Trump Gets Ultimate Power As Republicans Win House Control

Republicans will retain control of the U.S. House of Representatives by a narrow margin, promising more lengthy fights to pass legislation.

The GOP holds 218 seats to the Democrats’ 208, NBC reported Wednesday. Six races have yet to be called. Republicans have also taken control of the Senate.

Republicans gained control of the House two years ago during the 2022 midterm elections. While there was no “red wave” as had been predicted, they were able to flip 19 districts from blue to red.

The House currently has 220 Republicans, 212 Democrats, and three vacancies, two of which were held by Democrats who passed away, and one by a Republican who sought greener pastures working at a weapons and AI contractor (after sowing plenty of anti-China sentiment), resulting in a tight race for his seat as both parties scrambled to claim an incredibly slim majority margin.

Only about 49 of the House seats were truly in play to be flipped. Democrats were able to flip two seats in New York, which are currently held by Republican Representatives Brandon Williams and Anthony D’Esposito.

A whopping 45 House members decided not to seek reelection, not including those who left office partway through the current term.

Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville thinks that Democratic Senate wins in battleground states are suspicious. 

On Tuesday, Tuberville was on The Sean Spicer Show, a podcast hosted by Donald Trump’s former White House press secretary and communications director. Spicer asked Tuberville how he’d fulfill his promise to be a “legislative sledgehammer for President Trump.”

“One of the things I really want to do is straighten this dang voting up across our country,” Tuberville said. 

“We didn’t get killed downballot, but let me tell you something: Donald Trump pulled out more people to vote for him” than Harris, the Alabama senator added. “And how in the world can some of these senators … receive more votes—the Democrats—than President Trump? It doesn’t add up to how this all went about.”

Trump won the battleground states of Georgia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Arizona in the presidential election, but Democrats won the Senate races in the latter four states. Though he didn’t come out and declare fraud, Tuberville still hinted that something was off with those results. 

“We need to get this straight: voter ID,” he said. “You know, Kamala Harris won every state that was no voter ID. She did not win one that wasn’t voter ID. So think about that.” (This claim has already been disproven, as Harris did in fact win some states with voter ID laws and Trump won states without them.)  

Tuberville’s claims seem to be sour grapes in an election where Republicans have taken the presidency as well as the Senate, and are close to retaining control of the House of Representatives. Like losing Republican Senate candidate Eric Hovde in Wisconsin, Tuberville doesn’t seem to understand split-ticket voting.

Elon Musk has made himself right at home by Donald Trump’s side, much to the chagrin of everyone else in Mar-a-Lago.

The New York Times has reported that the world’s richest man and the president-elect have been absolutely inseparable since the latter’s election night victory. Musk has joined Trump for every meal, interview, golf hole, and political meeting at Mar-a-Lago over the past week, often with his 4-year-old son in tow.

Musk’s role has been bigger than some Trump aides anticipated. He chatted with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey alongside Trump, and plans on meeting with President Javier Milei of Argentina at Mar-a-Lago later this week. The billionaire attended “at least” one national security meeting with Trump and aide Stephen Miller, as well as another meeting on Wednesday between Trump and House Republicans. He’s even helping the Trump transition team vet potential Cabinet nominees.

That’s in addition to his plans to head the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, with Vivek Ramaswamy, which Trump proudly announced Tuesday evening.

Musks’s growing role in the Trump transition coincides with reports that those who actually worked in the Trump campaign have grown tired of Musk’s constant presence. Tech journalist Kara Swisher said that Trump’s inner circle views Musk as the “guest that wouldn’t leave.”

“He definitely inserts himself all the time, that’s his style,” Swisher told CNN on Monday. “I’ve heard from Trump people, calling me saying, ‘Oh, wow. This is odd.’ And it is.”

Politico also reported that those closest to Trump are beginning to see Musk’s presence as a “comical distraction” at Mar-a-Lago. “Elon is getting a little big for his britches,” an insider told the outlet.

Yet as Trump’s largest funder this election cycle, Musk will continue to receive this uninhibited access, even as MAGA loyalists grumble behind the scenes. Only Trump can change that.

Another judge has ruled against a January 6 defendant attempting to have his sentence delayed until Donald Trump is sworn in as president.

On Wednesday, Judge Jia Cobb denied a motion to delay Antonio Lamotta’s sentence. The 2021 insurrection participant was sentenced in September to six months in prison, 24 months in supervised release, and $2,000 in restitution, after being found guilty of a felony and two misdemeanor offenses of disorderly conduct in a Capitol building. Citing the possibility of a presidential pardon from Trump after his election victory, Lamotta hoped Cobb would delay his sentence, but the judge said that wasn’t a valid reason, citing legal precedent.

“Defendant has pointed to no authority supporting his request to delay a valid sentence on the grounds that he may receive a presidential pardon in the future,” Cobb wrote in her ruling.

Another D.C. federal judge, Amy Berman Jackson, also denied a January 6 participant’s case on Tuesday, ruling, “The Court is not inclined to postpone the conclusion of this matter based on events that may or may not transpire with respect to some or all of the January 6 defendants at some unspecified date in the future.”

Several January 6 defendants have attempted to delay their trials and sentencing, claiming that Trump will just pardon them anyway after he is sworn in on January 20 next year. Some have even cited Trump’s statements during his campaign in their legal motions. But the D.C. Circuit Court judges in their cases seem unconvinced. On Monday, a Trump-appointed judge, Trevor McFadden, also denied a January 6 defendant’s request to have their trial extended.

There have been over 1,500 federal criminal cases in the January 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, with about 950 defendants pleading guilty and 200 being found guilty at trial. Several cases are still pending, and some may not begin proceedings between now and Trump’s inauguration. If Trump follows through on his promise to pardon some rioters, many of their cases may never see the inside of a courtroom.

Pete Hegseth’s nomination as Donald Trump’s secretary of defense has left many scratching their heads, trying to figure out what on earth qualifies the Fox & Friends host to lead the Pentagon and command 1.3 million active-duty troops.

While Hegseth does have military experience, previously serving as an infantry officer in the Army National Guard in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay, he has nowhere near the expertise traditionally required for the role of Defense Department head.

For example, current Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin served in the military for 41 years, holding several high-ranking positions as commanding general of U.S. forces in Iraq, the army’s vice chief of staff, and commander of U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for all military operations in the Middle East.

Hegseth’s lack of experience isn’t the only reason he would be considered unsuitable for the position. He recently claimed that his orders to guard Joe Biden’s inauguration were revoked after he was “deemed an extremist” due to a tattoo of a Jerusalem Cross on his chest.

Hegseth failed to mention that he also has a corresponding “Deus Volt” tattoo on his arm, a Latin phrase that means “God Wills It” and a white supremacist slogan. Twelve national guard members were reportedly removed from Biden’s inauguration detail after making extremist statements, and according to Hegseth’s own admission, he was one of them.

So it’s not surprising his appointment seems to have left many across the political spectrum unimpressed.

Former Fox & Friends co-host Gretchen Carlson seemed simply confused by her former colleague’s appointment.

“From silly diner interviews on Weekend Fox and Friends to Secretary of Defense? I never thought I’d say I’m stunned about any pick after the election but nominating Pete Hegseth for this incredibly important role? Yes he’s a veteran … and?” she wrote Tuesday in a post on X.

Democratic Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren also aired her frustration with the appointment. “A Fox & Friends weekend co-host is not qualified to be the Secretary of Defense,” she wrote on X. “I lead the Senate military personnel panel. All three of my brothers served in uniform. I respect every one of our servicemembers. Donald Trump’s pick will make us less safe and must be rejected.”

Former Republican Representative Adam Kinzinger put it bluntly. “Wow. Trump picking Pete Hegseth is the most hilariously predictably stupid thing,” he wrote on X.

Alyssa Farrah Griffin, a former Trump White House aide and current co-host on The View posted that she wasn’t concerned by his lack of military experience but his “lack of policy experience & a lack of Pentagon experience.”

“I’m for a disrupter at the Pentagon but you can’t disrupt an agency you’re not familiar with the inner workings of. The most likely outcome is he’ll be outmaneuvered at every turn by top Pentagon brass,” Griffin added in a separate post.

Upon hearing that Hegseth had been appointed, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, simply said, “Wow.”

In the end, it seems like the president-elect appointed Hegseth because he is a faithful Trump acolyte, and well, he’s on Trump’s favorite television network.

Eric Edelman, who previously served as the Pentagon’s top policy official under George Bush, told Politico that Trump “puts the highest value on loyalty.”

“It appears that one of the main criteria that’s being used is, how well do people defend Donald Trump on television?” Edelman said.

Kinzinger agreed. “Obviously it’s weird, and there’s only one reason he’s doing it, because he’s on Fox News, and you know, that’s what Donald Trump picks based on,” Kinzinger said on CNN Tuesday.

South Dakota Senator John Thune will replace Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell as the chamber’s Republican caucus leader.

Thune won by a margin of five points, securing 25 votes to helm the party. Thune is, in many ways, a natural successor for the role. He has served as the Senate Republican whip since 2019, and has practically managed the Senate floor since McConnell suffered a concussion in 2023.

“I am extremely honored to have earned the support of my colleagues to lead the Senate in the 119th Congress, and I am beyond proud of the work we have done to secure our majority and the White House,” Thune said in a statement after the vote. “This Republican team is united behind President Trump’s agenda, and our work starts today.”

Thune was also the popular choice among Senate Republicans, with colleagues describing him as affable, well liked, and humble, according to The Hill.

But regardless of the plain logistics of Thune’s win, his ascension to the top of Senate GOP leadership serves as an interesting start to Donald Trump’s second term, marking the possibility that the upper chamber will remain an independent entity separate from the president-elect’s whims. Thune is an establishment conservative and longtime McConnell ally who has not always seen eye to eye with Trump. Thune won in two rounds of voting, despite an aggressive lobbying campaign by some of Trump’s key allies, including Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Vivek Ramaswamy, and Charlie Kirk, who claimed Florida Senator Rick Scott would be a better alternative for the MAGA administration.

“Without Rick Scott, the entire Trump reform agenda wobbly,” Kennedy Jr. posted on X last week, responding to a rant by Carlson in which he claimed that Thune and the other man in the race, Texas Senator John Cornyn, “hate Trump and what he ran on.”

Ultimately, the Scott campaign rubbed some Republicans the wrong way, driving a deeper intraparty rift between neoconservatives and Trump’s far-right base. But the secret ballot vote ensured total privacy for a group of senators, many of whom are unthreatened by reelection odds until 2028 or later, to side for or against Trump’s candidate.

Still, Thune passed a Trumpian litmus test Sunday night, quickly bending the knee to the chief Republican’s unusual demand that whoever won the position unequivocally agree to recess appointments and thwart the appointment of Democratic judges.

This story has been updated.

President-elect Donald Trump does not appear to be interested in assuaging any concerns about a total pursuit of power.

Speaking before the House Republican Conference on Wednesday, the 78-year-old soon-to-be forty-seventh president openly joked about running for a third term, telling the crowd that they could “figure something else out.”

“I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say he’s so good we got to figure something else out,” Trump said while laughing, according to the Associated Press’s Farnoush Amiri.

That would, of course, be a flagrant violation of the Constitution, which has stipulated since 1951—after President Franklin D. Roosevelt served a whopping four terms—that presidents cannot be elected for more than two terms. Previously, the two-term limit had been an unofficial precedent set by George Washington.

“No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice,” states the Twenty-Second Amendment. “And no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.”

But it’s not the first time that Trump has hinted he’d be open to skirting the ironclad rule. At a National Rifle Association convention earlier this year, Trump likened his future running the country to Roosevelt’s tenure.

“You know, FDR 16 years—almost 16 years—he was four terms. I don’t know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?” Trump said, allowing some people in the gun-loving crowd to cheer “three” in response, according to Politico.

Trump also floated the idea on the campaign trail in 2020, before he lost to President Joe Biden, bizarrely claiming he was entitled to a “redo” of his first term due to an FBI counterintelligence investigation that had examined Russia’s efforts to thwart the 2016 election. (That investigation found that Trump interacted with individuals with direct ties to the Russian government and that the foreign power had meddled in the U.S. election in an effort to aid Trump and hurt then–Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.)

Luckily, the process of repealing or changing an amendment likely won’t change anytime soon, even with a Republican trifecta at the federal level, as it requires overwhelming public support. As outlined in Article 5 of the Constitution, any such change requires at least two-thirds of the Senate and the House to agree on the modification, with that change then requiring ratification by a minimum of three-quarters of states in the nation.

A second approach to repealing the term-limiting amendment could be via a constitutional convention, though two-thirds of states would need to support the motion to have one at all, and any proposed changes to an amendment would still require ratification by three-fourths of the states.

The Trump transition team continues to spell out exactly how they’ll destroy the Justice Department—starting with kicking out anyone who isn’t completely and mindlessly devoted to pushing their agenda.

Mark Paoletta, a conservative lawyer heading Trump’s transition, on Wednesday used X as a bully pulpit to threaten Justice Department lawyers.

“Career DOJ lawyers must be fully committed to implementing President Trump’s policies or they should leave or be fired,” the Trump aide wrote in a lengthy post on X. “If the president wants to deport illegal aliens, secure the border, ban race-based ‘affirmative action’ and DEI, investigate antisemitism, halt Big Tech censorship, grant pardons and commutations to Jan 6th defendants, he has every right to expect that these perfectly lawful policies are implemented, and it is absolutely unacceptable for career employees to seek to thwart this policy agenda.”

Paoletta went on to name two times in which he essentially accused Justice Department lawyers of treason. He alleged that DOJ lawyers were “too busy” to handle a case regarding “racial discrimination” toward white and Asian applicants at Yale, and blocked an investigation into a Covid-19 nursing home deaths cover-up in New York under then-Governor Andrew Cuomo. “The Deep State should not be allowed to subvert the will of the American people,” wrote Paoletta.

Top Republican strategist Cleta Mitchell, who infamously helped Trump pressure Georgia officials to “find” the necessary votes for him to win the 2020 election, chimed in too. “Every lawyer in the Voting Section and likely in the Civil Rights Division needs to be terminated. They are not supportive of Pres Trump or MAGA,” Mitchell replied on X. “There has to be a reckoning. These are leftwing activists who have come from and should return to their leftwing organizations.”

Republicans at every level are going mask-off, preparing themselves for what may be a sweeping, McCarthy-like witch hunt for this so-called “enemy within.” Justice Department lawyers will have to kiss the ring or risk being fired.

Only hours after Donald Trump was elected president, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement put gears in motion to expand its surveillance capabilities, likely in anticipation of the president-elect’s promise for the largest deportation scheme in history. 

ICE published a Request for Information on November 6 seeking information about expanding its Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, or ISAP, part of the government’s Alternatives to Detention program, according to Wired. 

Currently, ISAP monitors around 200,000 undocumented immigrants using a combination of ankle monitors, GPS tracking smart watches, and apps that use biometric facial recognition software. 

ICE’s current contractor for ISAP, B.I. Incorporated, is owned by private prison company Geo Group, which was the single biggest winner in the stock market the day after Trump was elected. Geo Group’s $2.4 billion contract with ICE is set to expire next year.  

But ICE’s Request for Information stated that it isn’t a request for proposals from vendors that can provide the tools for ISAP. Rather, it’s a way for the company to signal its anticipated needs in the coming months, “thereby delivering capabilities faster” and encouraging competition among potential vendors. 

The posting sought industry information about monitoring devices, as well as other services that would aid in Trump’s plan to rip 20 million immigrants out of their homes and communities. As of 2022, there were only 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country, but Trump has said that he intends to also remove immigrants who have obtained temporary protected status. There are roughly 860,000 people in the U.S. under temporary protected status.

One request was for information about “participant coordination services,” meaning physical space, staff, and administrative capabilities for monitoring large numbers of people. The posting also requested information about “community services,” including legal assistance, therapeutic and psychosocial support, medical services, food, and clothing. 

While the details of Trump’s “bloody” deportation scheme are unclear, they do involve camps for staging deportations. 

ICE was already planning to expand ISAP’s parent program before Trump won. In a 2023 notice, ICE said that Alternatives to Detention would be rebranded and expanded to monitor every single nondetained person awaiting a court hearing or deportation—around 5.7 million people, according to the agency. 

If ICE is actually able to expand its capabilities to monitor nearly six million people, it will have increased its capacity by 3,000 percent, according to Wired. The potential industry boom already has private prison owners sniffing the air. In an earnings call last week, Geo Group’s CEO George Zoley called a second Trump administration “an unprecedented opportunity.”

While the private prison industry stands to make billions off Trump’s deportation plans, it’s worth noting that ripping millions of workers out of the country will crater the economy. 

Last week, Trump said he would have “no choice” but to carry out the mass deportations he promised on the campaign trail. “It’s not a question of a price tag. It’s not—really, we have no choice. When people have killed and murdered, when drug lords have destroyed countries, and now they’re going to go back to those countries because they’re not staying here. There is no price tag,” he said.

Donald Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba said she would consider a possible appointment from the president-elect to be White House press secretary “very seriously.”

Mediaite reported Tuesday that Habba was a top candidate for the position, citing four sources. On Fox News Tuesday night, Sean Hannity asked if there was any truth to the report, and initially, she tried to deflect.

“I’d leave it to the president and three people that are on my board of directors: That’s Luke, Chloe, and Parker, my children,” Habba said. “Everybody’ll know in time.”

Hannity pressed further, asking if there were any “discussions about it,” and Habba again deflected, pivoting to Trump’s “amazing Cabinet” and the work of his transition team. Hannity then directly asked what Habba would do if Trump asked her to serve in his administration.

“I am very loyal to President Trump. I would think about it. Very seriously,” Habba replied.

As one of Trump’s attorneys, Habba is known for making excuses for Trump’s behavior during his trials in the past year, as well as making very noticeable mistakes in court. One day during Trump’s E. Jean Carroll defamation trial, she was reprimanded 12 times by the judge in the case.

If Trump chooses her as his press secretary, though, her obfuscation and willingness to explain away Trump’s rash actions would probably be an asset in the role. The job entails a lot of spin in presenting what the president wants to the American public and media, and painting Trump in a good light is where she excels. In addition, she would make history if Trump selects her as the first ever Arab American, and first Iraqi American press secretary.