Washington had four years to prepare for a second Trump presidency. But are there signs that the president’s political opponents didn’t do their homework?
In his first week in office, President Donald Trump issued a stack of executive orders that went after DEI, the federal workforce, birthright citizenship and more. He fired 18 inspectors general, in defiance of Congressional procedure. And finally, this Monday, his administration shocked the country with OMB memo M-25-13 — the “spending freeze” that’s made so much news, and that he’s been trying to walk back.
Trump is clearly testing the limits of his power. The big questions now are: What is his grand strategy? Where does he think he can win, and where is he just satisfying campaign promises that he believes the courts will strike down?
Just as important, where is the resistance? What are Democrats’ plans to fight back, and which Republicans are about to be a thorn in his side?
To answer those questions and more, some of POLITICO’s top in-house experts on all three branches of government assembled for a roundtable on the Playbook Deep Dive podcast. Joining the show is Capitol Hill Bureau Chief and Senior Washington Columnist, Rachael Bade; senior staff writer and legal columnist, Ankush Khardori; and Deep Dive host, Chief Playbook Correspondent and White House Correspondent, Eugene Daniels.
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