Welcome to Week Two.
Donald Trump, finishing his first full week as president-elect, has wasted no time with a takeover of the Capitol that signals four turbulent years ahead.
From nominating the much-investigated Matt Gaetz as attorney general to embracing gazillionaire Elon Musk as sidekick-in-chief, Trump has signaled what to expect over the next four years: Combat.
Trump has flashed his determination to pursue even the most controversial promises he made during the campaign, and he’s demonstrating the lessons he learned during his first term about just how to do that. With Cabinet appointments that shocked even some allies and a not-very-veiled threat to the Senate about speedy confirmations, Trump is moving with a dispatch and an assurance he didn’t have the last time around.
“Promises made, promises kept,” Trump declared at his victory celebration, claiming a mandate with his victory in both the Electoral College and the popular vote.
One question is what lessons both his political allies and his Democratic opponents have learned as Trump 2.0 moves back to town.
Here are four takeaways for the future from what Trump has already done in the early days since the election.
First, let’s dismantle the government.
Musk is the richest man in the world and, apparently, the new best friend of the president-elect. A constant companion at Mar-a-Lago, he and former GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy have been named to head the Department of Government Efficiency, which despite its name has no official standing or staff or funding.
That doesn’t mean it won’t have power â the power of having the new president’s ear.
Musk last week estimated that he could cut “at least $2 trillion” from the $6.75 trillion federal budget. The simple math of slashing 30% from government spending would likely demand not only eliminating some agencies â the Department of Education has been a prime target â but also curtailing such big budget items as Social Security, Medicare and defense spending.
That said, Trump has promised not to cut those two popular entitlement programs for the elderly â which consume 34% of the federal budget â and he has vowed to strengthen the Pentagon, which takes up about 13%.
The Constitution gives the power of the purse to Congress, but Trump’s campaign website said he would try to repeal parts of the Budget Act of 1974 that restrict his ability to impound funds â that is, to refuse to spend money Congress has appropriated. He has suggested he could move unilaterally to cut off funds and let the lawsuits that would surely follow determine whether he had had the authority to do that.
Not exactly a team of rivals
Job Requirement No. 1: Loyalty.
Some of the decisions on top Cabinet and White House officials that took weeks after the 2016 election have already been settled within days, sometimes hours. Unlike in 2016, when the president-elect accepted recommendations to appoint some establishment Republicans for their experience and reputation, the characteristic that defines this group is fealty to him.
Of the “Big Four” Cabinet appointments, Trump already has named Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as secretary of state, former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz as attorney general and Fox News host Pete Hegseth as secretary of Defense, leaving only the Treasury secretary post unfilled. He has filled another seven jobs traditionally included in the Cabinet as well as more than a dozen White House staffers, who don’t require Senate confirmation.
The names that have fueled firestorms are Gaetz, once the target of a Justice Department investigation himself who has called for abolishing the FBI and the ATF, agencies he would now head. Former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who has spoken favorably of Vladimir Putin’s Russia and criticized U.S. intelligence agencies, as director of National Intelligence. And Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic, as secretary of Health and Human Services.
If confirmed, those unconventional choices would be poised to institute sweeping changes in the mandate and personnel of their departments. Gaetz is “going to hit the Department of Justice with a blowtorch,” former Trump strategist Steven Bannon predicted happily last week on his podcast.
Who needs Senate confirmation?
The nominees would have to first get an FBI security clearance and Senate confirmation.
Unless they don’t.
Trump hasn’t been waiting for the background-clearance process to be completed before announcing his choices. In the case of Hegseth, the Trump team reportedly learned only from news reports afterwards that he had been investigated in 2017 for an alleged sexual assault. Hegseth denies wrongdoing.
As for confirmations, Trump has made it clear he expects the Republican-controlled Senate to approve his nominations or get out of the way. “Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United Senate must agree to Recess Appointments,” he declared on the social-media platform Truth Social last week as Senate Republicans were electing a new leader.
South Dakota Sen. John Thune, who won the job, said he preferred “the regular process” but didn’t rule out recess appointments, which would require the Senate to adjourn for 10 days. A recess appointee could serve for two years, until the 119th Congress ends in January 2027.
That would be a way to circumvent the Constitution’s check-and-balance of Senate confirmation.
It is possible Gaetz’s nomination is so inflammatory that some Republican senators would join Democrats in rejecting it, perhaps depending on whether a House Ethics Committee report, now completed, ever sees the light of day.
But given Trump’s hold on the Republican Party, and the high costs of crossing him, it’s harder to envision the Senate rejecting multiple nominees. Which means Gaetz’ defeat could help a second controversial choice for attorney general to be confirmed, or to ease the approval process for Kennedy and others.
Trump already has announced his personal defense lawyer, Todd Blanche, will be deputy attorney general. He’s named two other lawyers who have defended him in court to ranking jobs in the Justice Department and a third to the senior White House staff.
Democrats: The resistance moves to the statehouses
With Republicans in control of the White House, the House and the Senate, Democrats in Washington have lost the power to legislate or to block legislation. They are left with the less satisfying power to protest.
When Trump unexpectedly won in 2016, Democrats took to the streets with massive marches.
That was then. Now, Democratic leaders are divided and debating what went wrong as many of their voters are exhausted and discouraged.
The center of the Democratic resistance to Trump and the GOP already has begun moving to statehouses under Democratic control. That is an approach Republican governors and attorneys general in Texas, Florida and elsewhere adopted when Democrats held the DC trifecta of power in the first two years of President Joe Biden’s tenure.
One flashpoint ahead could be Trump’s vow to deport millions of migrants who are in the United States illegally, a process Democratic governors could challenge or stymie. Enshrining abortion access and preserving environmental protections are also likely to be priorities.
The day after Vice President Kamala Harris conceded this month’s election, California Gov. Gavin Newsom called a special session of the state legislature for next month to “Trump-proof” California state laws. He’s asking for more funding for the state attorney general to fight federal demands that might come from the new administration.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis last week also announced a group called Governors Safeguarding Democracy, designed to coordinate efforts among Democratic-controlled states against Trump administration policies.
Other Democratic governors who could play significant roles include Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Wes Moore of Maryland, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.
All of them, by the way, just might be interested in running for president themselves down the road.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump’s takeover: Matt Gaetz to Elon Musk signal combat ahead
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