Despite the GOP’s historic midterm defeat, President Donald Trump may retain significant presidential power, leaving Democrats facing an uphill battle to hold his administration accountable. Jonathan Swan, a White House reporter at The New York Times, says the ability to tell is unpredictable, but he believes Democrats will need to strike a balance between resistance to Trump and acknowledging the power apparatus he’s built.
“I think there’s going to be this interesting tension between Trump being repudiated at the polls and being a true lame duck, but also still being a very powerful President because the executive branch has accrued so much power and enlarged itself so much over the past twenty-five years, particularly in foreign policy and national security,” Swan said in an interview with The New Yorker.
Maggie Haberman, also a White House correspondent at the New York Times, notes that the stark switch in power is nearly unprecedented, likening it to a previous political fallout the country has not experienced in decades. However, she says there are still significant challenges ahead.
“This is a post-Watergate-level wipeout of a party, but it’s not likely to come with the same level of civic reaction in terms of congressional reforms and so forth,” she asserts to The New Yorker, noting that Trump has a history of not bowing down.
Haberman, who co-authored Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump with Swan, notes that Trump has a history of refusing to back down. Even in the days leading up to the midterm elections, Trump dismissed polls showing him and Republicans in an unfavorable light. Combined with his repeated attempts to question the legitimacy of election results, that history could set the stage for further political conflict.
“Trump has shown that he is just willing to punch and attack, and make very miserable, members of his own party. Somebody said to me recently, ‘You’re gonna see a lot of Republicans who are gonna just suddenly be standing up to him.’ And I said, ‘Well, we’ve been hearing that for years.’ Point me to the Republican who is suddenly gonna go side with the Democrats in a real way on these investigations, or on an impeachment of the president,” Haberman continued. “Maybe it will happen, but I am skeptical until it’s proved otherwise that something is really going to challenge his power.”
In Regime Change, the colleagues offer an inside look at the first year of Trump’s second term. They examine how Trump’s return to the White House came with fewer guardrails, less institutional resistance,and minimal pushback from staffers, allowing for an unexpected amount of power.
Swan says the biggest immediate hurdle is for Democrats to decide what to tackle first, as Trump’s administration in the first two years of its second term has been accused of unconstitutional policies and political crimes.
While Trump has vowed to work with Democrats after the GOP’s historic defeat, Swan does not see that process going smoothly. “They can send a referral to the Justice Department, but it is run by Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Todd Blanche. I mean, the top level of the D.O.J. is essentially a Trump law firm,” he warns. “So Democrats have to be creative as to how to get information. They have to go to entities on the outside that will feel compelled to provide. Banks, law firms, companies. But it’s gonna be a real challenge for them. It’s not like you just send a subpoena to Eric Trump and he’ll be right on it the next day. It’s gonna be really difficult.”
Swan hints that it can take years for there to be a tangible change and suggests that all involved are prepared for the fight. “Things can drag on to the next administration. That happened with subpoenas under Trump One. I’m just saying all of this so that people are realistic,” he says.