Early signs from Mar-a-Lago, the Florida club and estate where Trump is building his new administration, suggest that when he moves back into the White House in January, bolstered by a thumping win and a democratic mandate, he will act with maximum force.
Trump has already taken to social media to issue orders to Senate Republicans running in this week’s majority leader election to endorse recess appointments for his Cabinet nominees — and all three candidates quickly signaled they’re open to the idea. He’s showing he plans to rule a GOP monopoly on power — if Republicans win control of the House, which CNN has not yet projected — with unchallenged authority. He sees Congress as a rubber stamp rather than a separate, co-equal branch of government.
In a move that recalled the late-night drama of his first term, Trump posted on Truth Social shortly before midnight that he had named Tom Homan, the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and an advocate of Trump’s plans for mass deportations, as border czar. Homan argued in a recent CBS "60 Minutes" interview that "families could be deported together" but ruled out mass sweeps of neighborhoods or "concentration camps."
His selection is likely to bolster concerns of Trump’s opponents about the former president’s hardline intentions. But the president-elect made no secret of his plans on the campaign trail and his policies will reflect the desire of millions of voters in his governing majority for a wide-ranging shake-up of America’s direction at home and abroad.
For instance, Trump’s decisions herald a new administration infused by outsider populism rather than conventional power brokers. He, for example, ruled out Cabinet posts for Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley, who both had top foreign policy spots last time around. On Sunday, he offered the job of US ambassador to the United Nations to New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, two sources familiar told CNN. And his inclusion of billionaire tech visionary and rabble rouser Elon Musk on a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — a privilege normally reserved for senior foreign policy aides — showed how Trump’s unorthodoxy will challenge every governing convention.