The First Mailbag Edition of 2026!
Answering your questions on constitutional crises, the midterms, and more.
Good morning! It’s Friday, January 9, 2026. I’m about to head to the Supreme Court, where the justices might release their highly anticipated ruling on President Trump’s tariffs. (We know they’re likely going to release an opinion at 10 a.m. ET, but they never say ahead of time which ones they’ll release. It could be tariffs, or it could be something like U.S. Postal Service v. Konan, which is a pending case about lost mail. But I’ll be there just in case.)
Our main business for today is answering reader questions. But before we get to that, I want to give a quick update on four key votes that took place yesterday in Congress:
The Senate voted 52-47 to advance a resolution that would prevent the president from sending troops to Venezuela. Republican Sens. Susan Collins (ME), Josh Hawley (MO), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Rand Paul (KY), and Todd Young (IN) crossed party lines to support the measure.
The House voted 230-196 to advance a bill that would extend the enhanced Obamacare subsidies, which expired at the end of last year, through the end of 2028. 17 Republicans voted for the measure.
The House voted not to override President Trump’s vetoes of the bills to aid Colorado and Florida that were discussed in yesterday’s newsletter. The votes were 248 in favor of overriding, 177 against, on the Colorado bill; 236 in favor of overriding, 188 against, on the Florida bill. In both cases, 288 members (two-thirds) were needed to override. 35 Republicans broke with Trump on the Colorado bill, and 24 on the Florida bill.1
So, all in all, a mixed day for President Trump on Capitol Hill. Both the Senate Venezuela measure and the House health care bill passed despite his opposition, though neither is likely to receive votes in the other chamber. (The Venezuela bill only received a Senate vote because of Senate-specific procedures when it comes to war powers votes. The health care bill only received a House vote because of a discharge petition, a major snub of House Speaker Mike Johnson.)
Trump lashed out at the five Senate Republicans who broke with him on Venezuela, writing on Truth Social that they “should never be elected to office again.” He did, however, score a major victory when House Republicans sustained his two vetoes: the bills in question previously passed the House unanimously, which means the vast majority of Republicans reversed themselves in order to uphold Trump’s position, showing that he remains the dominant force in the GOP, even if some cracks have appeared in his support.
According to Politico, more Republicans had been planning to support the veto override, but they were cowed by “White House officials who circled the chamber” during the votes, “taking note of the defectors.” Reportedly, Trump’s missive about the five Senate Republicans “helped convince others [in the House] to not stick their neck out,” showing that a Truth Social post still holds incredible weight in the GOP.
Now that we’re all caught up, it’s time for questions! This morning, I take mini-deep dives into three questions:
Have we reached a constitutional crisis yet?
What would really change if Democrats win control of the House?
Why is that the Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader have so much control anyway? What are ways their power could be unwound?
As always, Q&A columns are a perk for paid subscribers, so if you’re interested in reading those answers, I hope you’ll consider signing up. If you found WUTP valuable this week, you can also help support by sending my pieces on Venezuela, Tim Walz, and Trump’s vetoes to your friends, and encourage them to subscribe.
With that: let’s dive in…
Crisis or not a crisis?
Q: Last spring, when everyone was screaming about Constitutional crises, you said you felt we had not yet reached that point. Do you still feel that way? Why or why not?
This is one of the most common questions I receive, and the post it refers to (“When I Will Call Something a ‘Constitutional Crisis’”), was one of the most-shared Wake Up To Politics pieces of 2025.
In that column from last February, I laid out a very clear standard for when I would consider the U.S. to have entered a “constitutional crisis”: when the president tries to do something, the judiciary tells him he cannot do that thing, and he does that thing anyway.
Almost a year later, President Trump has undoubtedly tried to do a lot of things.