Politics & Power

Florida’s political map is back on the chopping block. Gov. Ron DeSantis pushes mid‑decade redistricting that could hand Republicans up to five new House seats and sideline Democrats for years. What’s at stake for 2026 — and for American democracy?

Florida is facing a potentially historic battle over how homes and local governments are funded. Host Bruce Hamilton speaks with News4Jax political analyst Rick Mullaney about what's at stake.

President Donald Trump wants to “nationalize” American elections — and state officials from both parties are sounding the alarm. From FBI raids to voter-roll demands and talk of ICE at the polls, on Politics & Power, we break down how the battle over who runs U.S. elections could reshape democracy itself.

President Donald Trump’s use of executive power has sparked a fierce debate among legal scholars, and we'll tackle the topic on this week's episode of Politics & Power with Jacksonville University political analyst Matt Corrigan.

Nancy Soderberg, a former United Nations ambassador and the director of the Public Service Leadership Program at UNF, joins Bruce Hamilton on Politics & Power this week to see if President Donald Trump is trying to gain the upper hand with China or even truly has an expansionist agenda.

Chief Justice John Roberts quietly defended the courts’ independence by focusing on history, not politics at the end of 2025. But the real test is coming in 2026, when the Supreme Court will decide if President Donald Trump can change major laws on citizenship, trade, and the Federal Reserve using executive power alone.

President Donald Trump’s first year back in the White House has seen record-low illegal crossings, a U.S.-backed ouster of Venezuela’s president, and sweeping moves to expand presidential power. Is American democracy being pushed to the breaking point?

President Donald Trump’s invasion of Venezuela and overthrow of the Venezuelan government is raising the question: Will it embolden him to execute other such radical acts? Jonathan Katz, author of the book “Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines and the Making and Breaking of America’s Empire” and writer of The Racket Newsletter, joins Bruce Hamilton this week for Politics & Power.

Christopher White, a Senior Fellow at Georgetown University and former Vatican correspondent, joins News4JAX anchor Bruce Hamilton for this week’s episode of “Politics & Power” to talk about Pope Leo XIV — an American pope who keeps Church teachings but changes the playbook.

It’s Jacksonville vs. Tallahassee, and it all plays out when the Florida Legislature convenes in January. Jacksonville’s central 2026 challenge is defending fiscal autonomy and local governance against a state administration pushing top-down fiscal reforms and broader preemption.

Political pressure to limit H‑1B visas reflects real voter concerns about jobs, but if enacted broadly, the restrictions could trigger significant economic disruption and legal challenges while testing foundational American commitments to openness and opportunity. Immigration attorney Renata Castro, the founder of the immigration law firm “USA 4 All,” joins News4JAX anchor Bruce Hamilton on this week’s episode to look at the nation’s immigration issues.

News4JAX political analyst Rick Mullaney joins News4JAX anchor Bruce Hamilton to look at ways to end the shutdown stalemate -- and who will take the most blame from voters -- on this week’s episode of Politics & Power.

Princeton University professor Khalil Gibran Muhammad joins News4JAX anchor Bruce Hamilton on this week’s Politics & Power to discuss the impact on the university system and student population of the Trump administration's “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education."

Constitutional law expert Rod Sullivan joins News4JAX anchor Bruce Hamilton to break down some major issues before the Supreme Court and how they could have momentous significance.

Michael Klarman, an American legal historian and constitutional law scholar at Harvard Law School, joined News4JAX anchor Bruce Hamilton for this week’s “Politics and Power.” They explore the question of whether the Supreme Court is becoming the Trump Court.

Political analyst Daniel Cronrath joins News4JAX anchor Bruce Hamilton on this week's episode of Politics & Power to analyze the fallout from Kamala Harris' book, "107 Days," and what’s next for the former vice president.

Attorney Max Stier, who is president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, joins News4JAX anchor Bruce Hamilton as they ask whether DOGE’s actions are indeed ill-conceived and chaotic, if there is “efficiency” in DOGE, and what will the cost of DOGE cuts be for the American economy and everyday Americans.

The battle for control of Congress in the midterms might be over before voting starts. It all has to do with the political war that is ongoing concerning redistricting. Florida is closely watching the battle in Texas, and many assume it will follow the Lone Star State’s lead. Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez is creating a committee to look at drawing up new districts. So, what you have now is Florida joining this political donnybrook sweeping the nation from New York to Texas to Indiana to California.

President Donald Trump sent shockwaves through Washington by firing the Labor Department statistician after weaker-than-normal job numbers, claiming she had rigged the data. Analysts are calling the move ‘Orwellian’ and authoritarian.

How do you feel about the issues facing Florida, Florida’s legislative leaders, and the candidates shaping the field in the upcoming gubernatorial race to replace Gov. Ron DeSantis? The UNF Public Opinion Research Lab has the pulse of voters and recently released its latest public opinion poll, which specifically focused on Republican voters in Florida. Floridians go to the polls to elect a new governor on Nov. 3, 2026. Incumbent Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is term-limited and can’t run for a third time in a row.

Jeffrey Epstein’s ghost seems to haunt the Trump presidency. For President Donald Trump, the Epstein case lingers. It’s a case steeped in alleged conspiracy and political intrigue. There are reports of the powerful protecting the powerful. Everything seems steeped in secrecy. That includes the president’s relationship with Epstein, whether or not there’s a client list, and the circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death. Trump wanted the case closed. He still does.

It is hardly arguable that President Donald Trump is very willing to test legal boundaries. The conservative majority on the Supreme Court seems to be giving him ample leeway. Political analyst and head of the Jacksonville University Public Policy Institute Rick Mullaney and JU law professor Nathan Richardson join News4JAX Anchor Bruce Hamilton for this week's episode of Politics & Power.

Is the political temperature in America running into the danger zone? Frankly, research and hard data on political violence aren’t readily available, but a growing trend of threats against public officials can’t be ignored. In 2024 alone, U.S. Capitol Police, who are like the Secret Service for Congress members, investigated more than 9,000 threats against lawmakers, marking an 83% increase from the year prior. That year, then-former President Donald Trump survived an attempt on his life at a rally in Pennsylvania and another alleged assassination attempt while golfing at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach.

The two-party system still dominates at the ballot box. And, as the 2024 election bore out, voters still chose a candidate from one of the major parties. But the new reality is that voter registration rolls show that independent and third-party registration are on the rise. In the past 25 years, the number of voters not affiliated with either the Democratic or Republican party has grown nearly 9%, according to Ballotpedia. NBC News recently did an analysis of voter registration data. Its findings proved even more interesting. It found that as of this year, 32% of registered voters across dozens of states and territories chose not to affiliate with either of the major parties. That’s up 23% from 2000. National exit polls support those numbers.

President Donald Trump’s enthusiastic announcement about a ceasefire between Israel and Iran marked the latest wild swing from the president concerning Iran. Political analyst Daniel Cronrath joins News4JAX anchor Bruce Hamilton to discuss the latest developments.

Let’s talk about that Big Beautiful Bill the House passed, which is now in the Senate’s hands. Political analysts say if you look at the bill closely, yes, it delivers on President Donald Trump’s domestic agenda and cuts taxes. But they question at what cost. The answer is that the cost will be to the tune of lost health care for 8.6 million Americans through Medicaid or Obamacare subsidies. It raises a question that people are asking: Didn’t the Republicans wonder if those cuts would make life difficult for people who are aging, unemployed, working poor or disabled?

Some Democrats say it was a mistake to allow then-President Joe Biden to remain in the 2024 race for as long as they did. A new book, Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson, contains some bombshells and raises some fundamental questions that the Democrats must ask: Did Biden’s team deceive them, or did they deceive themselves? Were their eyes closed to reality? The bottom line is that the book paints a portrait of a president whose faculties, both physical and mental, were “diminished.” And Tapper and Thompson say aides and advisers hid that from the public.

Since the United States was founded in 1776, 17 popes have presided over the Catholic Church. Until May 8, 2025, none of the men who held the post in the Vatican had been from the United States. History was made that day when Robert Prevost emerged on the balcony and proclaimed to the thousands of people from around the world who had assembled below in St. Peter’s Square: “La pace sia con tutti voi.” Pope Leo XIV‘s first words were “Peace be with you all.” Prevost‘s election was stunning news because no one thought an American would or could become Pope. Yet, this son of Chicago‘s South Side won the majority vote of the conclave.

The political future for Ron and Casey DeSantis seems very precarious. Political analysts say it may even be in jeopardy. In fact, those analysts will tell you their more immediate present may also be in jeopardy. They hoped to establish a dynasty. Then, a scandal tied to Hope Florida surfaced. Claims to the future of the Republican party are very much in question in Florida and nationally. There are many Florida Republicans who were solidly in the couple’s corner not all that long ago, but they have turned on DeSantis. It has created roadblocks to his agenda.

April 29 marked 100 days in office for President Donald Trump. His second term in office has moved at a dizzying pace, with Trump enacting executive orders and policies with a fury. Intent on remaking the Executive Branch, he empowered Elon Musk to push aside civil servants and strike fear in the federal workforce. He launched the largest deportation program in U.S. history.

The U.S. Supreme Court is jumping headfirst into turbulent waters with issues that have become politically divisive. The 18th-century wartime authority to speed deportations known as the Alien Enemies Act is back in the high court’s hands. Less than two weeks after the Supreme Court allowed President Donald Trump to employ the controversial authority, the issue was literally rocketed back to the justices in a short fuse appeal. The consequences are enormous. So what’s really at issue here?

Since last November’s election, the Democratic Party has been wrestling with several questions: How to bring about a leadership change? How to develop an effective message that resonates with the public? How to get districts that President Donald Trump won to rebrand with the mid-term elections on the horizon? On Capitol Hill, several younger freshmen senators are gaining prominence, and there are hints the party’s No. 2 leader may retire, although Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin has not officially tipped his hand on re-election plans. Even so, there are several Democrats in the Prairie State exploring election campaigns to succeed Durbin.

Members of the legal community say that President Donald Trump’s “multi-pronged assault” on the Department of Justice, the nation’s major law firms, and the judiciary undermines central tenets of the U.S. justice system. And they don’t stop there. They say the damage will be generational and raises concerns about the judiciary’s independence. At the root of what’s going on is retribution.

The Trump administration continues its promise of a mass deportation of immigrants it says are in the country illegally. The problem is that the administration is not going after just the criminal element it said it would target. Look at the headlines on an almost daily basis. There are documented cases of people with U.S. passports -- and no criminal background -- being arrested by immigration officials. Native Americans from the Navajo Nation were arrested, along with some people from Puerto Rico. People who were in the United States lawfully and didn’t pose a threat or a risk to public safety have been caught up in sweeps by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The dragnets continue to target immigrant and minority communities. And the chilling headlines indicate many of the raids seem indiscriminate.

The Democrats' downward spiral seems to continue as the party is in disarray. Their message... oh wait, they have none. Some are wondering out loud: “Are the Dems broken beyond repair?” Well, look at history and you’ll find out that politics is cyclical. Time to convene the class? OK, here we go. Turn back the clock to the mid-90s. The Republican Party was not unlike the current-day GOP. They wandered as the walking wounded in a meandering political circle. Ideas? They didn’t have any.

Some of the key cases before the nation’s highest court come into focus this week on Politics & Power. Reverse discrimination One of the cases being tackled has to do with reverse discrimination. At question is whether the U.S. Supreme Court will remove the additional “background circumstances” requirement. Suing gun manufacturers The second case up for discussion has to do with lawsuits against manufacturers and distributors of firearms. The government of Mexico filed a $10 billion lawsuit against Smith & Wesson alleging that they are aiding and abetting Mexican cartels in obtaining firearms. The question at hand: Can Mexico bring such a case? Nuclear waste storage The justices will also tackle a question about nuclear waste as the nation continues a frustrating search for storage sites. Complicated politics have gotten in the way of addressing the problem since the advent of nuclear power in the last century. The question at hand is whether the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should restart plans to temporarily store nuclear waste at sites in rural Texas and New Mexico.

The war between Ukraine and Russia is at a critical crossroads. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are pushing to end the war. But the reality is that within that push lies a dangerous fault line that opens further as Trump rushes to end the war. Issues concerning both Ukrainian and European security mean a quick fix might not be possible. Not helping matters, officials from Kyiv and Europe are excluded from the peace talks.

Word is Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis is seriously considering a gubernatorial run in 2026. (Although she has not announced anything official yet). Reports first surfaced in an NBC News exclusive report a couple of weeks ago when word got out that Republican donors in Palm Beach County openly discussed the prospect of Casey DeSantis succeeding her husband Ron in the governor’s office in Tallahassee. (By the way, did you know she used to work here at News4JAX?)

He is the world’s richest man. He is also the president’s largest campaign benefactor. His companies have grown on government contracts. And he is calling a lot of the shots in Washington. He is Elon Musk an unelected businessman who has spent the last couple of weeks with his allies tearing through Washington causing confusion and chaos in government agencies. Among the questions begging to be asked: How can he wield that kind of power? How can he run roughshod over laws and programs set up by Congress? There are obvious conflicts of interest. Why are they not being questioned? There are indications that the tech billionaire is getting reminders from the White House that he still needs to report to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. In fact, President Donald Trump suggested just that publicly and aides have reported he said the same thing. Musk may not prefer it that way. That said, he has wide latitude to slash spending and make changes to the way the federal government operates. And he is doing it at a rapid, even breakneck speed.

The clock is tick-tocking on the Supreme Court’s latest calendar. Several things before the nation’s highest court have national significance. First, let’s revisit what’s happening with the social media site TikTok. On Jan. 20, the Supreme Court upheld the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary-Controlled Applications Act. It’s the law that requires Chinese government–controlled corporation Bytedance to divest TikTok or have the application barred from U.S.-based platforms But President Donald Trump signed an executive order pausing the TikTok ban. It provided a liability shield to business partners of the popular video app. What is interesting about the court’s decision is what the Supreme Court did not do.

Now that he is President Donald Trump again, there is still talk about immigration, cabinet confirmations and the economy. But there are a myriad of questions about another focus of the president: What’s been dubbed his “Annexation Agenda.” Trump, in the past, criticized U.S. military involvement in other countries, but he did a complete turnaround in recent weeks, pushing the idea that he wants to take over Greenland from Denmark, reclaim the Panama Canal and make Canada the 51st state. And he didn’t rule out the use of military force to do so.

Inauguration Day is Jan. 20. President-elect Donald Trump and his team made a series of promises that would happen if he were to win the election. No one will argue that 2025 got off to a turbulent start. It leaves the president-elect having to confront a difficult opening to the 2nd Trump presidency. As one analyst put it, he’ll be “confronting the kinds of crises he has long been railing against.” You’ve got the driver plowing a truck into a crowd of New Year’s revelers in New Orleans. The detonation of a Tesla Cybertruck in front of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas. Oh, and the breach of the U.S. Treasury Department. That was a major cybersecurity incident at the hands of what’s believed to be Chinese state-sponsored hackers.

The future has a history. And while we can’t see into the future, looking into our past can prove powerful. That said, there are two quotes that come to mind. Let’s start with George Bernard Shaw (quoting German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel): “We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.” Politically, 2024 had me and many others, quite frankly, taken aback. It was a year that saw President Joe Biden drop his re-election bid after being forced out by top leaders of his own party. Vice President Kamala Harris swept in as the party’s nominee and stood her own in a debate with former President Donald Trump.

The world is watching to see if the Middle East is on the brink of monumental change precipitated by the ouster of Syria’s Bashar Assad. Rebels forced Assad to flee and seek asylum in Moscow, marking a major turning point in the nation’s 14-year civil war and more than 50 years of his family’s brutal rule. There are those who believe this will engender a major ripple effect. In fact, one GOP lawmaker thinks those ripple effects will be as profound as what was seen with the “fall of the Berlin Wall.”

The leaders of both major political parties have argued this nation’s justice system is politically biased. President Joe Biden pardoned his son, Hunter, after promising he wouldn’t because he felt the Justice Department, his own Justice Department, treated his son unfairly. He said, “raw politics” had “infected” Hunter Biden’s prosecution on gun and tax evasion offenses and “led to a miscarriage of justice.” On the other side of the political spectrum, president-elect Donald Trump long maintained that his galaxy of legal woes — both the criminal and civil charges against him -- were politically motivated attacks orchestrated by his adversaries. Then his re-election to a second term in the Oval Office led to cases against Trump being dismissed.

President-elect Donald Trump promised to make immigration a priority on his first day in office. And he has confirmed since winning the election that he plans to declare a national emergency and mount a mass deportation campaign. The promise will come, not through new legislation, not through structured policy change, but through Executive Order. Mr. Trump wants to send hundreds of thousands of people across the border with the stroke of the pen. Will it be that simple? There is little doubt that groups are ready to defend the rights of immigrants here in the United States and ready to mount a legal defense.

President Joe Biden’s goal is to secure his legacy as he spends his last weeks in the White House. While the people in his administration work to prioritize the agenda and emphasize the things that might secure that legacy, they are mindful that Biden’s successor (who was also his predecessor) is lurking in the wings and come Jan. 20 will likely tear it all down. There is little doubt that now that the election is over, the Biden administration doesn’t feel burdened by the constraints of a campaign, nor do they seem concerned by President-elect Donald Trump’s pending return to power. They do, however, realize that everything they do may have little or no consequence after the inauguration.

One political analyst described the flurry of President-elect Donald Trump’s blizzard of Cabinet picks as “MAGA shock & awe.” They could only be described as unorthodox. And it leaves one wondering if this country is about to take a dangerous ride. The earthquake started with appointing the world’s richest man — his buddy Elon Musk — to head a new department. His job: gut government agencies and departments. Musk will be joined by another Trump rabble-rouser, Vivek Ramaswamy, at what’s being called the “Department of Government Efficiency.” Yeah, the former GOP presidential candidate who posted on Musk’s “X” (formerly Twitter) “SHUT IT DOWN.”

President-elect Donald Trump is laying out an agenda for his second term in the White House. And with the first female Chief of Staff in history by his side, a lot of people wonder if Susie Wiles, a political operative from Jacksonville, will have a profound impact on the tenor of a second Trump term. President-elect Trump promises the largest deportation of immigrants in American history, sweeping new tariffs on imports, and freezing climate-related regulations. Also on the docket: remaking federal health agencies and making ideological changes to the education system. Mr. Trump will get his chance to do those things, and he promises to keep his promises. “We’re gonna fix everything about our country,” Trump says.

Young voters may hold the key to this year’s election and could very well play a decisive role in who is next to occupy the Oval Office. That’s why both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are actively working to court young voters, especially in key battleground states where polls consistently show the two in a neck-and-neck race. The bottom line: Both Trump and Harris are fighting for every vote they can secure.