A rush transcript of “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” airing on Sunday, December 21, 2025 on ABC News is below. This copy may not be in its final form, may be updated and may contain minor transcription errors. For previous show transcripts, visit the “This Week” transcript archive.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JOHNATHAN KARL, ABC “THIS WEEK” CO-ANCHOR: It’s been an erratic week for Donald Trump. We’ve seen a defensive prime-time address, the re-naming of the Kennedy Center to the Trump Kennedy Center, a partial release of the Epstein file, and military action in both Syria and the Caribbean, all as Congress leaves Washington without addressing rising health care costs.
“THIS WEEK” starts right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Are you going to let this happen or will you intervene?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They will skyrocket because it was never any good.
KARL: President Trump rejects extending Obamacare tax credits, as millions of Americans brace for insurance premiums to surge.
REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): No more excuses. No more delay. No more burying your head in the sand.
KARL: With most Americans unhappy with the state of the economy, the president gets combative and deflects blame.
TRUMP: Eleven months ago, inherited a mess and I’m fixing it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anybody who saw his speech last night saw an angry old man who has no connection to what Americans are going through.
KARL: This morning, I’ll speak exclusively with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and Republican Senator Rand Paul.
Renamed?
TRUMP: And I was surprised by it. I was honored by it.
KARL: Trump’s appointees add his name to the memorial for President Kennedy. But can they legally do that? Our roundtable on the president’s latest moves to Trump-ify (ph) Washington.
And —
What most surprised you about the 2025 and President Trump?
CHARLAMAGE THA GOD: The lack of respect for the working — the working class.
KARL: We sit down with influential radio host Charlamage Tha God to discuss Trump’s first year back in office and what Democrats need to do to reclaim power next year.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: From ABC News it’s “THIS WEEK.” Here now, Jonathan Karl.
KARL: Good morning. Welcome to “THIS WEEK.”
President Trump is going to Palm Beach for the holidays after a particularly chaotic week at home and abroad. The latest, the U.S. Coast Guard, yesterday, seized another oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela. It’s the second such vessel to be taken in the administration’s escalating military campaign against Venezuelan Leader Nicolas Maduro.
Back at home, the president, this week, sought to evaluate his own standing in ways both traditional and highly non-traditional. He made an angry and defensive prime-time address, touting his economic record in the face of a flurry of polls showing that most Americans just don’t like the way he is handling the economy.
And he escalated his effort to put the Trump brand on just about everything in Washington, as people he put in charge of the Kennedy Center renamed the living memorial to JFK, branding it the Trump Kennedy Center.
At the White House, the president made an effort to literally rewrite history, installing plaques underneath the portraits of past presidents with overtly political and often false descriptions of his predecessors.
We’ll get to all that, but we begin this morning with the Justice Department’s release of the latest documents in the Epstein files. Our chief justice correspondent, Pierre Thomas, joins me now for more.
So, Pierre, we’re hearing loud complaints from Democrats, some Republicans, that DOJ is not complying with the law because they haven’t come anywhere near releasing all of these documents.
PIERRE THOMAS, ABC NEWS CHIEF JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, DOJ says that the process has been slowed by the fact that they have to be very careful about the victims. That they’re trying to make sure all the victim names are redacted. They said, in fact last week, that they came across new victim names and there are more than 1,200 victim names and family members that they have to protect.
KARL: And look, you asked the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, a question, really the central question to a lot of people on this, about whether or not Trump’s Justice Department can be trusted with the handling of Trump’s material in the Epstein files.
Take a listen to the exchange.
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THOMAS: Will every document that mentions President Trump, every picture of him, every video, every bit of information related to him in these files be released today, or at some point in this process?
TODD BLANCHE, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: Assuming it’s consistent with the law, yes. So, there’s no effort to hold anything back because there’s the name “Donald J. Trump” or anybody else’s name, Bill Clinton’s name, Reid Hoffman’s name. We’re not redacting the names of famous men and women that are associated with Epstein.
THOMAS: To be clear, you’re saying DOJ has not been ordered to redact anything related to President Trump? That there’s no order to do such?
BLANCHE: No. I mean I would give the order. President Trump has certainly said, from the beginning, that he expects all files that can be released, to be released. And that’s exactly what we’re doing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KARL: But, Pierre, even in the limited release that came out Friday, there were a handful of documents, including two photos of Donald Trump that were actually released but have been taken down from the DOJ website.
THOMAS: That’s correct. There have been a number of cases where items were posted, then taken down. At least one of them, perhaps two, involving photographs of President Trump, were taken down as well. Our guidance from sources is that those photographs had pictures of women in them that need to be blacked out. They claim — they say those photos will be coming back up.
KARL: Well, we’ll see what else they put out.
Thank you very much, Pierre Thomas.
And I’m joined now by House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
Leader Jeffries, thank you for joining us.
Let me start right there with the Epstein files. The administration was required by law to release them all on Friday. Are they in compliance with that law?
MINORITY LEADER REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES, (D) NEW YORK: Well, the survivors of the Epstein nightmare deserve full and complete transparency. They’ve been advocating with such courage and bravery. Congress has acted decisively, bipartisan majorities in both the House and the Senate, bills signed into law by the president. And it does appear, of course, that this initial documents release is inadequate. It falls short of what the law requires.
Now, the statute requires the so-called Department of Justice, at this moment, within 15 days, to provide a written explanation to Congress and to the American people as to why they’ve withheld certain documents. We expected that that written justification should be transmitted within the next week or so, and then Congress can take it from there as it relates to determining why this non noncompliance has occurred.
KARL: Your Democratic colleague, Ro Khanna, said that — and if the Justice Department is not in compliance, and he clearly believes that they are not, that there should be impeachment proceedings for Attorney General Pam Bondi. Do you think that’s on the — is that on the table?
JEFFRIES: Well, I think there needs to be a full and complete explanation and then a full and complete investigation as to why the document production has fallen short of what the law clearly required. And so the next step in the process is going to be that written justification to try to explain to Congress, to the survivors most importantly, and to the American people, why things have apparently fallen short of what the statute requires in terms of turning everything over from the Department of Justice investigatory files.
KARL: And let me turn to health care. Obviously, a central issue for Democrats as Congress leaves town.
You have successfully forced a vote in the House, which will happen in January, on a three-year extension of those Obamacare tax credits. That, I assume, will pass in January, all things stay the same. But the Democratic — I mean the Republican leader in the Senate has already said it’s dead on arrival.
JEFFRIES: Well, the Republican leader in the Senate is not serious about protecting the health care of the American people. The clock is ticking. No more excuses! Republicans have been burying their heads in the sand for the last several months. Meanwhile, tens of millions of Americans are on the brink of experiencing dramatically increased health insurance premiums if the Affordable Care Act tax credits are not extended. We’re talking about, in some instances, folks who are going to experience premiums that will increase by $1,000 or $2,000 per month. Ninety percent of the people who rely on the Affordable Care Act tax credits make around $63,000 per year. These are working class Americans, middle class Americans, and everyday Americans. And House Democrats are going to continue to fight to get this extension through the Congress on our side. It will pass, with a bipartisan majority. And then that will put the pressure on John Thune and Senate Republicans to actually do the right thing by the American people, pass a straightforward extension of the Affordable Care Act tax credits, so we can keep health care affordable for tens of millions of Americans who deserve to be able to go see a doctor when they need one.
KARL: So, some Republicans, including my next guest, Senator Rand Paul, have argued that extending those subsidies leads to higher premiums. That the system needs to be reformed. That we have health care costs across the board that are going up, even putting
aside these — these tax credits.
Does he have a point? Does there need to be reforms to keep health insurance premiums down?
JEFFRIES: Well, life is too expensive in the United States of America, and things have actually gotten worse under Donald Trump’s presidency. He promised to lower costs on day one. Republicans promised to lower costs on day one.
Costs aren’t going down, they’re going up. That’s health care costs. That’s housing costs that are out of control.
Childcare costs are out of control. Utility bills, electricity costs are out of control, of course. And grocery costs are out of control.
So, there are a variety of different things that need to be done.
As Democrats, we’re promising to focus relentlessly on driving down the high cost of living to make life more affordable for everyday Americans and to fix our broken health care system —
KARL: Yeah.
JEFFRIES: — which Republicans have been damaging in an extraordinary way throughout the year, including by enacting the largest cut to Medicaid in American history.
And because of Republican policies in their one big, ugly bill, we know hospitals, nursing homes, and community-based health centers are closing all across the country, including in rural America.
Working class Americans are being hurt. Black and Brown Americans are being hurt.
KARL: They don’t —
JEFFRIES: Smalltown America is being hurt. The heartland of America is being hurt.
And yes, we need to fix our broken healthcare system.
KARL: So — but, Leader Jeffries, on the question of rising prices and the stewardship of the economy, clearly, the public is saying they’re not satisfied with Donald Trump. They don’t approve of him. But actually, the Democrats in recent polls are actually faring worse than the Republicans.
Take a look at a Quinnipiac poll out just this week shows that Democrats have their lowest approval rating in the poll’s 15-year history. Only 18 percent give Democrats a high approval rating in the handling of the economy. Only 18 percent, 73 percent disapproval.
What — what are you doing wrong?
JEFFRIES: Well, clearly, that’s an outlier poll.
Listen, the most significant indicator of public sentiment is, are you winning elections or are you losing elections? And on that front, Democrats have been winning elections since January. A special election in Iowa where we flipped the seat that Donald Trump had just won by 21 points.
Of course, winning the Wisconsin state Supreme Court race in April, a swing state, a state that Donald Trump had just won, the Democratic candidate wins by 11. Flipped the mayorship in Omaha for the first time in 12 years.
And then, of course, last month, during the off-year elections, winning decisively in Virginia, in New Jersey, in New York, in Mississippi, in Georgia, in Pennsylvania, Prop 50 in California.
And then most recently, two weeks ago, flipping the mayorship in Miami for the first time in nearly 30 years. And Eileen Higgins will be the first woman mayor of Miami ever.
These results aren’t ambiguous. They’re not unclear. They are unequivocal that the American people are rejecting —
KARL: Yeah.
JEFFRIES: — Republican extremism and embracing our affordability agenda.
KARL: All right. Leader Hakeem Jeffries, thank you for joining us.
And joining me now, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky.
Senator Paul, let me begin with the Epstein files. Your Kentucky colleague, Thomas Massie, obviously was uh the force that brought — that forced this res — this release. He is saying that the attorney general is violating the law and could, in fact, eventually be prosecuted for doing so.
What’s your reaction to this partial release?
SEN. RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: You know, I’ve supported transparency on the Epstein files from the beginning. I’ve voted repeatedly to release them. I think it’s a good idea.
I think that trust in government is at a low ebb, and that people need to trust that justice is the same —
KARL: Yeah.
PAUL: — whether you’re rich or poor. And people tend to believe that some rich people got off scot-free in this — in the Epstein case, the Epstein files. So, I think it all should be released.
I think it’s a big mistake. I mean, look, the administration has struggled for months and months with something they initially ginned up and then sort of tried to tamp down. So, any evidence or any kind of indication that there’s not a full reveal on this, this will just plague them for months and months more.
So, my suggestion would be — give up all the information, release it. You know, what’s going to happen to people if they don’t, that — that will play out over time. But my suggestion to them is be transparent and release everything the law requires of you.
KARL: Doesn’t look like that’s exactly happening yet. But let me move on to another issue that you have been very outspoken on and that is the use of U.S. military force abroad. You’ve been consistent Democrat, Republican presidents.
What is your reaction to this latest news that we hear? Another oil tanker seized by the U.S. Coast Guard. U.S. military supporting that mission off the coast of Venezuela.
PAUL: I consider it a provocation and a prelude to war and I hope we don’t go to war with
Venezuela.
Look, at any point in time there are 20, 30 governments around the world that we don’t like that are either socialist or communist or have human rights violations. We could really literally go through a couple dozen. But it isn’t the job of the American soldier to be the policeman of the world. So, I’m not for confiscating these liners. I’m not for blowing up these boats of unarmed people that are suspected of being drug dealers. I’m not for any of this. And neither was Donald Trump. Donald Trump was against the Iraq War, against the regime change there. He, you know, at the time, understood that the weapons of mass destruction was a ruse and it turned out to not be true. And so now his administration is calling fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction. They should be a little bit more understanding that that term has been totally — has come to represent basically falsehood in intelligence. So, I think it’s a bad idea for them to bring that up.
But all these designations are steps towards war, calling people terrorists, calling the drug runners terrorists, saying, oh, if they have a designation, well how did they get the designation? Oh, we gave it to them. And then why is the former president, Hernandez of Honduras, who is in jail for 45 years, why is he released? So, some narco-terrorists are really OK and other narco-terrorists we’re going to blow up. And then some of them, if they’re not designated as a terrorist, we might arrest them. It’s a bizarre and contradictory policy and I sure hope we don’t go to war with Venezuela.
KARL: And we did — there were at least military strikes this week in — against Syria. What did you make of this? The administration has billed this as a response to the American service members who were killed in Syria, allegedly by ISIS, but this looked like a pretty strenuous attack on targets in Syria this week.
PAUL: You know, it’s hard not to want to hit back when they kill some of our own.
KARL: Yes.
PAUL: But I would like to go back really to the first Trump administration, when he said he didn’t want the troops there. There’s like 900 troops, maybe 1,000, maybe 1,500. They’re not enough to fight a war. They’re not enough to be an effective strategic force. What they are is a target and a trip wire. And, unfortunately, in the Middle East, they’d like nothing better than to kill an American. They do it for the celebrity nature of killing Americans.
But I think we have no business in Syria. So, we’ve done this retaliatory strike. Now Donald Trump ought to do what Donald Trump proposed in the first administration, what Ronald Reagan did after the 1983 bomb, he left. There’s no reason for us to be in Syria. We need to leave Syria and not be a trip wire to getting back involved in another war.
KARL: And let me ask you quickly on health care. You heard what Leader Jeffries said. I know you oppose extending these tax credits. One compromise that’s out there is a one-year extension of the tax credits. Is that something that you think might fly in the Senate? I don’t suggest you’ll support it, but do you think your Republican colleagues may support that?
PAUL: I haven’t met anybody in Kentucky who wants to give subsidies to people who make $100,000 a year.
KARL: Yes.
PAUL: These subsidies give $13,000 to someone making $100,000. They give $1,500 to someone making $200,000 a year. This is not poor people.
Look, we have health care in our country for poor people. It’s called Medicaid. All of the rest of this stuff has not worked. Obamacare has been a failure. President Obama said it would bring premiums down. Premiums have gone through the roof. Every time we give more subsidies, the premiums go higher.
I have a plan that says, everybody in this marketplace, and it’s only about four percent, everybody in this marketplace should be able to go to Amazon or Costco or Sam’s Club and as a group, a large group, millions of people in the group, negotiate with big insurance to bring prices down. It’s the only proposal out there that has a chance of bringing prices down.
KARL: Of course —
PAUL: If you continue the subsidies, the premiums will simply go higher.
KARL: You’ve been consistent. Of course, Medicaid’s also been cut. But before we go, we are just about out of time. I’ve got to ask you about a political question. We saw Erika Kirk endorse J.D. Vance already for 2028 for president. That was interesting. But also interesting was, so did Marco Rubio, who in that article in “Vanity Fair” said that “if J.D. Vance runs, he’ll be the nominee, and I’ll be one of the first to support him.”
I know it’s early. What do you make of this? Is J.D. Vance the heir apparent here?
PAUL: I think there needs to be representatives in the Republican Party who still believe international trade is good, who still believe in free market capitalism, who still believe in low taxes. See, it used to separate conservatives and liberals that conservatives thought it was a spending problem, we didn’t want less revenue, we wanted less spending. But now all these pro-tariff protectionists, they love taxes. And so they tax, tax, tax and then they brag about all the revenue coming in. That has never been a conservative position.
So I’m going to continue to try to lead a conservative free market wing in the party and we’ll see where things lead over time.
KARL: And that’s not J.D. Vance?
PAUL: No.
KARL: OK, Senator Rand Paul, thank you very much for joining us this morning.
Up next, a look at the real — the real state of the economy, and the guy who just wrote the best-selling book about the stock market crash of 1929. We’re back in a moment.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We’re bringing our economy back from the brink of ruin. The last administration and their allies in Congress looted our treasury for trillions of dollars, driving up prices and everything at levels never seen before. I am bringing those high prices down and bringing them down very fast.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KARL: President Trump touting his economic record in his primetime address, despite a majority of Americans saying they don’t approve of the way he is handling the economy.
I am joined now by Andrew Ross Sorkin, author of the new book “1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History, and How It Shattered a Nation.”
Andrew, thank you for joining us. I have to say, your book has struck a nerve. And I suspect it’s not because of a newfound fascination with financial matters nearly a century ago. I kept seeing and hearing echoes in the pages of your book of where we are today.
I want to read something from your prologue. “Lengthy, uninterrupted booms like the one in the 1920s produced a collective delusion. Optimism becomes a drug or a religion, or sometimes a combination of both. Propelled along by a culture of hot tips, one-of-a-kind deals, killer sales pitches, and irresistible slogans, people lose their ability to calculate risk and distinguish between good ideas and bad ones.”
As you were writing those words, were you thinking at all about today?
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN, “1929” AUTHOR, CNBC SQUAWK BOX CO-ANCHOR: Oh, goodness, the original intent of this book was not actually to be thinking about today, but as I was writing those words, in truth, I kept seeing parallels we didn’t want to see. We are living right now, as you know, through a remarkable A.I. boom. The stock market continues apace, crypto, there’s all of these sort of euphoric elements in the marketplace right now that are very similar in some ways to the 1920s, automobiles, radio, and the like.
And this whole idea of democratizing finance, the whole idea that people want in, they want to make the bet, they want that lottery ticket. And you’re seeing that I think now in 2025 and into 2026. That doesn’t mean we have to have a crash on the other end, but it does look like a red flag.
KARL: And you write this about President Hoover, another echo. Hoover kept talking up the economy when there was little to suggest things were improving.
And then, you dug up a quote that I think is just precious, that sounded a little bit like somebody currently in the White House.
Hoover saying, “I believe if the news — if the newspapers would quit talking about unemployment, our trouble would be over in a couple of months.”
In other words, it’s the media’s fault.
SORKIN: You know, presidents over many, many years have long tried to jawbone the public into believing that things are better than they are. The current president does this. The president that was in office before did that. There was a period of time even before where we’ve had presidents doing this.
However, it typically doesn’t work. There is a feeling that the American public has about their own finances, about their own wallet, about the idea of affordability, which, of course, has become the watchword. And presidents have tried to tell people something else. And typically, they don’t buy it.
Hoover, in particular, uniquely had a sort of a mixed message and didn’t appreciate how bad things actually were and somehow believed that he could talk people out of it, obviously unsuccessfully.
KARL: Yeah. Sounds — sounds familiar.
One of the many things interesting in the book that I had not been aware of was the fact that future Prime Minister Winston Churchill was actually in New York in October of 1929, literally a witness to the crash. And you describe a dinner he had with some Wall Street titans after the blood bath on Wall Street.
And he is talking about praising the unshakable faith in a golden future that Americans have and says, “The American speculative machine is not built to prevent crisis but to survive them.”
Quite a quote, optimistic Churchill at a time when almost nobody was optimistic.
SORKIN: You know, first of all, it was just it is remarkable that he was there in the moment, but even more remarkable, I think, is that comment about the American spirit and a sense of optimism that I think is unique to this country. And the idea that you may not be able to prevent every crisis, but on the other end, you have enough resilience to keep going.
You know, we talk about the word “speculation” as being almost a dirty word, but in truth, every time we’ve had great innovation in this country, there has been some speculation. Whoever was speculating on A.I. years ago, people had to think that was absurd. Speculating on, you know, Elon Musk’s Tesla at the very beginning when nobody believed it.
So, you need some speculation of the system. You just don’t want it to boil over.
KARL: And let me ask you, there was an interview that the president did with “The Wall Street Journal” last week that I thought didn’t get as much attention as — as it should have. He was talking about the Fed and his future Fed chairman. He’s going to obviously nominate a new Fed chairman.
And he says that he expects the Fed chairman to consult with him on interest rates and that he believes that interest rates should be at one percent or less.
What was — what’s the reaction in the financial world to that?
SORKIN: Oh, goodness. I think most people don’t think that’s the right idea.
It is true that the Treasury Secretary has met typically on a weekly basis for breakfast or lunch with the head of the Federal Reserve for a very long time. And you could argue that messages are sent if you will somewhat indirectly through a lieutenant in this case. I think it’s very different if they’re looking you in the eyes — the president that is — telling you what to do specifically with interest rates.
It’s also a question if you were to lower those interest rates to the extent that the president does, whether you would have, you know, incredible inflation. I think that’s a question.
But I think most importantly, you want to have an independent Fed. And in truth, the lesson actually of 1929, one of the reasons that the Federal Reserve didn’t act and didn’t do more was because they were scared of the politics.
KARL: And certainly, Donald Trump has a different view on the independence of the Fed.
Hey, look, Andrew, the book is terrific. It’s great to have you on “This Week”. Hope to talk to you again soon. Thank you.
SORKIN: Thank you so much, John. Appreciate it so much.
KARL: Coming up, the event this week that former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told me is evidence of Trump’s, quote, “mental incapacity”.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA) FORMER SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: I didn’t even think about a speech, but I did see some of it in the news afterward and I think it was a demonstration of his mental incapacity.
KARL: What do you mean by that?
PELOSI: Well, that was ridiculous speech because we’re all offended because of what he said about Rob Reiner, just a few — and his — and Michelle just a few days before, after the tragedy. Something is wrong there and something is wrong with the people around him that they don’t stop him from his ridiculousness.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KARL (on camera): Former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, on the president’s primetime address and his response to the brutal murders of Rob and Michele Reiner. Our Roundtable on Trump’s strange week when we come back.
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KARL: The roundtable’s here. Former DNC chair Donna Brazile, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, “SCOTUSblog” editor Sarah Isgur, and Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign manager Faiz Shakir, now an ABC News contributor.
Chris, let me start with you.
Even by Trump standards, this was an erratic, chaotic week. Renaming the Kennedy Center, the stuff he did at the White House, the prime-time speech. What’s going on?
CHRIS CHRISTIE, (R) FORMER NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR & ABC NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, first, it’s so good to be here, Jon. And Merry Christmas to you, too, Mr. President.
Look, this is a pretty strange week. Just think about it. He sends out that disgraceful post on the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife Michele.
KARL: Yes.
CHRISTIE: Then he puts his name on the building named after an assassinated president. Then he gives a frenetic national TV speech filled with inaccuracies, and really sounded like he was yelling at the American people that they don’t get how great he’s done so far. And then he puts these plaques out underneath the presidential pictures he’s put on the colonnade, filled with things that you could tell just from reading that he wrote them himself.
KARL: Read like Truth Social posts.
CHRISTIE: It did. And even figured out a way to get himself as the Andrew Jackson plaque, but as a martyr.
KARL: Right.
CHRISTIE: Worse than whatever happened to Andrew Jackson.
Look, he does all of this, Jon, in a week where 60 percent of the people in the country say the economy is no better under him than it was under Joe Biden. The war continues to rage on in Ukraine that he said he was going to settle in 24 hours. And Putin continues to manipulate him to deteriorate the 80-year NATO alliance. And twice now, in the past month, you’ve seen Republicans break from him on Capitol Hill, on both the Epstein files and ACA subsidies, to sign discharge petitions to repute both the speaker and the president.
It’s not a strange week, Jon, it’s an awful week. And the president better wake up to the fact that going to Rocky Mount, North Carolina, is not going to solve his problems, and that he better start solving the American people’s problems or our party is going to have a big problem come November.
KARL: Rocky Mount, where he gave that speech on Friday, which fit in with a lot of what you just said.
But, Sarah, just — because you’re our legal expert here at the table. He can’t actually rename the Kennedy Center, although I do see it’s renamed? I mean, it’s not really in his power.
SARAH ISGUR, EDITOR AT SCOTUSBLOG & ABC NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Donald Trump is on track to be the least consequential president of our lifetime because he keeps thinking he can do things, like re-naming the Kennedy Center, like even the DEI policies that so many people like. Birthright citizenship. These are all things that are done by statute. In the case of the Kennedy Center, 20 U.S.C. 76. You can look it up. It is Congress that named the Kennedy Center.
KARL: (INAUDIBLE).
ISGUR: He can stick a Post-it note on it all he wants, but it doesn’t change the name, just like the Department of Defense is also done by statute.
KARL: So, Fez, the context here is, this happens as Congress leaves town with those Obamacare tax credits expiring. At least two million Americans are going to see seriously higher health care premiums on January — in January.
FAIZ SHAKIR, BERNIE SANDERS 2020 CAMPAIGN MANAGER & ABC NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: As you reflect back on this year, Jon, I would say there’s two words that the American public has really circled around and mobilized a grassroots movement in America. Those being oligarchy and affordability. And if you say oligarchy, Trump has kind of brought to life the anger in American public around the rule of people who have too much wealth and power, who act with a hubris, a sense of entitlement, renaming buildings, but that’s even the least of it, just a sense of Epstein files, all of it. That this is my playground, and you’re not invited. And in the second it’s affordability where it — every day you sense that he doesn’t even know the lives of 60 percent of people living paycheck to paycheck, who are struggling, kicking them off Medicaid and saying, I have nothing for you. Literally, at this point, as we turn the year, there is not one thing you can say the president has offered to try to help tens of millions of people who are struggling.
DONNA BRAZILE, FORMER DNC CHAIR & ABC NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: And even when he tries to help the American people, as he did this week by saying, look, I’m going to lower prescription drugs. I’m going to try to at least deal with some of this — some of the crisis here, the president has lost a narrative. I think the administration came in, in January, thinking that, oh, we’ll control Congress, the president is going to issue these executive orders, and we’re going to rule the day.
But from liberation day in April on down, that I think this administration has been off track, off message and clearly, the wheels are coming off.
KARL: But as my Democratic experts here, what do you say to what I asked Hakeem Jeffries about? I mean, we consi — we consider — we continue to see polls that show that people actually give the Democrats a lower approval rating on the handling of the economy, a lower overall approval rating. What’s going on?
SHAKIR: Because they have not yet come forward with an agenda about what upon which they want to govern, and they need to do that in this coming year.
You got to raise the minimum wage. You got to expand healthcare. You got to take on corruption, ban congressional stock trading. You got to take on this issue of artificial intelligence which increasingly is generating concern amongst Americans.
You can’t merely rest on Trump is — unpopular and on the alternative. And that this year, I hope — and I hope any Democrats listening — got to start coming forward with an agenda upon which to campaign. That’ll do a hell of a lot for them.
BRAZILE: Look, we have to be more aspirational in our message. We have to reach more people. But the bottom line is the American people have lost faith in both political parties.
I mean, Congress is as popular as a root canal. I’m not ashamed of the fact that the Democratic brand has not been able to come back from 2024.
But going into 2026, the Democrats have to stand for something. And it just cannot be a party that dislike Donald Trump.
KARL: Sarah, you remember when the Republicans after losing to Obama did their autopsy of what went wrong?
ISGUR: Uh-huh.
KARL: The Democrats just did an autopsy, but they’ve told us it’s not going to be released.
ISGUR: Well, look, it didn’t work out that well for the Republicans.
(LAUGHTER)
KARL: To be clear, it — it was — we’re going to — we’re going to reach out to —
ISGUR: Yeah. I mean, basically, Donald Trump is the repudiation of everything that was in that Republican autopsy.
KARL: Yeah.
ISGUR: That being said, I do think it was important for the Republican Party to actually deal with their own voters. Here’s why we lost. We understand what went wrong. We’re going to make investments in data, for instance.
That actually was important, and some of the process points. But, you know, I think the Democratic Party has a real problem because there is no such thing as the Democratic Party anymore, nor the Republican Party.
We killed off our political parties. We’ve replaced it with partisanship and personality.
So, there is no leader of the Democratic Party.
KARL: Well —
ISGUR: There is no one to say, here are the policies. Here’s the agenda that we stand for.
It’s all personalities and a bunch of members of Congress who are sitting on Instagram putting out reels to bring in small dollar donors on social media.
KARL: And yet we seem to have this seem to also be a week of J.D. Vance. J.D. Vance got the endorsement of Erika Kirk for 2028. J.D. Vance got the endorsement of Marco Rubio in that “Vanity Fair” piece, saying that if J.D. Vance runs, he’ll be the nominee and I’ll be one of the first people to support him.
You heard what — Rand Paul wasn’t on board, but what do you make of the J.D. Vance of it?
CHRISTIE: Look, I think it’s really early for people to be doing this. And I think one of the things you see in both Marco and Erika Kirk doing what they’re doing is they’re trying to create momentum where there is none. You know, it’s much too early to be saying what are people going to judge the vice president, Donald Trump’s vice president as, as a potential candidate.
That’s going to be determined as all vice presidents are determined by what people think of their boss.
KARL: So, why — why is it happening? Why — why —
CHRISTIE: They’re trying to create some momentum —
(CROSSTALK)
ISGUR: Because Donald Trump — we’ve seen it from Epstein to the ACA things that you talked about, Donald Trump is already being seen as a lame duck within the Republican Party.
I do think part of that is because he hasn’t done anything through Congress. Like I said earlier, all of this has just been executive order.
J.D. Vance though has a bit of an issue here because if Donald Trump starts thinking that the J.D. Vance-mentum makes him more of a lame duck, expect Donald Trump to not be —
KARL: Yeah —
(CROSSTALK)
CHRISTIE: Jon — Jon, one other thing on the Democrats is, you know, they’ve made the same mistake in 2016 and in 2024. Hating Donald Trump, criticizing Donald Trump is their comfort food. And they just love it. They feel good when they say it.
But the American people have already twice looked at them and said that’s not enough.
KARL: I mean, this is your point.
SHAKIR: When you look at why Bernie Sanders is the most popular elected official in America right now, you look at the rise of Mamdani, you say why is AOC doing incredibly well in raising tons of grassroots dollars? What is it that makes them stand apart from the Democratic Party?
A sense of a vision, ideology, integrity, a conviction that they are prepared and willing to take on wealth and power, but also knowing who they fight for. A sense the working class will benefit if I am in power.
Even look at Ro Khanna’s leadership of how he’s brought Tom Massie together.
This side of the populist left is rising and gaining popularity.
KARL: Is — is it the ideology or is it — the energy?
BRAZILE: No, it’s — I also believe it takes a candidate. Look — look what happened in New Jersey. Look what happened in Virginia this year. Look at what happened across the country.
Democrats overperform across the country. Democrats who won the majority, 90 percent of all of the elections this year. So, before we put the blame on — on the Democrats as a party or a label, a brand, let’s assume the fact that we’re going to have a very dynamic year
in 2026. With the 35 senatorial races, the 36 gubernatorial races, you’re going to see a Democratic brand that will stand out, that will speak to the issues that the American people care about. And I do believe that Democrats are going to have a rebound in 2026.
KARL: All right, we’ve got to take a quick break. Coming up, my conversation with one of the most interesting voices in media, ‘Charlamagne tha God’ on Trump’s first year and what Trump — and what Democrats should do next. We’ll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KARL: ‘Charlamagne tha God’ has a direct line to millions of people on his daily morning show, “The Breakfast Club.” Last November, despite his disappointment with the election, he told me he was optimistic about Trump’s second term. So we checked in with him again this week to get his reaction to Trump’s first year back in office.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KARL: Has this year been better or worse than what you anticipated?
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD, CO-HOST OF “THE BREAKFAST CLUB”: Man, that’s a great question. After the election, I said to myself, all he has to do is not do everything that all his critics say he’s going to do.
KARL: Right.
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: Literally. Like, literally like, don’t do the Project 2025, don’t have authoritarian strategy, don’t go after your political opponents, don’t make this new presidency about revenge.
KARL: Yeah.
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: And he checked all those boxes. He did every single one of those things that everybody told him not to do. So, I would say that things are going pretty much as predicted.
(LAUGH)
KARL: So how does it — I mean, you’re so in touch with your audience and you spend hours a day, every day, talking to your audience.
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: Absolutely.
KARL: How does it land when he says something like, gives himself a grade, A+++++, on the economy? How does that land?
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: Well, he’s doing the same thing that Democrats were doing last year when they were trying to tout Bidenomics.
KARL: Yeah.
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: And you’re trying to tell people that what they actually feel in their pockets isn’t real. Oh, you know, the stock market is great. The people I’m talking to don’t have stocks. You know? The grocery prices are down. Like, no, they’re actually in the grocery store every day and they see that they’re not.
KARL: What’s broken through? And have people — because I got a sense that people to a degree are tuning out of a lot of this stuff.
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: Well, I don’t — that’s an interesting question. I don’t know if they’re tuning out. I do know that people can’t see past their bills.
KARL: Yes.
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: You know, so when you can’t see past your own bills, like, you know, that’s the thing that you’re always constantly focusing on. And so everything else does feel like a distraction, but I feel like the Epstein files absolutely, positively cut through, at least to his base. You know, to the people who will defend him to the death, you know, and, you know, ride with him no matter what, something about those Epstein files finally made them say, oh, he’s lying. And I think since then, they’ve paid attention to every other lie that he has spewed.
KARL: How should Democrats approach Trump now?
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: I think that their approach this year has been relatively strong for a party that has no power.
KARL: No power at all.
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: You know what I mean? I think that they have done something that we usually don’t see them do, which is fight, right?
KARL: Yes.
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: But they’re fighting kind of with their hands tied behind their back. And everybody has got different approaches, but you would expect that from a big tent party.
KARL: Yes.
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: You know? Democrats are not monolithic.
KARL: I remember you telling me, you know, way before Biden dropped out, you were warning about Biden and whether or not he had it in him to run again.
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: Absolutely.
KARL: And you said to me, he had no main character energy.
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: None.
KARL: So what do you see now when you look at — I counted recently, I think there’s like 20 Democrats that I can count who are likely to run for president. Who do you see that’s got that main character energy?
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: I mean, there’s a lot of people who got main character energy, you know, but I think that what people are concerned about now, you know, it’s not about how you — it is about how you campaign, but it’s more so about how you govern.
KARL: Yes.
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: So I think that what people are going to be looking at are people’s actual records, right? Like, literally. So even if you are able to cut through, like the Gavin Newsom is cutting through, people are going to really looking at his record, because they’ve seen, you know, what he’s done in California. And I think things like people’s records are actually going to come back to haunt them, you know, when they decide to run for president.
So — but I do think governors are going to have the best chance. Like, the Governor Wes Moore, the Governor Josh Shapiro, the Governor Pritzkers, you know, the Governor Newsoms. They’re going to have the best opportunity because they have an actual record.
KARL: I mean, for Trump, I mean, he had no record when he ran, but he was able to break through. I mean, he, you know, captured the imagination of — I mean, he captured the Republican Party.
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: And he had a fantastic campaign. Like listen, you don’t have to like the guy.
KARL: Yes.
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: But we cannot act like, you know, his campaigns weren’t incredible. And I mean, even somebody like Mamdani. Mamdani took a lot of Trump’s messaging, you know, the whole messaging of affordability, right? Like that’s what Trump said. I won the election on one word, groceries.
KARL: Social media.
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: And social media. Like the three things — it’s so funny, like Democrats talk about Mamdani galvanized young people. He used social media and he talked about affordability. And Democrats act like those are three revolutionary things, as if they haven’t done those things before. It’s the economy, stupid. That was Bill Clinton in the ’90s, right? Galvanizing young people, that was Barack Obama. Using social media, that was Barack Obama. So these three basic things.
KARL: Basic things.
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: That Mamdani did, Democrats seem to have forgotten about. And they praised him so much for it. And they should, because he ran a fantastic campaign as well. But a lot of his messaging was Trump-like messaging. Affordability, New York first, which is similar to America first.
KARL: Yes, yes.
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: All of that, you know, was able to cut through. But that goes back to what I always say. Man, we complicate these things. Americans want two things. They want more money in their pocket and they want to feel safe. If you can make people feel like you’re going to put more money in their pocket and you’re going to make them feel safe, you’ll energize them every time.
KARL: Trump campaigned obviously on the border, crime, and like you said on — he didn’t call it affordability but on high prices. Where has he succeeded?
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: I would say probably the border, you know, but it’s the way that it’s happening, right? I mean, if the numbers are true.
KARL: Yes.
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: You know, people aren’t, you know, coming across the border anymore, but, I mean, man, do you really want to see people who’ve, you know, been here for years, who are actual citizens, are trying to go through the process to get legal citizenship, do you really want to see them snatched off the street the way they are? You know, Latino people need to just live in fear?
KARL: I mean, he did better among Hispanics than any Republican on record.
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: Yes, only to pop out and say, gotcha. You know? And I really just wonder what goes through their minds and how are they going to vote come 2026, how are they going to vote come and 2028. Because they bought into a dream, but that dream
dream turned into a nightmare.
KARL: What most surprised you about 2025 on the political front?
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: The lack of — I was about to say, the lack of respect for the working, the working class, you know? Because I always knew that America didn’t give a damn about poor people. Right? America doesn’t care about poor people. America doesn’t really care about people just trying to make it every day, just trying to survive. But really, man, from everything from the DOGE cuts earlier in the year to the government shut down, like people really have no idea. Politicians really have no idea what their constituents are going through.
KARL: Yeah.
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: We don’t even talk about all the people whose lives DOGE ruined early in the air. Then you fast forward and you get to the government shutdown. And I understand that they were taking a stand for people’s healthcare, but just the fact that they weren’t even thinking about all the government workers that were also —
KARL: No paychecks.
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: — out of work who are still, right now, as they’re watching this on television, trying to catch up.
KARL: And what do you expect for 2026? What is the — what’s your biggest hope? Let’s try to end here on a hopeful note. What do you — what do you hope for?
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: I hope that — I hope that politicians get their act together. It does give me hope to see some of the Republicans finally saying, whoa, like, that ain’t right. Like, I mean, I’m even just on like, just regular moral human issues, right? When he made those comments about Rob Reiner, it’s just like, just to see Republicans step up and be like, all right, bro, that’s too far.
Like, you know, I’m just finally happy to see people on that side, the right side say, “Hey, that’s too far.” Like, you know, do I trust Marjorie Taylor Greene? No. Do I believe Marjorie Taylor Greene? I didn’t at first, starting to a little bit. Because at some point, your conscience has to kick in. At some point, your moral clarity as a human has to be like, “Hmm, nah, that’s not what I want to be a part of.” So I would be — I hope to see more of that and I hope to see Democrats continue to get their messaging together.
But I also don’t want people to think that Democrats have to have one message.
KARL: Yeah.
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: When you talk about a big tent party, I think that we really have to look at it in that way. Everybody in that party is going to be doing different things, but if they all have the same goal, I think that could be what’s best for America.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KARL: Our thanks to Charlamagne. We’ll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KARL: That’s all for today. Thank you for sharing part of your Sunday with us. Check out “World News Tonight.” Have a great day and a very Merry Christmas.
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