Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.
Inside the White House, top advisers joke that they are ruling Congress with an “iron fist,” according to people who have heard the comments. Steve Bannon, the influential Trump ally, likened Congress to the Duma, the Russian assembly that is largely ceremonial. When senior White House aide Stephen Miller recently held a party at the exclusive Ned’s Club to celebrate his 40th birthday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) showed up to honor Miller, the people said.
Bannon, who worked in the first Trump administration, attributed some of the faded resistance to Trump’s comeback after four years “in the wilderness,” a period that he said hardened Trump. “He’s doing things now he wouldn’t have ever considered the first time,” Bannon said. “He’s jackhammering away on levels you haven’t seen before.”
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In Congress, some lawmakers privately didn’t want to name this year’s spending package the “Big Beautiful Bill,” but agreed to Trump’s demands. When he has called Republicans to tell them to vote for questionable nominees, they have largely acceded. Some GOP lawmakers who wanted to release the Jeffrey Epstein files backed down after getting calls from top Trump aides.
Members grew increasingly scared of being on Trump’s bad side after watching him successfully defeat so many senators and representatives in primaries, and watching him torpedo the speaker bid of Rep. Tom Emmer (R., Minn.) with a single post. He has demanded cuts that curbed Congress’s ability to regulate spending, cutting billions that Congress had already approved, to little outcry.
“People laying down their arms on the most jealously guarded power that Congress has tells you a lot about what people think their likelihood is of being successful in fighting back,” said Brendan Buck, a political strategist and onetime top aide who served under Speaker Paul Ryan.
