Washington — When President-elect Donald Trump returns to workplace subsequent yr with Republican majorities within the Home and Senate, he’ll take pleasure in a unified authorities that is anticipated to ease the best way for his agenda and his Cupboard and different nominees.
However even with unified social gathering management of presidency, approving a president’s agenda is not any straightforward feat — and opposition from members of a president’s personal social gathering is predicted, particularly given the slim majorities.
Getty Photographs / Trump ( Joe Raedle); Johnson (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Name, Inc); Thune (Alex Wong)
Here is what to learn about unified authorities underneath a second Trump time period:
A Republican-led Home and Senate
The GOP secured slim majorities in each chambers within the 2024 elections, with at the very least 52 seats within the Senate and 218 within the Home. However each margins are extraordinarily slim and will even shrink briefly as Trump selects GOP members of Congress for high administration posts. Nonetheless, he and allies are bullish concerning the mandate Republicans have been given with their election victories, pledging to maneuver swiftly on his agenda.
“The one method we’re capable of work shortly is as a result of we’ve unified management of the Congress — each chambers now and the White Home — starting in January,” Home Speaker Mike Johnson stated Tuesday, celebrating Republicans’ “decisive win throughout the nation.”
Trump additionally got here into workplace in his first time period with majorities within the Home and Senate, with a bigger majority within the Home eight years in the past, turning into the second Republican president since President Dwight D. Eisenhower to take pleasure in a trifecta upon taking workplace. However Republicans acknowledge that they squandered alternatives at first of his first time period and have vowed to maneuver extra shortly this time.
“All of us look again and acknowledge that the Republican Get together was not absolutely ready for that second, and treasured time was wasted at first of that Congress,” Johnson stated. “We’re not going to make these errors once more; we might be prepared on Day One.”
Within the higher chamber, Sen. John Thune, elected this week to function majority chief within the subsequent Congress after 17 years with Sen. Mitch McConnell on the helm, celebrated the GOP victory.
“Now the true work begins — delivering on our agenda,” Thune stated.
Implementing Trump’s agenda
On the high of the checklist of pledges Trump made throughout his marketing campaign is border safety. He pledged to close down the border on Day One and conduct mass deportations.
Johnson and Thune, too, say border safety is a high precedence. Earlier this yr, a bipartisan group of senators negotiated the strictest immigration laws in a long time, however Senate Republicans in the end blocked the bundle at Trump’s urging.
The Republican-led strategy on border safety subsequent yr, ought to it materialize, is predicted to go additional and is more likely to face resistance from Democrats and even some inside Trump’s social gathering.
Republicans are additionally desirous to enact new financial insurance policies, together with extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts which are set to run out in 2025, together with insurance policies geared toward restoring U.S. vitality dominance and chopping authorities spending waste.
With slim majorities in each chambers, Trump’s key legislative priorities may nonetheless face obstacles. Sen. Todd Younger of Indiana, who’s amongst a handful of Senate Republicans who’ve reliably damaged with Trump previously, outlined to CBS Information that with 60 votes wanted to finish debate on most laws within the Senate, “by definition, the Trump administration will want Democratic votes to do large issues.”
“In current historical past I have been fairly good at working with colleagues on either side of the aisle,” Younger stated, including that he is hopeful he can “assist President Trump advance his agenda.”
For the Senate, the primary job might be approving Trump’s nominations.
Confirming Trump’s Cupboard nominees
A few of Trump’s Cupboard choices are making waves throughout the political sphere, prompting questions from some GOP senators about whether or not some controversial nominees will be capable of make it by Senate affirmation.
Whereas some choices had been anticipated, others have caught even Republicans without warning. On the high of that class is Trump’s choice for lawyer basic, former Rep. Matt Gaetz, a GOP firebrand who was underneath investigation by the Home Ethics Committee for allegations of sexual misconduct and obstruction.
Thune stated the Senate’s precedence at first of the yr might be confirming Trump’s nominees, pledging to supervise an aggressive schedule till the nominees are confirmed.
In the meantime, Trump has prompt he’d wish to get his eventual nominees in place by recess appointments, successfully bypassing the Senate’s affirmation course of in a maneuver that hasn’t been utilized in a decade. Excessive-ranking Republican senators, together with Thune, have stated that they are going to work to course of Trump’s nominees at a fast clip, whereas remaining open to recess nominations.
Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican who misplaced a bid for chief to Thune, informed reporters on Thursday that each the president’s authority to make recess appointments and the Senate’s recommendation and consent tasks are granted by the Structure.
“The query is, how do you reconcile these two,” Cornyn stated.
“I believe all of us would really like for the President to achieve success and I agree he is had a mandate right here,” Cornyn additionally stated. “However we’ve a job to do, as properly.”
The primary 100 days
The primary 100 days of a president’s time period have traditionally been a yardstick to measure the brand new chief’s governing means. It is a follow that Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow in Governance Research at Brookings, characterizes as “legendary.”
“It is legendary due to Franklin Roosevelt,” she stated. “And that is additionally why it is by no means occurred once more.”
Roosevelt, who shortly swore in his complete Cupboard and handed a slew of key laws at first of his time period, had large majorities within the Home and Senate, paired with giant Electoral School and well-liked vote victories. The unified management enabled Roosevelt to have “a spectacular 100 days,” Kamarck added.
Since then, the primary 100 days has been the primary benchmark at which the effectiveness of a president is judged: is the Cupboard appointed and confirmed by the Senate? What signature laws has been enacted? Throughout Trump’s first time period, his first 100 days had been marked by a pile of government orders, a chaotic and prolonged effort to substantiate his Cupboard and setbacks on his pledge to construct a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and repeal the Reasonably priced Care Act.
The dynamics are totally different as Trump prepares for his second time period, with the social gathering extra unified behind him, a stronger relationship with lawmakers and a greater grasp of the workings of presidency than when he first took workplace in 2017.
Talking to the Home Republican convention on Wednesday, Trump reveled within the shared GOP victory.
“Is not it good to win?” Trump stated. “It is good to win.”
