roundtable of the year. How are we feeling about saying bye bye to 2025?

[David French]

Glad to see it gone. See you later, you son of a bitch.

[Michelle Cottle]

Okay. Okay. Got spicy, David.

[Jamelle Bouie]

You know, I don't know.

[Michelle Cottle]

Are you gonna miss it?

[Jamelle Bouie]

So, as the elderly grandfather in this group, I have found that, like, wishing away time is, like, not my thing anymore. So I'll be Sad to see 2025 slide in the rearview mirror, though I will not be sad that a lot of the events of 2025 are over. No question about it. And then we're rolling into an election year, so can it get.

[Michelle Cottle]

It's gonna be calm.

[Jamelle Bouie]

It's gonna be calm.

[Michelle Cottle]

Peaceful.

[Jamelle Bouie]

Yeah. It's gonna be chill. Chill is the word that I'm looking for. Absolutely.

[Michelle Cottle]

Well, speaking of magical political events, did we all watch Trump's speech last night? Because that's what I want to talk about, the economic state of the country as des. From my perspective, that really looked more like a primal scream than a presidential address. But I kind of want you guys to get in there first, give me some initial thoughts. Did anything surprise you? What struck you about this whole thing?

[David French]

I mean, nothing surprising. I will say, as per your first comment, Michelle, that it was less in the dress than a harangue. And I did find myself sort of like. I mean, I think I'm coming down with the cold, first of all. So a combination of my sinuses are a little stuffy. And then the President's like, for 20.

[Michelle Cottle]

Minutes straight through the cold medicine. Did you.

[David French]

It was sort of like. It was jarring. It was striking. I mean, the thing about that address is that it's hard to identify anything that was, like, true. He's throwing out all of these statistics, all of these numbers, and none of them are true.

[Michelle Cottle]

There were charts, Jamel, he had charts. Come on.

[David French]

Statistics and damn statistics. He was throwing out charts. But he's making these claims about inflation that aren't true, making these claims, claims about ways for it that aren't true, making these claims about costs that aren't true. Just a torrent of falsehoods, you know, all clearly coming from a place of deep frustration that he isn't as popular and well beloved as he believes he should be. Which on the one hand is a sign that something of reality is penetrating this White House. On the other hand, it's clear that they have no sense of how to respond to that.

[Michelle Cottle]

David.

[Jamelle Bouie]

So I would call it banana Republic flavored Soviet propaganda, because, you know, this.

[Michelle Cottle]

Is, you've been waiting hours to pull that one out. Having you've been workshopping that all morning.

[Jamelle Bouie]

It did well in the focus groups, Michelle, I just have to say, but you know, if you go back and you remember Soviet propaganda in the 70s and the 80s, the five year plan, it is working. The five year plan always was working. Everything is always going so well. They are going on to greater and higher achievements. And so you always had this like presentation of relentless forward momentum. And then the reason why I say banana Republic flavored it was filtered through this sort of demagogic figure who essentially, and not without some justification, believes that he can basically talk his way out of anything, that if you just get me in front of the American people, I'll fix this affordability thing. Get me in front of the American people, I'll fix this political decline. And so here he is coming in with that Trump personality with that Soviet level economic propaganda. And that's why we kind of looked at it like, what did we just see? It was about an 18 minute version of the one to one and a half hour riff that Trump does when he's at a rally.

[Michelle Cottle]

Well, that's one of the things that sort of struck me is like the morning after coverage of this, somebody who was in the room, some, some media person who's in the room was saying that Trump looked to Susie Wiles and asked how he did his chief of staff and she's like, well, I told you 20 minutes and you are spot on. So well done. So I got the sense that they had handed him this thing and told him to keep it short, but he just kept finding things to complain about. I mean, the title of this, as best I could tell, was screw you all you whiners. The economy's great. And if it's not, blame Biden. I mean, like, that was it just again and again and hate the immigrants. So I am just not sure what they're hoping to accomplish with that other than maybe to increase the calls for him to get another cognitive assessment. But I thought it was pretty magical.

[David French]

I really, I think the aim is just to give him something to do, right? Like you put him out there to give this 20 minute harangue and then you tell him it was great and everyone loved it and this will turn things around and then he just goes back to, you know, going to his clubs and, you know, hanging out in the Oval Office. But it's not clear to me that this is meant to serve a particular objective. Right. Like it's not going to reverse any fortunes for the President.

[Michelle Cottle]

I mean, are you just suggesting they're trying to keep grandpa busy?

[David French]

I think they're trying to keep grandpa busy and this is one way to do it. I want to say quick, just you mentioned that he kind of went off on immigrants. I do feel the need to mention that part of this was a brief but really disturbing attack on the Somali American community of Minnesota, which has been a particular obsession of his over the past couple weeks. And I think it's really worth emphasizing the kind of just crude and base racism of these attacks. This is sort of the worst kind of, of demagogic language, the worst kind of assaults on people's dignity. And it's really unbecoming. I mean, this feels like an understatement, but it's truly unbecoming of the office of the presidency. And it's a dangerous thing to come from the office of the presidency.

[Jamelle Bouie]

I will say this about Trump that is particularly insidious about the Somali issue is, okay, look, you had an actual, a lot of really good reporting recently about fraud in the Somali community. That is a problem. It's a real thing that really occurred that is actually a problem. But this is what Trump does, is he takes a real thing that actually occurred that is a problem and then turns it into something else entirely. And then he uses that as a pretext to engineer a wave of hatred against an entire group of people that then gets picked up and amplified and amplified to the point where it is now a common sight to just see across, you know, sort of this right wing Internet, the hatred and mockery of Somalis writ large. And this is just what he does on issue after issue after issue. He latches onto an actual problem that people are worried about, but then injecting this incredibly toxic hatred into the body politic.

[Michelle Cottle]

Well, for all of his self pitying, whining and complaining, he hasn't actually made a great case to anybody who hasn't already been drinking the Kool aid that he has rescued the economy. I mean, also we got job reports and inflation numbers. There was not good news for the November job report. Unemployment rate was the highest we've had in four years. Wage growth has slowed now. Inflation has unexpectedly fallen. But even Susie Wiles in her very juicy Vanity Fair piece this month has been saying that the tariffs were even more painful than she expected. So all of this is not like a glowing testimony to Trump's, what was it, a self graded economy. So what does he need to do? I mean, we can't just keep grandpa busy. Grandpa needs to do something, right?

[David French]

I mean, part of it. So I wrote this week about how we have this strange confluence of a largely checked out president. I think you can fairly describe Trump as checked out from the business of governance and a court that's sort of larrating the presidency up with a ton of authority and power they didn't have before. But in practice, what these two things mean is that we don't have so much like a unitary executive as we do have like a unitary deputy White House chief of staff.

[Michelle Cottle]

Right.

[David French]

Like we that all of the authority that the presidency has is being exercised by people who are not the president and who are largely unaccountable to anything, the political winds. And you can kind of just pursue their own narrow ideological or political goals. It's the deep state using the president's authority. Right?

[Michelle Cottle]

Oh my God. The deep state is quite literally running the government.

[David French]

The deep state. And so that's the, to answer your question, you know, what does the president need to be doing? Well, a president who were actually running his administration might say and knows that to turn around my approval, I have to turn around the economy, might first of all back off on the tariffs. That's probably item number one. But then it might also go to say, Stephen Miller and say we got to cut out this deportation stuff because that removing a ton of labor from the economy is going to cause inflation. Right. Might go over to Ros Vought and say we got to kind of calm down this trying to destroy the bureaucratic state because firing a bunch of people is taking money out of the economy and creating all this regulatory uncertainty. It's bad for the economy. He tried to get a corral his. I've been calling them viziers. So I'll use that here corral his viziers into doing things a little less tailored to their own particular interests. Because he isn't really governing, and because these people are largely autonomous of the president in terms of how their actions go, none of that can happen. Right. There's not going to be any pullback on the deportations, even if this ends up providing a significant blow to the national labor market.

[Michelle Cottle]

David, you got anything before I regrettably let this go?

[Jamelle Bouie]

I think the basic reality is we have a really mixed economy right now. There is an enormous amount of AI spending that is fueling a GDP increase. We've had some pretty high, pretty good GDP numbers. At the same time, we have highest unemployment we've had in around four years. We had an unexpected dip in inflation, but we've had some real problems with inflation in the very recent past. He has implemented tariffs to try to reshore manufacturing, but manufacturing jobs are diminishing. So it's this very mixed picture. And I think the reality is, and it's one thing that folks learn every few years, is it's very, very difficult to spin the economy to people because they live in it. You can spin a lot of things, but it's really hard over time to convince people that things are great when maybe they're fine or not fine. And, you know, like, this is something that the Biden campaign and the Harris campaign's learned, is that, yeah, it was bad. You can't fact check people out of their experience. So I think Trump's gonna run into the same thing the Biden folks ran into, which is it's very hard over time to spin the economy.

[Michelle Cottle]

Oh, well, moving on from this, I do want us to get big picture and look back at the year overall. First, I'm going to give you an easy one on scale of one to ten. One being a dumpster fire, ten being a joyride at Disney. Where does this year fall for you?

[David French]

I mean, I'd say this year is pretty solidly. I mean, in terms of politics, this year is pretty solidly at 2. Obviously not the worst possible, but can always be worse, but pretty bad, you know, pretty suboptimal.

[Michelle Cottle]

David?

[Jamelle Bouie]

Yeah, I'm gonna go maybe slightly higher just because I think maybe my basement of what a one means might be very. Is very, very low. So I might go for a three. But, you know, what would a.

[Michelle Cottle]

What would a one be for you? It was like we were actually in a shooting war.

[Jamelle Bouie]

Fort Sumter. Fort Sumter's the one.

[Michelle Cottle]

Okay. Okay.

[Jamelle Bouie]

Yeah, one's good. Yeah, that's your one. Yeah. So if Fort Sumter is your one and V E Day is your 10, then, you know, we're heading more towards, say, a three. But I think the, that the thing that we're going to look back on on 2025 isn't for any one specific scandal. It's going to be for the totality of the Trump onslaught on the rule of law. But also I think you're going to have a lot of tail end consequences for his assault on the civil service, his assault on usaid. We're going to pay some real prices and people are already paying the price with their lives for the cuts to usaid, for example. And I think the tail end effect of a lot of that is we're not even close to experiencing it yet.

[David French]

I very much agree with that. We've arguably gotten somewhat lucky this year that there haven't been any particular big external crises facing the United States. But the kind of damage done to the civil service, kind of damage done to the federal bureaucracy, to agencies whose job it is basically to help the United States handle acute crises, I think it suggests that should we have something like that in the next year or two years, we're going to experience it in a much worse way than we would have without Trump. And then the destruction of USAID is, I mean, I think one of the great tragedies of recent memory. Right? Researchers are already expecting or estimating death tolls in the hundreds of thousands of people because Donald Trump and Elon Musk destroyed this agency for no particular reason, just did it to do it.

[Michelle Cottle]

Well, you guys actually have already preempted what was gonna be my next question, which is what do you think is one of the moves that'll have the biggest impact going forward? And I was in fact going to bring up PEPFAR and USAID global perspective. So you beat me to the punch. I am thinking that the assault on healthcare, which they're gonna continue the fight, Congress is gonna continue its fight on into the new year, is gon to have some immediate effects. It's not just the slashing of Medicaid, it's letting the Obamacare subsidies expire. I mean, people already have a hard time affording their health care. I think that this was just a devastating, just misreading of the American public and what it needs. Oh, and I have to go with a three if we're gonna go ranking just because I thought the year was gonna be much, much, much. I actually thought there would be more external problems or I thought that there would be more violence that broke out in the country because I saw the unleashing of the National Guard on American cities and just all of these kind of abuses as having worse repercussions than they did. Now, this suggests that I am a very dark and negative person in my expectations, but I'm just saying. Okay, so I wanna switch now just slightly and say, were there any under the radar stories that you wish had gotten more attention? And I realize we're talking about a president who manages to get saturation coverage and widespread attention every time he burps or naps, but was there anything that you wanna throw out there that bothered you and you just don't think it got quite enough play?

[Jamelle Bouie]

I'm going to say that we don't focus enough. And this might sound weird to people because we've heard a lot of conversation about it kind of off and on of the atmosphere of threat that pervades now the judiciary as well as Congress, as well as essentially state and local governments when you defy Trump. We've seen stories about the experience of Indiana Senate Republicans who defied Trump on redistricting.

[Michelle Cottle]

Way to step up, guys.

[Jamelle Bouie]

Oh, I know. And then subjected to this wave of harassment and intimidation. And I honestly think that we're going to look back on this moment and recognize the extent to which all of American politics was distorted by fear in this moment and the extent to which MAGA at a very grassroots level was constructed in large part through the use of fear. It is still underappreciated as a central factor in American politics. And we don't like to think about it and talk about it because we don't like to think that that's what American politics is like. We think of American politics as about debate and dialogue and discussion and compromise. Not fear, threat, intimidation. But I honestly think that pervasive sense of intimidation and threat is still a not sufficiently understood part of our politics.

[Michelle Cottle]

Jamal.

[David French]

I mean, I think that's right. I don't know if I have a. Under sort of covered story or anything from the year. I think I might actually just second David's here that like the extent to which one of the enforcement mechanisms for Trumpism is just death threats, people levying credible death threats against you if you decide to speak up for your own interests, buck the party line, what have you. And the thing is that Republicans have spoken about this before. Mitt Romney spoke about it. Lisa Murkowski recently this year, I think spoke to it. It's not as if this isn't in the air, but it seems to not be taken as seriously as what it is. Right?

[Jamelle Bouie]

Yeah.

[David French]

The Republican lawmakers are just being threatened with violence to themselves and to their families if they don't fall in line. And I think David's right to say that we're going to look back and identify this as one of the key mechanisms behind Trump's control over the entire Republican Party.

[Michelle Cottle]

So now I'm torn. Do I go really small bore or do I just talk about my vague concerns about how much Trump has been meddling in the private sector and bullying media organizations and, you know, grabbing shares of companies for the government and playing favorites and just generally trying to exert his will on private actors? You know, I've been struck by how much we just kind of nod and are like, oh, yeah, okay, that's totally normal. I'm sure it's fine. So, like, I could go very well generic like that, or I could bring up my kind of personal terror of AI and say that his executive order stomping on states efforts to kind of step back and think about regulation for this strikes me as just shortsighted. But, I mean, when isn't he shortsighted? I guess. Okay, so I got both of those in there. So there you have it.

[David French]

You.

[Michelle Cottle]

Is there anything more like a silver lining that you see as we exit this crazy year? You know what, what has made you hopeful?

[David French]

The clear political silver lining, to me at least, is that like, yeah, politics are still occurring. Right. Like political gravity still exists and voters are reacting the way you would expect them to react to an unpopular administration during unpopular actions. There isn't like the Teflon Trump thing seems to maybe apply during election years or when he specifically when he is on the ballot running for. But outside of that, people don't like this stuff. And that, to me, is the silver lining that we're probably going to see next year. A very standard thermostatic reaction to the president and the depth of the president unpopularity will determine just how large that is.

[Jamelle Bouie]

Yeah, I mean, the silver lining, I think, is pretty transparently the majority revulsion at what we're seeing. And we really are looking at a situation where with the out the kind of weird, unique appeal of Trump, but with all of the things that repel people from Trump in operation, it does seem like there is at least some thought that we're turning the page and that there is some evidence. Let's go back to Indiana Senate Republicans. I don't know that that happens even four months ago, even, you know, three months ago, that there's that kind of Defiance. But I think people have seen that this era will, in fact, end. And the knowledge that this era will, in fact end means that you're going to start to see some alternatives peeking out, you know, some green shoots of some alternatives.

[Michelle Cottle]

I think you're right that it has that. What we needed was for the public to feel like there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Or even if you're talking about people in kind of Trump's own circles, the Republicans on the Hill or whatever, they were buying into the idea that there's just nothing you can do and this is gonna last forever, even though they know that's not true. So what has happened is quack, quack, quack, the guy's a lame duck. He's not gonna be at the top of the ticket anymore. You know, gravity, political gravity, is beginning to reassert itself in terms of, you gotta start planning for the next. You have this confluence of events, and every time Trump opens his mouth, out comes all this crazy stuff, but also behind it, I can hear the quack, quack, quack.

[David French]

I mean, this speech that he gave yesterday was a lame duck speech. I mean, it's sort of the kind of almost impotent thing that presidents on their last legs do. Well, let me see if I can't convince them to get behind me with one last go of it on the stump. And they can't. They never can. And so, I mean, the thing that's interesting to think about, interesting, you know, ominous, I don't know, is that there's still three more years of this, right? So what is. To me, it feels like they kind of burned themselves out this first year. Kind of a maximal attempt to do everything. And as the pushback has gotten stronger, as the electoral defeats begin to mount, they have one of two choices, which is either pull back and try to consolidate what they've achieved or continue, you know, with this, you know, full spectrum attack. And I think they're going to try to do the latter. And I just don't think that that's sustainable through another year, politically or otherwise.

[Jamelle Bouie]

You know, the smarter people in MAGA are already recognizing that by coming out of the gate with an executive order agenda as opposed to a legislative agenda, they have turned a lot of the actual legal elements of Trumpism into vaporware, because executive orders, on the hierarchy of American law, executive orders, rank near the bottom. There's a reason why we don't talk about FDR's Social Security executive order. I mean, that's. Or the Medicare executive order.

[Michelle Cottle]

No Trump doesn't really want to be president, David. He wants to be king. He wants to make decrees.

[David French]

And I think that was very much the appeal of the executive order. As, as David points out, though, there's a real chance that come 2029, right. Not that far away. Come 2029, there's a democratic president who wipes away all these executive orders. There's Democratic Congresses that pass laws that try to push back on what Trump did, and then Trump himself, depending on how things go, may end up presiding over a lot of failure. And so far from being this triumph, Trump ends up being this real albatross for the Republican Party. I'm saying that both as sort of like, oh, this could happen, and also sort of like, insh, this shall happen. So.

[Michelle Cottle]

Nice. Nice. All right, so it's, you know, as we're wheeling into 2026, do you have any resolutions or goals you want to share?

[Jamelle Bouie]

You know, we used to, as a family, have a very sort of formalized New Year's resolution process, and we still often do it. We'll gather at a Waffle House on New Year's Day.

[Michelle Cottle]

Oh, hell, yes. Waffle House.

[Jamelle Bouie]

Yep. So gather at a Waffle House on New Year's Day and walk through, or sometimes Waffle Houses in Chicago. Well, that's our problem. No, I have not found one. Or sometimes late on New Year's Eve, we'll be at the Waffle House. And I have pared down my resolutions year by year by year to the point where I now have one every year for the last five years. It's the same resolution. I've been able to keep it, and it is move more than the year before. In other words, more exercise, more steps, more whatever. Move more than the year before. And so, because I've just seen, I'm gonna steal that. Yeah, it's attainable and it's healthy. And, yeah, so that's my annual resolution.

[Michelle Cottle]

Chamele.

[David French]

I do not do resolutions. It's never been a thing that I've really been into. I'm always much more of the type that there are things I want to accomplish, and I'm going to accomplish them this year. And that's how it's going to be. I mean, I. I'm always up for trying to maintain and improve good habits. Like, one thing, I'll say one resolution is just sort of like, I have a pretty healthy diet, but sort of like, there are things that could improve about it. I could probably stand to eat a little less sugar, that kind of thing. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna aim for that.

[Michelle Cottle]

But it just makes me feel guilty.

[David French]

I have a very, I, I'm sure I've mentioned this before. Both my parents were in the military and I just have a very kind of like, I've, I've was raised with and continue to have a very kind of like, oh, I have a task, I gotta do it, it's gonna get done kind of approach to life.

[Michelle Cottle]

I do do resolutions. I am just that kind of fond of a good gimmick. I have been trying to find a local organization, charity, nonprofit, whatever to get involved with this year. Not just donate to financially, but to get in there, spend some time with the community. So that is my goal. I have looked into a few, but still on this, if people out there have a good recommendation in the DC area, hit me with it before we go. Okay, give me one more rec for the year. This is it. Last chance. Top rec.

[Jamelle Bouie]

Oh, top rec for the year.

[David French]

Top recommendation for the year. I don't have a top recommendation for the year. I'll say. Michelle and I did a little roundtable on the career of Rob Reiner, who died this week. And so let me recommend a film from that remarkable run he had from basically the early to mid-1980s to the early 1990s. I watched and this isn't gonna be like a surprise pick, right? I watched A few good men two nights ago and I hadn't seen it in about 10 years. And that is a picture, that is a movie. It hits all the pleasure centers of a good Hollywood movie. But I have to say Jack Nicholson's performance, and obviously his climactic courtroom scene is endlessly parodied, endlessly referenced. But I recommend just watching it, trying to watch it with fresh eyes. It is first a remarkable performance, but then also it feels so relevant. But this notion that defending our freedoms requires brutality, requires people with no regard for the law or for decency or for humanity, and the movie being a rejection of that is so relevant. And I think it's a movie that's actually well worth watching in this moment, in addition to just being a tribute and a testament to Reiner's abilities as a director.

[Jamelle Bouie]

So, Jamel, I'm so glad you went in the Reiner direction. That's a great, I feel like that's a great way to end. I was gonna point to Princess Bride. The irony here is Reiner was a pretty left leaning guy, not known for being particularly religious. But Princess Bride turned into like the most quoted movie in evangelical youth group history because really what are they like? It's just a super wholesome movie. It's a super. You know, it's the kind of movie. It's that really rare movie that is incredibly wholesome and also extremely popular at the same time. But I will also say for me, when I think of Rob Reiner, I think of this as Spinal Tap. And I probably have watched that 10 times minimum. I have been to a live Spinal Tap concert Of the actual band? Yes.

[David French]

Yeah, they did a tour back in the early 90s, in fact.

[Jamelle Bouie]

Yeah, I was there in the early 90s at Starwood and the now defunct studio Starwood Amphitheater outside of Nashville, watching.

[Michelle Cottle]

I've been to Starwood.

[Jamelle Bouie]

Oh, absolutely. But what a brilliant man who left a marvelous legacy of art and just what a crushing loss.

[Michelle Cottle]

Well, plus, I mean, Spinal Tap gives us the quote for this podcast that is the most useful during the Trump era. This goes to 11.

[Jamelle Bouie]

Everything is going to 11.

[Michelle Cottle]

Everything goes to 11. So far be it from me to break the trend with Rob Reiner. I, as poor Jamel, had to hear ad nauseam. Am an enormous When Harry Met Sally fan. This was the defining romantic comedy of my youth. I can quote the whole damn thing if you get me started with just no provocation. It's just I'm all about that. So. So I think since we're just going full Rob Reiner, that'll be my recommendation. All right. And with that, we're gonna land this plane for the last time in 2025. Jamel, David, thank you so much as usual.

[David French]

Yeah. See you guys next year.

[Jamelle Bouie]

Happy holidays, Happy New Year and see you again soon.

[Michelle Cottle]

Okay, that's it for the year for us, guys. Everybody enjoy their holidays.

[Podcast Host Intro/Outro]

If you like this show, follow it on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcast. The opinions is produced by Derek Arthur, Vishaka Darba, Christina Samulewski and Gillian Weinberger. It's edited by Kari Pitkin and Alison Bruzik. Engineering, mixing and original music by Isaac Jones, sonia Herrero, Pat McCusker, Carol Sabaro and Afim Shapiro. Additional music by Aman Sahota. The Fact Check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Michelle Harris. Audience strateg by Shannon Busta and Christina Samulewski. The director of Times Opinion Audio is Annie Rose Strasser.

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