Welcome back to Washington Secrets. Our tame strategist and pollster are back from their New Year break to run the rule over Donald Trump and his first weeks of 2026. Now there’s just time to hunker down for the winter storm that is rolling in.
This will be a pivotal year. Democrats head into midterm elections convinced they can retake the House and that President Donald Trump, with his dismal approval ratings, is a political liability.
But he has successes to celebrate, most notably the extraordinary raid to snatch Nicolas Maduro in Caracas.
Yet we all know that the electorate does not make its decision based on foreign policy.
Republican strategists want more from the president on the economy. Tax breaks should kick in this year, and the White House has said that the president will be on the road selling what it believes is a good news story.
At the same time, this past week has seen Trump take a muscular approach to the rest of the world, dividing our two experts.
Jed Babbin: Grade B
There’s a lot that has been happening during our two-week hiatus. Some of it is good, and some isn’t.
Delta Force snatched now-former Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro and his wife from Caracas and did so without any American casualties. The problem is that President Trump now believes interim President Delcy Rodriguez is someone with whom he can deal. If she doesn’t hold free and fair elections, ban Iranian proxy terrorists Hezbollah from the nation (in which they’ve been operating freely for over a decade), and open free sales of oil, she won’t have done anything that benefits us. And she’s highly unlikely to do any of that.
Trump promised Iranian protesters that help was on the way and that we were “locked and loaded” and ready to go. But that promise has apparently been forgotten. Any military operations against the ayatollahs won’t be as easy as the Maduro capture. It would have to be a sustained campaign that would last for months.
Trump was trying to bully Denmark and NATO into giving the U.S. ownership of Greenland. He should have been doing what is necessary — Greenland is necessary and entirely strategic for his “Golden Dome” missile defense — by treaty with Denmark. Trump has said we won’t use force to acquire Greenland. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said that Europe should be happy that Trump is in charge. Ok. But wait a minute. Trump now says he’s close to negotiating a deal that will give us everything we want in Greenland except ownership. He has canceled the threatened tariffs on Europe. The art of the deal at work.
Trump’s “board of peace,” originally meant to deal with the Gaza Strip, has expanded globally while attracting twenty members who each pay $1 billion to get a place at the table. But neither Russian President Vladimir Putin nor China’s Xi Jinping are members. It won’t replace the U.N., but it should.
Meanwhile, about 100,000 illegal immigrants have taken the bonuses granted for self-deportation and the stock market remains at a near all-time high. Gasoline prices are at a low from the Biden highs, incomes — which dropped about $3,000 under Biden — have recovered that amount and more. Domestically, Trump has performed well on his campaign promises, and there’s more to come with tax cuts and such under Trump’s “Big Beautiful” bill. Trump has gained a lot — probably trillions of dollars — in foreign investments in the US. We are almost recovered from Biden, and all signs are good for our economy.
John Zogby: Grade F
No suspense for a grade this week. I gave the “F” key a rest in late December, but there is no avoiding it this week. The President’s behavior in Davos was appalling. His endless rant involved tiresome personal hurts, policy for revenge, and insults to nations, peoples, and leaders.
In northern Switzerland, where the official language is German and in a room with an audience composed of a large delegation from Germany, Trump made it a point to scold Europe for being useless in World War II without the United States. He “reminded” everyone that they would all be speaking German if it were not for the U.S. Nice touch.
But it was more than the speech, which included boasts of things that never happened (successful negotiations to end wars in eight global hot spots), a beautiful economy that Americans just love, deportations of 10,000 illegal criminals in Minnesota by ICE. At the same time, ICE is getting a free pass from investigation by the Justice Department.
He initially refused to recognize Martin Luther King Day as a federal holiday, then issued a late-in-the-day lukewarm statement that did not mention the accomplishments of the civil rights movement.
He promised he would do whatever it takes to own Greenland, then backed down to say he had reached an agreement on a package that looks so far like status quo faux antebellum. Safe to say, the President entered Davos like a lion and left like a pussy.
The President also launched the Board of Peace, whose bylaws allow him to adhere to a founding principle of the United States: “one man, one vote”. The only problem is that he is the one man. To date, 19 nations have joined, excluding almost all of Europe, Asia, South America, North America, and Africa. There is so much more, but it is mainly about his speech.
John Zogby is the founder of the Zogby Survey and senior partner at John Zogby Strategies. His latest book, Beyond the Horse Race: How to Read Polls and Why We Should, was just released. His podcast with son and managing partner and pollster Jeremy Zogby can be heard here. Follow him on X @ZogbyStrategies.
Jed Babbin is a Washington Examiner contributor and former deputy undersecretary of defense in the administration of former President George H.W. Bush. Follow him on X @jedbabbin.
Melania week
The Melania Trump documentary has its premiere at the Trump-Kennedy Center next week. And it looks as if there will be plenty of first lady programming around it.
The White House announced today that Melania Trump will be ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange. Expect more Melania news through the week.
Paul Dans says he doesn’t speak ill of fellow Republicans
Paul Dans, one of the key architects of Project 2025, gets the Lunch with the FT treatment. He is billed as “arguably the most influential and revolutionary American whose name FT readers may not know.” Quite so.
He was jettisoned by the Heritage Foundation during the 2024 election campaign when Trump was trying to deny the role of Project 2025 and was accused of professional misconduct. Those allegations were dropped in favor of the political equivalent of a band splitting up over “musical differences.”
Yet he claims to bear no ill will and, over lunch at the Monocle, told his interviewer: “I am a great believer in President Reagan’s 11th commandment to speak no ill of fellow Republicans.”
Try telling Lindsey Graham. Dans, who is about to become a father for the fifth time, is involved in a very bitter primary with the South Carolina senator. And wastes no opportunity to use Graham’s lack of children against him.
Lunchtime reading
Drunk driving and prostitutes: Members of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service have taken to denouncing their colleagues: Hundreds of Russian diplomats were expelled from their foreign postings at the start of the Ukraine war. Amid intense competition for new jobs, they have found a way to hobble rivals
Elon Musk Sure Made Lots of Predictions at Davos: “Generally, for quality of life, it’s better to err on the side of being an optimist and wrong than a pessimist and right,” he said.
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