By LISA MASCARO, Associated Press Congressional Correspondent

WASHINGTON (AP) — Five years ago outside the White House, the outgoing President Donald Trump told a crowd of his supporters to head to the Capitol — “and I’ll be there with you” — in protest as Congress was affirming the 2020 election victory for Democrat Joe Biden.

Related Articles

European leaders push back on Trump’s comments about a US takeover of Greenland

Military action in Venezuela emerges as an issue in a closely watched GOP primary in Kentucky

Danish prime minister says a US takeover of Greenland would mark the end of NATO

Cuba faces uncertain future after US topples Venezuelan leader Maduro

FACT FOCUS: Fabricated and misrepresented images shared widely online after US removal of Maduro

A short time later, the world watched as the seat of U.S. power descended into chaos, and democracy hung in the balance.

On the fifth anniversary of Jan. 6, 2021, there is no official event to memorialize what happened that day, when the mob made its way down Pennsylvania Avenue, battled police at the Capitol barricades and stormed inside, as lawmakers fled. The political parties refuse to agree to a shared history of the events, which were broadcast around the globe. And the official plaque honoring the police who defended the Capitol has never been hung.

Instead, Trump will meet privately with House Republicans at the Kennedy Center, which the president has rebranded to carry his own name, for a policy forum. Democrats will hold a hearing with witnesses to the violence and later gather on the Capitol steps to mark the memory of what happened.

And the former leader of the militant Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, is staging a midday march retracing the rioters’ steps from the White House to the Capitol to honor Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt and others who died in the Jan. 6 siege and its aftermath.

“I ask those that are able to attend please do so,” Tarrio said on social media feed X.

Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy for having orchestrated the Jan. 6 attack, and he is among more than 1,500 defendants who saw their charges dropped when Trump issued a sweeping pardon on his return to the White House last year. “This will be a PATRIOTIC and PEACEFUL march. If you have any intention of causing trouble we ask that you stay home,” Tarrio wrote.

Echoes of 5 years ago

The Jan. 6 events, being held inside and outside, carry echoes of the split screen five years ago, as the House and the Senate gathered to affirm the election results while the Republican president’s supporters swarmed.

This milestone anniversary unfolds while attention is focused elsewhere, particularly after the U.S. military’s stunning capture of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and Trump’s plans to take over the country and prop up its vast oil industry, a striking new era of American expansionism.

“These people in the administration, they want to lecture the world about democracy when they’re undermining the rule of law at home, as we all will be powerfully reminded,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said on the eve of the anniversary.

Democrats revive an old committee, Republicans lead a new one

The Democratic leadership is reconvening the now defunct Jan. 6 committee to hear from police, elected officials and regular Americans about what they experienced that day.

Among those expected to testify is former Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who along with former Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming were the two Republicans on the panel that investigated Trump’s efforts to overturn Biden’s win. Cheney, who lost her own reelection bid to a Trump-backed challenger, is not expected to appear.

Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, who has been tapped by House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana to lead a new committee to probe other theories about what happened on Jan. 6, rejected Tuesday’s session as a “partisan exercise” designed to hurt Trump and his allies.

Many Republicans reject the narrative that Trump sparked the Jan. 6 attack, and Johnson, before he became the House speaker, had led challenges to the 2020 election. He was among some 130 GOP lawmakers voting that day to reject the presidential results from some states.

Instead, they have instead focused on security lapses at the Capitol — from the time it took for the National Guard to arrive on the scene to the failure of the police canine units to discover the pipe bombs found that day outside Republican and Democratic party headquarters. The FBI arrested a Virginia man suspected of placing the pipe bombs, and he told investigators last month he believed someone needed to speak up for those who believed the 2020 election was stolen, authorities say.

“The Capitol Complex is no more secure today than it was on January 6,” Loudermilk said in a social media post. “My Select Subcommittee remains committed to transparency and accountability and ensuring the security failures that occurred on January 6 and the partisan investigation that followed never happens again.”

The aftermath of Jan. 6

Five people died in the Capitol siege and its aftermath, including Babbitt, who was shot and killed by police while trying to climb through the window of a door near the House chamber, and Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died later after battling the mob. Several law enforcement personnel died later, some by suicide.

The Justice Department indicted Trump on four counts in a conspiracy to defraud voters with his claims of a rigged election in the run-up to the Jan. 6 attack.

Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith told lawmakers last month that the riot at the Capitol “does not happen” without Trump. He ended up abandoning the case once Trump was reelected president, adhering to department guidelines against prosecuting a sitting president.

Trump, who never made it to the Capitol that day as he hunkered down at the White House, was impeached by the House on the sole charge of having incited the insurrection. The Senate acquitted him after top GOP senators said they believed the matter was best left to the courts.

Ahead of the 2024 election, the Supreme Court ruled ex-presidents have broad immunity from prosecution.

Much like how a sailor, lost and withering at sea, at least gets the chance to see the world, Texas’ ailing Democrats will get the chance this year to recreate some of the magic of the 2018 midterms.

You know the drill: Donald Trump’s in the second year of a presidential stint, and his megalomaniacal unsuitability for public service is catching up with him. Off-year elections in Virginia and New Jersey have given Dems new reason to believe. Congressional Republicans are heading for the exits in telling numbers, while the possibility of a weak GOP candidate in Texas for U.S. Senate looms. This go-round, there’s no real chance of the suite of downballot flips that occurred eight years ago, when that decade’s electoral maps had overripened; still, it’s time now to take out your color wheel and start studying the liminal shades of what constitutes “blue,” plus your lidar scanner (what do you mean you don’t have one?) to start distinguishing calm waters, ripples, and waves.

Paying casual attention, you might not feel Texas Democrats are fielding the A-team that this moment calls for. By this time in that long-lost cycle when Senator Ted Cruz was so nearly ousted, El Paso Congressman Beto O’Rourke had already been running without real primary competition for the better part of a year. In contrast, this year’s marquee Dem nomination process has been slow and fitful. That fact, however, belies the comparative strength of the slate that’s likely to solidify in the coming months.

At least on paper, the 2026 Democratic nominees for the top four races (senator, governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general) are almost sure to be the most formidable class in recent memory. In 2018, only two of the four already held elected office, one at the county level. From 2020 through 2024, the only top-level nominee who did so was Colin Allred in ’24, then a congressman dragging a low-energy campaign against Cruz to a 9-point defeat. In lieu of seasoned politicians, Texans during these years were invited to put their faith in: a mild-mannered accountant, a self-assessed “ass-kicking, motorcycle-riding, tattooed Democrat,” a burned-out presidential hopeful, and a mild-mannered accountant yet again, among a couple others.

State Representative James Talarico, now running for U.S. Senate, speaks at a rally in August. (AP Photo/Talia Sprague)

This November, Democrats may well put sitting legislators on the ballot in all four of the top slots. By this simple but meaningful metric, the slate should be stronger even than 2014’s relatively heralded lineup (which featured two state senators, Wendy Davis and Leticia Van de Putte, and a guy named Sam Houston). Of course, that ’14 team ended in ashes and grief; holding elected office is no guarantee against getting walloped. But it’s encouraging to see people who’ve won something before, and have something to lose, taking the plunge.

All that praise given, the process has still left plenty to be desired. Way back in May, Allred and O’Rourke met with Congressman Joaquin Castro and state Representative James Talarico to sort out who should take on incumbent U.S. Senator John Cornyn (or one of his primary challengers—Dems are hoping for the scandal-scarred Attorney General Ken Paxton) and to possibly divide their firepower among the races. This boys’ club managed to settle on approximately nothing. Allred jumped in the Senate race first, then Talarico did too; O’Rourke stayed out altogether, as did Castro, who months later gave a head-scratching series of comments about how he would have run for AG if only the other men could have sorted themselves out.

Poor coordination could lead to some odd outcomes. It’s possible that three of the four top nominees will be Austin state reps, a stark homogeneity that no one would intentionally plan. It’s also possible the slots will be split equally between Austin and Dallas politicians—still odd in a sprawling state whose largest city is neither of those two. And it’s further possible that three of the four will be Anglo, in a majority-nonwhite state headed toward majority-Latino status.

Then there’s the down-to-the-wire-ness of it all. North Texas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, in particular, waited until the afternoon of the final possible day to officially declare for the Senate, a looming decision that sent Allred scurrying instead into a competitive U.S. House primary that very morning. A firebrand who can earn all the media she needs and stack up cash, Crockett as a candidate means a zero-sum showdown with Talarico, who’d spent months receiving a rising-star treatment and building a lead over Allred.

To this point, I’ve written this column with an assumption that primary voters will tend toward sitting elected officials in March (and May, as needed) and with some indifference to Dem primary beefing in a state where the general election belongs to Republicans until proven otherwise. But voters will indeed have to make choices at the polls before any 2026 slate actually forms, so I’ll offer at least a few notes.

Talarico is a Democrat, a politician, and a Christian. This is a normal combination, though national media has treated it as exotic. The distinction is that, as a graduate student of liberal Presbyterianism, Talarico’s breadth and consistency of religious reference is greater than usual. And his serene delivery and boyish clean-cut looks are, as the kids would perhaps still say, giving pastor.

But Talarico’s campaign refrain that it’s “time to start flipping tables” begs a question: Can you picture him actually flipping a table? With Crockett, you can—or at least the verbal equivalent. With O’Rourke, the closest thing to a success story Texas Dems have, tables were in constant physical danger as the six-foot-something El Pasoan was wont to leap atop them before addressing a crowd. Both Crockett and O’Rourke are the type of politician who can say “fuck” and make it sound right.

Talarico has developed an effective religious-political rhetorical mode, but Crockett (again like O’Rourke) can go viral by breaking out of the politician mode entirely.

Before Crockett’s entrance, Talarico was in the catbird seat. He could be the left candidate and the center candidate at will, the head and the heart of the party alike. Now, even as he responds to his competitor with grace, the high road is obstructed. The lanes of progressive vs. moderate can’t be entirely avoided, and claims about electability and divisiveness will be inflected with race and gender. 

Talarico has a large following on TikTok and Instagram; Crockett’s is larger. Talarico can raise money, and so can she. She holds a higher elected office, and she comes from a much more populous metro area. So why not her? Talarico doesn’t want to answer that, but the question isn’t going away. 

Crockett at the 2024 Democratic National Convention (Shutterstock)

A step down the ballot, five-term Austin state Representative Gina Hinojosa has nobly given up her seat to challenge the governor, who is likely untouchable but deserves a serious critic of his cronyism and creeping authoritarianism. In the absence of any serious South Texas candidate, Hinojosa will have to play the part—something she can credibly do as a Brownsville native with a last name that screams Valley to anyone who knows the region. 

Rounding out the electeds running for the next two rungs, a third Austin state House member, Vikki Goodwin, is taking a shot at the lieutenant governor, and Dallas state Senator Nathan Johnson is aiming for the AG seat vacated by Paxton.

Apart from these, there’s a competing slate of already-rans (until the former congressman from Dallas switched races, I was going to call these Allred-y-rans—alas!). This includes Andrew White, an ex-governor’s son, himself running for guv for the second time [Editor’s Note: White dropped his bid on January 5, after this story published in print]; long-ago-congressman and once-gubernatorial nominee Chris Bell also running for the executive mansion again; and ex-Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski taking a second stab at AG. (Mike Collier, the mild-mannered accountant himself, is also making his third lite guv bid—but this time as an Independent.) For these hopefuls, perhaps the umpteenth time will prove the charm, but voters are certainly under no pressure to bet on them now.

Like a sailor, lost and withering at sea, who manages to reel in a strange catch that may or may not be poisonous to eat, Texas Democrats will get the chance this year to try something new.

The post Midterm Memo: The C-Team. Maybe B-. appeared first on The Texas Observer.

By LINLEY SANDERS, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — There are few signs that President Donald Trump’s supporters wanted the United States to become more embroiled in foreign conflicts ahead of its military actions in Venezuela — even as many Republicans show initial support for his military strike there, according to an Associated Press analysis of recent polling.

Most Americans wanted the U.S. government to focus in 2026 on domestic issues, such as health care and high costs, rather than foreign policy issues, an AP-NORC poll conducted last month found. Meanwhile, polling conducted in the immediate aftermath of the military operation that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro suggested that many Americans are unconvinced that the U.S. should step in to take control of the country.

And despite Trump’s suggestion that the U.S. may take a more expansive role in the Western Hemisphere, Republicans in polling last fall remained broadly opposed to the U.S. getting more involved in other countries’ problems.

There’s still room for public opinion to shift as Trump’s administration clarifies its next steps for Venezuela. But it could be a challenging issue for the Republican president, particularly given Americans’ desire for the government to fix economic issues at home.

Foreign policy and drug trade weren’t high priorities for many Americans

Heading into the new year, Americans were less likely to want the government to focus on foreign policy than they had been in recent years.

Related Articles

European leaders push back on Trump’s comments about a US takeover of Greenland

Military action in Venezuela emerges as an issue in a closely watched GOP primary in Kentucky

Danish prime minister says a US takeover of Greenland would mark the end of NATO

Cuba faces uncertain future after US topples Venezuelan leader Maduro

FACT FOCUS: Fabricated and misrepresented images shared widely online after US removal of Maduro

About one-quarter of U.S. adults listed foreign policy topics — such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Israel or general involvement overseas — as something they wanted the government to prioritize in 2026, according to an open-ended AP-NORC question that asked respondents to share up to five issues they wanted the government to work on in the coming year. That was down from the prior two years, when roughly one-third of Americans considered foreign issues an important focus. Almost no one specifically named Venezuela.

Maduro pleaded not guilty to federal drug trafficking charges on Monday in New York. His capture followed U.S. strikes on boats that the Trump administration said were carrying drugs from Venezuela to the U.S. Despite the Trump administration’s focus on the issue of drug trafficking, it doesn’t register at the top of Americans’ lists of issues for the government to focus on. Few Americans mentioned drug-related issues as a priority, and it was primarily a Republican issue. About 1 in 10 Republicans mentioned it, compared with hardly any Democrats or independents.

Instead, Americans overall were more focused on domestic issues — including health care, economic worries and cost-of-living concerns — as top priorities for the government.

More Americans say the US should not run Venezuela

Americans are split about the U.S. capturing Maduro — with many still forming opinions — according to a poll conducted by The Washington Post and SSRS using text messages over the weekend. About 4 in 10 approved of the U.S. military being sent to capture Maduro, while roughly the same share were opposed. About 2 in 10 were unsure. Republicans broadly approved of the action, while Democrats were largely opposed to it.

Nearly half of Americans, 45%, were opposed to the U.S. taking control of Venezuela and choosing a new government for the country. About 9 in 10 Americans said that the Venezuelan people should be the ones to decide the future leadership of their country.

In December, a Quinnipiac poll found that about 6 in 10 registered voters opposed U.S. military action in Venezuela. Republicans were more divided: About half were in support, while about one-third were opposed and 15% didn’t have an opinion.

Few Republicans wanted the US more involved in the world’s problems

Only about 1 in 10 Republicans wanted the U.S. to take a “more active role” role in solving the world’s problems, according to an AP-NORC poll from September. They were much less likely than Americans overall, or Democrats and independents, to say the U.S. should become more involved. Most Republicans, 55%, said the current U.S. role in global issues was “about right.”

It could be a tricky position for a president who ran on a promise of putting “America first” and ending the country’s involvement in “forever wars.” About 7 in 10 voters who backed Trump in the 2024 presidential election said that they wanted the U.S. to take a “less active” role in solving the world’s problems, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of interviews with registered voters in all 50 states.

In December, Americans were largely divided on whether Trump was keeping his “America First” campaign promise, according to a Fox News poll. About half felt he was keeping that promise, and a similar share felt he had abandoned it.

But at least in that poll, which was conducted before the military operation that removed Maduro, Trump’s supporters still were largely behind him: About 1 in 10 Americans who voted for Trump in 2024 felt he had deserted the “America First” promise, while the overwhelming majority felt he had kept it.

By CLAUDIA LAUER, Associated Press

Deaths of on-duty law enforcement officers in the U.S. decreased by nearly 25% in 2025, according to an annual report.

FILE – Linda Shields leaves flowers in front of the West York Police Department after a police officer was killed responding to a shooting at UPMC Memorial Hospital in York, Pa. on Feb. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

The report from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, shared with The Associated Press ahead of its release Tuesday, shows a drop in all categories of fatalities, from 148 total deaths in 2024 to 111 last year.

Officer firearm fatalities dropped to 44, a 15% decrease from 52 in 2024 and the lowest number in at least a decade, according to the Fund’s previous annual officer fatality reports.

“I always like to see that firearms deaths are down. They are the tip of the spear for egregious acts,” said Bill Alexander, the chief executive officer of the Fund, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that works to memorialize fallen officers, educate the public about the profession and improve officer safety.

Traffic-related deaths also decreased nearly 23% between 2024 and 2025, including both fatal traffic accidents and officers killed after being struck by a vehicle — usually during traffic stops.

“Even one officer fatality is too many, and our ultimate goal is to have none. But we’re heartened by any decrease in those numbers,” Alexander said.

Alexander said the reduction in traffic-related officer deaths likely can be attributed to an increase in the national conversation around officer safety on the road. More states around the country have passed “move-over” laws requiring drivers to move out of the lane closest to traffic stops or accidents while passing them. There have been increased efforts to direct officers to approach the passenger side of cars during traffic stops, removing them from travel lanes, Alexander said.

The reason behind the decrease in firearm fatalities is harder to define. While many departments have offered increased safety training and have better equipment for firearm injuries, Alexander said luck and other unquantifiable factors also play a role.

“Some of it could come down to an officer being shot close to a hospital or maybe the officers had a tactical emergency kit or better blood stopping equipment,” he said.

Fewer fatalities also doesn’t mean fewer instances of officers being shot or being shot at, he said.

Related Articles

Today in History: January 6, former KKK leader indicted 41 years after killing civil rights workers

What to know about the Trump administration’s latest moves on child care funding

A rare whale is having an encouraging season for births. Scientists warn it might still go extinct

Record $9.6 million fine for Third Coast after substantial oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico

Big Tech’s fast-expanding plans for data centers are running into stiff community opposition

The National Fraternal Order of Police tracks the number of officer shootings, both fatal and non-fatal. That report does not include incidents where officers were shot at and not struck by gunfire.

The 2025 FOP report, released this week, showed there was a small increase in officers shot while on-duty last year — increasing from 342 in 2024 to 347 in 2025.

Among the high-profile shooting deaths in 2025 was Andrew Duarte, a West York Borough Police Department officer who was shot and killed in February while responding to a man who had taken several people hostage in a York, Pennsylvania hospital. And law enforcement officers from around the country attended funeral services Monday for Delaware State Trooper Matthew “Ty” Snook, who was shot and killed while he was working an overtime shift at a DMV office on Dec. 23, after pushing a DMV employee out of the way of the gunman.

The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund’s fatality report also showed no on-duty officer fatalities in 17 states and Washington D.C., and none at the nation’s federal and tribal law enforcement agencies last year.

It also showed a 37% drop in the “other” fatalities category that includes physical or medical issues from on-duty incidents and most other fatalities like stabbings, drownings or plane crashes. The number dropped from 52 in 2024 to 33 in 2025, and includes 14 officers who died last year from illnesses related to responding to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Previous annual reports included COVID-19 deaths, which increased fatality numbers significantly in 2020 and 2021, but Alexander said COVID deaths have not been included as on-duty fatalities in the last two years. The report also does not include officers who committed suicide, though Alexander said the group is having conversations about how to honor and include those officers.