Welcome to our annual year-end awards! As always, we honor the memory of The McLaughlin show with our categories, and we want to thank the readers who responded to our calls for nominees for them all.

Also as always, it is long. Really, really, insanely long. You have been warned!

And also as always, we'll be back again next Friday for [Part 2].

That's really all we need as an introduction. I mean, it's long enough already! So buckle up boys and girls, here we go....

 

   Biggest Winner Of 2025

We're going to start off with a very cheerful award, because the Biggest Winner Of 2025 goes to none other than the Democratic Party. I had already picked this out, but I'm going to paste in a nomination sent by reader Kick, because it lists some good details:

As far as biggest political winner this year, seems to me like it's the Democratic Party for sweeping key elections all across America, many by large margins and huge point swings. Flipping Virginia governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general and 13 seats in the House of Delegates and turning their 51-49 narrow majority into a huge 64-seat majority. Also keeping New Jersey governorship and flipping multiple seats in the NJ General Assembly to create a supermajority, flipping Miami mayoral election against Trump-endorsed candidate by 19 points, maintaining the Democratic majority on the PA Supreme Court (huge), Prop 50 in CA.

There were other races as well, such as a few notable special elections in Iowa and other states as well as a state supreme court race (the most expensive one in American history) in Minnesota. From the start of the year to year's end (that Miami mayor race), Democrats have been racking up big wins or at the very least losing by margins that scare the hell out of Republicans looking towards next year's midterms.

Whenever possible, the voters sent one message loud and clear, and that is that they want something different than Donald Trump and the Republican Party is offering them. Which is why we had to agree, the Democratic Party was indeed the Biggest Winner Of 2025. Let's hope they can keep this momentum up in 2026!

 

   Biggest Loser Of 2025

I could have gone with the flip side of that last one and said the Biggest Loser Of 2025 was the Republican Party, but that'd be too redundant.

Most of what I considered for this award were concepts, not people or things. Stuff like: science... history... museums... rationality... minorities and women... D.E.I.... the Constitution... the American people... etc. I also considered Stephen Colbert and "unvaccinated kids," but then I read the nomination from nypoet22 and decided it was indeed the most appropriate (especially looking towards next year's midterms).

The Biggest Loser Of 2025 was the American consumer.

Trump took an economy that had almost fully recovered from the pandemic's aftershocks (inflation had gotten back down below 3.0 percent, for example) and took a wrecking ball to it all. He launched a trade war with the rest of the planet in the most juvenile way possible, and all throughout the year was forced to dial parts of it back (because so many complained about steep price hikes). But he still hasn't conceded the basic idiocy of slapping a "Trump tax" on everything Americans buy. And he also hasn't conceded the fact that the public is not happy about things either. Both will (hopefully) prove to be his downfall, next November.

Trump could care less, as evidenced by just this week returning to his idiotic "you don't need to give your daughter 37 dolls... two or three is enough" (what kid gets 37 dolls for Christmas anyway?). So yeah, both because Trump sent the economy into a ditch for no reason whatsoever and also because he refuses to admit that people are paying higher prices out there... the Biggest Loser Of 2025 was indeed the American consumer.

 

   Best Politician

This one appears to be unanimous. New York City's Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani worked very hard to earn the Best Politician of the year, and really nobody else was even close.

Mamdani went from being absolutely nowhere in the polls to beating Andrew Cuomo in the primary. This was a real bombshell, since everyone (starting with Cuomo himself) expected him to breeze to the nomination on the strength of his last name alone. And people having very short memories, too.

The voters, however, disagreed with anointing a member of a political dynasty who was attempting a comeback after having resigned the governor's office in disgrace. Mamdani was a breath of fresh air in comparison.

Senator Bernie Sanders had the most amusing take on things, right after the primary, saying in an interview (with tongue in cheek):

I think it's his hair, myself. The consultants haven't figured that out. That's why I make the big bucks. I think it's the hairstyle myself. I don't think there's much else to be said about it. Good guy. Photogenic. The hair.

After opening with a joke, though, Bernie got more serious:

Look, he ran a brilliant campaign. And it wasn't just him. What he understood and understands -- [the] campaign's not over -- is that to run a brilliant campaign, you have to run a grassroots campaign. So instead of taking money from billionaires and putting stupid ads on television, which the people increasingly do not pay attention to, you mobilize thousands and thousands of people around the progressive agenda that speaks to the needs of working-class people and you go out and you knock on doors. And if somebody like a Kamala Harris had not listened to her consultants and done that, she would be president of the United States today.

Mamdani then faced an absolute onslaught of demonization -- much of it from within his own party, sadly enough. I mean, you expect Donald Trump to call a Democratic Socialist a "communist," but the fury which Mamdani's victory sparked among the establishment Democrats was breathtaking. Cuomo's brother Chris, right after Mamdani's primary win, called him a "fundamentalist Islamist" and predicted that "the party is dead."

The Washington Post -- owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos -- absolutely lost their editorial mind over Mamdani. Not a week went by without multiple articles not just attacking Mamdani but scathingly demonizing him as someone who would cause the collapse of Western civilization.

Cuomo then launched an independent bid for governor and money poured in from other fatcat Democratic donors, desperate to beat this upstart youngster.

None of it worked. Not the blatant racism and Islamophobia, not the scare tactics about the evils of providing free child care, not the demonization of him personally. None of it made any difference, and in the end Mamdani soundly beat Cuomo in November.

He did so because he is an amazing politician. He listened to New Yorkers, he met as many of them as he possibly could, and his army of volunteers got the voters excited to vote for him. That is the mark of a great politician, and it was a shame that the establishment Democrats couldn't see it.

For his stunning upset, and for his natural political skills and his raw charisma, Zohran Mamdani was indeed the Best Politician of the year.

 

   Worst Politician

Um... Senator Chuck Schumer?

We did consider the suggestion from reader nypoet22 for Pete Hegseth ("I don't think there's been a less competent department secretary in my lifetime"), we're instead going to hand Worst Politician to Elon Musk.

Musk, of course, isn't really a politician. But he became one in 2025, as Donald Trump gave him the keys to his kingdom (the executive branch) and turned him loose. Musk tried to be the "move fast and break things" tech-bro that he is, but pretty much everything he touched immediately turned to pure crap.

Which didn't bother Trump in the slightest, it bears mentioning. For a while, it was pretty obvious that "President Elon Musk" was truly in charge, with Trump looking smaller and smaller next to him, but in the end it was Elon who crashed and burned first (much like many of his rocket launch attempts).

Musk tried to flat-out buy a state supreme court race in Minnesota, and instead of being neck-and-neck the liberal candidate beat Musk's candidate handily. In fact, Musk inserting himself (and his millions) into the race probably helped the liberal win, in the most expensive state supreme court race in American history.

Then for a while, Musk and Trump started feuding. This got precisely as juvenile as you would expect (we wrote a Friday Talking Points article subtitled: "No YOU'RE The Poopyhead" to sum up the level of discourse between the two). Musk left his position as Trump's hatchet man and went into a snit. For a while, he talked about forming his own political party, just to spit in the Republican Party's collective eye, but he didn't follow through on this "take my bat and ball and go home" threat in the end.

Meanwhile, his company Tesla went from being considered one of the coolest around by hipsters to being an absolute pariah worldwide.

All this, from wanting to play-act as a politician.

Which is why to us, Elon Musk was the Worst Politician of the year.

 

   Most Defining Political Moment

This one was actually pretty easy. The Most Defining Political Moment was what Donald Trump called "Liberation Day." The very name was idiotic, which was apt since the entire trade-war policy was cuckoo-bananas (more on bananas in a bit). Which made it entirely appropriate that he chose the day after April Fool's Day to announce them all.

Trump decided, on a whim, to slap tariffs on just about every country in the world (except Russia). He was so thorough he included a couple islands that are solely populated by penguins! Chilly Willy's been getting a free ride or something, apparently.

The numbers he chose for the tariffs were not linked to any sane economic indicator. Instead, he divided the trade deficit the U.S. has with that country by two, essentially. Except he had a minimum of 10 percent, which hit even countries we run a trade surplus with, for no discernable reason.

Since then, it's been nothing but sheer chaos. The stock market freaked out and went into a steep dive, so Trump immediately "paused" everything for 90 days. He swore that he'd ink a trade deal with every country on the list before the end of that period, but when it came he was woefully short. Countries soon learned that they didn't actually have to strike a hard-and-fast trade deal (which usually takes years to work out, because they are usually stuffed chock full of fine-print details), instead they just had to come to some sort of handshake agreement, mostly having to do with pledging to buy more American products. Time will tell whether any of these countries ever follow through on any of these pledges (Trump's cut deals like this before where they didn't, it's worth mentioning).

Trump, though, earned an embarrassing meme during all of this, because he kept backing away from the most serious of his threats. Someone on Wall Street came up with the acronym "TACO," for "Trump Always Chickens Out," and it stuck.

Later in the year, Trump had to grant exemptions for a long list of products (mostly produce) that made absolutely no sense whatsoever, because they are not grown here at all. There are no "American banana farmers," period. There are a few coffee farmers (Kona, Hawai'i), but nowhere near enough to satisfy consumer demand.

Trump also screwed over American farmers by taking such a hard line with China. Soybean farmers were used to selling over half of the entire soybean crop to China, but this year they bought absolutely no soybeans at all -- which caused the market to collapse. Just recently, Trump had to announce a bailout for American famers, but it was roughly one-fourth of the losses they had racked up by now.

But the biggest impact was on American consumers, who watched the price of everything go up and up and up all year long. Donald Trump does not understand the basic concept of tariffs or trade deficits, and we're all paying the price for his willful ignorance.

As for Trump's stated reason for the trade war, America has steadily lost manufacturing jobs all year long. Factories didn't start booming again. And many factories are switching over much more to robot labor and automation. So Trump's trade war has been a massive failure all around. The only silver lining is that his refusal to change course is going to make the midterms a lot easier for Democrats to win.

So yes, "Liberation Day" was indeed the Most Defining Political Moment of the year. We've all been freed! Freed to pay higher prices for everything, that is....

 

   Turncoat Of The Year

While both readers who sent in nomination slates chose JD Vance for this award, we decided to go in another (slightly more positive) direction.

We considered Musk, for that epic spat with Trump. We considered Eric Adams for all of his shenanigans during the New York City mayor's race. And we almost gave the award to Jeff Bezos for his absolute destruction of any shred of credibility and respect anyone's ever given the Washington Post (which has been absolutely tragic as well as disgusting to watch, all year long -- their editorial page is now somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun).

But in the end, we had to give the Turncoat Of The Year to (gasp!) Marjorie Taylor Greene. Her turning her coat on Donald Trump wasn't absolute -- she still does praise him for some things he does, even today -- but her break with Trump was the most notable by any Republican politician all year long.

Greene is, of course, completely looney-tunes. She just is. She responded to flooding in Texas this year with a bill to ban "weather modification," since no disaster happens anywhere without a conspiracy theory springing up immediately to explain it away to numbskulls like Greene.

But she broke from Trump on two big issues which are both to her credit. First, she was one of a very few Republicans to point out that causing people's medical costs to skyrocket is not a very smart thing for the party to have caused. Apparently a member of her own family is going to be hit hard by the premium hikes due to the Obamacare subsidies expiring at the end of this month, so I guess it was personal.

What was also personal for Greene was following through on forcing the Trump administration to release all the Epstein files. She was one of only four Republicans in the House to sign the discharge petition that allowed this to happen.

For all of these sins, she was essentially forced out of her own party. She will be resigning her House seat in early January (days after she qualifies for lifetime retirement benefits, by the way) and will not be running for re-election. That's a heavy price to pay for turning your coat, no matter how odious a human being she may be.

So while we in no way mean the award as a positive thing -- we chose her solely because of the impact of what she did -- we have to say that Marjorie Taylor Greene was indeed the Turncoat Of The Year.

 

   Most Boring

I did consider Elon Musk for this award, but somehow he's something different than "boring"... I dunno... robotic? Glitchy? Run by malware? Something a lot tech-ier, at any rate.

So I am going to agree with my readers and hand the award to a perennial winner of it: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Listening to Schumer -- even when he attempts to show high dudgeon -- is about as exciting as watching paint dry (as reader Kick pointed out).

Schumer may not survive in his leadership role in 2027 (after the midterms, all leadership positions will be voted on for the next Congress), and a large part of it will be his boring demeanor. To be blunt, it is not what is needed to combat Donald Trump. Schumer annoyed plenty of Democrats in the spring when he refused to shut the government down (the first time), so there are leadership quality questions as well.

But yeah... Schumer was definitely the Most Boring of 2025. Thinking about him just makes you sleepy... (yawn).

 

   Most Charismatic

Not everyone is going to agree with this one, I think. Just to warn you, up front.

As always, I considered Donald Trump for this (reading charismatic as neutral, not necessarily a positive trait). But he's lost his mojo in a big way. He is sleepy and low-energy these days, and he has all but left behind his humorous quips. Now when he tries for a laugh, it just makes everyone cringe because it is always so mean-spirited.

I also considered Zohran Mamdani for Most Charismatic, since the man does absolutely radiate a magnetic charisma, but I decided he was getting other awards (and no matter how hard the Republicans try, he's not really a national figure quite yet), so I am passing over him too.

Instead, I have to award Most Charismatic to none other than my own home-state governor, Gavin Newsom.

Now, I do realize that Newsom turns some people off. But he has been absolutely relentless in mocking Trump all year long, pretty much in every way he can think up. He has had a field day on social media, scathingly copying Trump's bizarre style (of capitalization, of using all-caps, and of using stupid phrases and insulting nicknames). Newsom has also fought back against Trump in more concrete ways, as he sets up his obvious 2028 presidential bid.

But even though he's had some missteps and stumbles, Newsom achieved what few other Democrats did this year -- he remained relevant. His digs at Trump made news. Democrats delighted in someone turning the tables on Trump in so many amusing ways.

So while he may not be your cup of tea for 2028, Gavin Newsom still had a pretty impressive year as Trump's primary foil or goad. And for that, we award him Most Charismatic.

 

   Bummest Rap

We have quite a few nominees to choose from, here.

I'll start with my favorite: Zohran Mamdani. Mamdani was portrayed as the Devil incarnate -- including by prominent members of his own party. He was portrayed as the second coming of Karl Marx. He was portrayed as the second coming of Osama Bin Laden. He was going to burn Wall Street to the ground as wealthy New Yorkers fled the city en masse. The hyperbole was absolutely unbelievable. The Washington Post lost its collective editorial mind, as their editorial board heaped article after article on the subject of: "How Mamdani will singlehandedly end Western civilization." Think that's an exaggeration? Search their site for "Mamdani" and read any article from the summer or prior to the November election, and you will see what I am talking about.

But I decided that Mamdani himself has to prove that all of it was a bum rap. So I will be considering him for next year's award, based on his track record as mayor.

All the people accused of crimes for simply saying anything bad, ever about Donald Trump. This is an extensive list, but what comes foremost to the mind is all the bogus "mortgage fraud" cases Trump is siccing on his political enemies. Every single one of them is a bum rap.

Vaccines certainly deserve a mention here. True to form (and proving that he lied during his confirmation process), R.F.K. Junior has been doing everything he can to undermine the success of childhood (and adult, for that matter) vaccinations. He has no scientific basis for doing so, and the exodus of people from the federal public health system was remarkable. I don't blame them -- who would want to work for such a dangerous quack?

But I'm giving the Bummest Rap out as a collective award this year, to everyone who was fired from a government job just because either Elon Musk or Donald Trump didn't like them, everyone who was fired for ideological reasons (for not pledging their loyalty to Trump) or for just doing their damn job in the past in an honest way, and everyone who was fired just for being a minority or a woman (especially in the military, where such firings were disgustingly rampant). I also include people not "fired" but instead "disappeared" from history. All the people of color or women or minorities of any type who were erased from Smithsonian museums or government webpages for the crime of not being a White Christian male certainly deserves the Bummest Rap award as well. America has never seen such an Orwellian effort to erase large swaths of people (and historical events like "slavery") from official history, and it was both frightening and disgusting to observe. All of them -- all the people fired who were told it was "for cause" when it wasn't, and all the people sent down the Trumpian memory hole -- they all got the Bummest Rap of the year, in a very big way.

 

   Fairest Rap

This one was close, because it was hard to choose between two possibilities.

I did consider former senator Bob "Gold Bars" Menendez, but found him too picayune for this year.

I also considered conceptual ideas such as "tariffs are a tax" and calling what we're all going through an "affordability crisis." That last one has caught on in a big way, and it's already getting under Trump's skin. My prediction is "affordability crisis" will make an appearance in at least 80 or 90 percent of all midterm ads that Democrats run next year, for good reason (a fair rap indeed!).

And I also considered Trump himself, because at the very start of this year (before he was even sworn in), a court sentenced him for his 34 felony convictions.

But in the end I had to agree with reader Kick, who wrote:

The vast majority of the over 1,600 individuals pardoned or given clemency that were convicted and/or charged with federal criminal offenses in connection with January 6th and the vast majority of the over 100 criminals with drug offenses granted same by the 34-time convicted felon who is desperately attempting a rewrite of history.

But I wouldn't even limit it in any way. The Fairest Rap award goes to not only all of the January 6th criminals, but also to everyone Trump has pardoned since. Trump is quite obviously just selling pardons, at this point. Recently, he completely undercut his entire rationale for harassing Venezuela by pardoning the former president of Honduras who was serving a 45-year sentence for smuggling over 400 tons of cocaine into America. So much for "President Macho Man Drug Warrior," eh?

They're all guilty as sin. And it's all -- for each and every one of them -- the Fairest Rap of the year.

 

   Best Comeback

We had three strong contenders for Best Comeback this year. In fact, we wish we had three awards to hand out, because they all (for very different reasons) certainly deserve recognition.

The first is somewhat frivolous, but then again not really. The Best Comeback in the entertainment world was Jimmy Kimmel returning to the late-night airwaves at ABC, one week after being yanked off the air. He came back strong -- the night of his return is one of the most poignant and triumphal things I have ever seen on late-night television, in fact, and is still well worth watching. Perhaps in the end even CBS will see the light and at some point before next spring announce that Stephen Colbert has been "un-cancelled" as well? Once can only hope....

Politically, the Best Comeback was California Governor Gavin Newsom's response to Texas deciding to stack the deck by redistricting their House seats mid-decade. Newsom played tit-for-tat in spectacular fashion by putting a ballot initiative before California voters to redistrict the state's own House lines to negate the five districts Texas planned on flipping to the Republicans. The voters overwhelmingly agreed with Newsom, and Proposition 50 passed in a landslide. This will go a long way towards boosting Democratic chances of regaining a majority in the House in next year's midterms, and is well worth some sort of award.

But instead, we're going with a more serious interpretation of Best Comeback and handing the award to Ukraine, for their covert drone attack on Russian airfields. By carefully smuggling in dozens of kamikaze drones and then executing their attack with spectacular results, Ukraine in one operation wiped out a whole bunch of Russian bombers and other military aircraft. It wasn't a deciding moment in the ongoing war (sadly enough), but it was something for the free-loving world to cheer.

The nature of warfare has changed. Major powers need to adapt. Extremely cheap drones can now destroy outrageously expensive war machines at will -- including warships, war planes, tanks, and all sorts of other big and important things. Ukrainian drone boats have all but neutralized the Russian Black Sea fleet, and they showed the world that the same could be true for aircraft as well with their daring attack. No matter what the eventual outcome of the Russian invasion of Ukraine turns out to be, that will be the lesson the rest of the world takes from it. And the major powers can either adapt to the new strategies of war or suffer the consequences.

And the Ukrainian raid on the Russian airfields will be a textbook example of this for years to come. Which is why they deserve this year's Best Comeback award. Slava Ukraini!

 

   Most Original Thinker

We're in such a good mood that we're going to make both of the next pair of awards a positive thing. We do have to admit that we don't know exactly who truly deserves the award (which thinker actually thought the idea up) but we are going to give a sort of blanket Most Original Thinker award to the state of New Mexico, for instituting universal free child care this year.

Child care costs are through the roof. Ask any parent anywhere, they'll tell you. Free child care was one of the core campaign promises Zohran Mamdani ran (and won) on in New York City. It is a potent issue because it directly impacts people's lives for the better in a big and noticeable way.

It's one of those ideas Republicans love to scream "Socialism!" about, but when presented to the voters it is wildly popular. Other Democrats should take note, in fact. And now nobody will be able to say "It can't be done!" anymore, since New Mexico just did it.

Sure, it might have problems and it might have some bumps in implementation, but it's one of those things that good government should strive to provide its citizens just on the grounds of it being a stunningly good idea that makes families' lives a whole lot easier. And for that alone, it seems to deserve the Most Original Thinker award -- which should go to every Democratic politician in the state that made it happen. This pioneering effort can stand as a shining example to other states (and the nation), if handled right. So for all the New Mexico politicians who ignored the naysayers and the "It'll never work" pessimism, this award's for you.

 

   Most Stagnant Thinker

As I said, I am going to go positive here too, even though it's tough to see "stagnant" as being a good thing.

The Most Stagnant Thinker of the year was none other than Bernie Sanders.

You know why this is a good thing?

Because Bernie's been right all along.

Bernie hasn't changed his tune -- he's been attacking millionaires and billionaires and oligarchs for decades now. But finally (finally!) the Democratic Party has begun to see the light.

The "affordability crisis" is going to be the biggest weapon in the Democratic political quiver throughout all of next year. People are sick and tired of being ripped off and held down by giant corporations and billionaires. They just are. Look at what happened in the New York City mayor's race. And at the same time, two more-moderate Democrats also used essentially the same playbook as Mamdani to win the governor's office in both New Jersey and Virginia.

Other Democrats are now eagerly adapting the strategy. They can smell electoral victory wafting on the wave of people's anger at high prices and high inflation and outsized corporate profits. Some may see this as a bright new idea for Democrats, and (sadly) this is correct to a certain degree.

But not to Bernie. Bernie's been saying this stuff for a long time. Everyone else is just catching up to him.

Which is precisely how "Most Stagnant Thinker" can indeed be a very positive award.

 

   Best Photo Op

This one is easy. The Best Photo Op of the year were the two "No Kings!" rallies. Reader Kick specifically nominated: "Thousands of peaceful protesters in San Francisco who spelled out 'NO KINGS'," and we have to say that that was indeed our favorite photo as well.

But there were hundreds of great photos to choose from, because there were thousands of individual protests held in cities and towns across America. The first protest saw five million people in the streets. The second one bested that by turning out seven million. These were the biggest protests in all of American history, by far.

In fact, there's not much more to say about them. If one photo is worth 1,000 words, then what are thousands of photos worth?

The Best Photo Op of the year award, that's what.

 

   Worst Photo Op

This was the biggest category for possible nominees, since there were so many bad photo ops to choose from. In no particular order, here is a list of what we could have chosen as Worst Photo Op:

Trump not putting his hand on the Bible while being sworn in (imagine the outrage if a Democrat had done that!).

Elon Musk's Nazi-style salute (and him mocking critics of it afterwards).

What Trump has done to how the Oval Office looks (which is so cringeworthy that no explanation is really needed).

Trump's other White House redesign efforts.

Masked anonymous thugs "disappearing" people on the streets for the "crime" of expressing their First Amendment rights (among many other unconstitutional things).

Flying prisoners to a prison in El Salvador in mockery of the U.S. Constitution.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer hiding her face behind a binder because she was so embarrassed to have been dragooned into participating in one of Trump's hate-filled executive order signing ceremonies (just as a photo, this one really stood out).

Trump sad, pathetic military parade for his birthday.

Joni Ernst replying to a constituent at a town hall who was outraged over cuts to Medicaid with the Marie Antoinette-flavored: "Well, we are all going to die." And then following it up with a snide video shot in a graveyard.

The new flagpoles at the White House.

A Trump video of him as a fighter pilot dumping what looked like diarrhea on peaceful protesters. That one was pretty bad, you've got to admit.

But there were three big ones that really stood out, and it was tough to choose from among them.

The first was Trump's giant nothingburger of a summit with Vladimir Putin in Alaska. Trump was visibly subservient to Putin for the whole world to see, the summit didn't achieve anything at all (unless you count "Trump backing down on all his threats"), and Putin got bored with the whole thing and flew out when it was only halfway over. Ronald Reagan and every other Cold War veteran must have rolled over in their grave, to put it mildly.

The second was perhaps the strongest candidate all around -- Trump and JD Vance humiliating Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an Oval Office meeting, demanding that he praise and thank Trump with every breath, and then kicking him out after berating him for the world to see. Putin must have laughed out loud at this disgraceful display, and it quite easily was the worst display of the idiocy of Donald Trump's foreign policy all year long (which is saying a lot, since there were plenty of other embarrassments as well).

But our Worst Photo Op of the year was a visceral one that took America by surprise (and not in a good way). Immediately following the "No Kings!" rally that took place on his birthday (which, as mentioned, featured a very sad military parade that virtually no one attended in Washington), Trump decided to do something that could only be described as "king-like." He ordered the entire East Wing of the White House completely destroyed.

He is planning to build the most gaudy, tacky, tasteless ballroom that can even be imagined, after strong-arming corporate bosses to pony up the money to do so (Trump now estimates it's going to cost a whopping $300 million). The public was so horrified by all of this that we said at the time (and we fully believe it today) that one of the best campaign promises any Democratic presidential candidate could make in the 2028 campaign would be to pledge to get those same corporations to pony up the millions of dollars it will take to tear Trump's monstrosity down and restore the dignity of the White House.

In terms of having an enormous negative impact on the widest spectrum of the American public, the photos of the destruction of the East Wing was unmatched this year (which Trump apparently realized was going to happen -- he tried desperately to block any viewpoints to this destruction so that news organizations couldn't take and publish such photos, but to no avail). For that reason alone, the destruction of the East Wing was the Worst Photo Op of the year.

 

   Enough Already!

Our first catchall category. OK, here goes:

The Village People -- Enough Already!

Ignoring the Constitution -- Enough Already!

Masked and anonymous federal agents -- Enough Already!

Weaponizing the Department of Justice and launching legal vendettas against anyone you don't like -- Enough Already!

Prosecuting "mortgage fraud" that doesn't exist -- Enough Already!

Pardoning hardcore criminals just because they suck up to (or bribe) Trump -- Enough Already!

Firing inspectors general for no reason at all -- Enough Already!

The White House website refusing to provide public transcripts of speeches and other remarks from the president -- Enough Already!

Claiming sedition and treason for Democrats reminding people of their legal rights -- Enough Already!

Blowing up drug boats on the high seas -- Enough Already!

Ending food and other foreign aid, which has caused many preventable deaths -- Enough Already!

Trump running the Kennedy Center -- Enough Already!

Renaming military bases for Confederate generals -- Enough Already!

Juvenile A.I.-created posts from official White House accounts that a middle-schooler would have been embarrassed to have created -- Enough Already!

The new flagpoles at the White House -- Enough Already!

and, just for good measure:

Trump's incessant mean-spirited bullying -- Enough Already!

 

   Worst Lie

Seeing as how Trump was front and center all year long, there is an almost endless list of possibilities for Worst Lie of the year.

There are all his campaign promises, from Trump swearing he wouldn't cut Medicaid to promising in-vitro fertilization would become magically free for all families. There were all his numerous "I will fix this on Day One" lies, including that he'd end not just one but two wars (Ukraine and Gaza) in his first 24 hours in office. That was a real whopper. Which brings up his new lie, that he's personally "ended eight wars," which is just laughably untrue. Then there were garden-variety lies such as Trump insisting that there was a "giant valve" somewhere in California which controlled (this differs, at times) whether water flows into California from Oregon, or whether water in California flows out to the sea or is captured for use, or whether water goes to Northern California or Los Angeles. I found that one (living here as I do) particularly idiotic, personally.

There were all his lies on prices, which are also too numerous to even adequately list. He kept insisting -- from early spring onwards -- that gasoline was below two bucks a gallon "in three states" or four or five, or whatever (but he'd notably never actually name any of these states). Trump also asserted very early on that he had shut down a program that provided "$50 million for condoms for Hamas," which (of course) didn't actually exist.

Reader Kick pointed out that "affordability is a Democratic hoax" is pretty risible when you remember that Trump actually ran on the slogan: "Make America affordable again." Which brings up his continuing lies and gaslighting about the wonderfulness of the American economy, which can be summed up as: "Who are you going to believe, me or your lying pocketbook?"

Those were just some of the most memorable of Trump's thousands of lies, mind you.

But to me there's one that stands out because it is so frightening to think it could set a precedent in international law and warfare in general. And that is the lie that Trump is basing his war against Venezuela on: "international drug cartels are terrorist organizations and they are actively at war with the United States." None of that is actually true. They are not angels (by far) but they are also not terrorists by any sane definition of the term. And they most definitely are not "at war" with America in any way, shape, or form.

Trump has been using this lie to essentially murder anyone he feels like who happens to be on a boat in international waters. This is wildly outside what the rest of the planet considers lawful warfare, it is worth mentioning. Which is why it is such a downright dangerous lie. The precedent is a horrifying one to set, both domestically and internationally. What's going to happen when other countries (Russia, for instance, or China) use exactly the same "logic"? Are Republicans really going to accept a future Democratic president declaring (just for the sake of argument) that oil companies are conspiring to kill Americans, therefore they are terrorist organizations and we are "at war" with them?

Which is why Trump's rationale for killing people on boats (and possibly killing people on land, as he keeps threatening to do) is easily the Worst Lie of the year.

 

   Capitalist Of The Year

This one's rather disgusting, but then it often is.

Capitalist Of The Year goes to none other than Donald Trump.

He has singlehandedly turned being president into a money-making operation to line his own pockets, and he is doing so in a breathtakingly shameless manner. There is no end to his grifting. There is no scheme to line his own pockets that he will ever turn away from. It doesn't matter whether this is selling cheap crap to his supporters or accepting a gigantic gold-plated 747 from a foreign government -- it's all grift for Trump's mill, really.

He does so right out in the open. He doesn't care if anyone sees him cashing in. He sells the presidency and his own brand on a daily basis. He is open to any sort of bribe imaginable. People giving him gold-plated fake awards is just fine with him -- it matters not who is doing the giving or what they are asking for in return.

Trump is for sale, and even the White House itself is for sale. Without bothering to get anyone's permission, Trump tore down the entire East Wing of the building so he could build a tacky gold-plated ballroom paid for by all the corporate bigwigs who are currying favor with him (for various reasons). Even American citizenship is now for sale, although the million bucks Trump is now charging won't actually go into his own pockets (one would like to hope, at any rate).

The entire display of greed is disgusting and disgraceful and undignified to any American who values the office of the presidency, but none of that matters to Trump. It's all about getting as much money as possible, and assumably at some later date when the true depths of the grifting finally get exposed to the American people Trump will hopefully go down in history books as the most corrupt president in our entire history.

But he is making a ton of money, so we have to reluctantly hand him the Capitalist Of The Year award for doing so.

 

   Honorable Mention

Another catchall category for everyone... so we have Honorable Mentions for:

Cory Booker's amazing record-breaking filibuster.

Chris Van Hollen going down to see the El Salvadorian hellhole prison for himself, to raise media awareness.

Bernie Sanders, for his amazing "Fighting Oligarchy" tour. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, too, for joining him.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for fighting the good fight (against Russia, and against Trump and Vance).

The people on the streets fighting back (in various ways) against ICE.

Universities and law firms and entertainment giants who fought back instead of knuckling under to kiss Trump's ass.

And finally, the most important one of them all, for all of us:

All the judges out there -- dozens of them, in hundreds of cases -- who have ruled for the Constitution to rein in Trump's illegal behavior. We still have the Supreme Court under Trump's thumb (sigh), but below them both trial and appellate judges from all over the ideological spectrum have been the biggest "check or balance" America has had, all year long, against Trump's monarchical impulses. They deserve a big round of applause from the entire country, in fact.

 

   Person Of The Year

This one's going to be controversial, to put it mildly.

The Person Of The Year for 2025 was Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who became the "poster child" for Donald Trump's inhumane immigration policies. He did not ask to become the focus of all this attention, he was thrust into the role through Trump's animosity towards him. Today he walks free in America -- something that the Trump administration swore "would never happen."

Trump's vendetta (there really isn't a better word for it) against Garcia has been breathtaking in the depths of its cruelty. Which is why (again, through no action of his own, just through being used as a political pawn) Garcia became the personification of the unfairness and capriciousness of Trump's desire to kick every Latino out of America.

Garcia, when he was first deported this year, had never been either charged with or convicted of a crime. He was flown to a hellish maximum-security prison in El Salvador (despite never having been charged or convicted of a crime in that country either), and eventually public and judicial pressure on the Trump administration forced them to bring him back here. That's what set off the vendetta, for Trump absolutely hates to be seen as backing down on anything.

Trump and his minions painted Garcia as a gang member and criminal, without a shred of proof ever being presented for either of these things in a court of law. The legal saga of Garcia has continued all year long, as every time a judge frees him from incarceration the Trump administration dreams up a new creative way to lock him up again. Their pursuit of this one man rivals the Les Misérables story, at this point.

Garcia, at the start of all this, actually had a legal status in this country, which allowed him to live and work here legally. This didn't matter to Trump. Garcia, early on, put the lie to what Trump had promised -- that he'd only go after "the worst of the worst" immigrants. What he's had to endure ever since isn't so much Les Miz as something out of Orwell. Or Kafka.

Without going into all the twists and turns of Garcia's legal saga (see that link, above, for the Wikipedia entry for it all), what has remained consistent is the media attention his case gets. Which, ironically, is the precise reason why he's earned so much of Trump's petulant ire. The Trump administration has lied to judges about this case as well as openly defied judicial orders. The only provable lawlessness in the case, in fact, has been from the Trump administration.

Garcia didn't ask for any of this. He didn't ask to be incarcerated. He didn't ask to be sent to a hellhole of a prison in complete violation of his constitutional rights. Every person in America -- every rapist, every murderer, every undocumented immigrant -- is guaranteed due process rights under the Constitution, no matter what. What turned Garcia into a poster child was the Trump administrations blatant disregard for all of this -- which has been multiplied by hundreds of thousands of other cases that haven't gotten anywhere near the same media attention.

So it wasn't anything Garcia did or said that earns him this award. Instead it was the boiling hatred of Donald Trump that elevated him to poster-child status in the eyes of the American public. But from the very beginning right up to the news this week that he had been freed again, Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been in the limelight throughout it all. He has personified the cruelty and vindictiveness of Trump's anti-immigrant crackdown better than anyone else. Which is why, to us, he was the Person Of The Year.

 

[See you next week, for the conclusion of our 2025 awards!]

-- Chris Weigant

 

If you're interested in traveling down Memory Lane, here are all the previous years of this awards column:

2024 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2023 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2022 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2021 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2020 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2019 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2018 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2017 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2016 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2015 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2014 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2013 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2012 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2011 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2010 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2009 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2008 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2007 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2006 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]

 

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Cross-posted at: Democratic Underground