President-elect Donald Trump is already flexing raw power, showing he may try to subvert Washington’s checks and balances and leaving foreign leaders scrambling to come to terms with his victory.
Early signs from Mar-a-Lago, the Florida club and estate where Trump is building his new administration, suggest that when he moves back into the White House in January, bolstered by a thumping win and a democratic mandate, he will act with maximum force.
Trump has already taken to social media to issue orders to Senate Republicans running in this week’s majority leader election to endorse recess appointments for his Cabinet nominees — and all three candidates quickly signaled they’re open to the idea. He’s showing he plans to rule a GOP monopoly on power — if Republicans win control of the House, which CNN has not yet projected — with unchallenged authority. He sees Congress as a rubber stamp rather than a separate, co-equal branch of government.
The president-elect’s decisions herald a new administration infused by outsider populism rather than conventional power brokers. He, for example, ruled out Cabinet posts for Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley, who both had top foreign policy spots last time around. On Sunday, he offered the job of US ambassador to the United Nations to New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, two sources familiar told CNN. And his inclusion of billionaire tech visionary and rabble rouser Elon Musk on a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — a privilege normally reserved for senior foreign policy aides — showed how Trump’s unorthodoxy will challenge every governing convention.
Longer-term implications of Trump’s triumph are sinking in. Speculation about future Supreme Court positions and potential retirements is highlighting the next president’s potential to extend the dominance of the ultra-conservative majority he built into the middle of the century.
Federal workers are now dreading an expected purge of career bureaucrats by Trump allies keen to install political appointees who will not hesitate to carry out orders that could shred the regulatory state and central government authority. And CNN reported last week on discussions in the Pentagon about how the military would respond to any order to deploy against Americans, following Trump’s warnings as a candidate that he could shatter taboos on the use of forces on US soil.
And another question is taking on added urgency: how far will Trump go in exacting the revenge he promised against his political opponents following the impeachments, indictments and one conviction on which he anchored his campaign? Cabinet nominations expected in the days ahead, including for attorney general, will shed light on the depth of his thirst for retribution.
Democrats are, meanwhile, coming to terms with the massive fallout of their failure to stop Trump’s return to power, even as they dissolve into self-recrimination. They lack a clear leader to revive their message or a platform of power if Republicans retain control of the House. This will only strengthen Trump’s hand in the weeks ahead.
Overseas, Trump’s victory is forcing a massive geopolitical reassessment. From Europe to Taiwan and Iran to Russia, foreign leaders are gaming out how to deal with the unpredictability of Trump’s return. Some are racing to flatter the president-elect. Others are bracing for his wrath.
A growing sense of frantic reordering and recalculation inside the United States and abroad underscores how Trump will return to office more powerful than he ever was in his first term, with the advantage of fewer restraints. His march to victory in all seven battleground states — he won Arizona, according to a CNN projection on Saturday — offers him popular legitimacy. And his historic achievement of becoming only the second president to win a non-consecutive term means he’s now a historic figure not an aberration.
This new Washington reality will be on display Wednesday when Trump returns to the White House to lunch with President Joe Biden — who vanquished him in 2020 — but whose power ebbs by the hour as Trump establishes his own.
Trump’s determination to project peerless authority is playing out on multiple fronts
Staffing: Trump’s swift move to name his campaign co-chair Susie Wiles as the first female White House chief of staff means he wants a fast start.
His rejection of Pompeo and Haley told its own story. Pompeo, the former CIA director and secretary of state, was seen as loyal to Trump in his first term. But he was recently branded a denizen of the “Deep State” by Trump consigliere Roger Stone. Haley, the ex-US ambassador to the UN, rebuked Trump during her primary run and he ignored the former South Carolina governor’s offer of help on the campaign trail. The message is clear: for new administration jobs, only ultra-MAGA loyalists need apply.
Stefanik, currently the House GOP conference chair, started in Congress as a moderate Republican from upstate New York but has risen in the ranks of leadership by faithfully defending Trump.
Establishing dominance over Washington Republicans: Trump has been mostly behind closed doors since his victory rally last week. But his social media posts are taking on thundering importance. On Sunday, he showed he will try to dominate more than one branch of government by laying down conditions for whoever wins the top job in Senate Republican leadership.
“Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate!), without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner,” Trump wrote on X.
Past presidents have tried to use recess appointments as a last-ditch effort to get Cabinet nominees confirmed despite opposition. Trump could try to expand its use to secure multiple year-long temporary appointments for nominees considered too outlandish or unqualified by some senators, potentially including Republicans. Democrats, however, could filibuster resolutions to go into recess.
Tony Carrk — executive director of Accountable.US, a nonpartisan watchdog group — warned in a statement that “President-Elect Trump is trying to gut our checks and balances and consolidate power by demanding Senate Republicans ignore their constitutional duty and install his nominees without public scrutiny.”
Florida Sen. Rick Scott — who is being backed for majority leader by MAGA luminaries, including Musk and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy — immediately pledged to fall in line. South Dakota Sen. John Thune and Texas Sen. John Cornyn, both members of the old Senate guard who are considered the favorites in Wednesday’s secret-ballot election, soon signaled openness to the idea, too — a preview of the tightrope they’d likely have to walk with Trump as president.
Thune, the current minority whip, posted on X that all options were on the table including recess appointments. And Cornyn wrote on X that Republicans would stay in session to try to overcome any Democratic efforts to block Trump’s nominees, posting: “Additionally, the Constitution expressly confers the power on the President to make recess appointments.”
Retribution: Washington is waiting, with trepidation to see if Trump follows through on his vow to use his new power to pursue his enemies.
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan insisted Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union”: “I don’t think any of that is going to happen.” The Ohio Republican told Dana Bash, “We’re the party who’s against political prosecution. We’re the party who’s against going after your opponents using lawfare.” Still, Jordan has already officially warned special counsel Jack Smith, who led federal criminal investigations into Trump, to preserve records in order to leave open the possibility of a congressional investigation.
Trump’s best political bet might be to use all his capital on his first 100-days agenda. But his lifelong mantra is to get even with enemies.
Musk at the heart of government: One moment last week showed how Trump’s second term is likely to be even more unorthodox than his first.
Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX pioneer, joined the call between Trump and Zelensky the day after the election, a source with knowledge of the situation told CNN.
A president-elect can put anyone he wants on a call. But since Musk has massive contracts with the US government, his mere presence alongside Trump — for whom he campaigned vigorously and promoted on X, which he owns — represents an apparent massive conflict of interest.
Musk’s Starlink internet service is also critical for Ukraine’s troops battling Russia’s brutal invasion. Since Trump vowed to end the war and is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, it’s hard not to interpret Musk’s presence as potential leverage over Zelensky if he refuses to comply with Trump’s future demands.
In a broader sense, the Trump-Musk friendship is a fascinating glimpse into the unorthodox inner circle the president-elect will bring to Washington. Their relationship offers Trump the affirmation of being feted by the world’s richest man. Musk gets inside access to the soon-to-be world’s most powerful man. And both are examples of outsiders who have bypassed normal routes to great influence through their vast wealth. Now they both wield great power that was once reserved for traditional political elites.
Foreign leaders scramble: Presidents and prime ministers are ingratiating themselves with the president-elect with congratulatory calls and facing scrutiny at home over how they will deal with him. Trump is promising to return to the volatile foreign policy that defined his first term — and then some. There are already fears he’ll ignore NATO’s core principle of mutual self-defense or compromise Taiwan’s security by saying the US would not come to the democratic island’s aid in the event China invaded.
Almost every assumption, therefore, about American power and policy that underpinned the post-World War II and post-Cold War world is now uncertain. The conundrum facing US allies was laid out by French President Emmanuel Macron, who rode the Trump first-term rollercoaster.
With transatlantic tensions expected to rise again, Macron pointed out last week that Trump was elected to represent the interests of Americans and questioned whether Europe would take care of its own interests. “I have no intention of leaving Europe as a stage inhabited by herbivores, only for carnivores to come and devour (us) according to their agenda,” Macron said, in a translation of his remarks on his official X account.
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