By Eric Cortellessa, Time Magazine; Translated by Bai Shui, Golden Finance
Three days before Thanksgiving, Mar-a-Lago was quiet. Later that morning, Donald Trump's Moorish palace seemed deserted, with the spacious living room occasionally visited by a junior staffer or a silent aide. Trump's presence was everywhere. The front door was adorned with a framed magazine cover featuring him. A bronze eagle gifted to him by singer Lee Greenwood rested on a table near the fireplace. In the men's restroom, a photo of him with Arnold Palmer hung near the urinals. The wall of the library bar displayed a painting titled 'The Visionary,' depicting Trump in a tennis sweater, neat and youthful. The empty rooms felt less like a millionaire's club and more like a museum.
By around 3 p.m., as the arrival of the elected president drew near, the carefully arranged speakers provided a selection from Trump's personally curated playlist of 2,000 songs. Some transitional leaders and incoming officials arrived at Mar-a-Lago, sitting on sofas packed with items, squeezed into corners. Incoming Chief of Staff Susie Wiles was conversing with Trump's designated National Security Advisor Mike Waltz. Elected Vice President J.D. Vance strode in with a group of staffers. An aide stood by a window overlooking the courtyard, dropping Trump's personal phone, which would occasionally light up with calls and texts from favored media figures and cabinet picks. Before you see Trump, you can feel him, a small group of senior aides rising expectantly.
The most powerful man in the world entered with a calm and affable demeanor. The 78-year-old Trump wore his signature navy suit and a red tie, looking older than when he last met with Time magazine seven months ago — softer, less bombastic, with the same patterns of speech but at a lower volume. Before a 65-minute interview, he posed for 30 minutes under bright lights and asked to explain the bruise on his right hand. 'It's from shaking hands with thousands of people,' he said.
Trump's political resurrection is unparalleled in American history. His first term ended in disgrace as he attempted to overturn the 2020 election results, ultimately leading to the attack on the U.S. Capitol. At the end of 2022, amid multiple criminal investigations, he announced his candidacy but was largely avoided by most party officials. More than a year later, Trump cleared the Republican field, winning one of the fastest presidential primaries in history. During the election, he spent six weeks in a New York City courtroom, becoming the first former president to be convicted, a fact that did not diminish his approval ratings. In July, at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a would-be assassin's bullet missed his skull by less than an inch. In the following four months, he defeated not just one but two Democratic opponents, sweeping all seven swing states, and became the first Republican to win the popular vote in 20 years. He recalibrated American politics, reshaped the Republican Party, and forced Democrats to seriously consider what went wrong.
For his seemingly impossible return to office, Trump already has a ready explanation. 'I call it the (Angry 72 Days),' he said at the start of the interview. 'We touched a nerve in this country. The whole country is angry.' Not just the loyal followers of MAGA. Trump tapped into the deep dissatisfaction of the American people over economic, immigration, and cultural issues. His discontent resonated with suburban moms and retirees, Latino and Black men, young voters, and tech-savvy teens. While Democrats estimate that the majority of people nationwide want a president who can uphold the norms of liberal democracy, Trump sees a country ready to shatter those norms, capitalizing on a growing sense that the system is rigged.
If America craves change, then it will look to see how much change Trump can bring. He holds strongman visions, proposing the deportation of millions of immigrants, dismantling parts of the federal government, retaliating against political opponents, and dismantling institutions that millions consider picky and corrupt. 'He understands the spirit of the cultural moment,' said his 2016 campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, who remains one of his close advisors. 'Donald Trump is a complex man with simple ideas, while too many politicians are just the opposite.'
Trump also vowed to attack what he blamed for the American economic slump: economic interdependence, transnational crime, what he perceives as freeloading traditional allies, and America's long-standing global beneficence. He believes he has the tools to retaliate: punitive tariffs, naked negotiations, and threats of U.S. withdrawal from military, humanitarian, and economic support. He is willing to subvert America's postwar role as a bulwark against dictatorship and has pledged to pursue a foreign policy rooted in 'America First' transactionalism.
There are still many obstacles in his way. The Republican Party holds a slim majority in the House and Senate. A conservative Supreme Court may not support all of his boundary-breaking policies. Persistent institutional resistance within the federal bureaucracy could thwart his plans. The public still exerts a strong check on any president. Trump has already proven twice that he can rise to power through anti-incumbent sentiment, personal cult of personality, and divisive rhetoric, including racism and xenophobic attacks. He has yet to prove he can realize the radical vision he advocated during the campaign. Those closest to the elected president indicate that fulfilling his promises will be surprising to people. 'Most politicians won't,' Wiles said, 'but he will.'
Whether Trump can truly address the roots of American anger is another question. He will now have to deal with the same forces — globalization, mass immigration, and more — that have plagued both parties' predecessors and driven current leaders out of office. He will also see how far this country is willing to let him go. If he succeeds, he could reshape this nation. Along the way, he risks destroying the constitutional norms and institutions that have characterized America's great democratic experiment for 2.5 centuries.
On April 2, Trump picked up a document that Wiles had placed on top of a pile of papers in the private cabin of the plane headed to Grand Rapids, Michigan, for a campaign rally. The title was not subtle: 'How a National Abortion Ban Will Cost Trump the Election.' Trump raised his eyebrows. 'That title is a bit disgusting, isn't it?' he asked.
This event marked a turning point in the core issues of the campaign: after the defeat in Roe v. Trump, whether he could find a position on the abortion issue to limit his losses among female voters. This, in turn, is part of the larger challenge Trump faces: how to provide change for everyone looking for it, including voters who have postponed their choices due to his positions or actions. 'There aren't enough MAGA people to actually win the election,' a Trump campaign official told Time magazine. 'So, who do you look for? How do you expand this base?'
Before considering this memo, Trump had at one point been prepared to support a 16-week federal abortion ban. Conway showed him a poll indicating that a ban on procedures after 16 weeks was more popular than one after 24 weeks. But according to three knowledgeable sources, Trump's speechwriter and policy advisor Vince Haley raised concerns during a conference call in late March. Host: 'Does he know that a 16-week ban would be stricter than many states' current laws?' A long silence. Trump's political director James Blair said, 'It may not.' He was preparing to prepare a slide suggesting that such a ban would hurt Trump's interests in key states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, all of which provide women access to the procedure until at least 20 weeks of pregnancy.
After flipping through Blair's speech on the plane, Trump looked up and said, 'So we leave it to the states, right?' The advisors agreed. 'Awesome,' Trump said. 'We're going to make a video.' Within minutes, he dictated his speech to Haley. Days later, Trump posted that video on his social media platform. Throughout the remaining campaign, a politician who once claimed that there 'must be some form of punishment' for women who have abortions maintained his position that it should be a states' rights issue.
In the same month, Trump made another significant decision: to end his campaign against mail-in voting and early voting. For more than a year, senior advisors had urged him to accept what Trump had baselessly accused of being rife with fraud since the 2020 election. Several of his senior aides, including Wiles and Blair, who were operatives from Florida trained in the science of early voting storage, had shown him data illustrating the losses to Republicans from refusing mail-in ballots in a series of close races in 2022. Wiles and Trump's daughter-in-law Lara believed opposing this practice would backfire.
Trump listened to advice, but it wasn't until former Pennsylvania Republican Chair Rob Gleason visited that he articulated the matter in a way that he agreed with. According to two Trump officials familiar with the matter, Gleason told him at a meeting at Mar-a-Lago in April: 'Sir, your people are very eager to vote for you, and they want to vote as soon as possible.' 'They don’t want to wait. But you have to tell them it’s okay. You have to give them permission.' Since then, Trump has advocated for absentee and early voting and directed the Republican National Committee to launch a mobilization effort against mail-in voters.
By summer, Trump had a confidence rooted in history. In late June, Joe Biden's weak performance in the debates sparked open rebellion among panicking Democrats. On July 13, Trump survived an assassination attempt, triggering widespread support and sympathy. For many Americans, his defiance in the aftermath of the shooting — standing bloodied, raising his fist, and shouting 'Fight!' — made him an inspiring figure for the first time. 'That moment changed a lot of people,' Trump told Time magazine while sipping Diet Coke at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump's strengthened position prompted Biden to exit the race and support Vice President Kamala Harris. Within days, Harris consolidated support, raising hundreds of millions of dollars and invigorating a dying Democratic base. After the successful Democratic National Convention, Trump's inner circle gradually felt he might fail. Vance said it was 'the most concerning moment.' 'Is there a feeling that the honeymoon with Kamala Harris will last until the election?' he asked.
Trump is a staunch advocate of Don Draper's adage: if you don't like what others are saying, change the conversation. His team has also done so. He has long maintained a cordial relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running independently for president in 2024 and receiving astonishing support, especially among disillusioned young people. Little Don, worried about Kennedy's candidacy potentially siphoning off key votes, began secret negotiations as talks progressed. Little Trump began coordinating with Kennedy's campaign manager, his daughter-in-law Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, to exclude him from the ballots in swing states and support Trump. As Vance put it, the pitch was simple: 'You won't win. You won't make any impact on this campaign other than taking votes away from Donald Trump. So why not really join this team, set aside the differences, and focus on the big things we care about?'
Once Kennedy accepted the plan, Wiles suggested waiting to announce until after the Democratic National Convention, as he believed this would undermine Harris's momentum. For Wiles, this endorsement was one of the key moments of the campaign. It eliminated the threat of Kennedy siphoning off Trump's votes. But more importantly, 'he allowed us to expand the party's base,' she said. 'He was the key pathway to achieving that.'
Other new voters are followers of Elon Musk, who supported Trump after the Butler shooting incident. Musk ultimately spent over $250 million to support him, turning X into a de facto campaign apparatus and becoming a key validator among tech executives and business leaders who had mostly avoided Trump on the political stage. Now, Musk will become one of the billionaires directly entering the Oval Office, forming a network of competing conflicts of interest.
To enhance the contrast, the campaign team cleverly portrayed Harris as overly leftist. They drew attention to a questionnaire Harris filled out for the ACLU during her last presidential campaign in 2019, in which she supported taxpayer-funded gender reassignment surgery for detained undocumented immigrants. Trump's advisors Taylor Budowich and ad producer Pat McCarthy touted a line that defined one of his most impactful campaign ads: 'Kamala is for them/them. President Trump is for you.' Trump's campaign team spent nearly $20 million airing that ad about 55,000 times in the first half of October.
Strategists from both parties disagree on whether the Trump team's blueprint will succeed in a closely contested campaign, or if Harris's headwinds — from inflation triggered by the pandemic to widespread concerns over Biden's age — will be difficult to overcome in a brief campaign against Trump. Harris's campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon said at a Harvard Kennedy School event, 'We are facing the irony of dangerous liberalism.' The Vice President's unwillingness to distance herself from her unpopular boss may have as much of an impact as anything Trump does right. Harris's deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks said, 'This has been a huge, looming negative factor over us.'
On election night, Trump's campaign staff set up a war room in his office at Mar-a-Lago, meticulously analyzing the incoming election results while Trump chatted with Musk and UFC President Dana White in the club ballroom. As North Carolina and Georgia came in for his column, Trump glanced over. 'Anything about you?' he asked.
'No,' an aide replied. 'It feels good.'
'Good,' Trump said. When he returned to the ballroom, an energized crowd was dancing to the Village People's 'YMCA' — the signature song of Trump's rallies, which had become a cultural touchpoint, with everyone from professional athletes to TikTok enthusiasts imitating his signature move. Trump stood for a moment, contemplating all of it, then turned to an aide and asked when they should head to the nearby conference center where he would deliver his victory speech.
This election provides Trump with political capital to address the roots of domestic and international discontent in America. The question now is how he intends to spend this capital. According to Trump himself, he will break through the constraints of presidential power and law.
Trump told Time magazine that one of his first official actions as president would be to pardon most of the rioters accused or convicted of storming the Capitol to stop Biden's victory certification. 'It will start within the first hour,' he said. 'Maybe in the first nine minutes.' Trump also plans to act quickly to overturn many of Biden's executive orders and expand oil drilling on federal lands.
On January 6, 2021, supporters of Trump gathered on the stage for the inauguration day, waving flags and chanting slogans.
Trump's most radical move will be immigration enforcement. He vowed to tighten U.S. policies through a series of executive orders and assistants, ending the 'catch and release' program at the U.S.-Mexico border and resuming construction of the border wall. At the same time, he indicated he would order U.S. enforcement agencies — possibly the military as well — to begin mass deportation operations aimed at removing over 11 million undocumented immigrants. Although the Posse Comitatus Act prohibits deploying the military against civilians, Trump stated he would be willing to call up the military to round up and deport immigrants. 'If this is an invasion of our country, it won't stop the military,' he said. When asked how he would respond if the military refused to carry out these orders, Trump said, 'I will do not only what the law allows but reach the highest level that the law allows.'
Trump told Time magazine that he does not intend to restore the policy of separating children from their families to deter crossings. But he did not rule out that possibility. 'I don't think we have to do that because we want to send the whole family back,' he said. 'I would rather deport them together.' Trump's incoming border czar, Tom Homan, stated, 'There is no policy of intentionally separating families.' But he also left open the possibility of children being taken from their parents again. 'You can't say for zero that this won't happen,' Homan said.
For such a large-scale deportation operation, Trump's advisors are planning to build more detention centers to hold immigrants until they can be deported back to their home countries, a process that could take weeks, months, or even years of negotiations with receiving governments. It is unclear if all parties are willing to take back the immigrants. Trump indicated he would use access to the U.S. market as leverage to force foreign governments to cooperate. Trump said, 'I will let them into every country, or we won't do business with those countries.'
The cost of the plan is high. The non-profit organization American Immigration Council estimates the total cost of Trump's mass deportation plan could exceed $300 billion. According to aides, Trump may seek funding from Congress. 'This will be very expensive,' Homan said.
American taxpayers may bear the brunt in other ways. Economists say deporting many low-wage workers who support multiple industries could lead to price increases. Douglas Rivlin of America's Voice said, 'If you eliminate the people building houses, the ones doing accounting, overseeing, and operating companies, those jobs will also disappear.' 'This is a self-inflicted disaster.' This does not even account for the social and psychological costs of friends and neighbors being rounded up and expelled from communities. Ben Villanueva, an immigration scholar at UCLA, added, 'When you see on the evening news that Joe's pizza shop was raided, it becomes very real.'
Trump's radicalism will depend to some extent on the support of the Justice Department, which will be led by former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, one of Trump's defense lawyers during his first impeachment. Trump vowed to retaliate against his political enemies, saying that Biden, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Special Counsel Jack Smith, and others would face investigations and possible indictments. Trump was vague when asked in a Time magazine interview whether the Justice Department would target his domestic political opponents, only stating that if Bondi were confirmed, the decision would be made by Bondi. 'It's up to her,' he said. Regardless, his victory would mean the end of federal prosecutions, which charged him with crimes such as election subversion and willful retention of classified documents. (Trump denies these charges.)
On May 30, in New York, Trump appeared at a Manhattan criminal court for a jury trial on his criminal hush money case.
To dismantle the federal bureaucracy, Trump invited Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a committee called DOGE aimed at cutting government size. Musk and Ramaswamy pledged to massively lay off the federal workforce, particularly civil servants, and to cut regulations on everything from the water we drink to the air we breathe. They promised to complete this work in time for the 250th anniversary of American independence on July 4.
Government administration experts say the committee could reduce the nation's operational capacity. New York University law professor Peter Shane said, 'This would impair the government's ability to carry out the tasks assigned to it by Congress under law,' such as managing Social Security and Medicare. If the Musk-Ramaswamy committee laid off a significant number of civil servants, the government might have to rely on private companies. Shane said, 'There is no guarantee that contractors will be cheaper or more capable.'
During the campaign, Trump stated he would not order the Justice Department to enforce the (Comstock Act), a 19th-century law prohibiting the mailing of abortion pills. When Trump spoke with Time magazine before Thanksgiving, his position on women's reproductive rights shifted within a few sentences. First, he reserved the possibility that the FDA could revoke the approval of the abortion pill, then stated it was 'highly unlikely,' and later announced, 'We will consider all of this.' When asked to clarify whether he was committed to preventing the FDA from revoking access to abortion pills, Trump replied, 'That has always been my commitment.'
On October 27, at a Trump campaign event at Madison Square Garden in New York, former First Lady Melania Trump (center-right) and Elon Musk.
Although the Republican Party led by Trump will hold a majority in the House and Senate, he has indicated he will pursue some significant legislative measures beyond extending the tax cuts from his first term and funding immigration crackdowns. Trump stated he supports keeping the filibuster, allowing the Senate minority to block legislation. He said that if this obstructed the passage of bills in Congress, he would take executive action. 'If I encounter even the slightest trouble,' he said, 'I will request an executive order because I can get it done.'
When Trump encountered inevitable obstacles, it showed us how his broad view of executive power would affect his second term. Julian Zelizer, a presidential historian at Princeton University, said: 'The idea of an imperial presidency is not new, but he takes it further than anyone else.' 'He doesn't care about the kinds of limitations that Richard Nixon still faced. Those don't matter to him. So, presidential power has the potential to be used extraordinarily aggressively.'
Despite all the focus on Trump's domestic agenda, most of the activity during Time magazine's visit to Mar-a-Lago related to foreign affairs. Incoming National Security Advisor Waltz was hurriedly talking with Vance and incoming Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff during a meeting. A source attending the National Security Council meeting said the goal was to ensure that America's adversaries and allies would not attempt to exploit the power transition between administrations.
Many of Trump's solutions to national issues, including his immigration and trade policies, depend on successful diplomacy. 'America First' may be both a campaign slogan and the guiding star of governance, but will it end wars and push America forward?
Trump's plan could impose comprehensive tariffs on all imported goods, thereby upending relationships with allies and traditional trading partners. He has already imposed a 25% tariff on Mexico and Canada, with most economists predicting this move will lead to price increases. He also plans to raise tariffs on products imported from China, aiming to force manufacturers to produce their goods in the United States.
During the campaign, Trump liked to boast that he could broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine within 24 hours. He personally acknowledged that this was more complicated than he had portrayed. 'The Middle East is easier to handle than Russia and Ukraine,' he said. 'The number of young soldiers dying in fields everywhere is staggering. What's happening is too crazy.' Trump criticized Kyiv for launching U.S.-made missiles at Russian territory last month. 'I strongly oppose launching hundreds of miles of missiles at Russia. Why would we do that?' he said. 'We're just escalating the war and making things worse.' When asked if he would abandon Ukraine, Trump indicated he would use U.S. support for Ukraine as leverage against Russia in ending war negotiations. 'I want to reach an agreement,' he said, 'and the only way to reach an agreement is not to give up.'
During the campaign, Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the Gaza war before his inauguration, but now this timeline seems highly unlikely. In Israel and the U.S., many suspect Netanyahu is prolonging the struggle to prevent early elections that could lead to his ousting. 'He knows I want everything to end,' Trump told Time magazine. When asked if he believed Netanyahu would enter a second term, Trump hesitated before answering, 'I don't believe anybody.'
Trump also hopes to expand the (Abraham Accords) he brokered between Israel and several Arab nations to include Saudi Arabia. However, he was less specific about resolutions between Israel and Palestine. During his first term, he proposed the most comprehensive two-state solution since President Bill Clinton and prevented Netanyahu from extending Israeli sovereignty over 30% of the West Bank. But on November 12, he was nominated as the incoming U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, a staunch supporter of the settlement movement, who advocates for Israel to annex the West Bank.
On December 12, Assad's regime in Syria suddenly collapsed. It brought to power a rebel group previously affiliated with al-Qaeda but also marked a renewed setback for Iran's already weakened regime in Lebanon and Gaza. Some analysts worried that these losses might make Iran more likely to pursue nuclear weapons. Since Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, Tehran has come closer to obtaining nuclear weapons. By April, the International Atomic Energy Agency estimated Tehran had enough weapons-grade uranium to manufacture a bomb within weeks. Iran and its proxies launched multi-front wars against Israel and targeted U.S. assets in the region. According to federal charges filed by the Justice Department in November, Iranians plotted to assassinate Trump during the presidential campaign. Although the elected president took pride in not being involved in any new wars during his first term, he also reserved the possibility of waging war if necessary in his second term. When asked about the likelihood of war with Iran, Trump paused and then responded, 'Anything is possible.'
As dinner time approached, the crowd flooded into Mar-a-Lago's lavish reception area, turning it into a bustling royal court. Job seekers camped on sofas, waiting for Howard Lutnick, a Wall Street executive and his transition co-chair. Lutnick was also Trump's appointed Secretary of Commerce, with the task of reviewing cabinet appointees for the loyalty Trump valued most.
Illustration by Sam Kerr for Time magazine; Image source: Getty Images: Trump: Saul Loeb - AFP; Bondi, Musk, Vance: Andrew Harnik; Lutnick: Christopher Goodney - Bloomberg; Walter: Stephanie Reynolds - Bloomberg; Homan: Bill Clark - CQ Roll Call; Blonde: Chip Somodevilla; Waltz: John Nathan; Miller: Tom Williams - CQ Roll Call; Wiles: Jabin Botsford - (Washington Post); Twitter: Blair, Budowich.
Trump chose unconventional nominees who have shown loyalty to him and his agenda: former Fox News host Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense; Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence; Kash Patel as FBI Director. He rewarded Kennedy by nominating him to lead the Department of Health and Human Services and selected a pro-union labor secretary to pay tribute to working-class voters, while also appointing billionaires to high-level positions to appease donors who favored Trump's tax cuts and deregulation. The formation of the cabinet reflects the fractured coalition that propelled him to victory, blending Trump's hardliners with mainstream choices like Secretary of State Senator Marco Rubio and Treasury financier Scott Bessent.
As Trump prepares to wage war on Washington, Washington's institutions are carefully mounting a counteroffensive. Republican senators forced Trump to abandon his preferred pick for the Justice Department, former Florida far-right congressman Matt Gaetz, due to their disdain for his exaggerated style and allegations of sexual relations with a 17-year-old girl. (Gaetz denies this.) When it became clear there were no votes, Trump told Gaetz, 'Matt, I don't think this is worth fighting over,' he told Time magazine. Hours later, he announced another loyalist, Bondi, would replace him. Senators were shocked by Hegseth's lack of experience and allegations of sexual assault and alcoholism, but he denied them. Some were also concerned about letting Gabbard take the helm. Given her previous support for Russia and Assad in Syria, she became part of the intelligence community.
Trump stated he would respect the Senate's role in confirming or rejecting his appointments but did not rule out using recess appointments or appointing acting heads of agencies to circumvent Senate approval. 'I really don’t care how they get confirmed,' he told Time magazine, 'as long as they get confirmed.' Is a recess appointment impossible? 'No,' said a senior Trump advisor. 'He won’t accept being bullied.'
Trump at an election watch party in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Trump stated he would not require government members to sign a formal loyalty pledge. 'I think I will largely be able to decide who is loyal,' he said, adding that anyone who crossed him would quickly disappear. This included not just firing his own cabinet secretaries and political appointees but also civil servants working in the executive branch. 'If they don't follow my policies,' he said, 'they absolutely will.'
Trump's radical use of presidential power will test the Justice Department, which is the last line of defense against threats to constitutional norms. His critics worry that even if the Supreme Court overturns the president's actions, his Justice Department may not enforce those rulings. Trump and his aides are preparing for fierce lawsuits from groups challenging various aspects of his immigration measures, attacks on the federal bureaucracy, and his attempts to withhold congressional appropriations. One Trump official said, 'We are limited in some ways by the realities and procedures of government, but he will try to do some big things.'
With unified control in Washington, Trump will face increased pressure to fulfill his campaign promises of lowering living costs, revitalizing manufacturing, reversing America's trade deficit with China, and achieving peace abroad. Government administration expert Donald Kettl, former dean of the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy, believes the American people are not prepared for the extent of disruption that Trump's second term in the White House could bring, from potential changes to the education system to re-examining routine childhood vaccinations, which Kennedy mistakenly linked to autism despite scientific evidence to the contrary. He said, 'The scale of change we're going to see is unprecedented, and the impact on government will be enormous.' Kettl added that voters perceive the government as wasteful and untrustworthy, but if Trump fulfills his promise to cut large programs, 'you might see a backlash quickly that affects the lives of many, many ordinary Americans.'
By the end of Trump's first term, voters were exhausted by the chaos, tired of his antics, and frustrated with his handling of an unprecedented global health crisis. He left office with low approval ratings. Trump's victory in November may be partially a result of short memories. For Trump, he is confident in his negotiating abilities. 'We can use the same words,' he said, 'but maybe your look is what matters.' However, the elected president has already begun to adjust some of his pledges, like lowering grocery prices. Trump stated, 'Once things go up, it’s hard to bring them back down. You know, it's very hard.'
If his approach fails, Trump feels he is in a predicament, and critics worry he will become more extreme. For his closest aides, the unpredictability of the elected president's style will give him an edge over American competitors. Vance said, 'People really worry that if they don’t listen to him, bad things will happen, and they ignore the consequences he brings.' Facing the challenges of governance, Trump seems almost eager for his last campaign to be over. 'In some ways, it's sad,' he said, reflecting on his election victory as shadows began to fall on the meticulously trimmed lawn surrounding his mansion. 'This will never happen again.'
But under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump, many things may happen in four years.