Al’s New Year’s Tea: A Look Back at 2025 (Yes, I Said 2025)
Welcome back in for one last serving of Al’s Afternoon Tea. We want to make it a special one, so rather than stay on New Year’s Eve 2024, we are going to travel to New Year’s Eve 2025 to reflect back on the year to come.
December 31, 2025
Dear Friends,
Whew. Has 2025 been a year or what? So much happened in such a short time that by summer, America was begging the new Trump administration to take the entire month of August off, like the French, just to let us catch our breath.
On Day One
President Donald Trump must have more arms than an octopus to sign all the executive orders he signed between his inauguration ceremony at noon and the inaugural balls in the evening. A flurry of executive orders shut the border tighter than RFK Jr’s abs. His hand had barely come off the Bible before the round-up of criminal illegal immigrants began. Tren de Aragua’s brutal advancement into American cities was immediately stopped cold, with the Venezuelan gang’s eradication nearly complete by year’s end.
He also signed several executive orders designed to unleash America’s energy dominance. This immediately sent oil prices dropping, which in turn led to gas prices dropping, and prices for groceries and other goods lowering across the board. Our inflation nightmare is now over.
Day One also saw almost all the J6 defendants pardoned. Trump also pardoned Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon, who had been targeted for persecution by Liz Cheney’s J6 Committee. (More on that in a bit.)
Also on Day One, President Trump withdrew the United States from the World Health Organization and, for a second time, the Paris Climate Accords.
Still, at day’s end, he had the energy to attend several inaugural balls. First Lady Melania Trump was breathtaking, while son Barron solidified his status as a new American heartthrob.
Blessed Are the Peacemakers
The Ukraine-Russia war, thankfully, came to an end, just as Trump promised. Sadly, the deal looked a lot like the one that could have been cut in the war’s early months before NATO and the Biden administration scuttled it — at a cost of tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars. Efforts are now underway to forensically track the money that has been sent to Ukraine.
If the thought of Kash Patel at the FBI and Tulsi Gabbard as the director of the Deparnational intelligence scared the Deep State, how about an army of forensic accountants looking into where all that money’s gone over the past four years?
While some in Congress wanted the U.S. to pay to rebuild Ukraine, Trump told Russia, “You broke it, you bought it.” However, as part of the carrot to entice a deal, Trump promised Putin he would not bankrupt Russia by driving oil prices so low that the Kremlin wouldn’t even be able to afford a flask of vodka.
While the Ukraine-Russia peace deal was a relief, what happened over the summer on the White House lawn was downright historic: Israel and Saudi Arabia at long last signed a peace treaty. Smaller Arab nations soon joined the Abraham Accords. In a gesture befitting the kinder, gentler Donald Trump, the president made sure that Jimmy Carter’s children were sitting in the front row in honor of the president who brokered the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty in 1977. Former President Bill Clinton, who negotiated the Israel-Jordan agreement, also was on hand.
Meanwhile, thank God, the surviving Hamas hostages have returned home. Sadly, there were not as many survivors as hoped. But those suspected of torturing the hostages discovered what Trump meant when he said there’d be “hell to pay.”
The Lost Children
Efforts to find the 300,000 unaccompanied minors the Biden-Harris administration “lost” after crossing over our southern border had some success, but not nearly enough. While many were thankfully found perfectly safe, tens of thousands had to be rescued from horrid situations. Tragically, countless children seem to have vanished into thin air. We pray for their safety as the dogged search continues.
Some of the year’s best political drama came in hearings when liberal members of Congress such as Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez criticized border czar Tom Homan’s efforts to apprehend illegal immigrants. With tears streaming down his face and his rage filling the room, Homan described the horrors that had befallen some of the children his forces had rescued. AOC was unmoved. It was a bad look for ol’ Sandy Cortez.
“We Told You So”
Pam Bondi’s arrival at the U.S. Department of Justice and Kash Patel’s at FBI made “We Told You So” one of the year’s top slogans. A much more complete picture of the federal government’s role in the January 6 riots has now been exposed. The full dimensions of the Biden DOJ’s role in the lawfare against Trump was exposed. The details of the war against pro-life groups and parents’ rights groups was exposed.
Most shocking was the discovery that the planting of the pipe bombs at the headquarters of both the Democratic and Republican parties on January 6 was definitely the work of a federal operative — a fact the FBI and District of Columbia police were aware of, but covered up. In a related vein, a new investigation into the Secret Service indicated several elements of the security collapse in Butler, Pennsylvania in July 2024 were a deliberate effort to weaken Trump’s protection that day. One agent involved insisted that given President Biden’s directive that Trump was a “threat to democracy,” it was his patriotic duty to do his part to prevent Trump from returning to office.
Though we got closer to the truth, we do not yet know who the handler/groomer for would-be assassin Thomas Crooks was. We will find out in 2026.
As a result of these revelations, Joe Biden ends 2025 as not only one of the worst presidents in American history, but probably the most reviled.
Other Memorable Moments from 2025
Kamala Harris announced she’s running for governor of California. The nation responded with a collective “Who is she, again?”
Both CNN and MSNBC were sold, with MSNBC ending up in the hands of a conservative coalition of media figures including Donald Trump, Jr. and The Daily Wire. Although CNN’s new owners offered Scott Jennings a prime time spot and a dump truck full of money, Jennings jumped to Fox News, where he shares Neil Cavuto’s old 4 p.m. slot until he replaces the retiring Sean Hannity after the 2026 midterms.
Spy drones again began hovering near military bases until President Trump ordered them captured or blown out of the sky. Meanwhile, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard confirmed that the rash of drone sightings that set New Jersey and other states along the eastern seaboard on edge in late 2024 was indeed an effort to locate a suspected WMD. Thankfully, the search was successful.
President Trump
Trump was tireless in his efforts to Make America Great Again. But more interesting than that, now that he has Vice President J.D. Vance and a team of loyal and strong hombres fighting his battles, Trump 47 is far less pugilistic than Trump 45. More at peace after his brush with death, Trump plays the Humorous Grandfather this time out rather than the Tough Guy from Queens. Except with our foes, of course.
The Stream‘s John Zmirak’s prediction last year proved true: House Speaker Mike Johnson did grow a spine and go full MAGA. However, in a more endearing development, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi formed an unlikely bond with Trump after he went out of his way to be gracious to his political foe. They are now two old warriors who share a grudging respect for each other after pummeling each other for eight years. Pelosi even admitted that Trump was easier to work with than the cold, imperial Obama or the mentally incapacitated Biden. Trump admitted that when Pelosi ripped up his State of the Union speech on live television, he thought it was hysterical. “Reminded me of something my ex, Ivana, would have done,” he said.
Unlike his first term, when he was boycotted by late night TV, daytime talk, and sports shows, Trump made regular appearances in all those venues this year … along with return visits to the podcasts that helped get him reelected. Those appearances resulted in some of the funniest moments of the year. The highlight? The Tuesday after Labor Day, President Trump was the first guest on ABC’s totally revamped The View. Only Whoopi Goldberg remains from the bitter cast of recent years. Rather than argue politics, Whoopi and Trump reminisced about the New York City of old, with Trump repeating his vow to restore the shine to the Big Apple.
In a Tonight Show skit with Jimmy Fallon, Trump returned to work at McDonald’s. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy did not approve.
Revving Up for Our 250th Birthday
Though 2025 is not quite finished, already eyes are fully on 2026, particularly the nation’s 250th birthday on July 4. The president is really pushing to make the celebration the grandest in history, making sure our nation’s youth understand the Framers’ greatness — that men like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are to be seen as heroes, not villains, and that, like the song says, we each should be “proud to be an American.”
Yes, gasoline prices are down, food prices are down, peace is finding its way across the world, the government is becoming more efficient, the streets are becoming safer, and our border is now secure. So many good things have happened this year. You can say Trump is keeping his promise to Make America Great Again. But he’s also making America celebrate again. The pep in our step is back.
Don’t believe me, though. Believe your liberal friends who admit, “I did not vote for him. But I’m glad he won.”
See you in Washington, DC on July 4!
All blessings for a spectacular 2026,
Al
On the Stream Menu…
John Zmirak delivers “My Top Ten Rash, Reckless Predictions for 2025.”
In other news, Al’s Afternoon Tea is closing shop, effective today. It has been my pleasure and honor to serve up a second daily helping of the latest news and commentary these past nine months. We hope our treats have sent you into the evening better informed and with a bigger smile. However, The Brew will continue brewing five days a week for you through January.
May your 2025 ring in with joy and laughter.
Al Perrotta is The Stream’s Washington bureau chief, coauthor with John Zmirak of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration, and coauthor of the counterterrorism memoir Hostile Intent: Protecting Yourself Against Terrorism.