Writing in the New York Times on Monday, longtime Democratic political strategist James Carville outlined a compelling message for Democrats to unite around ahead of the 2026 midterms.

Carville urged Democrats to delay the ‘civil war’ that will eventually erupt between the party’s moderate and progressive wings, and to coalesce around a single ‘oppositional message’ focused entirely on repealing President Donald Trump’s agenda.

With all due respect to Mr. Carville, his myopic focus on a strategy of resisting Trump above all else is simply too narrow to be truly effective.

Put another way, a Democratic agenda built entirely around repealing the Republican agenda may be enough for 2026, but it falls far short of what Democrats must do if they hope to take back the White House in 2028.

Indeed, nowhere in the Times piece is any description of actual policies that Democrats should advance as an alternative to what Republicans are offering, either next year or in three years.

There are no calls for an entirely new economic agenda, one that replaces Democrats’ tendency for profligate spending with a more fiscally conservative plan focused on managing the debt while also protecting the social safety net.

In many ways, Democrats today should look to former President Bill Clinton, who was able to reduce the debt, leave a budget surplus and still protect vital social programs.

Moreover, the word ‘immigration’ is not even mentioned. 

This comes despite 2024 election polling showing that immigration was a top issue for voters, and exit polls showing voters trusted Trump over former Vice President Kamala Harris by a 16-point margin (52% to 36%), per Fox News.

To that end, if Democrats hope to take back more than just one chamber of Congress, the party needs an agenda that prioritizes securing the border, combined with a pathway to citizenship for legal migrants and Dreamers.

And, while I do agree with Mr. Carville that the midterms will be decided based on kitchen table issues rather than foreign policy, that does not mean Democrats can afford to ignore this issue.

As a party, Democrats must advance an agenda that positively asserts democratic values at home and abroad. 

This entails rejecting the belief of the far left – and increasingly the far right – that any use of American power is inherently bad.

To be sure, formulating an entirely new Democratic agenda takes time. And it will require the emergence of moderate candidates at a time when Zohran Mamdani’s win in New York City has energized the progressive wing of the party. 

Nevertheless, as the 2024 election made clear, Democrats cannot afford to run from the center toward the far left. What the party needs is a candidate who can win, not one chosen because they passed progressives’ ideological purity test.

Interestingly, Carville cites former President Clinton as a figure who emerged as Democrats’ ‘savior’ in 1992. 

But Clinton was able to do so because, at a time when the party was moving further to the left, Clinton dragged the party toward the middle on the economy and crime.

Finally, the crux of Carville’s message – ‘we demand a repeal’ of Trump’s agenda – overlooks the core factor behind who Americans cast a vote for.

Voters choose candidates who have plans and policies that will improve their lives. 

Slogans, no matter how catchy, may work for the midterms, but if Democrats then fail to deliver actual change between 2026 and 2028, its unlikely voters will trust them.

Quite simply, voters want a strong economy, safe streets, a government that is not excessively bloated and secure borders, not candidates whose only agenda is resisting the president. 

Now, this is not to say that the agenda outlined by Carville will not be successful next year – it very well may.

Rather, it is to point out that even if it helps Democrats reclaim the House of Representatives, it will not be enough to take back the White House in 2028.

For that, the party needs to advance its own agenda, one that addresses the above issues and actually provides a real, viable alternative to the Trump-GOP agenda. 

House Republicans are already discussing contours for a potential second ‘big, beautiful bill’ advancing President Donald Trump’s agenda.

The Republican Study Committee (RSC), the 189-member-strong group that acts as a de facto ‘think tank’ for the House GOP, is launching a working group to look at what a second budget reconciliation bill would look like, Fox News Digital has learned.

It’s the largest organized effort so far by congressional Republicans to follow through on GOP leaders’ hopes for a second massive agenda bill.

‘We must capitalize on the momentum we’ve generated in the first 6 months of a Republican trifecta in Washington,’ RSC Chairman August Pfluger, R-Texas, told Fox News Digital. ‘To fulfill the promises we made to the American people, conservatives must begin laying the groundwork for the second reconciliation bill to ensure we continue to drive down the cost of living and restore America’s promise for future generations.’

House Republicans left Washington on Wednesday to kick off a five-week recess period, where they’re readying to sell the benefits of their first massive agenda bill to their constituents. 

Meanwhile, Pfluger also directed lawmakers part of the new working group to begin reaching out to colleagues, conservative senators, and GOP organizations about potential policy proposals for a new bill, Fox News Digital was told.

The goal of the new group is to create a framework for what a second ‘big, beautiful bill’ could look like, and to recommend that framework to GOP leaders.

The first bill was a massive piece of legislation advancing Trump’s agenda on taxes, the border, immigration, defense, and energy.

It made much of Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) permanent, while imposing new work requirements on Medicaid and food stamps, among other measures.

After passing the House and Senate, Trump signed it into law during a celebratory event on the Fourth of July.

But the political fight to get just one reconciliation bill took Herculean political efforts across both the House and Senate, with debates and even heated arguments ongoing for months before the bill passed.

Notably, however, Republicans did get the legislation to Trump’s desk by July 4 – meeting a goal that many in the media and even within GOP circles thought impossible.

The budget reconciliation process allows the party controlling the White House and both chambers of Congress to pass massive partisan policy overhauls, while completely sidelining the other side – in this case, Democrats.

Reconciliation bills can pass the Senate with a simple majority rather than 60 votes, lining up with the House’s own passage threshold. But the legislation must adhere to a specific set of rules and only involve measures related to fiscal policy.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told ‘Sunday Morning Futures’ earlier this month that he was eyeing multiple reconciliation bills.

‘With President Trump coming back to the White House, and us having the responsibility for fixing every metric of public policy that Biden and Harris and the Democrats destroyed over the previous four years –  so the big beautiful bill was the first big step in that,’ he told host Maria Bartiromo.

‘But we have multiple steps ahead of us. We have long planned for at least two, possibly three, reconciliation bills, one in the fall and one next spring.’

JERUSALEM— The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is under growing pressure to extradite the self-confessed female Hamas terrorist Ahlam Aref Ahmad al-Tamimi, who engineered the terrorist bombing at a Jerusalem pizzeria in 2001 that murdered three Americans among 16 people, half of whom were children.

Frimet and Arnold Roth, the parents of Malki Roth, a 15-year-old U.S. citizen murdered in the 2001 Sbarro pizzeria bombing, held a virtual meeting on July 17, 2025 with Jeanine F. Pirro, United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. 

The U.S. State Department has a $5 million reward for information leading to al-Tamimi’scapture, even as reports claim Jordan’s King Abdullah II has played hardball, refusing to extradite the accused mass murderer. 

‘You have the capacity to push for her extradition, to ensure that the 1995 treaty is honored, to show Jordan and its population along with the watching world that harboring terrorists has consequences,’ Arnold Roth told Pirro during the meeting, according to a family press release following the meeting. 

The 24th anniversary of the Aug. 9, 2001 bombing is next month.

Roth added, ‘We’re here today to implore you to act. Jordan needs to know the U.S. cannot tolerate the protection of a murderer of American citizens. U.S. justice needs to be respected by the world and, without hammering this point too hard, by America’s lawmakers and senior officials.’ 

The Roths said that the meeting focused on the need for ‘concrete steps’ to advance the long-delayed extradition of al-Tamimi.  

Al-Tamimi’sterrorist bombing also killed Judith Shoshana Greenberg and Chana Nachenberg in the 2001 attack. ‘All the victims deserve justice,’ Arnold Roth said, stressing that Tamimi’s extradition should become a ‘true priority’ for the U.S. Department of Justice. 

When asked if the extradition of al-Tamimi was raised by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in his Wednesday meeting with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, a State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital, ‘The United States has continually emphasized to the Government of Jordan the importance of holding Ahlam al-Tamimi, the convicted terrorist released by Israel in a 2011 prisoner swap, accountable in a U.S. court for her admitted role in a 2001 bombing in Jerusalem that killed 15 people, including Americans Malka Chana Roth, Judith Shoshana Greenbaum, and Chana Nachenberg. The United States continues to impress upon the Government of Jordan that Tamimi is a brutal murderer who should be brought to justice.’

The State Department referred Fox News Digital to the Department of Justice for more information about the U.S. criminal case against al-Tamimi.

The Justice Department and Pirro’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital press queries.

Al-Tamimi is on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list. She is the second female to appear on the terrorism list.

Frimet Roth told U.S. Attorney Pirro that ‘We cannot carry this fight alone any longer. Judge Pirro, please, be the voice for Malki and the other American victims. Be the advocate for justice that has been denied for too long. We beg you to act—not for our sake alone, but for the integrity of American law and the sanctity of every life lost to terror.’ 

The Roths also delivered a petition to U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee in May 2025, with some 30,000 signatures urging the Trump administration to press Jordan for al-Tamimi’s extradition. 

Arnold Roth told Fox News Digital that ‘No senior figure from State has ever, in all the years of our fight for justice, agreed to speak with us. Their treatment of us and of the Tamimi case is deplorable. Victoria Nuland, then one of the top-ranking figures in the State Department. Nuland wrote to us in the names of President Biden and then-Sec of State Antony Blinken, and told us that the Tamimi case was quote ‘a foremost priority’ for the U.S. And that they would keep us informed. She then [they] ignored every follow-up letter that I sent her, and of course so said Biden and Blinken.’

Jordan’s government is a major recipient of U.S. Foreign Military Financing (FMF).

According to a January 2025 U.S. State Department fact sheet, ‘Since 2015, the Department of State has provided Jordan with $2.155 billion in FMF, which makes Jordan the third-largest global recipient of FMF funds over that time period.  In addition, the Department of Defense (DoD) has provided $327 million to the Jordanian Armed Forces (JAF) under its 333 authority since 2018, making Jordan one of the largest recipients of this funding.’

Al-Tamimi reportedly boasted about her terrorist operation in the Arab media and called for more terrorism against Israel. ‘Of course. I do not regret what happened. Absolutely not. This is the path. I dedicated myself to jihad for the sake of Allah, and Allah granted me success. You know how many casualties there were [in the 2001 attack on the Sbarro pizzeria]. This was made possible by Allah. Do you want me to denounce what I did? That’s out of the question. I would do it again today, and in the same manner,’ she said in 2011, according to a MEMRI translation.

In 2017, the U.S. Justice Department publicly announced that it had charged her with the Jerusalem suicide bombing. 

Fox News Digital sent multiple press queries to Jordan’s government and its embassies in Washington, D.C., and Tel Aviv.