In Trump's Second Term, a Bolder President Charges Ahead Unchecked

[In It to Win It]

WSJ - Gift Link

Some aides to Donald Trump warned the president that building a ballroom at the White House would force them to tear down part of the East Wing and disrupt daily operations and tours, according to people familiar with the discussions. Trump said he would build it anyway, and the contract was given to builders chosen by the White House.

In his first term, administration officials regularly curbed Trump’s impulses on matters big and small, including on tariffs, immigration and controlling the Federal Reserve.

In his second, Trump has been surrounded by fewer people who try to dissuade him, according to White House officials, Trump allies and observers of the presidency.

“I think he’s learned there is not much that can really stop him from what he wants,” said Marc Short, who was Trump’s director of legislative affairs in his first term.

In recent days, Trump renewed a call to end mail-in voting, announced a new policy of coercing local governments into abandoning cashless-bail polices, threatened to send the military to Baltimore and said he’d like to send it to New York and Chicago as well, all of which pushes the bounds of his authority.

This is a real photograph of Washington, DC this week, where the United States president has ordered military occupation in peacetime, and ordered the display of colossal portraits of himself.

www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

— Michael Clemens (@mclem.org) 2025-08-28T10:24:15.378Z

[CincyDem]

1. Trumpism a la pre-2003 Baghdad. Change out the pic and the flag and the scene looks familiar. n/t

[hatrack]

2. Nice normalization! I remember when WSJ used to be a newspaper . . .

Now it's Business Pravda on the Hudson.

[Fiendish Thingy]

3. Unchecked?

Alligator Alcatraz is going to be empty in a few days, Lisa Cook is still on the Fed’s board of Governors, Kilmer Albrego Garcia is still on American soil, and California will soon have five new democratic house seats.

Trump is not omnipotent, and the states and the people are not powerless.

[newdeal2]

4. Maybe we need to lure Ivanka and Jared back to the White House

They can contain 10% of his urges.

[Blue Owl]

5. He's bolder because you M$M fucks emboldened him with your shitty journalism

[Redleg]

6. Spot on. They appear to lack the capacity for accurate self-assessment.

This is the kind of shit that got us a second Trump term. It looks like it will continue unabated.