The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly Stories That Shaped 2025

Federalist Radio Hour

Radio America

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.5 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 30 December 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What was the biggest story of the year? Join the Federalist staff, including Executive Editor Joy Pullmann, Assistant Editor Joshua Monnington, Staff Writer Jordan Boyd, and Senior Elections Correspondent Matt Kittle, as they dissect the news cycles that defined 2025, including the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the DOGE project, and rogue judges. They also name the worst person of the year and dive into the top issues that will carry over into 2026.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	And we are back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittles' senior
0:24.2	elections correspondent at The Federalist and your experience Sherpa on today's quest for knowledge.
0:31.0	As always, you can email the show at Radio at the Federalist.com. Follow us on X at FBRLST. Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your
0:40.6	podcast and, of course, to the premium version of our website as well. Our guest today are
0:46.8	some of the best reporters and editors in the business. I know firsthand, I have the great pleasure
0:53.1	and I have the great honor of working with them.
0:57.0	Federalist executive editor Joy Pullman, staff writer and federalist radio hour producer extraordinaire
1:03.2	Jordan Boyd and Federalist editor extraordinaire, Joshua Montington, or Bonesy, as we like to call him.
1:13.1	Today, we'll figure out why we call him Bonesy, and we'll discuss the year that was,
1:20.5	and what a year it was. It began with the bang and the explosions kept coming.
1:27.3	Folks, thank you so much for joining us in this edition
1:29.3	of the Federalist Radio Hour. Thanks for having us. Yeah, thank you. Great to talk with you all the time,
1:34.1	Matt. I love listening to your voice. Oh, well, as you know, my contract stipulates that this is
1:40.4	audio only because I have a face for radio.
1:46.9	Again, just an extraordinary year.
1:51.8	I want to go around the table and I want to start off by asking this question.
1:58.7	Because you guys have written a lot of stories, edited a lot of stories, seen a lot of stories, read a lot of stories. What do you think was the most impactful story
2:03.6	of 2025? Joy, I'll start with you. Well, it's hard for me to pick number ones because
2:11.2	there's so many top things. So I will kind of punt on that by picking several of them. And I'm sure other people who have other things to add. So I will kind of punt on that by picking several of them and I'm sure other people
2:19.5	who have other things to add. So I think the one of the big stories of the year that kind of
2:24.8	feels very far in the rearview mirror is the whole like first hundred days of the Trump
2:31.1	administration. That was a really its own season and a really a major part of the year, you know,
	...

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