Trump tries to rally House GOP but meanders along the way as the party's majority narrows

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump insisted Tuesday that Republicans have “so many good nuggets” to campaign on this year as they try to hold onto their razor-thin margin in the House.

But the president’s nearly 90-minute speech before House Republicans had little in the way of a fresh policy agenda or a cohesive new message to guide the year. Instead, he meandered from defending his actions during the Capitol riot five years ago to joking about being liberal-minded to win the votes of transgender people to making head-scratching references to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's use of a wheelchair.

As he promised political “ammunition” to help Republicans, Trump emphasized the success of his 2024 presidential campaign, reminding the audience that he carried every swing state as he pondered why voters tend to turn against the party in power during midterm elections.

“They say that when you win the presidency, you lose the midterms,” Trump said in remarks at the Kennedy Center, the performing arts venue that his allies recently renamed for him. “I wish you could explain to me what the hell is going on with the mind of the public.”

He warned that if Democrats regain control of Congress, “they'll find a way to impeach me.”

Trump's appearance at the GOP's policy forum was meant to ensure House Republicans and the White House were aligned on their agenda ahead of the November midterms that will determine control of Congress and the course of Trump's final two years in office. Rising health care costs, Trump’s expansive foreign policy pursuits and other issues are dramatically splitting the GOP, as some Republicans become more comfortable crossing party lines to bypass House Speaker Mike Johnson and join proposals from Democrats.

It all points to a difficult year ahead for the president and his party, especially as the House’s slim majority narrowed Tuesday with the sudden death of California Rep. Doug LaMalfa, which was announced to lawmakers as they traveled to the performing arts center, and the resignation of former Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, which took effect at midnight.

But Trump spent more time rehashing past grievances during the appearance than articulating a broad election-year strategy or offering specifics on how he's addressing affordability concerns of voters.

“We won every swing state. We won the popular vote by millions. We won everything," Trump said, recounting the 2024 presidential election.

Trump mused about unconstitutionally seeking a third term as president and claimed it was never reported that he urged his supporters to walk “peacefully and patriotically” on Jan. 6, 2021, to the Capitol, where they rioted to try to overturn his election loss. He used his wife, first lady Melania Trump, to poke at Roosevelt, the former Democratic president who used a wheelchair.

According to the president, Melania Trump thinks the dancing he does at his rallies is not presidential.

“She actually said, ‘Could you imagine FDR dancing?’ She actually said that to me,” Trump said. “And I said there’s a long history that perhaps she doesn’t know.”

Trump did try to rally the conference at times, asserting that his first year back in office was so successful that Republicans should win in November on that basis alone. He briefly touched on Venezuela and the dramatic capture of deposed president Nicolás Maduro — calling it “brilliant, tactically.” He talked about money coming into the U.S. through tariffs and direct investment, and negotiations to bring down drug prices.

“You have so many good nuggets. You have to use them. If you can sell them, we’re going to win,” Trump said. He claimed that “we’ve had the most successful first year of any president in history and it should be a positive.”

House Republicans convened as they launch their new year agenda, with health care issues in particular dogging the GOP heading into the midterm elections. Trump declined to publicly counsel GOP lawmakers on how they should handle this week’s vote — pushed by Democrats and a handful of Republicans who broke from their party -- to extend insurance subsidies that expired at year’s end, or on how to deal with the next potential government shutdown just weeks away, all with a narrower majority.

“You can’t be tough when you have a majority of three, and now, sadly, a little bit less than that,” Trump said after paying tribute to LaMalfa, noting the challenges House Speaker Mike Johnson faces in keeping their ranks unified.

The president also noted that Rep. Jim Baird, R-Ind., was recovering after a “bad” car accident, further slimming Johnson’s vote margins.

Votes on extending expired health insurance subsidies are expected as soon as this week, and it’s unclear whether the president and the party will try to block passage. Trump urged Republicans to own the issue of health care, a policy that Republicans have long struggled on, and said the party should be “flexible” on abortion restrictions that have been well-established federal policy.

“You have to be a little flexible” on the Hyde Amendment, Trump told House Republicans. “You gotta be a little flexible. You gotta work something. You gotta use ingenuity.” The Hyde Amendment is a decades-old policy that bars federal money from being spent on abortion services.

GOP lawmakers were hosting a daylong policy forum at the Kennedy Center, where the board, stocked by Trump with loyalists, recently voted to rename it the Trump Kennedy Center. The move is being challenged in court. Trump and Johnson are trying to corral Republican lawmakers at a time when rank-and-file lawmakers have felt increasingly emboldened enough to buck Trump and the leadership’s wishes on issues such as the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

AP Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro and Associated Press writer Will Weissert contributed to this report.

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An earlier version of this story mistakenly reported that Rep. Jim Baird represents Wisconsin. Baird represents Indiana in the U.S. House.

President Donald Trump speaks to House Republican lawmakers during their annual policy retreat, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson attends an annual policy retreat, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Donald Trump arrives at an annual policy retreat, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Donald Trump listens to a question during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

VATICAN CITY (AP) — A day after closing out the 2025 Holy Year, Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday opened a new phase of his pontificate by gathering the world’s cardinals to Rome and indicating some reform-minded priorities going forward.

For starters, Leo signalled an emphasis on more fully implementing the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, the 1960s meetings that modernized and revolutionized the Catholic Church. He called the Vatican II teachings the “guiding star” of the church.

Leo told his weekly general audience that for the foreseeable future, he would devote his weekly catechism lessons to a rereading of key Vatican II documents, noting that the generation of bishops and theologians who had attended the meetings and crafted the reforms are dead.

“Therefore, while we hear the call not to let its prophecy fade, and to continue to seek ways and means to implement its insights, it will be important to get to know it again closely, and to do so not through hearsay or interpretations that have been given, but by rereading its documents and reflecting on their content,” he said. “Indeed, it is the magisterium that still constitutes the guiding star of the church’s journey today.”

Among other things, Vatican II allowed for use of the vernacular rather than Latin for Mass. It called for greater participation of lay faithful in the life of the church and revolutionized Catholic relations with Jews and people of other faiths.

Leo has also indicated a reform-minded agenda for his two-day meeting of cardinals, which gets under way Wednesday afternoon.

He called the consistory, as such meetings are known, to begin the day after he closed the 2025 Holy Year, suggesting that he too saw the end of the Jubilee as an opportunity to unofficially start his pontificate and look ahead to his own agenda.

Leo’s first few months as pope were dominated by fulfilling the intense Holy Year obligations of meeting with pilgrimage groups, celebrating special Jubilee audiences and Masses and wrapping up the outstanding matters of Pope Francis’ pontificate.

The Vatican said Leo's first consistory was aimed at “fostering common discernment and offering support and advice to the Holy Father in the exercise of his high and grave responsibility in the government of the universal church.”

It was a significant gesture, since Francis had relied not on consistories or the College of Cardinals as a whole to help him govern, but rather a small, hand-picked group of nine cardinals who met every few months at the Vatican.

Before the May conclave that elected Leo, cardinals had complained about Francis’ go-it-alone governing style, suggesting that Leo is responding to their requests to be consulted more about running the 1.4-billion strong church.

On the agenda is a discussion of two of Francis’ key reform documents: his original mission statement issued at the start of his pontificate, and the 2022 document that reformed the Vatican bureaucracy. Also being discussed is Francis' call for the church to be more “synodal,” or responsive to the needs of rank-and-file Catholics, and a discussion of the liturgy, according to Vatican News.

The last agenda item is believed to refer to divisions within the church over the old Latin Mass, which was celebrated before the Vatican II reforms allowed Mass in different languages, with the active participation of the faithful.

Francis had greatly restricted the celebration of the old Latin Mass, arguing its spread in recent years had created divisions in the church. But Francis’ crackdown fueled a strong conservative and traditionalist backlash against him, especially in the United States, which the Chicago-born Leo seems keen to try to pacify.

There are currently 245 cardinals, almost equally split between those who are under age 80 and voted in the conclave that elected Leo, and those who are older. The Vatican hasn’t said how many are expected to attend.

One senior cardinal, though, was listed prominently on Leo’s agenda of private audiences Wednesday: Cardinal Joseph Zen, the retired archbishop of Hong Kong. Zen, who turns 94 next week, was a fierce conservative critic of Francis, especially over the pope's outreach to China, and complained for years that the Argentine Jesuit wouldn’t receive him in private audience.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Pope Leo XIV meets Cardinals and Bishops at the end of his weekly general audience in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Leo XIV arrives for his weekly general audience in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Leo XIV holds his weekly general audience in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Leo XIV holds his weekly general audience in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Leo XIV holds his weekly general audience in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)