24 Jan 2025

Businessman means business: Donald Trump back in White House

President Trump feels more emboldened than before. He and his team have successfully framed his 2024 win as a landslide, with a mandate to go more boldly and brashly than he did before.

With President Trump, his ability to dominate, to fascinate, to frighten, comes from two competing traits: he’s predictable and unpredictable.

Nothing in his first few days is surprising, yet he still has the ability to shock. His team kept saying there would be a blitzkrieg of executive orders on day one. We were told he’d pardon January 6 rioters; that he would attempt to expand American territories.

None of it should surprise therefore, but it’s because he goes all in. Vice President JD Vance had said he wouldn’t pardon every rioter, then the president did. Trump said he would look into taking the Panama Canal and Greenland, then he added to the list, Mars, of all planets.

This all points to a president who feels more emboldened than before. Again, that should not be a surprise.

Despite a narrow win in the popular vote, when compared to victors such as Joe Biden and Barack Obama, Trump and his team have successfully framed his 2024 win as a landslide, with a mandate to go more boldly and brashly than he did before. We have also known for a long time that Trump’s team have learnt their lessons from the first administration and do not want to waste any time attempting to implement his agenda.

But there is real unpredictability.

President Trump is a political and celebrity mastermind, overseeing a broad church of support. He has his base, the Maga faithful, who want him to pursue an America First agenda. There is the Republican Party itself, which while moulded around him like never before, still won’t go along with everything he does and says. And then there are the tech billionaires in his court who clearly are happy with his cultural manoeuvrings, but do their own business interests align with the American worker?

Elon Musk reacts as President Donald Trump speaks after taking the oath of office at the 60th Presidential Inauguration in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
Elon Musk reacts as President Donald Trump speaks after taking the oath of office at the 60th Presidential Inauguration in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington.

We are already seeing this play out. After the president announced investment in AI, Elon Musk questioned the move. Musk’s criticism was then attacked by Trump’s former adviser, Steve Bannon, who has openly said the Tesla and X owner should be kicked out of the Maga movement. Remember, Musk and Bannon already had differences over US visas for highly skilled workers from overseas.

Then go back to the pardoning of January 6 rioters. Some Republicans on Capitol Hill have either spoken out about that decision, and on his executive orders – such as the move to end birthright citizenship, that one US judge has ruled “blatantly unconstitutional” – there has not been a ringing endorsement.

I spoke to Senator Shelley Moore Capito, from West Virginia, who said on that matter: “I think he’s set forward his opinion and the direction he wants to take the country. I’m sure some of this will probably be sorted out by the courts.” Senator Steve Daines simply told me: “I went to engineering school, not law school, I’ll let the lawyers sort that out. But I love his bold vision for America.”

How does this all play out with voters? I spoke to one outside the Capital One Arena on the day of inauguration. Jack, from Kentucky, said he was a proud union man, had voted Democrat before, but gone with President Trump this time around. “Can he make a difference? We’re hoping so. Can it be what we really need? Maybe it’s hard to get to that point.”

What struck me was his hesitancy around the president’s relationship with individuals like Musk. “Musk does worry me in his position of being one of the smartest, richest men. Are there problems there? I do have my reservations.”

President Donald Trump holds up a signed executive order regarding cryptocurrency in the Oval Office of the White House.
President Donald Trump holds up a signed executive order regarding cryptocurrency in the Oval Office of the White House.

In all these disputes ahead, Trump is chief decider and kingmaker, and given he is both predictable and unpredictable, nor a particular ideologue, he could go any way on any issue. Many voters and politicians have gone along with Trump because they believe in his overarching vision, and are willing to let go of some of the more outlandish parts of his posturing because they believe there is a difference in what he says and what he does.

That will be a big test ahead. Trump 2.0 is a president clearly on a mission to settle scores and cement his legacy. On that, I think it is telling who his new presidential hero is. Last time around, Trump liked the seventh president, Andrew Jackson, the original American populist.

Now, he’s a fan of William McKinley, a commander-in-chief known for tariffs and American territorial expansionism. He was also assassinated in 1901, meaning he never got to see out a full second term. Trump, who said he was saved by God to make America great again, appears to see himself as, in some ways, carrying out what McKinley and he both started.

Does that mean that the talk around tariffs, deportations, Canada and Greenland are therefore not bluster but actual business? We wait and see. It’s not even been a week.

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