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There are strong groundsto believe that Trump will pursue revenge against his domestic adversaries. His choice of Patel, an ultra-loyalist with a published enemies list, as the next FBI director is exhibit A. Though Trump’s first pick for attorney-general, Matt Gaetz, had to drop out amid a storm of sex allegations, his new nominee, Pam Bondi, is a diehard supporter. Pete Hegseth, his pick for secretary of defence, has built a Fox TV persona oncalling out political correctness and alleged un-American sentiments at the Pentagon. Tulsi Gabbard, his choice for director of national intelligence, is a sworn enemy of the “deep state”.
But there is a large contingent of Washingtonobservers who think (perhaps wishfully) that Trump, who turns 79 in June,will take to the golf course even more than before. Other Trump picks, such as Marco Rubio for secretary of state, Mike Waltz as national security adviser and Scott Bessent as Treasury secretary, are more business-as-usual. His son-in-lawJared Kushnerhas been telling people thathe has never seen Trump as happy as he has been since November 5.The spectre of prison time and the onslaught of investigations are now behind him.
“Trump’s retribution will be a strong economy,” says Susie Wiles, his 2024 campaign manager and incoming White House chief of staff. “Over time a lot of the strong feelings have gone away.”(not for MAGA)
Though she is close to Trump, Wiles’ view is in the minority. Maga folklore says that Trump was provoked into another run by the Biden administration’s “lawfare” against him. But the sequence implies, if anything, that it was Trump’s renewed White House run that triggered the legal investigations, not the other way round.Merrick Garland, Biden’s outgoing attorney-general, onlyappointed Jack Smithas special counsel on November 18 2022.That came three days after Trump had launchedhis 2024 campaign at a sparsely attended event in Mar-a-Lago.
The flurry of cases against Trump only propelled his public ratings.. To parts of blue-collar America, Trump was a victim of the same forces they despise — overzealous prosecutors and self-righteous liberals. To some in plutocratic America, Trump’s hatred of the deep state sounded like a much-desired war on bureaucracy and regulation.To some minorities, including a remarkably large share of young men of all races, Trump was their cudgelagainst what they consider to be a distinctly gendered new form of political correctness.
“Why do you think Trump got so many young male African-American and Hispanic votes?” asks Bannon.“They also see the system as rigged against them.”
In March 2023, Trump ignited the base when he vowed that “I will be your retribution”. In the 24 hours after Trump was found guilty in New York over his misuse of hush money payments to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, he raised a record in small donations.His second biggest fundraising dayfor small donations came in August 2023, when=he released a photo of his police mugshotafter his indictment in Georgia on election-interference charges.
In retrospect, the cases came not only too late, they were also key to Trump’s resurgence.
Trump’s transition this timeis the mirror image of 2016. Then he fought a renegade campaign that was shunned until the last minute by the Republican establishment and run by an ever-changing cast of outsiders who did not expect him to defeat Hillary Clinton. Neither did Trump. Lacking a plan after the election, Trump appointed a team of so-called adults to run his administration.
This time, his campaign was run by seasoned professionals— led by Wiles and Chris LaCivita — while most of his nominees for senior positions are Maga believers. People associated with the Heritage Foundation-led Project 2025 — a compendious blueprint for Trumpism in action — are heavily represented.
“Those who are worried that Trump is coming for them should be worried,” says Bannon. “It is what the base expects.” Wiles disagrees. One of them will soon be proved right.
Trump has also taken far more detailed interest in the staffing of his administration. In 2016, he picked a handful of cabinet principals and left the lower-level appointments to others.This time, he has personally interviewed candidates for dozens of second-order jobs, such as the head of the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, the Internal Revenue Service, the civil rights division of the Department of Justice and numerous other jobs.
Trump’s round-the-clock auditioning at Mar-a-Lago has no parallel to earlier transitions, including Trump 1.0. “His attention to personnel selection is remarkable,” says Wiles.
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