What will be the biggest US stories of 2026?

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

0:31Because Schwab knows that when it comes to your finances, choice matters. No matter your goals, investing style, life stage or experience, Schwab has everything you need, all in one place, so you can invest your way. Visit schwab.com to learn more. Everyone has their own family traditions and rituals around this time of year. And on AmeriCast, we've got one too. We have begun putting out predictions for the year ahead in our AmeriCast time capsule. And over the last couple of years, we've had varying degrees of success in what we've been predicting. And maybe unwisely, we're going to try and do it again.

1:11Welcome to the AmeriCast time capsule, 2026.

1:17Anthony Zurcher:AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News. When Donald Trump calls, they say, yes, sir. Right away, sir. Happy to lick your boot, sir. We are the sickest country in the world. Oh dear, are you worried that billionaires are going to go hungry? Of course the president supports peaceful protests. What a stupid question. Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?

1:43Anthony Zurcher:Hello from Washington, D.C. It's Anthony. And it's Justin in the worldwide headquarters of AmeriCast in London, England.

1:50Marianna Spring:And it is Mariana next to Justin in the worldwide headquarters. And Sarah here, very happy to say I am sat with Justin and Marianna here in Broadcasting House in London. Later in this episode, you will get all of our big predictions for what might happen in 2026. And then we will seal them in that time capsule and not revisit them until this time next year. And I should say we are recording this towards the end of 2025. And let us start with answering some of the things that you, AmeriCasters, want us to talk about, want us to predict. First of all is Esme, who says, I'd love to hear your predictions about the midterms coming up and how you think they'll impact Trump.

2:29Marianna Spring:Thank you. I feel like we should start with Anthony because he'll probably be right.

2:32Anthony Zurcher:Yeah, I think the Democrats are going to take control of the House of Representatives. It seems to be trending that way. It doesn't take a lot of a swing for them to win the seats necessary. And this is looking more and more, if you look out over the past year, like a Democratic wave election. The special elections that have been held across the country over the past year, Democrats have improved their standing over 2024 by an average of 13 percent. If they even come close to that mark, 10 percent, 9 percent, they are going to win enough House seats to win control of the House. I'm going to make another prediction, which is a little more out on a limb.

3:10Anthony Zurcher:And that is while the Democrats won't flip the four seats they need to take control of the Senate, they are going to win a seat that we're not expecting. Someplace that it looks safe for Republicans, but won't be safe come November. And that is Texas, Florida, Ohio or Iowa. I think the Democrats will win at least one of those, which would be a reversal from these states that have been trending red for quite some time. Now, the way things stand at the moment, Anthony is absolutely right. That is what looks likely to happen. The one thing that could upset that is if Donald Trump is able to set the economy on a better course.

3:49If prices are in a better place in November 2026 than they were in 2025, all of that could change. And it doesn't take much more than that. It doesn't mean he has to solve peace in Ukraine or deliver on some of his other issues. If people feel better off in November next year than they did in November this year, then I think actually the midterms will go much better for him. And Anthony might be wrong about the Democrats flipping the House. Right. Really? That they won't flip the house? Because that's a big deal. After two years of Donald Trump and all that's been said about his rule and misrule, as the Democrats would say, and many Americans would say, and also given his unpopularity, which seems to be increasing at the moment, and all we've been saying about those aspects of his administration that seem not to be kind of functioning properly, even in those circumstances, you're saying it is at least possible that the Democrats don't win back the House?

4:48I just can't imagine the bloodletting in that circumstance. It's possible in the circumstances in which inflation has been tackled, people feel their wages are going up, that if prices are not coming down, they are at least stabilised and they feel that their money goes further than it did previously. And that's not easy to achieve. There's not a given that Donald Trump can do any of that within the space of 12 months. And we don't know what's going to happen to his tariffs and a whole series of other things that might get in the way of that. But if you can pull off that remarkable economic feat, then I think they've got to do that.

5:20It's all about the eggs. It's all about the eggs. Anthony?

5:25Anthony Zurcher:The eggs are actually pretty good right now. Eggs are cheap. It's beef and some other consumer electricity. Good time to be veggie.

5:33Marianna Spring:It's a good time to be a vegetarian that like sitting in the door. I just think it's a bit wider than that as well, isn't it? It's the way in which the elections we've just seen seem to suggest that Hispanics support for Donald Trump, which was huge record breaking in the presidential election seems to be uh pretty flaky to put it mildly because it's about prices and and whether they're going to come back or not i'm going to stick with anthony i think anthony's right they will win back yeah i mean this is politics yeah this is probably i actually think they might win the senate as well because i mean have they got the democrats got a candidate yet in texas because that would be a massive deal wouldn't it they

6:08Anthony Zurcher:They have a couple of candidates, actually, in Texas right now. Tallarico is a state legislator. He is running. He is an evangelical centrist. And a lot of people think he might have a chance of toppling, well, whoever the Republican nominee is, because we don't know that quite yet either. There's an incumbent, but the incumbent is being challenged on the right. And we could see Paxton, who is a Trump favorite, but also hard right, end up knocking off John Cornyn, who is the incumbent. incumbent. But there's another Democrat who just jumped into the race in Texas, Jasmine Crockett, who I think we've looked at before, we talked about before.

6:52Anthony Zurcher:She is a very much outspoken liberal who loves swiping at Donald Trump. Got into that kind of a shouting match with Marjorie Taylor Greene in a congressional hearing at one point saying that she was a bleach blonde dye job. I think it was.

7:13Marianna Spring:I'm just curious, just to better understand your ruling. If someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody's bleach blonde, bad built, butch body, that would not be engaging in personalities, correct?

7:25Anthony Zurcher:A what now? Anyway, there are candidates. It could be a really interesting race. OK, Mary asks, do the team think the strikes on alleged Venezuelan drug boats will continue in the new year? Might they actually be expanded to land strikes? Trump has mentioned doing so. He is known to bluster, Mary points out. Yeah, but I think he's pretty serious about trying to get rid of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela because this has been going on for quite some time now. And as soon as he perceives it being a power struggle, then he has to win, doesn't he? And we know that Donald Trump, yes, as Mary says, has mentioned potential land strikes.

8:02He's also authorised covert CIA action inside Venezuela. I don't think we'll ever see American boots on the ground, despite the huge buildup of troops that there are in the in the region. I don't I don't think he would go that far. But I think he currently believes that with some targeted land strike and some other actions, he can topple the Maduro regime. And if he can do that, I think he wants to.

8:23Anthony Zurcher:Yeah, I'm kind of surprised we haven't seen land strikes yet. I mean, he's been talking about them now for several weeks, saying they're coming soon. And the fact that they haven't pulled the trigger on this makes me wonder what's holding them up, what their concerns are and whether there's more complicating factors. And it's not as easy as Donald Trump makes it seem. I think he's going to go further afield as well. I think he's going to tackle other places, too. The reasoning given by the administration for the attacks on the Venezuelan boats is that they're smuggling drugs into the United States and that illegal drugs kill so many Americans with overdoses.

8:59Well, we know it's mostly cocaine that comes from Venezuela and we know a lot of it's headed for Europe, actually, and not headed for the US. Once he's dealt with Venezuela, I think he's then going to want to tackle the real source of fentanyl, which is what's killing so many Americans. And to do that, he needs to do something with Mexico. And I think it's not impossible that we'll see some kind of encouragement, not an invasion. He's not going to take over Mexico, but some kind of military action to try and force the Mexican government to stop the flow of fentanyl from there into the United States.

9:31I think once he's dealt with Venezuela, he's really going to want to get on with fentanyl.

9:35Marianna Spring:OK, Rose on Discord has asked, will the World Cup go off as planned? I think my answer to that would be yes, in a big way, I imagine. I mean, you'd think that there will be various twists and turns and tensions in the build-up. It's a massive World Cup, by the way. There are a huge number of teams and a huge number of games, and it's going to be a pretty big feat to sort of pull it all off without there being any, I don't know, weather events or other things that delay games and interrupt proceedings. And then also you imagine that there might be tensions between some of the host cities and the people in charge there and Donald Trump.

10:10I mean, there are all sorts of ways in which there will be controversies and dramas, Sarah, that are going to keep you busy, but I think it will go off. I mean, it is going to happen, and he wants it to happen, doesn't it, and it happens successfully. It's going to happen. It'll be heavily politicized because Donald Trump's involved. So everything gets politicized with the potential of him threatening to try and move games away from Democrat run cities he doesn't like. He probably can't do that, but that doesn't mean he's not going to talk about it and cause a fuss. And then there's the potential also for immigration officers checking people's status as they're going in and out of matches, which would cause a huge fuss.

10:43And Anthony, I imagine Donald Trump also wants to use it as a stage for himself.

10:47Anthony Zurcher:This is what Donald Trump, the showman, likes to do and what he is honestly pretty good at. He is good at kind of soaking up the attention and being able to kind of direct things from above the way he did with his reality television show, The Apprentice. OK, let's move on. Brenda asks us this.

11:11Marianna Spring:Hi, America. This is Brenda from Belfast. looking forward to the next leader of the Republican Party. Who are the frontrunners? And will they have to bend the knee to Trump to get ahead?

11:21Anthony Zurcher:Yeah, I actually just wrote about this for the BBC website. I direct everyone's attention to that. It was an in-depth piece that went up earlier this month. They will have already read it, Anthony, then. Well, then they know that J.D. Vance is the heir apparent. He seems to be the one who is best positioned to pick up the torch from Donald Trump. Although Marco Rubio, the Secretary of state has done a remarkable job transitioning from a Trump opponent in 2016 during the Republican primaries to one of Donald Trump's most avowed MAGA supporters when it comes to foreign policy. You could even see Robert F.

11:59Anthony Zurcher:Kennedy Jr. decide to run as an outsider or maybe someone from outside the White House itself. But it was fascinating. Donald Trump in early December had a cabinet meeting where he was sitting there and everyone was arrayed around him at the cabinet table. And he said that the next president, the next Republican nominee is probably sitting at this table. It might be several of them. So he seems to think that it's going to be someone from his inner circle. And then the question will be, will they bend the knee as Brenda has written? And I think maybe not bend the knee, but they will have to stay in step with Donald Trump's base, because that is the Republican Party now.

12:42Anthony Zurcher:That is where the Republican Party is. And if someone tries to cross Trump or try to move away from where that base is, one, the base won't be happy. Two, Donald Trump won't be happy. And if Donald Trump's not happy, he could make life very difficult for any of these Republican presidential hopefuls. Just ask his previous vice presidential running mate, Mike Pence. Yeah, I think Anthony's right. And it will be somebody who Trump anoints, essentially, or at least is not opposed to. You're not going to win this nomination by running against Donald Trump. It is interesting that every time he's asked about who his successor is, he names J.D.

13:18Vance as he well should, his vice president, but he always mentions Marco Rubio as well. I wonder if the base think that Rubio is really MAGA at heart though. I wonder if there wouldn't be some suspicion about whether he really is a true believer. And I'm sure he'll face opposition from other people who sit around that cabinet table like Kristi Noem, Pete Hegseth, some of these slightly more unlikely characters, but who are clearly ambitious and who are popular with the base, may very well not win the nomination, but we'll see quite a few of them in the primary contest, I would think. Yeah, and what about influencers?

13:50That's great. Well, answer that question then, Marianne. Are there influencers? I mean, people talk about Tucker Carlson, but are there people on the kind of broader right, including the far right, who might have a go?

14:02Marianna Spring:Interestingly, really, if you'd asked me this, eight months ago, I would have actually said someone like Charlie Kirk could have been the type of person who might, maybe not this time around, maybe next time around. Was he even old enough? Well, yeah. Oh, I don't know if he would have been. He was in his early 30s. How old do you have to be? 35. Oh, no, he might. He wouldn't have quite been old enough this time around. Anyway, he was assassinated. And so he's obviously not an option. Yeah. But that kind of person you were saying might make it. Yeah, I mean, no one is extreme as, say, Nick Fuentes.

14:31Marianna Spring:You know, they're very, very far to the right. And I don't think that they would be an option. But Tucker Carlson or even like Joe Rogan. I mean, I don't think Joe Rogan will again do it this time around. But there are these kinds of people or your RFK junior. Like there are there are the people who if it starts to go a tall pear shape for Donald Trump and there's this perception that he is, you know, he's done well to build this image of I'm against the elite cabal. I'm against the kind of usual political approach. If people stop buying into that and turn away and he loses that kind of alternative media base, which he's started to lose it.

15:08I was hearing someone the other day talking quite seriously about Megyn Kelly running. I mean, look, she's got a podcast, she's very successful on the right. She's been very Trump adjacent, has damaged herself, I think, with some journalists who quite admired her because she doesn't seem able now to criticise the president, but is that because she's angling for the MAGA base? I don't know. So now, this is the big one, the moment we have all been waiting for. Each one of us has to put down our predictions for 2026 before they are locked up, sealed in the time capsule and will never be seen again until they are brought out to embarrass us this time next year.

15:49OK, my prediction is that following the loss of the House and the Senate to the Democrats by Donald Trump or by the Republicans in the 2026 midterms, Marjorie Taylor Greene will announce early that she is running for the Republican nomination. And I think she will be a surprisingly serious candidate. And the war that we've kind of been talking about within MAGA will open up into something much, much bigger. So my prediction is that not only is she going to be a candidate for the presidency in 2028, but actually she will, in order to raise money and for all sorts of other practical reasons about name recognition, about the need to change her image in various ways, I think she'll start to run early if she is serious.

16:37And it seems to me that she is serious.

16:39Anthony Zurcher:It's a pretty good one. Ooh, that's a good one. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's certainly the scenario, right? If things go south for Donald Trump, if things really bottom out, the economy goes bad, Democrats really pick up a lot, Then there's a lane that opens up, not necessarily for old school Republicans. I mean, Mitt Romney is not coming back through the door again to to to rekindle that old establishment Republican wing of the party. But someone would come out who is not Donald Trump and has some distance between themselves and Trump. So, yeah, I like that. That's a good prediction. All right.

17:14Anthony Zurcher:I'm going to make one here that is not midterm related. It's going to be about Donald Trump's top advisors, the big three in his cabinet, which is State Department, Department of Justice or the Treasury. And I think sometime this next year in 2026, there's going to be a vacancy. You're going to see someone either get fired or resigned. And Donald Trump is going to have to try to find a new person to replace that. So Pam Bondi out as attorney general, Marco Rubio out as secretary of state, Scott Bessent out at Treasury. And if I had to pick one, I might say it's Treasury. He seems Bessent seems pretty secure right now.

17:57Anthony Zurcher:But if the economy doesn't do well, he might become the scapegoat. And Donald Trump could be looking for a new replacement. I agree with you, Anthony, that there's every possibility he will need to replace one of the big cabinet positions. But why pick those three and not Pete Hegseth at defence, who does keep getting himself in trouble? And albeit in the last few weeks, he's avoided censure or too harsh criticism for some of the things he's done. But he is a bit of a loose cannon, isn't he? And it's increasingly obvious how much the military themselves dislike him. I could see him go as well.