House Intel Chair Rick Crawford predicts Cuba will follow Venezuela, how the Department of Interior delivered for Americans in 2025, how Tulsi Gabbard reformed the DNI, and more

It’s been a good week for Rep. Rick Crawford (R., Ark.), who for years has sought to prioritize the Western Hemisphere in American foreign policy, given the recent arrest and extradition of Venezuela’s socialist leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife. 

Now, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee told the Washington Reporter in an exclusive interview, he hopes reforms in Cuba are next.

“To me, this is all music to my ears,” Crawford told the Reporter. “I am thrilled to see that the president has made this a priority. As chairman of the Intel Committee, when I came in a year ago, I said that this is going to be my priority. And I was very delighted to see that the president shared that view. We have stood up a Western Hemisphere action cell on the Intel Committee that is focused on keeping our eyes on this problem set in the Western Hemisphere.”

PRESIDENT TRUMP’S HOUSING ANNOUNCEMENT: President Donald Trump’s announcement of a pending ban on “institutional ownership” of single family homes made a splash on the Hill and on Wall Street. The two biggest firms impacted by the move, Invitation Homes and Blackstone, saw a decline in their stock price. Congress responded quickly, with Rep. Steven Horsford (D., Nev.), calling to pass his Housing Oversight and Mitigation Exploitation (HOME) Act. Reps. Erin Houchin (R., Ind.) and Mike Flood (R., Neb.) have legislation, the Affordable Housing Opportunities Made Easier through Simplification (Affordable HOMES) Act that will hit the floor this week. TO INFINITY,…

It was a “bad year for the Deep State” in 2025, and a good one for the Director of National Intelligence’s (DNI) efforts to bolster department-wide transparency, counterterrorism, the effort to dismantle Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), and more, a DNI spokesperson told the Washington Reporter.

The Reporter broke multiple stories about the DNI’s work in 2025 — including Director Tulsi Gabbard’s declassification of the Obama administration’s role in surveilling Trump’s 2016 campaign and prompting the Russia collusion investigation, Gabbard’s vision for ODNI 2.0, the addition of counternarcotics to the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC)’s portfolio, and more. 

One of Gabbard’s first reforms was to dismantle a DEI apparatus that a spokesman said had overtaken many of the agency’s priorities. Reforms Gabbard took as part of ODNI 2.0 will save taxpayers almost $1 billion a year.

One of America’s leading pro-life organizations has announced its endorsement of Sen. Bill Cassidy (R., La.) in his 2026 reelection bid, the Washington Reporter can exclusively confirm.

“Senator Bill Cassidy’s leadership on life is indispensable in Washington,” the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America Candidate Fund said.

“Cassidy has led the fight for accountability on dangerous mail-order abortion drugs that are endangering women, driving abortions higher and undermining the laws of pro-life states like Louisiana,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, SBA Pro-Life America’s president, said in her endorsement. “He has worked to advance a health care alternative to Obamacare that stops the travesty of taxpayers being forced to subsidize abortions. And when a whistleblower exposed public school staff allegedly coercing students into abortions on taxpayers’ dime, as chairman of the Senate HELP Committee, he launched a federal investigation.”

Secretary Doug Burgum’s Department of Interior’s busy agenda in 2025 included efforts to complement the Trump administration’s energy independence executive orders, and to reconfigure pricing at America’s National Parks to comport with President Donald Trump’s America First priorities.

“This past year, the Department of the Interior has fought each day to secure big wins for the American people by unleashing American energy dominance, ensuring our federal lands stay open for everyone to enjoy, and ending Biden’s bureaucratic red tape agenda that has been holding back our communities,” Charlotte Taylor, the department’s Deputy Communications Director, told the Washington Reporter. “Secretary Burgum and the Interior team will never stop delivering for hardworking American families and above all, we’ll keep putting America First.” 

The Interior Department is also announcing new oil and gas leases in the Gulf of America; the department played a role in implementing Trump’s executive order that renamed the body of water at America’s southern border as well as reversing the Obama-era name change of Alaska’s Mount McKinley.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.)’s latest confirmation of Joshua Simmons to serve as the CIA’s general counsel continues his track record of quickly facilitating the confirmation of top officials who will serve in President Donald Trump’s intelligence community (IC). 

The Senate Intelligence Committee, which Cotton chairs, has confirmed all of Trump’s selected nominees, even amid efforts from committee Democrats to delay and oppose the nominations.

Cotton commends “President Trump for nominating a strong slate of individuals to these important national security roles,” he told the Washington Reporter.

Secretary Sean Duffy’s Department of Transportation (DOT) tackled everything from wasteful spending to blue states handing out commercial drivers licenses to illegal immigrants in 2025, all while securing Christmas bonuses for thousands of Amtrak union employees.

For much of 2025, Duffy was the head of DOT and NASA’s acting administrator. Following Jared Isaacman’s bipartisan confirmation as NASA administrator, Duffy was able to resume his sole focus on running DOT, where, his team says, he’s saved taxpayers billions of dollars, including almost $10 billion in just his first 100 days on the job.

One of Duffy’s high-profile moves was a blow to hopeful presidential nominee Gov. Gavin Newsom (D., Calif); Duffy investigated “California’s train to nowhere,” a proposed high-speed rail system whose costs have ballooned and that critics argue will never be completed. The DOT has simultaneously revitalized moribund train stations across the country, including Union Station and Penn Station. 

President Donald Trump and Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Sen. Tim Scott (R., S.C.) kicked 2026 off by honing in on affordability issues, specifically housing policy.

“People live in homes, not corporations,” Trump said while announcing his plans to restrict the ability of institutional investors to buy single-family homes. Scott, who has led the Senate GOP’s efforts to lower the cost of housing by backing bipartisan legislation like the ROAD to Housing Act, commended Trump’s latest move.

“2026 must be the year we get housing affordability right for working families,” Scott said. “I welcome President Trump’s desire to look for ways to create more homeowners, especially first-time homeowners.”

California Democratic Attorney General, Rob Bonta, withdrew the state’s lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s effort to cut billions of dollars of grants to the state’s high-speed rail project — a move that is welcome news for taxpayers, Rep. Vince Fong (R., Calif.), a Californian who serves on the House’s Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, told the Washington Reporter.

“California’s decision to withdraw its lawsuit over its high-speed rail failure confirms what taxpayers have known for years: the project’s mismanagement is indefensible,” Fong said. “What voters approved in 2008 bears no resemblance to the original vision — a $33 billion rail system completed by 2020 has ballooned to more than $128 billion, with no viable funding plan, no realistic completion date, and no accountability.”

Republicans have for years argued that the rail proposal, promoted by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D., Calif.), is an example of administrative failure. “After billions wasted, repeated delays, and wildly unrealistic ridership projections, the California High-Speed Rail Authority and Governor Newsom could not defend their failures,” Fong said. “It’s time to shut down this boondoggle and reinvest in real infrastructure and critical priorities that actually deliver for Californians.”

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s (D) administration missed an opportunity to help bring healthcare resources to rural Marylanders by failing to prioritize Maryland’s application for a piece of the $50 billion funding under the federal Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP). Our rural communities stand to lose millions in federal funding as a result. 

Created as part of the 2025 Working Families Tax Cuts Act, the RHTP is a $50 billion federal grant program to be awarded to states to address the access to healthcare and infrastructure crisis occurring in rural communities across the U.S. This grant program equally distributes $25 billion to all states, but also authorizes states to submit applications for a portion of the remaining $25 billion to pay for specific health and nutrition needs of rural communities. 

The Trump administration has made a major commitment to strengthening rural health care by delivering $168,180,838 to Maryland through the RHTP. This funding will improve access to care and strengthen rural health care where Marylanders need it most. However, Maryland’s rural communities won’t see the full benefit they should.