Despite sharing the same name, Donald J. Trump is a very different individual as the 47th president compared to the 45th.
He’s more confident now, ready to take on the courts and the Constitution head-on, and he can expect more allegiance from Republicans; he also has no problem swearing in public or on social media.
To be sure, Trump 2.0 competes with his predecessor in a number of significant ways; for example, he has no recollection of having appointed individuals whose positions he now despises.
Against the people he had appointed (
Aides to President Trump are considering removal of Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell, whom Trump appointed to the position during his first term in office. In an unprecedented move, Trump informed House Republicans that he had written a letter to fire the Federal Reserve chairman. Market participants, take note!
Even though he had chosen Powell, Trump appeared to forget about it during Wednesday’s White House meeting.
“I was taken aback by his appointment,” Trump stated. “To be honest, I was taken aback by Biden’s decision to include and extend him, but they did.” Powell was renominated by Biden. Trump either doesn’t recall or is actively trying to ignore his part in it.
In the event that Trump decides to challenge the independence of the Federal Reserve and attempts to remove Powell from office, he will cite a building restoration project that began during his first term in office.
Christopher Wray, who had been named director of the FBI during Trump’s first term, resigned before his official dismissal was announced, opting to leave office early.
against the Supreme Court, AWN has covered Trump’s private complaints against his choice for Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
Reversing his own contract with the trading
Trump is essentially bringing up his own past self when he says that Mexico and Canada are “taking advantage” of former US presidents and threatening to impose heavy taxes on them.
Negotiations for the USMCA, a reimagining of NAFTA, were carried out by Trump’s first term government. At the time, it was considered his trade policy’s crowning achievement.
Changes in the realm of social media and cryptocurrency
Perhaps related to his family’s business interests, he has also changed his mind about bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
Furthermore, Trump has changed his mind about banning TikTok in the US. Now that he has won over young men in the previous election, he is eager for a US-based corporation to acquire the site.
He’s destroying himself with a fury, according to Tim Naftali, the AWN presidential historian.
Everyone associated with Trump’s first term, who was moderate and mainstream in their policy views, is leaving. We are welcoming outsiders and MAGA leaders.
Aftali made the comment, “Donald Trump clearly is angry about what his advisers forced him to do in the first term,” mentioning trade policies in particular.
“Considering his first term, his approach to Canada and Mexico is puzzling, unless you consider that he was unhappy with the results of that term,” he stated.
A another example of a Trump 2.0 adjustment is vaccines.
Despite the country’s virtual shutdown because of the COVID-19 outbreak, Naftali praised Trump for Operation Warp Speed, the initiative to rapidly create a vaccine.
Instead of continuing that tradition, Trump appointed vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to the position of director of health and human services, a position that Trump had previously held.
Kennedy replaced a vaccine advisory council at the CDC with vaccine skeptics and dismissed all of their members.
Several AWN newscasters and reporters who focus on international relations, economics, and the environment were approached with the notion of Trump 2.0 as a correction to Trump 1.0.
He is becoming less predictable and is listening to less counsel on international issues.
Trump is more willing to listen to his instincts and is more assertive this time, according to AWN’s Jim Sciutto, who authored a book called The Madman Theory on Trump’s first term foreign policy.
SCIUTTO: When it comes to foreign policy, President Trump is showing no signs of letting advisors or counsel discourage him from taking bolder actions in his second term. Even though Gen. John Kelly and John Bolton were able to dissuade him from abruptly withdrawing from NATO in 2018, many, including former administration officials, are worried that his current advisors won’t be able to do the same.
The most common worry I hear from international authorities is a lack of clarity. They question the president’s ability to follow through on his promises, whether it be over tariffs or military aid to Ukraine. Any given day, the state of the financial markets or the White House’s assessment of domestic politics might make a trade accord seem like a temporary arrangement. Even more importantly, Trump’s assessment of Putin’s position on peace negotiations determines the level of support for Ukraine, which European leaders view as crucial to the security of the whole continent.
The US strikes on Iran are a prime example of Trump’s readiness to make tough decisions, something his predecessors shied away from. A coherent and predictable worldview is what domestic and international observers are anticipating.
When it comes to trading, he’s being inconsistent.
Nightcap newsletter writer Allison Morrow of AWN Business concurs that this president is different, but she notes that there is one significant aspect in which he is unchanged.
ON WEDNESDAY: While I agree with Tim Naftali, I do not see how Trump is trying to reverse USMCA, which was really a reorganization of NAFTA. Whatever Trump 2.0’s tariff policy is, it will be completely ineffective in the real world. Cutting deals undermines the goal of using tariffs to restore US manufacturing because it removes the motivation for corporations to invest in local production. The White House continues to remain silent on the question of how they believe tariffs can accomplish all of their stated goals simultaneously, despite our repeated exposés of the inherent inconsistencies in his tariff philosophy. What stands out to me most about Trump 2.0 compared to Trump 1.0 is the fact that almost nothing has changed.
At his core, I believe Trump seeks to evade responsibility. Because of this, he has introduced tariffs to the market gradually and then retreated when bond prices dropped. He wants to know how far he can go without making a huge mess of the economy and finances.
Reducing Medicaid spending instead of doing away with Obamacare
The lessons Trump and his staff took away from his first term are equally evident. Cuts to Medicaid funding in the future will have the same impact as repealing Obamacare, removing health insurance from millions of low-income Americans over the next few years.
Transforming statements into deeds
Trump has been more aggressive this term with news organizations, according to AWN’s chief media analyst Brian Stelter.
STELTER: He’s not content to just criticize independent media sources on Twitter; he’s actively working to punish them while giving MAGA pundits more power and visibility. Just look at the current news story: PBS and NPR are about to lose funding. Although Trump was vocal in his criticism of the media throughout his first term in office, he did nothing to back up his claims. The money would have been eliminated under his administration’s proposed yearly budgets, but they were unsuccessful in getting Congress to implement them.
As his second term begins, Trump appears to have a better grasp on how to manipulate events. Republican lawmakers were convinced to support a DOGE-branded rescission, which was approved by both the House and the Senate, after he (or rather, his advisors) attacked the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in several ways.
This is the culmination of four years of preparation.
According to Kristen Holmes, a senior white house correspondent for AWN, Trump isn’t necessarily destroying his first term; rather, she thinks he is more equipped for this one.
Trump and his supporters have a whole four years to get ready for his second term as president, according to Holmes. In order to start implementing his program on Day 1, his allies utilized that time to plan out a second term agenda, identify any obstacles, and come up with solutions.
When Trump ran for office in 2016, even his own supporters were taken aback by his victory. The transition was minimal at best, and Trump was mostly dependent on Republican lawmakers in Washington, DC, to staff his administration and advise him, many of whom disagreed with his policies. Even though he had an idea of what he wanted to accomplish, he was clueless as to how to really execute it. He is now coordinating his efforts with nearly every department in his government, and they are yielding the desired results.
Even with Trump’s primary issue—immigration—Holmes’ thesis remains. Compared to his previous term, he is doing a better job of carrying out mass deportations. Now that Congress is more amenable to his demands, he can build the wall he wants, transform Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) into the most powerful and well-funded law enforcement agency in the country, and get the support of Republican governors to open additional detention facilities to house all illegal immigrants, not just the dangerous ones he plans to deport. The nation will appear very different upon his departure from office compared to its appearance following his first term.