Donald Trump’s Mandate Is a Myth

Donald Trump and his allies have characterized the 2024 election as an overwhelming victory—and a mandate for shock politics, mass deportations, and the transformation of the country’s foreign and domestic policy. There’s just one problem: They didn’t actually win by much. 

CNN’s Harry Enten reports that Trump is now under 50 percent for the popular vote, and his margin is the forty-fourth worst out of 51 presidential elections since 1824. Four Democrats won Senate seats in states that Trump won (Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nevada), compared to zero in the 2016 and 2020 elections. And while Republicans held onto their House majority, if results hold, their 221–214 margin will be the smallest majority in the 50-state era. 

Trump’s appointments are not going to help with the House’s Republican majority, with many of Trump’s choices being elected GOP members. These include Representatives Elise Stefanik as his U.N. ambassador, Mike Waltz as his national security adviser, and Matt Gaetz (who has already resigned) as his attorney general, among others. 

Republicans will point out that Trump in 2024 became the first GOP presidential candidate to win the popular vote since 2004 and the second since 1988, but he will arrive in office with a narrow majority in the Senate as well—just a three-seat majority if Democratic Senator Bob Casey loses his seat, which he looks likely to.  

Trump will have a hard time passing his legislative agenda in either house of Congress, although some on his team have signaled alternative means of getting what he wants, in the form of recess appointments. Trump’s dangerous plan for mass deportations wouldn’t even need congressional approval: He wants to involve the U.S. military by declaring a national emergency. And if Congress wants to stop him on this or any other action, it would take an overwhelming majority, which, no matter how weak his mandate, isn’t likely to happen.  

Yesterday’s “poison” is tomorrow’s presidential Cabinet meal.

Over the weekend, key members of Donald Trump’s incoming administration were photographed eating McDonald’s aboard the president-elect’s private plane, including one member who recently derided Trump for his highly processed diet: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Sitting across from Trump, Kennedy was spotted with a burger, fries, chicken nuggets, and a Coca-Cola, while the MAGA leader smiled for the camera.

This comes after Kennedy’s interview Tuesday with The Joe Polish Show, during which the secretary of health and human services nominee blasted Trump’s diet as “really, like, bad.”

“Campaign food is always bad, but the food that goes onto that airplane is like just poison,” Kennedy told the show. “You have a choice between—you don’t have the choice, you’re either given KFC or Big Macs. That’s when you’re lucky, and then the rest of the stuff I consider kind of inedible.”

But it’s not just the food that’s the problem. Kennedy also lambasted Trump’s drink options, though his obvious preferences didn’t stop him from partaking with the president-elect.

“And then he [drinks] Diet Coke,” Kennedy told the show. “I was with Dana White the other day … he’s very close to Trump, they’ve had a relationship for 20 years through UFC.

“He said that sometimes he’ll sit through a fight with Trump—and he’s [there for] five hours [during] the fight—and said he has never seen Trump drink a glass of water. Never,” Kennedy said.

The photo op, which ultimately showcases a former independent presidential candidate bending the proverbial knee to Trump’s preferences, doesn’t bode well for the implementation of some of Kennedy’s purported chief policy goals, which include tackling the prevalence of chronic illnesses in the country, such as diabetes and obesity.

Donald Trump confirmed Monday that he’s plotting to use the U.S. military to carry out his massive deportation scheme.

The president-elect shared a post on Truth Social in the early hours of Monday morning that claimed “reports” suggested Trump’s administration was “prepared to declare a national emergency and will use military assets to reverse the Biden invasion.”

“TRUE!!!” Trump wrote in response.

Trump’s latest pronouncement comes as Republicans attempt to downplay just how extreme his immigration plans will be.

In an interview Sunday with CNN, House Speaker Mike Johnson pushed back on assertions that Trump planned to deport all undocumented immigrants, which could lead to widespread family separation and a significant reduction in the U.S. workforce. Johnson said that the government’s efforts would begin with criminals and terrorists, of which he speculated there were “three or four million people.”

“Begin there, and then see how it transpires,” Johnson said.

Texas Representative Tony Gonzales said Sunday that if the Trump administration were to target undocumented immigrants for deportation, that would mean that the “government has failed us.”

Trump has said that he plans to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1789 to expel suspected members of drug cartels from the country without due process, but the reality of Trump’s immigration scheme suggests that the government plans to target more than violent criminals.

White nationalist Stephen Miller, who is expected to serve as White House deputy chief of staff for policy, said that Trump’s immigration plan involves sweeping raids for undocumented immigrants and large detainment camps to stage deportations. Miller also said that Trump planned to target those in the country legally and would revoke legal protections such as birthright citizenship, DACA, and temporary protected status—leaving millions more in danger of being deported.

Trump’s new “border czar,” Tom Homan, said last week that he expected support from the U.S. military and special operations to carry out their immigration blitz.

It’s not just Matt Gaetz. The Trump transition team is worried about another set of heinous allegations tanking one of its most important Cabinet picks.

Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump Trump’s first pick for the Department of Defense, was investigated by California police over accusations of sexual assault in 2017.

The alleged assault occurred on the night of October 7 at a hotel Hegseth stayed at while attending the California Federation of Republican Women conference. The allegation to police was made five days later, according to the police report. The woman who accused Hegseth had a bruise on her right thigh.

The allegations, which were unknown to the transition team until shared via complaint, have left them scrambling. “There’s a lot of frustration around this,” an anonymous source close to the situation told The Washington Post. “He hadn’t been properly vetted.”

But on the outside, the future administration is rallying behind the Defense Department nominee. 

“President Trump is nominating high-caliber and extremely qualified candidates to serve in his Administration,” said Trump communications chief Steven Cheung. “Mr. Hegseth has vigorously denied any and all accusations, and no charges were filed. We look forward to his confirmation as United States Secretary of Defense so he can get started on Day One to Make America Safe and Great Again.” The president-elect himself has been accused of sexual assault and misconduct two dozen times over decades.

Hegseth, a military veteran and former Fox and Friends host, has also made headlines for a questionable tattoo. Hegseth was actually banned from working as a National Guardsman at President Biden’s inauguration after pictures of a tattoo on his bicep reading “Deus Vult” surfaced. Meaning “God wills it,” the term, which originated in the Crusades, has been deeply co-opted by Proud Boys, Three Percenters, and other white Christian nationalist groups. The phrase has been used by January 6 insurrectionists, the white nationalists who rioted in Charlottesville in 2017, and by the man who shot and killed 49 Muslims at a mosque in New Zealand in 2019.  

Hegseth’s own positions could certainly be described as Christian nationalist. 

“Our present moment is much like the 11th Century. We don’t want to fight, but, like our fellow Christians one thousand years ago, we must,” he wrote in his book American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free. “Arm yourself—metaphorically, intellectually, physically. Our fight is not with guns. Yet.”

Hegseth also despises the idea of women and trans people serving in the military, and is extremely bigoted toward Muslims. Like the sexual assault allegations, he has denied any ties to Christian nationalism, claiming on X that he is the victim of “anti-Christian bigotry.” He actually cites the inauguration banning as what made him realize the military was too “woke” for him. 

“I joined the Army in 2001 because I wanted to serve my country. Extremists attacked us on 9/11, and we went to war,” Hegseth wrote in his book The War on Warriors. “Twenty years later, I was deemed an ‘extremist’ by that very same Army … the military I loved, I fought for, I revered … spit me out.” 

The impact of these allegations, and the tattoos, on Hegseth’s Defense Department nomination remain to be seen.

Elon Musk is starting to clash with Donald Trump’s team on some of the president-elect’s key issues, especially tariffs. 

The Washington Post reports that Musk is trying to persuade Trump regarding Cabinet picks and economic policy, drawing the ire of the president-elect’s other advisers. On Saturday, Musk praised Argentine President Javier Milei in a post on X for cutting tariffs in his country. The central pillar of Trump’s economic program is raising tariffs. 

In another post later on Saturday, Musk endorsed Howard Lutnick, co-chair of Trump’s transition team and CEO of financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, for the post of treasury secretary over hedge fund manager Scott Bessent, who is in the running for the position. Both posts from Musk aren’t going over well with the rest of Trump’s team. 

“People are not happy,” one person in contact with campaign officials told the Post anonymously. Musk’s posts seemed to reflect that the tech CEO and world’s richest man was acting like a “co-president” and beginning to overstep his role, the person added.

Musk’s praise of Lutnick, for example, came before any public statements from the campaign or any announcements from Trump. Musk also called on his followers to weigh in with their opinion on the Cabinet position, which might send a message that he thinks Trump needs some convincing—or pressure.

There is also friction between Musk and Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn, with Axios reporting that the tech mogul thinks Epshteyn, who has pushed for appointments such as Matt Gaetz as attorney general, has too much influence over Trump’s choices. Musk has questioned the qualifications of Epshteyn’s preferred candidates, irking the longtime Trump adviser.  

These disagreements reportedly came to a head last Wednesday at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, where Musk and Epshteyn had an angry exchange at a dinner table. Musk even accused Epshteyn of leaking details about the Trump transition to the media, which Epshteyn denied.  

If Musk gets into a turf war with other members of Trump’s team as Trump’s new presidential administration takes shape, he already has a big advantage. The tech CEO pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into Trump’s campaign, and the president-elect has already included Musk in many important meetings, as well as a phone call to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy just after the election. Last week, Musk even took part in a private meeting with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations in New York, raising questions of whether it was on Trump’s orders.   

Musk has been photographed with members of Trump’s family too, making it look like he has become part of Mar-a-Lago’s furniture and irking Trump’s advisers and staff. It seems that the world’s richest man has bought his way into Trump’s inner circle and won’t be leaving for the foreseeable future.