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5 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Republicans are (quietly) making 2028 moves
A version of this story appeared in CNN's What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here. It seems too early, but it's not. Just as Democrats are plotting how to win the next presidential election, Republican candidates are too. But while Democrats will try to outdo themselves in their opposition to President Donald Trump, Republicans will have to navigate a party that Trump has rebuilt around his own political instincts. I talked to CNN's Eric Bradner about which Republicans are likely to run for president in 2028 and how they will balance making their own name with paying homage to their current leader, who likes to joke about not leaving office no matter what the Constitution says. Our conversation, conducted by phone and edited for length, is below. Will Trump try to run again, despite the Constitution? WOLF: Will Trump try to run for a third term despite what's in the Constitution? Because it's something that he's teased, right? BRADNER: There is no constitutional path for him to seek a third term. But that doesn't mean ambitious Republicans who want to be a successor can flout Trump. They can't be seen as at odds with him. They're trying to stand out in their own ways, but they can't be seen as going against Trump and suggesting that he is ineligible for a third term, even though the Constitution makes that crystal clear to be problematic. How do candidates not get crosswise with him? WOLF: He likes to joke about running, but has also said he will not run. So let's assume, for the moment, that he doesn't try to do something that would violate the Constitution. How do potential Republican candidates plot a campaign for voters while still staying in his good graces? BRADNER: You have to do it carefully. Part of it is, while Trump is still so popular with the Republican base, demonstrating that you are supportive of his agenda. That can look different depending on whether you are the vice president, in the Senate, in a governor's office. So far, we're seeing ambitious Republicans traveling to some of the early voting primary states and using their speeches to highlight their support for Trump's agenda and looking for ways to cast themselves as the successor to that agenda. It's made much more difficult by the fact that Vice President JD Vance is obviously positioned as Trump's understudy. But they're looking for ways to show that they are, at least in some ways, ideologically aligned with Trump and are taking substantive actions to support his agenda, while sort of pitching some of their own accomplishments and their own differences in terms of approach. But it's clear that most Republicans that are already hitting the 2028 travel circuit are looking for ways to align themselves. Will Republicans keep the traditional calendar? WOLF: The Democrats are trying to change the early primary map and de-emphasize Iowa and maybe even New Hampshire. Is the Republican calendar going to be what it has been in recent decades where we go: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada. Or is that going to change? BRADNER: It won't be official for a while, but Republicans appear to be on track to keep the same calendar. I talked to Jeff Kaufmann, the longtime Iowa Republican Party chairman, recently, and he said he had already made his case to the White House to keep Iowa's caucuses first, and said they were very receptive. Republicans didn't have the kind of disaster that Democrats had in Iowa in 2020 and have shown no real inclination to shake up their primary… WOLF: But Republicans did have a disaster in 2012 — just ask Rick Santorum. BRADNER: They did. But 2012 at this point will have been 16 years ago, and they have passed on opportunities to change the calendar since then, and there doesn't seem to be any momentum to do so now. Which Republicans are already in the early states? WOLF: Who are the Republicans who are flirting with a campaign at the moment and are actively in those states? BRADNER: Even within the last couple of months, we've seen a number of Republicans visiting the early states. Look at Iowa alone. This month, Glenn Youngkin, the Virginia governor, visited Iowa to headline the state Republican Party's annual Clinton dinner. Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders was there for an event hosted by The Family Leader, a conservative Christian group led by Bob Vander Plaats, a well-known activist there. Recently, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul was in Iowa, where he got a little bit of a chilly reception at times because he was making the case for changes to Trump's 'One Big Beautiful Bill.' And Florida Sen. Rick Scott was there also touting his support for further reductions in spending that the bill included. He also got a bit of a frosty reception from some of the attendees at the fundraiser that I talked to afterward who really wanted to hear more support for Trump's agenda from him and less about their defenses. Is Vance Trump's heir apparent? WOLF: The most obvious heir to Trump would be Vance. What is the thinking among Republicans? Do they believe the nomination is his to lose, or will he really have to work for it? BRADNER: He clearly starts in the pole position. But I was a little surprised during a recent visit to Iowa how frequently the name of Secretary of State Marco Rubio came up, often in the same breath as JD Vance. Both of them, despite their own very public criticism of Trump in the past, now seem to be viewed as team players; as closely aligned with Trump and with his current administration, obviously, as leading members of it. There's interest in Rubio in part because he has run for president before, unlike Vance. A lot of people in the early voting states remember Rubio visiting them in 2016, when he finished third in Iowa in what were pretty competitive caucuses. So a lot of these early-state Republican voters have met Rubio before. They've already formed opinions of him. They like Vance, but they don't know him yet. They haven't had a chance to go through the usual process with him. He obviously starts with an advantage as Trump's legacy, but based on the conversations I've had, it doesn't appear to be a lock. I think a lot of Republican voters are going to want to at least meet and hear from a broader range of candidates. Ted Cruz actually beat Trump in Iowa nine years ago WOLF: That 2016 Iowa race you mentioned, Rubio came in third. Trump came in second. The winner was Sen. Ted Cruz. Is he going to run again? And would he do better this time? BRADNER: He certainly has never stopped acting like someone who wants to be president, right? He has obviously remained in the public eye and has been supportive of Trump, including in that contentious interview with Tucker Carlson, for which Cruz faced a bit of online backlash. He's built a fundraising network. He is someone who has clearly already been a runner-up in that 2016 primary, and probably would enter 2028 with vast name recognition. So he has a number of potential things going for him if he, if he does want to run. Where will the GOP ideology be after Trump? WOLF: The party has changed around Trump, who doesn't really have a political ideology so much as political instincts. Now Republican candidates will have to adjust to Trump's populism. Will a person like Sen. Josh Hawley, who sounds very populist, do better than a more traditional Republican like, say, Youngkin? BRADNER: It certainly seems like that lane could be open, although I would say as of right now, Vance probably starts in the pole position there. He has populist instincts that he displayed for quite some time before he became Trump's vice president. You're right about Trump having political instincts that these potential candidates are going to have to react to and adjust to on the fly. Being nimble in interviews and messaging is always important, but it's going to be especially important in a landscape where Trump is the dominant figure in the party. While he won't be on the ballot, he is very likely to have interest in steering things. How should we look at the Republican field of potential candidates? WOLF: How do you group the potential field? There are senators, there are governors, there are people in the administration. BRADNER: I think that's the right starting point. People in the administration, which you can kind of divide into two groups, right? Vance and Rubio are by far the best known and are the ones that I have heard from Republican voters about the most clearly. There are some other folks, like Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and potentially others who are former governors, are Trump allies and have their own ambitions, but don't carry the sorts of advantages that Vance and Rubio have. Then there's a group of governors, and to me, this is potentially the most interesting group, because they have their own agendas outside of Washington and are less tied to whatever's going on in the White House or on Capitol Hill on any given day. Youngkin, the Virginia governor, ran an impressive campaign in 2021, and because Virginia does not allow governors to run for second terms, he is just a few months away from leaving office, which means he will be a popular Republican elected in a Democratic-leaning state who now is out of a job and has all day to campaign. A couple other Republican governors who are in that basket would include Sanders, who obviously is forever aligned with Trump due to her time as his White House press secretary, and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who is chairman of the Republican Governors Association, which gets him a way to build connections with donors all over the country. Kemp is among the Republicans who have had the biggest differences with Trump on the list of prospective 2028 candidates because he didn't support Trump's claims that Georgia was stolen from him in 2020. But the two of them seem to have played nice in more recent years and Kemp is conservative. He does have his own record in Georgia that he can talk about. Then finally there are the senators. Tim Scott is one who ran for president in 2024 and did appear to end that race with a closer relationship with Trump than when he started it, which was a really tricky thing to (do). The problem Scott faces is one that Trump laid out in 2024, which is that he's a better salesman for Trump and his agenda than he is for himself. There are other senators, Rand Paul (Kentucky), Rick Scott (Florida), Josh Hawley (Missouri), Tom Cotton (Arkansas), who I think everyone will be keeping an eye on. But it's going to take some lucky breaks for them to make a ton of headway in a potentially crowded field, especially when they'll be having to spend so much of their time participating in and reacting to what's happening in Washington. They don't have the kind of freedom that governors have at this stage. Governors of large red states could make a case WOLF: There are also two governors that are closely aligned with Trump's policies in Texas and Florida, which are the two biggest red states in terms of electoral votes. What about Ron DeSantis (Florida) and Greg Abbott (Texas)? BRADNER: Both are clearly aligning themselves with Trump's most popular policies, which is strict immigration enforcement, border security and ramping up deportations. For DeSantis, building 'Alligator Alcatraz' was a clear example of political maneuvering to be seen publicly as having Trump's back. Both of them are absolutely on the 2028 landscape, and DeSantis, in particular, appears to have smoothed over the tensions that remain from his 2024 run. DeSantis is one to watch because he has already built a fundraising network. He has already traveled the early states and made those inroads, so launching a presidential campaign, perhaps earlier and perhaps without some of the mistakes that hampered his 2024 effort, would certainly be possible. MAHA 2028? WOLF: What about someone from Trump's new coalition? Robert F. Kennedy ran as a Democrat and an Independent in 2024; why not a Republican in 2028? BRADNER: If Kennedy runs in 2028, it'll be a fascinating test of how durable parts of Trump's winning 2024 coalition are once Trump is off the ballot. How big is the so-called MAHA movement that was merged into Trump's MAGA movement? Does party loyalty still matter at all in Republican primaries and caucuses? Or are figures who weren't even Republicans — like Kennedy and potentially former Hawaii Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's director of national intelligence, who grabbed headlines recently with wild accusations that former President Barack Obama committed treason — received with open arms? Have cultural issues like abortion, where they've long staked out positions at odds with the GOP base, lost some sway? How to extricate yourself from the Trump administration WOLF: Vance would run from within the administration. Rubio would have to leave the administration. Extricating yourself from Trump's orbit without drawing his ire would be kind of an incredible feat. What would be the timeline to do something like that? When should we start to expect to see would-be presidential candidates leave the Trump administration? BRADNER: The traditional answer would be shortly after the midterms, but it also depends on, obviously, the point you raised about Trump and a third term, and whether that sort of freezes the start of the 2028 primary and stops candidates from campaigning openly. It depends on what Vance does. I think people who are in the administration will have to react to the speed at which the field appears to be developing. I can tell you that in the early states, party leaders, activists, donors, party faithful are already eager to hear from these 2028 prospects and I doubt there will be much room to wait long past the midterms. So potentially late 2026, early 2027 is when anybody in the administration that wants to run for president would probably need to be in motion. Is there a lane for a Trump critic? WOLF: A lot of what happens will depend on how popular Trump remains with Republicans and how successful his second term is. Is there a lane for a Nikki Haley or somebody who has been critical of Trump, or should we assume that everybody who tries to run will just be swearing fealty to him? BRADNER: Only time will tell. Right now, none of these major Republican figures are publicly distancing themselves from Trump, but if Republicans are shellacked in the midterms, if they lose the House or — much, much longer shot — if they lose the Senate, that could change the landscape significantly. Primary voters want to win, and they're loyal to Trump, but if his popularity nosedives; if the party performs poorly in the midterms; if his tariffs wind up damaging the economy; if the roiling controversy over his administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files continues — all these sorts of things could wind up becoming political time bombs that could change the landscape and lead Republicans, even if they aren't publicly criticizing Trump, to do more to show their differences and to pitch themselves as their own person.
CNN
24-07-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Analysis: Republicans want to game the next election. Could Democrats get ‘ruthless' to respond?
Donald Trump Congressional newsFacebookTweetLink Follow A version of this story appeared in CNN's What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here. Democrats' only real opportunity to set up a roadblock in front of President Donald Trump during his remaining years in office comes with next year's midterm elections. They'd need to pick up just a few seats to take control of the House. But Republicans want to game the system by pursuing a rare effort to redraw congressional lines in multiple key states and squeeze more seats out of delegations already designed to favor them. 'Very simple redrawing. We pick up five seats,' Trump said recently at the White House, referring to an ongoing effort by Texas Republicans. But the effort extends to other states as well. It also may not be so simple. The strategy, which is playing in various ways across the country, could backfire if Republicans turn safe seats into competitive ones in the long-shot event that these redrawing efforts succeed and are blessed by courts. Separately, if Republicans change the maps, Democrats are vowing to abandon years of their own rhetoric about the importance of nonpartisan line-drawing and respond in kind by looking for seats in California, New York and New Jersey, despite legal hurdles in those states. 'Never bring a knife to a gunfight,' New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy told reporters Monday, according to The Hill, quoting the mafia movie 'The Untouchables.' 'We're from Jersey baby, and we won't be laying down.' But the problem for Democrats is they could face more obstacles in court due to their state laws. There are some vacancies, but Republicans won 220 seats in 2024; 218 is a majority. The president's party — with only a few exceptions in the past hundred years — loses seats in midterms. Related: Read the latest from CNN's Manu Raju and Sarah Ferris Mid-decade redistricting not an unprecedented idea — Texas did it, controversially, in 2003 — but it's far from normal, and it goes against the thrust of the Constitution, which suggests redistricting each decade after the census. ► The legislature in Texas wants to find five more seats by carving up Democratic seats in Texas cities. ► Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis thinks the Trump administration should reconsider the 2020 census and give his state at least one more seat. DeSantis is also entertaining the idea of again redrawing Florida's maps after the state Supreme Court blessed maps he engineered in 2022 that gave Republicans four more seats in Florida and arguably maintained the GOP majority in the House. 'I think the state malapportioned,' he told reporters in Florida on Thursday, adding it would be 'appropriate to do a redistricting here in the mid decade'. ► Maps in Ohio must be redrawn under a quirk of state law since earlier maps were gerrymandered by Republicans. Now they could try to make the state's delegation even more overwhelmingly Republican and carve up two Democratic seats, according to a report in June from CNN's Fredreka Schouten. ► Missouri legislators are also being pushed by the White House to consider a special session to redraw maps and carve up the state's sole remaining Democratic seat. Making new Republican seats requires carving up Democratic seats, something that could theoretically blow up in Republicans' faces if the national tide turns against Trump. It's called a gerrymander when lines are drawn by one party to its own benefit. It would be what's called a dummymander if those lines backfired. In the event of a wave against the president's party by voters, Democrats could theoretically end up winning more seats in the Texas delegation, according to Sam Wang, a Princeton neuroscience professor who also directs the Princeton Gerrymander Project. He laid out his argument in a post on Substack. 'The backfire effect is pretty large,' he said in a phone interview. 'In our preliminary calculations, it looks like this would make up to a dozen seats competitive that are currently safe Republican seats.' There are other assessments that draw different conclusions. The consequences of who controls the House — even by one vote — are enormous. Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson have gotten a lot done — see the controversial One Big Beautiful Bill Act — despite having one of the smallest possible congressional majorities. Democrats, who for years have been preaching for the need to get politics out of map drawing and cut down on gerrymandering, are talking tough about redrawing maps in the states they control. 'I think Democrats in the past too often have been more concerned with being right than being in power,' former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke said on CNN's 'State of the Union' last Sunday. 'We have to be absolutely ruthless about getting back in power,' he said. California Gov. Gavin Newsom is exploring the idea even though it would violate the will of voters who in 2008 blessed the nonpartisan commission that's supposed to draw California's congressional maps. Taking map-drawing power back from the commission would likely require another constitutional amendment, which complicates the timing of any effort to retaliate against Texas. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who represents a district in New York, told CNN's Manu Raju Democrats are looking at maps in California, New York, New Jersey, Minnesota and Washington state. 'Some of the best and brightest lawyers in the country are looking at every single aspect of what's possible in these states,' Jeffries said. Expect lawsuits if Democrats try to redraw their maps in these states too. California, which utilizes an independent commission to draw congressional lines, has been considered something of a leader in depoliticizing the drawing of maps, and many of its districts are more competitive than in a state like Texas. Its lopsided Democratic majority is a testament to how blue the state has become. 'What little competition there is in Congress rises in large part from these independent commissions,' Wang said. 'Stepping back from fair districting would also reduce Congress's responsiveness to voters.' After the 2020 census, Republicans controlled the process for the drawing of more than 40% of congressional districts, compared with 11% controlled by Democrats. Nearly 20% were controlled by independent commissions, according to the Brennan Center at New York University. There's a growing perception among Democrats that unless reform can be applied nationwide, they should do more to gain advantage. David Imamura is the former chair of New York's state redistricting commission, which was paralyzed after the 2020 census. The state's maps, like those in multiple states, were the subject of years of litigation. He is now a Democrat in elected office in Westchester County and a partner specializing in election law at Abrams Fensterman in New York. He supports a nationwide standard for redistricting like one Democrats have proposed in previous years. But until then, and despite legal obstacles in New York, Democrats should do what they can to win, he said. 'If Republicans are going to cheat, then we have to match them tit for tat,' he said. Republicans in Utah set aside their own nonpartisan redistricting commission to split the Democratic-leaning Salt Lake City area into multiple Republican-leaning districts. But Democrats drew advantages for themselves in Illinois, Oregon and Nevada. Republicans' current advantage as a result is gerrymandering is no more than a handful of seats, according to Wang, even though Republican state governments controlled more of the process than Democratic state governments. Americans have gotten used to taking power from president's party. All five of the last presidents going back to Bill Clinton lost control of the House in a midterm election. That includes Trump during his first term. That means no amount of redistricting will save Republicans' slim majority if the country turns against Trump and Republicans. 'In a district-by-district fight for the House, picking up a handful of seats in Texas and maybe a seat or two in Ohio is probably enough for Republicans to hold the majority,' said Nathan Gonzales, publisher of the nonpartisan Inside Elections. 'But if the broader national mood shifts against President Trump and Republicans in power or Republicans have problems turning out the Trump coalition when he's not on the ballot, then Democrats have an opportunity to win control, even with new maps in some states.'
CNN
24-07-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Analysis: Republicans want to game the next election. Could Democrats get ‘ruthless' to respond?
A version of this story appeared in CNN's What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here. Democrats' only real opportunity to set up a roadblock in front of President Donald Trump during his remaining years in office comes with next year's midterm elections. They'd need to pick up just a few seats to take control of the House. But Republicans want to game the system by pursuing a rare effort to redraw congressional lines in multiple key states and squeeze more seats out of delegations already designed to favor them. 'Very simple redrawing. We pick up five seats,' Trump said recently at the White House, referring to an ongoing effort by Texas Republicans. But the effort extends to other states as well. It also may not be so simple. The strategy, which is playing in various ways across the country, could backfire if Republicans turn safe seats into competitive ones in the long-shot event that these redrawing efforts succeed and are blessed by courts. Separately, if Republicans change the maps, Democrats are vowing to abandon years of their own rhetoric about the importance of nonpartisan line-drawing and respond in kind by looking for seats in California, New York and New Jersey, despite legal hurdles in those states. 'Never bring a knife to a gunfight,' New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy told reporters Monday, according to The Hill, quoting the mafia movie 'The Untouchables.' 'We're from Jersey baby, and we won't be laying down.' But the problem for Democrats is they could face more obstacles in court due to their state laws. There are some vacancies, but Republicans won 220 seats in 2024; 218 is a majority. The president's party — with only a few exceptions in the past hundred years — loses seats in midterms. Related: Read the latest from CNN's Manu Raju and Sarah Ferris Mid-decade redistricting not an unprecedented idea — Texas did it, controversially, in 2003 — but it's far from normal, and it goes against the thrust of the Constitution, which suggests redistricting each decade after the census. ► The legislature in Texas wants to find five more seats by carving up Democratic seats in Texas cities. ► Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis thinks the Trump administration should reconsider the 2020 census and give his state at least one more seat. DeSantis is also entertaining the idea of again redrawing Florida's maps after the state Supreme Court blessed maps he engineered in 2022 that gave Republicans four more seats in Florida and arguably maintained the GOP majority in the House. 'I think the state malapportioned,' he told reporters in Florida on Thursday, adding it would be 'appropriate to do a redistricting here in the mid decade'. ► Maps in Ohio must be redrawn under a quirk of state law since earlier maps were gerrymandered by Republicans. Now they could try to make the state's delegation even more overwhelmingly Republican and carve up two Democratic seats, according to a report in June from CNN's Fredreka Schouten. ► Missouri legislators are also being pushed by the White House to consider a special session to redraw maps and carve up the state's sole remaining Democratic seat. Making new Republican seats requires carving up Democratic seats, something that could theoretically blow up in Republicans' faces if the national tide turns against Trump. It's called a gerrymander when lines are drawn by one party to its own benefit. It would be what's called a dummymander if those lines backfired. In the event of a wave against the president's party by voters, Democrats could theoretically end up winning more seats in the Texas delegation, according to Sam Wang, a Princeton neuroscience professor who also directs the Princeton Gerrymander Project. He laid out his argument in a post on Substack. 'The backfire effect is pretty large,' he said in a phone interview. 'In our preliminary calculations, it looks like this would make up to a dozen seats competitive that are currently safe Republican seats.' There are other assessments that draw different conclusions. The consequences of who controls the House — even by one vote — are enormous. Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson have gotten a lot done — see the controversial One Big Beautiful Bill Act — despite having one of the smallest possible congressional majorities. Democrats, who for years have been preaching for the need to get politics out of map drawing and cut down on gerrymandering, are talking tough about redrawing maps in the states they control. 'I think Democrats in the past too often have been more concerned with being right than being in power,' former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke said on CNN's 'State of the Union' last Sunday. 'We have to be absolutely ruthless about getting back in power,' he said. California Gov. Gavin Newsom is exploring the idea even though it would violate the will of voters who in 2008 blessed the nonpartisan commission that's supposed to draw California's congressional maps. Taking map-drawing power back from the commission would likely require another constitutional amendment, which complicates the timing of any effort to retaliate against Texas. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who represents a district in New York, told CNN's Manu Raju Democrats are looking at maps in California, New York, New Jersey, Minnesota and Washington state. 'Some of the best and brightest lawyers in the country are looking at every single aspect of what's possible in these states,' Jeffries said. Expect lawsuits if Democrats try to redraw their maps in these states too. California, which utilizes an independent commission to draw congressional lines, has been considered something of a leader in depoliticizing the drawing of maps, and many of its districts are more competitive than in a state like Texas. Its lopsided Democratic majority is a testament to how blue the state has become. 'What little competition there is in Congress rises in large part from these independent commissions,' Wang said. 'Stepping back from fair districting would also reduce Congress's responsiveness to voters.' After the 2020 census, Republicans controlled the process for the drawing of more than 40% of congressional districts, compared with 11% controlled by Democrats. Nearly 20% were controlled by independent commissions, according to the Brennan Center at New York University. There's a growing perception among Democrats that unless reform can be applied nationwide, they should do more to gain advantage. David Imamura is the former chair of New York's state redistricting commission, which was paralyzed after the 2020 census. The state's maps, like those in multiple states, were the subject of years of litigation. He is now a Democrat in elected office in Westchester County and a partner specializing in election law at Abrams Fensterman in New York. He supports a nationwide standard for redistricting like one Democrats have proposed in previous years. But until then, and despite legal obstacles in New York, Democrats should do what they can to win, he said. 'If Republicans are going to cheat, then we have to match them tit for tat,' he said. Republicans in Utah set aside their own nonpartisan redistricting commission to split the Democratic-leaning Salt Lake City area into multiple Republican-leaning districts. But Democrats drew advantages for themselves in Illinois, Oregon and Nevada. Republicans' current advantage as a result is gerrymandering is no more than a handful of seats, according to Wang, even though Republican state governments controlled more of the process than Democratic state governments. Americans have gotten used to taking power from president's party. All five of the last presidents going back to Bill Clinton lost control of the House in a midterm election. That includes Trump during his first term. That means no amount of redistricting will save Republicans' slim majority if the country turns against Trump and Republicans. 'In a district-by-district fight for the House, picking up a handful of seats in Texas and maybe a seat or two in Ohio is probably enough for Republicans to hold the majority,' said Nathan Gonzales, publisher of the nonpartisan Inside Elections. 'But if the broader national mood shifts against President Trump and Republicans in power or Republicans have problems turning out the Trump coalition when he's not on the ballot, then Democrats have an opportunity to win control, even with new maps in some states.'
Egypt Independent
19-07-2025
- Business
- Egypt Independent
How Trump 2.0 is undoing Trump 1.0
A version of this story appeared in CNN's What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here. CNN — The 47th president is in many ways a different man than the 45th president, even though they are both Donald J. Trump. He's unafraid to swear in public or on social media and he's more emboldened, willing to directly challenge the Constitution and the courts and capable of demanding more loyalty from Republicans. But Trump 2.0 is also in direct competition with his former self in several important ways, starting with the fact that he can't seem to remember appointing people he now loathes. Opposing his own appointees Trump's aides are looking at ways to oust Jay Powell, the Fed chairman Trump nominated to the role during his first term. Trump told House Republicans he had drafted a letter to take the unprecedented step of firing the chairman of the Federal Reserve. Markets beware. At the White House Wednesday, Trump seemed to forget that he had nominated Powell. 'I was surprised he was appointed,' Trump said. 'I was surprised, frankly, that Biden put him in and extended him, but they did.' Biden renominated Powell. Either Trump can't remember or he is willing himself to forget his role in the process. If Trump ultimately tests the Fed's independence and tries to fire Powell, he'll point to a building renovation that got underway during Trump's own first term. Before Trump took office for the second time, the FBI director appointed during his first term, Christopher Wray, quit early rather than wait to be fired. On the Supreme Court, CNN has reported on Trump's gripes behind closed doors about his nominee Justice Amy Coney Barrett, in particular. Undoing his own trade deal When Trump today threatens burdensome tariffs on Canada and Mexico, who he accuses of 'taking advantage' of previous US presidents, he's also talking about his prior self. Trump's first-term administration negotiated the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement — a reboot of NAFTA. Back then, it was hailed as the major accomplishment of his trade policy. Evolutions on crypto and social media He has also evolved on issues including bitcoin and cryptocurrency, although that could have something to do with his family's business interests. And Trump used to support banning TikTok in the US, but now, after making inroads with young men in the last election, he very much wants a US-based company to step up and buy the platform. 'He's undoing himself with a vengeance,' the CNN presidential historian Tim Naftali told me. The relatively moderate mainstream policy hands who marked the first Trump term are on the outs. Outsiders and MAGA figureheads are in. 'Donald Trump clearly is angry about what his advisers forced him to do in the first term,' Naftali said, pointing specifically to trade policy. 'His approach to Canada and Mexico is inexplicable given his first term, unless you realize that he wasn't happy with what he ended up doing in the first term,' he said. Vaccines are another Trump 2.0 correction Naftali said Trump deserves credit for Operation Warp Speed, the effort to quickly develop a Covid-19 vaccine at a time when the country was largely shut down by the pandemic. But rather than build on that legacy, Trump selected Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his Health and Human Services director, elevating a vaccine skeptic to a top policy role. Kennedy fired all the members of a CDC vaccine advisory panel and brought in vaccine skeptics to review the vaccine schedule. I put the idea of Trump 2.0 correcting Trump 1.0 to a number of CNN reporters and anchors who pay close attention to foreign affairs, the economy and the environment. On world affairs, he's more erratic and is taking less advice CNN's Jim Sciutto, who wrote a book, The Madman Theory, about Trump's first-term foreign policy, notes that Trump is more aggressive this time, and appears to be more inclined to listen to his own gut. SCIUTTO: In his second term, President Trump is proving less likely to be deterred by advisers or advice against his more aggressive moves in international affairs. And, so for instance, while (former White House Chief of Staff) Gen. John Kelly and (former national security adviser) John Bolton were able to counsel him away from summarily withdrawing from NATO in 2018, many — including those who served in his first administration — fear his current advisers won't stand in the way. From foreign officials, the concern I hear most often is one of uncertainty. From tariffs to military support for Ukraine, they express doubts that what the president says today will hold tomorrow. Trade deals become fleeting agreements subject to where the financial markets are on any given day or how the White House reads domestic politics. And support for Ukraine — which European officials see as central to the security of the whole continent — rises and falls based on Trump's current interpretation of where Putin stands on peace talks. Trump has proven his willingness to make hard decisions his predecessors avoided — the US strikes on Iran stand out. What observers at home and abroad are waiting for is a consistent and predictable worldview. On trade, he's contradicting himself Allison Morrow, who writes the Nightcap newsletter for CNN Business, agrees there's a difference to this president, but he remains the same in one very important way. MORROW: I agree with Tim Naftali, though I wonder how conscious Trump is of his attempts to undo USMCA, which itself was just a reshuffling of NAFTA. The Trump 2.0 tariff strategy, such as it is, doesn't make any sense in practice. If you really want to use tariffs to bring back US manufacturing, you can't be cutting deals, because then there's no incentive for companies to invest in domestic production. We've written about the contradictions at the heart of his tariff ideology dozens of times at this point, and there's just no response from the White House about how they think they can make tariffs do everything they claim, all at once. I think the thing that jumps out at me between Trump 1.0 and 2.0 is what hasn't changed. Fundamentally, I think Trump wants to avoid accountability. And that's why he has sort of slow-walked the tariffs into the market's collective consciousness, and backed off when the bond markets shuddered. He's testing to see what he can get away with without causing a financial or economic catastrophe. Cutting Medicaid rather than repealing Obamacare Trump and his aides also clearly learned from his first term. Instead of trying repeatedly to repeal Obamacare, they cut future spending from Medicaid, which will have a similar effect by pushing millions of lower-income Americans off their health insurance in the years to come. Turning words into actions CNN's Chief Media Analyst Brian Stelter noted that in this term, Trump is acting more forcefully against news outlets. STELTER: Instead of merely tweeting insults at independent media outlets, he is taking concrete actions to penalize those outlets, while at the same time promoting and empowering MAGA commentators. Take the media story in the news right now: the imminent defunding of PBS and NPR. In Trump's first term, he harshly criticized public media, but those were just words, not actions. His administration also proposed annual budgets that would have zeroed out the funding, but didn't successfully pressure Congress to follow through. In Trump's second term, he seemingly knows which buttons to press. He (or, probably more accurately, his aides) targeted the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in several different ways and sold Republican lawmakers on a DOGE-branded rescission that passed both the House and Senate. This is what four years of prep looks like CNN's Senior White House Correspondent Kristen Holmes isn't sure Trump is undoing his first term as much as he is better prepared this time. HOLMES: Trump and his allies had four years to prepare for him to be president again. His allies used that time to create a framework for a second term agenda, as well as brainstorm potential roadblocks and work-arounds to those roadblocks, to ensure that they could start enacting his agenda on Day 1. The first time around, even members of Trump's own campaign were surprised he won. They had almost no real transition and Trump had to rely on Washington Republicans, many of whom did not have the same ideas as him, to help fill out the cabinet and guide him. And while he knew what he wanted to do, he had no real understanding of how to get it done. Now, he is working in unison with almost every inch of his administration to get what he wants done — and it's working. Holmes' point carries over to immigration, Trump's signature issue. He is more effectively carrying through with mass deportations than he did in his first term. With a more pliant Congress, he has money for his border wall, the go-ahead to turn ICE into the nation's largest and best-funded police force, and the help of Republican governors to create new detention centers to hold undocumented immigrants — not just violent criminals — he wants to deport. When he leaves office, the country will look a lot different after his second term than it did after his first.
Egypt Independent
03-07-2025
- Politics
- Egypt Independent
Many Americans want a third party. But where would it fit?
A version of this story appeared in CNN's What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here. CNN — Americans are entrenched into their partisan corners, but the party lines keep moving in weird new ways. Republicans who grew up in the Grand Old Party might not recognize a party overtaken by the Make America Great Again movement. Democrats who cheered when President Bill Clinton declared the era of big government to be over might wonder how it is that a democratic socialist is their party's candidate for mayor of New York City. Others have followed Democratic expat and scion of Camelot Robert F. Kennedy Jr., with his Make America Healthy Again mantra, to vote for Trump. Two options aren't enough for multitudes For a variety of structural reasons, two options is what most Americans get, even though poll after poll suggests few are happy with either party. Against that backdrop, it's interesting to consider Elon Musk's pledge to form an 'America Party,' an alternative to Republicans and Democrats, if President Donald Trump's megabill becomes law. 'Our country needs an alternative to the Democrat-Republican uniparty so that the people actually have a VOICE,' he wrote on his social media platform. Musk's primary concern is that the megabill adds to the national debt, he said – and not, as Trump alleges, that he's sore about the end of tax credits to encourage Americans to buy electric vehicles. The third-party pledge follows Musk's musings last month that the US needs a party 'that actually represents the 80% in the middle.' Which middle? It's an interesting thought experiment to consider what the political middle might look like to a space and computer nerd and technocrat like Musk. He cares deeply about climate change and wants desperately for humans to be interplanetary and to live on Mars, but he opposes the megabill for all its government spending. He has strong thoughts about encouraging more American women to have babies, but thinks the addition of people to the country through illegal immigration is an existential threat to the US. The same thought experiment crossed my mind last month when Karine Jean-Pierre, who was White House press secretary under former President Joe Biden, announced in the run-up to the publication of her memoir that she's leaving the Democratic Party. 'We need to be clear-eyed and questioning, rather than blindly loyal and obedient as we may have been in the past,' she said in a statement to CNN. But it doesn't seem like Jean-Pierre's version of independence will be in the same galaxy as Musk's. Three varieties of Democrat One of the more interesting political campaigns of the coming months is likely to be the New York City mayor's race, in which the upstart Democrat (and democratic socialist) Zohran Mamdani will take on Eric Adams, the sitting mayor who is also a Democrat but is running as an independent. Also on the ballot as a 'Fight and Deliver' independent will be former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, another Democrat, although it's not clear if he'll seriously campaign between now and November. That's a lot of different versions of Democrats New Yorkers will be able to sort through. Zohran Mamdani gestures as he speaks during a watch party for his primary election in New York on June 25. David Delgado/Reuters There are already multiple third parties There are, of course, existing third parties in the US. The Green and Libertarian parties appear on most ballots for president, which means they have dedicated followings across the country, but they lack the power to get anyone elected to either the House or Senate. Former Rep. Ron Paul of Texas mounted presidential campaigns as both a Libertarian and a Republican, but he got the most traction as a libertarian-minded Republican. His son, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, is one of the few Republicans now willing to cross Trump and oppose the megabill. Paul, like Musk, is worried about the national debt. 'You're roadkill in the middle' A senator closer to the middle, Alaska's Lisa Murkowski, did vote for the bill, but only after securing carveouts that will help her state – but could aggravate every other American. Murkowski is that rare moderate who can survive without party backing. She won a write-in reelection campaign – the triple lindy of politics – after losing the Republican primary in 2010. That was before her party veered even more toward Trump, but Murkowski recently told CNN's Audie Cornish there are more quiet centrist Americans than people realize. She's representing them, she said, even if Washington is a dangerous place to be a moderate. 'You're roadkill in the middle,' Murkowski told Cornish for her 'The Assignment' podcast. 'Endangered species' Another Republican who opposed the megabill is Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina. He said cuts to Medicaid would cost too many North Carolinians their health insurance. But prioritizing the people you represent rather than the national party is anathema in today's political environment. 'In Washington over the last few years, it's become increasingly evident that leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species,' Tillis said in a statement Sunday. Fearing a primary and Trump's wrath, or maybe just tired of defending the shrinking middle ground in the Senate, Tillis also announced he would not seek reelection next year, which immediately made his North Carolina seat Democrats' top pickup priority. Democrats must hope that a moderate like former Gov. Roy Cooper will jump in the race and defy Democrats' national branding. Majority makers Perhaps Cooper would play the same kind of role as former Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Manchin voted with Democrats most of the time, but his tendency to buck the party leadership made him a thorn in the side of progressives. Coincidentally, when Manchin left office, Democrats lost their majority in the Senate. On his way out the door, Manchin said it was time for a third-party alternative, but he opted not to run for president. Middle fringes Kennedy did run for president after leaving the Democratic Party and his ultimate support for Trump likely brought in some new support for the president, who is now letting Kennedy rethink US vaccine policy to the consternation of the scientific community. Kennedy is also trying to take on the food industry. Help from Kennedy's independents probably helped Trump win, but maybe not as much as the nearly $300 million Musk is known to have spent, mostly on Trump's behalf. Musk's political ventures may have now turned off Tesla's natural climate-concerned consumer base as well as the MAGA faithful. Regardless of the wealth he could spend, what middle would his America party fit into?
