“Only two and a half more years” is the consolation John Kiriakou offered in 2026 when asked about domestic policy, in this instance the rescinding of the greenhouse gas endangerment finding by a viewer who worked at the Environmental Protection Agency.
His first admission was that such questions cost him sleep — “I lose sleep over these issues. I really do” — and the only comfort he could name was arithmetic: “There’s only 2 and 1/2 more years of this. Even if a Republican wins, it likely won’t be as bad.”[1][2]
The list he assembled to justify the alarm ran across a single news cycle: wholesale, across-the-board deregulation; statues of slave owners announced for Washington; efforts touching on whether married women could vote; a murder charge brought over an abortion pill; the renaming of the Kennedy Center; and the minting of a gold coin bearing the president’s face on both sides.[2][3] His comparison for the last of these was a foreign one — “It’s Turkmenbashi all over again.”[3]
Why it will not be reversed
Put to him that even a Democratic successor would not roll most of it back, Kiriakou agreed and gave two reasons: “they wouldn’t, because they’re cowards. And because they want the power and authority for themselves.”[3]
His evidence is the last transition. Joe Biden “did not roll back much of the Trump first term stuff at all” — and the example Kiriakou reaches for is the one closest to his own interests: “in fact, Joe Biden never reestablished relations with Cuba.”[4]
He extends the same logic to Congress, expecting the legislature to concede whatever authority it retains the moment a Democrat wins the White House.[5]