GOP Lawmakers Lick Their Lips for Big Changes in New Trump Term

As he campaigns to return to the White House, Donald Trump has nothing but lofty promises for a second term.

At rallies and in interviews, Trump has declared he’ll fix the border and radically transform citizenship laws, curb inflation, dramatically increase oil production, enact new trade deals, and protect entitlements—all while somehow cutting taxes.

But in the same breath, Trump will often outline an entirely different set of promises for a second term—ones that read more like threats.

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Vowing to be the “retribution” of his followers and carrying years of political grievances, Trump and his campaign have detailed plans to “dismantle the deep state,” investigate federal law enforcement and prosecutors who have investigated or censored him and his allies, all with flotillas of subpoenas issued promptly to back them up.

Caught in the middle of this split-screen vision for a second Trump term is the institution with the power to make or break his vision: Congress.

While there has been close scrutiny of the Trump team’s policy plans and how his allies are mobilizing for January 2025, there has thus far been little attention paid to the role GOP lawmakers might play.

Of course, it’s up in the air whether Republicans would have majorities in the House and Senate next year, and it’s entirely possible Democrats control at least one of the chambers, providing a major check on Trump.

But without the active support of Republican lawmakers, Trump’s power to reshape the country will be far more limited—just as it was during his first term, when his efforts to undo the Affordable Care Act were stalled and, in general, his worst impulses were reined in by a skeptical congressional GOP.

Now, many of the Republicans who thwarted Trump’s most aggressive priorities are gone, replaced by Trump loyalists. And in surveying Republican lawmakers, aides, and Trumpworld sources to piece together Capitol Hill’s role in a Trump second term, one thing became clear last week: instead of containing Trump, a Republican Congress would march in lockstep behind him in MAGA harmony.

Many of these Republicans, for instance, mentioned addressing the border as the top priority and would likely push Trump to make good on his radical immigration promises.

Cracking down on immigration, said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), is “the No. 1 issue to the American people.”

“Not just to Republicans, it’s a major issue for Democrats too and it shows up in polling,” Greene told The Daily Beast. “It’s something he talks about every single rally, every single press conference, every single speech. He talks about border security.”

But for all that GOP lawmakers talked up their eagerness to move forward with Trump’s agenda on the economy, immigration, and other topics, a great many of them are just as eager—if not more so—to tap into Trump’s grievance agenda.

The most important goal of a Trump second term, said Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH)—a staunch Trump ally—would be to “prevent the Department of Justice from being weaponized against future American citizens and administrations,” and they would do that without a “partisan spin to it.”

“There's going to be a lot going on. I think there’s going to be a pretty aggressive effort to try to curtail some of the abuses of the administrative state, especially the DOJ bureaucracy,” Vance said. “I think all these things can be pretty much on the table.”

That vision is widely shared. “A key priority will be reining in the federal bureaucracy that has operated with impunity for far too long,” a senior GOP aide told The Daily Beast. “A Republican House and Senate will be crucial to accomplishing that goal.”

Trump has already made clear his desire to leverage GOP power in Congress to aid in what he has already promised to be a vengeful second term. As he told supporters last year, “I am your warrior. I am your justice, and for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”

In a video on his website, Trump said he would ask Congress “to establish an independent auditing system to continually monitor our intelligence agencies to ensure they are not spying on our citizens or running disinformation campaigns against the American people, or that they are not spying on someone's campaign like they spied on my campaign.”

Several Republicans noted how the changing makeup of Congress would translate to more outright support for Trump.

Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), a former Trump aide himself, said that unlike in his first administration, a second Trump term could see both branches working together in better harmony.

One Trumpworld operative seconded Miller’s point, predicting Trump would wield significantly more congressional support for his policies and goals, especially in the chamber that often halted his legislative priorities in the first term: the Senate.

Notably, Trump critic Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will have stepped down as Senate GOP Leader by January 2025. He could be replaced by someone like Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), a staunch ally, who will lead a more MAGA Senate conference than ever.

“A lot of those people who are constantly working against him in the Senate are no longer going to be in the Senate,” the Trumpworld operative told The Daily Beast. “And in their place are a collection of more Trump-flavored senators who he backed and has direct relationships with from when they ran… I think the increase in pro-Trump senators, who he has built relationships with is going to be a big factor moving forward in terms of getting his policy agenda passed.”

The leadership picture is unclear in the chaotic House, but it’s certain the days of a GOP Speaker like Paul Ryan feebly trying to rein in Trump are over. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is a staunch ally of the former president.

While Johnson currently faces an immediate threat to his job, he has already talked to Trump about working together next year.

Johnson told The Daily Beast he and Trump speak “frequently” about his second administration, but declined to delve into specifics about what plans he has for a second Trump administration, other than saying that Trump “has great plans for the next administration.”

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“It’s important for the Speaker of the House and the President to have a good, close working relationship,” Johnson said.

To Democrats and Trump-skeptical Republicans, the prospect of the former president returning to the White House with an eager, MAGA-fied congressional GOP ready to green-light his agenda is downright terrifying.

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA)—a popular punching bag for Republicans, including the former president—said Trump would take a “wrecking ball” to the freedoms many people care about.

“Any of his perceived enemies would be targeted,” Swalwell told The Daily Beast. “He’s already said, ‘Day one dictator,’ and we should take him at his word.”

While the investigation and retribution tour Trump wants to embark on would purportedly be at the forefront of a future administration, the former president and his team have laid out extensive priorities he wants to accomplish if he takes back control of the Oval Office.

While there will be an abundance of Republican support for Trump’s plans to overhaul immigration law, cut taxes, and negotiate new trade deals, even GOP majorities in Congress might be hard-pressed to get everything done. Over the past two years, the legislative branch has been hard-pressed to accomplish just about anything of significance as bitter partisanship has overwhelmed both chambers.

When asked about Trump’s plans for a second term, some GOP lawmakers unsurprisingly talked about the executive actions he might take immediately after being inaugurated.

One of Trump’s first moves—if not his first move—upon getting into the Oval Office would likely be to re-implement border security measures such as ending catch-and-release, Title 42, and “remain in Mexico” through executive order, a Trumpworld source said.

Ending catch-and-release would prevent U.S. Border Patrol from releasing migrants caught crossing the border illegally into the country while they await their immigration hearing, “remain in Mexico” would require migrants seeking asylum to stay in Mexico while they await their immigration court date, and reinstating Title 42—a COVID-19 era policy—would allow the federal government to turn away migrants attempting to seek asylum.

“President Trump would take action day one to secure America's border,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) told The Daily Beast.

However, just as easily as Trump would implement those practices via executive order, a future administration could end them—just ask President Joe Biden. Codifying these measures into law would be of the utmost importance to Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill.

“This time, when he’s back in, I want us to codify everything that he signed in executive order,” Miller said. “Let’s get these guys and gals to actually codify it into law so if a Democrat wins right after President Trump—God forbid that happens—we can actually have a sustainable country that is not going to be subject to the whims of a man or a woman signing a piece of paper that can upend the entire country just as President Biden did.”

The Trumpworld source said that if Trump were to win a second term, it would serve as a mandate to pass MAGA policy. There would be considerable political pressure on Republican members to give Trump what he wants when it comes to immigration, whether that be money for a border wall or codifying the border security policies of his first term.

Given that Trump pushed Republicans to reject a bipartisan border deal that revived many of his policies in order to deny Biden a political win, that pressure will be even higher.

But Republicans are also thinking about economic policy—chiefly Trump’s first-term tax cuts, which are set to expire at the end of 2025. Sources say extending those cuts, which disproportionately benefited the wealthy, would be a top priority for the former president.

“I think you’re gonna see some effort to make the tax reform of the first Trump administration long-term, at least certain parts of it,” Vance said.

Multiple senior GOP congressional aides and the Trumpworld source expect Trump would make a big push to extend the tax cuts and congressional Republicans would be willing to help him get that done.

“Tax cuts are going to be really important,” House Republican Conference Secretary Lisa McClain (R-MI) told The Daily Beast when asked about a second Trump presidency.

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A senior GOP aide stressed that the “tax bill is looked favorably by most members despite the speed bumps it faced in passing.”

But there’s one thorny spot where Trump and congressional Republicans could diverge: Social Security and Medicare.

Some in Congress believe that, in a possible second term, there would be intense pressure on Trump to pursue cutting entitlements in an effort to rein in government spending, which is one of the GOP’s most long-standing policy dreams.

But Democrats have seized on GOP rhetoric—from Trump allies like Sen. Scott—in support of slashing entitlement benefits to argue that a second Trump term would result in sweeping changes to programs Americans depend on.

Understanding the toxicity of that position, Trump has insisted he would “never do anything that will jeopardize or hurt Social Security or Medicare,” but conservative lawmakers will put pressure on him to change these programs—just as they did during his first term.

Famously, Ryan argued with Trump over his decision not to touch entitlements in his first term. “He and I fought about Medicare and entitlement reform all the time,” Ryan said in 2022 at an event hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. “It became clear to me there was no way he wanted to embrace that.”

With Trump signaling that a second term would be no different regarding entitlements, some Republicans want—many Republicans hope that new leadership atop the House could make those conversations quite different—even if Johnson and his team are far more submissive to Trump.

“If the Speaker could convince Trump entitlement reform is absolutely necessary, that would be a high priority,” a senior GOP aide told The Daily Beast. “Ryan, with all of his wonky charts, couldn’t get there, but Trump never really seemed to like Ryan anyway, so maybe Johnson has a better shot?”

Trump allies, however, have a clear view of what Republican lawmakers would do on this, or any other issue.

When asked about Republicans potentially stifling Trump’s goals in a second term, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon had a simple answer.

“They won’t,” Bannon said. “He controls [the] Republican Party.”