It’s getting harder to recall those sleepy days of early lids and gushy stories about presidential ice cream trips during the Biden administration after 45 weeks of the second whirlwind Trump presidency.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described it best in a story about getting late-night policy calls from President Donald Trump. He said, “He’ll call me, ‘Scott, I didn’t wake you, did I?’ No, sir, I’m always awake at 1:52 a.m. on a Tuesday!”
This week was no different and included the president and first lady lighting the National Christmas Tree, visits from foreign leaders, his acceptance of the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize, a televised Cabinet meeting, notable and controversial presidential pardons, and a slam on Minnesota’s Somali immigrants.
He also deflected a mini-scandal over the military’s “double tap” on a suspected narco boat, and was handed several court victories, including one Friday that OK’d his firing of Democratic agency leaders.
🚨 JUST IN: Scott Bessent PUMMELS the media for latching on to the theory that Donald Trump's health is "deteriorating"
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) December 4, 2025
"He'll call me, 'Scott, I didn't wake you, did I?' No, sir, I'm always awake at 1:52AM on a Tuesday!" 😂
"We did the trip to Alaska. We did a round trip one… pic.twitter.com/4dwZnCXtLM
Is it too much? Polls show that Trump is wearing on some and his approval ratings are trending down, especially among those who don’t believe the cost of living is improving as the president promised.
And that’s why Trump is scheduled to hit the road next week to talk up his team’s hope for better “affordability” next year, leading up to the 2026 congressional midterm elections.
Our graders were split on Trump’s week, as usual. Conservative analyst Jed Babbin graded the week a “B,” and pointed to the Republican special election victory in Tennessee. Democratic pollster John Zogby came in with an “F,” and spoke for many in mocking the FIFA award.
Jed Babbin
Grade: B
It seems that this was Venezuela and Somalia week at the White House, with President Donald Trump threatening ground action in South America, a hot and heavy media debate on the second hit on a drug boat, and Trump saying he doesn’t want Somali immigrants in the U.S. On the way to all that, there was a bunch of good news.
First, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed the week just shy of 48,000. That means the U.S. economy is doing right well. Second, the Tennessee special House election went to the Republican, but by a smaller margin than Trump won that district a year ago. All of those wishing and hoping that newly-minted Rep. Matt Van Epps [R-TN] would lose — enabling disastrous predictions for the 2026 midterm elections — were hugely disappointed.
Biden's Christmas vs Trump's Christmas pic.twitter.com/Mjr7glXyqq
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) December 1, 2025
Trump said that we were closing the airspace above Venezuela and that military ground operations would soon begin against narco terrorists. If he wants to scare Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro out of office, he’ll have to do more than just threaten. Congress seems to want to get in on the act.
What began as a media squall soon took on a life of its own. The Washington Post reported that War Secretary Pete Hegseth had ordered a second strike on drug boat survivors in September. A week or so later, the New York Times — no friend of Trump — said they could find no confirmation of the story among their sources. Adm. Frank Bradley, commander of Special Operations Command, said he ordered the second hit and that neither Trump nor Hegseth likely knew about it until it was over. But the story nevertheless has legs, and Congress wants in on it.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who is a conservative only when those principles intersect with his libertarianism, joined Democrats to push a bill restraining Trump’s money to hit the drug boats. Meanwhile, the Senate Armed Services Committee is scheduling hearings for Hegseth to testify under oath about the attacks. The SASC plans to hit Trump and Hegseth severely, trying to assert congressional powers over war. They won’t succeed because Congress is too disorganized for something like that. But they’ll harrumph about the War Powers Resolution, passed in 1973 over President Nixon’s veto, which supposedly cancels presidential orders committing troops for longer than 60 days, and which is probably unconstitutional. It’s another chance for Trump to make new law through the courts.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court said it would take up Trump’s case that seeks to outlaw birthright citizenship for illegal aliens. Don’t laugh. Trump could easily win that one because the only SCOTUS precedent, which is more than a century old, dealt just with legal immigrant parents of a Chinese person. (US v Wong Kim Ark, 1898)
John Zogby
Grade: F
President Donald Trump was just awarded the first (and possibly only) FIFA Peace Award. In his acceptance, he said the world is a lot safer today under his leadership.
This comes as new polling shows that the people of nine nations in Europe see Trump more as an enemy than as a friend. All of the countries are U.S. allies.
It also comes at a time when ICE has launched a major initiative to rid the U.S. of Somalis, a people that Trump referred to this week in his Cabinet meeting as “garbage.”
Folks in the Caribbean are probably not feeling safer as U.S. forces are targeting Venezuelan boats and killing their crews just as the president is warning that a U.S. land offensive could be imminent. The White House and the Secretary of Defense have changed their stories about how and what transpired in the sinking of one such boat and its crew in early September.
One survey of Foreign Service workers found that 98% feel lower morale since Trump took office in January. Job layoffs are at their highest now than at any time since the pandemic. Manufacturing has shrunk, and 46% of Americans blame Trump for the high cost of living.
Does the NBA give an award?
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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.
John Zogby is the founder of the Zogby Survey and senior partner at John Zogby Strategies. His latest book is Beyond the Horse Race: How to Read Polls and Why We Should. His podcast with son and managing partner and pollster Jeremy Zogby can be heard here. Follow him on X @ZogbyStrategies.
