Congress has reconvened for 2026 and lawmakers already have a busy year ahead of them — on Jan. 2, President Trump announced that the United States had captured Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro. But the Trump administration declined to notify Congress, and many experts consider the military action illegal.
Plus, the deal that ended the longest government shutdown in American history about two months ago will expire on Jan. 30, meaning another shutdown is looming if Congress does not agree soon on a handful of new spending bills. One issue that led to the shutdown was expiring health care subsidies — without new subsidies, higher costs will come for at least one in 10 North Carolinians, and an effort to renew them seems unlikely to become law.
Meanwhile, new federal guidelines are upending long-held views on everything from dietary needs to vaccine recommendations.
We sit down with local and national congressional reporters to analyze how the upcoming session of Congress will affect North Carolina.
GUESTS
Reuben Jones, Washington reporter for Spectrum News covering North Carolina and national politics
Taylor Popielarz, national political reporter for Spectrum News
Christa Dutton, reporter and Albritton Journalism Institute fellow covering North Carolina for NOTUS
