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The Big Picture: Politics in prime time

President Trump speaks in primetime from the White House

Doug Mills/AFP via Getty Images

Addressing the nation and doing so in prime time is not something news networks used to take lightly.

Giving over a valuable slot in prime time has been typically reserved for an announcement of a major international incident or major news.

The broadcast networks (CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox), in fact, didn’t show a proposed prime-time address by President Obama in 2014 on immigration policy. Many opted to put it on less-watched cable or digital platforms. One network “insider” told Politico back then that the speech was seen as too “overtly political.”

How times have changed.

President Trump delivered a prime-time address Wednesday night, carried by all of the networks. It made no major announcements, was hotly defensive and blamed Democrats and immigrants for economic woes.

Talk about overtly political.

Trump’s address amounted to little more than the kind of speech he delivers at a political rally — only framed by Christmas decorations at the White House.

This came the same week as Trump‘s low-brow, social-media post about the death of Hollywood producer Rob Reiner. Trump made the incident about himself — and political — before any arrest was announced, seemingly justifying the deaths of Reiner and his wife. (Reiner’s son, Nick, has been taken into custody.)

Trump also put up a new exhibit at the White House with plaques under photos of past presidents, mocking and criticizing many of them, while calling himself the best president ever.

The plaques refer to former President Biden as “Sleepy Joe,” and call him the worst president in history, under a picture of an autopen. Another calls former President Obama one of the “most divisive political figures in history.” George W. Bush is blasted for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, neither of which, the plaque says, should have happened. It notes about Bill Clinton that his wife, Hillary, lost to Trump in 2016.

And on. It’s another instance of nothing this country has ever seen from past presidents. In fact, the tradition has been for presidents, after hard-fought elections, to support each other in an effort to unify and not rip apart the country politically. But Trump sees everything as zero sum and centered around himself.

For many, it’s cringeworthy and like social-media trolling come to life, while his supporters continue to back him.

— Domenico Montanaro, NPR’s senior political editor/correspondent

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ICYMI: Top Stories

A protester holds a sign related to the release of the Jeffrey Epstein case files outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 12.

Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

The Epstein files: Congress passed legislation last month compelling the Department of Justice to fully release its files related to the life and death of Jeffrey Epstein by Dec. 19. The DOJ said a full release by yesterday’s deadline would not happen, and that they’ll need more time. They did, however, release an initial trove of files on Friday. Here’s what we’ve learned so far.

TikTok is becoming American, kind of: The social media company has signed a deal to spin-off its U.S. operations to mostly American investors, including Oracle, the software company run by a Trump ally. But the underlying algorithm will still be owned by Beijing-based ByteDance.

GOP split over Afghan immigrants: Some Republicans in Congress are splitting from the Trump administration over its crackdown on legal immigration from Afghanistan, especially for those migrants who helped U.S. war efforts there.

FBI deputy director to step down: Dan Bongino, the far-right podcaster turned FBI deputy director, said this week he plans to step down in January. His tenure at the bureau was at times tumultuous, including a clash with DOJ leadership over the Epstein files But it also involved the arrest earlier this month in the Jan. 6 pipe bomb case — a case that had long stymied investigators.

Congressional turnover: With the 2026 midterm elections quickly approaching, incumbents are weighing another run. So far, more than 10% have indicated they won’t be back for another term — with some retiring, some vying for higher office and others expected to lose their seats due to redistricting.

— Saige Miller, NPR producer

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Going Deeper: A new low for Trump's economic approval

President Trump is pictured in the Oval Office on Monday.

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

President Trump often touts his economic successes in office, but many Americans aren’t feeling it and it’s showing up in his approval ratings.

The latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll finds only 36% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the economy — a new low.

Republicans typically have an advantage when it comes to who voters trust more when it comes to the economy, but the poll also shows that Democrats have now taken a slight lead on the issue — 37% to 33%.

NPR’s Domenico Montanaro dissects the most recent poll and what it could mean for Trump and the GOP.

— Saige Miller, NPR producer

The Shot: A Capitol unveiling

A statue of Barbara Rose Johns is unveiled at the U.S. Capitol

Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

On April 23, 1951, a Black teenager named Barbara Rose Johns gathered 450 students at her segregated Virginia high school and convinced them to walk out. Her strike to improve the school’s conditions lasted two weeks.

Her protest was one of the seminal cases reviewed in the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, which declared school segregation unconstitutional.

This week, a statue honoring Johns was unveiled at the U.S. Capitol. It depicts her as a teenager at a podium, raising a book overhead mid-rallying cry. The pedestal is engraved: "Are we going to just accept these conditions, or are we going to do something about it?"

Each state is allowed two statues in the U.S. Capitol. For more than a century, Virginia was represented by George Washington and Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. As NPR’s Rachel Treisman reports, Virginia’s Commission on Historical Statues voted to replace Lee with Johns after his statue was removed in 2020.

— Anusha Mathur, NPR Washington Desk intern

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