WASHINGTON – It’s like clockwork: Most weekday afternoons, whether he’s due to speak to the press or not, President Donald Trump summons reporters. The Trump Hour is about to begin.
Since returning to office Jan. 20, Trump has used lengthy televised gab sessions − packaged as executive order signings − to make himself ubiquitous to Americans, shooting from the hip on question after question and dominating the news.
The flood of orders, and the verbal provocations that accompany them, are part of an early strategy to overwhelm the system with aggressive policy changes and command the national conversation through brute administrative force, Trump allies and insiders say.
“They’re talking a lot about what they’re doing. And talking about it again, and again, and again,” said Bradley Rateike, a former Trump White House aide. “They see that as a real tool to remind the American people of why they put them there.”
Trump has sought to fire thousands of federal workers, dismantle independent agencies, end birthright citizenship and impose tariffs on countries that have a trade deficit with the U.S. or have aggrieved him in some other way.
The result has been one of the most head-spinning, boundary-pushing and politically polarizing opening stretches of a presidency in modern history. And a second wave of action is expected soon.
Inside Trump’s government blitz:’We haven’t seen anything quite like Musk.’
Trump has quickly laid the groundwork for a consolidation of power through mass firings and the use of executive orders that dictate his funding priorities to Congress. And he’s just getting started.
“There are more executive orders that have been researched,” said Ken Blackwell, a close White House ally at the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute. “I think you’ll be surprised that that pace might not slow down to a screeching halt, or a snail’s pace, because there are stacks of more executive orders that have been thought out.”
Ready for power
It’s an approach that has been refined from Trump’s first term, when he arrived in Washington as a political novice.
Eight years ago, Trump filled out his team with Bush-era appointees and Republican staffers, not all of whom were hard-core MAGA. Leaks abounded as rival aides tried to undercut one another.
More:Trump’s Social Security head admits dead Americans ‘aren’t necessarily’ getting checks
Trump took some big swings, putting controversial travel restrictions on Muslim-majority countries that had to be rewritten after they were blocked in court. And it took his team until the end of his first year in office to get its first major legislative win: the 2017 tax cuts.
Not this time, allies of the president say.
Some improvisation
“They have a clear, general sense of where they’re going,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said. “They are intuitively moving forward and then modifying things as they figure out what works and what doesn’t.”
The change in approach has played out most vividly through the aggressive push by the Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, to cut the size of federal agencies and shutter some of them.
More:Elon Musk isn’t actually in charge of DOGE, White House says
DOGE’s efforts to slash the federal workforce and take over sensitive databases holding the personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans is unprecedented and has led to court cases claiming Trump is usurping the constitutional spending power of Congress.
Trump’s early effort to go around Congress and neutralize other checks on his power, such as firing 17 independent inspectors general at government agencies, also have generated lawsuits and outcry.
Soft approval ratings
“In the first month, Donald Trump has waged a scorched-earth campaign against the rule of law,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a floor speech this week.
Despite the blowback, the president’s approval ratings have remained in the mid-40s − 15 points below Gallup’s historical average for U.S. presidents since 1953 but five points higher than Trump’s first term.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that Trump has taken “historic action” in his first month and “has already accomplished more than most presidents do in their entire term.”
Next up: ‘A struggle’
What comes next could be more difficult, though, as Trump works to make good on pledges to resolve international crises and fallout from the DOGE cutting spree spreads to Republican congressional districts.
Republicans also face hurdles in Congress, including passing a government funding bill by March 14 and turning Trump’s agenda into law with a narrow GOP majority.
“Everything is going to be a struggle,” said Paul Teller, a longtime Hill staffer and former legislative adviser to Trump.
More:US, Russia meet on Ukraine ceasefire negotiations, Europe sidelined: What to know.
Second time around
Where President Joe Biden responded to national exhaustion with Trump after the Republican’s first term by staying off Americans’ screens and out of their lives as much as possible, Trump has ingrained himself in the national culture.
He has surrounded himself with trusted allies who better understand the government than many early hires in his first term.
Conservative groups AFPI and The Heritage Foundation spent months crafting blueprints for a second Trump administration. Heritage spearheaded the Project 2025 proposal that was heavily criticized during the campaign and was disavowed by Trump. He has since implemented many of the ideas in the report and hired back aides such as budget director Russell Vought who were involved with crafting it.
AFPI was home to senior Trump officials such as Linda McMahon, Brooke Rollins, Paula White and Keith Kellogg, who also have returned to Trump’s orbit.
“In many ways, they’ve telegraphed the road map,” said Rateike, who worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign and transition.
Gingrich said the conservative groups “created a whole wave of capabilities so they can really enter in an aggressive way − and they’ve taken advantage of it.”
DOGE has rocked the federal workforce with buyout offers, mass terminations of thousands of probationary employees, and moves to shutter whole agencies. It has raised concerns about data security and privacy along the way.
More:Trump admin scrambles to rehire hundreds of nuclear weapons workers
For those who think the approach is abrasive, Musk told reporters in the Oval Office last week that Trump was doing what he was elected to do.
“The people voted for major government reform, and that’s what people are going to get,” Musk said.
More:Elon Musk makes CPAC 2025 entrance with chainsaw
Republican criticism of Trump’s moves has been largely muted, even as DOGE made a slew of error-filled personnel moves that had to be walked back, including firing nuclear safety workers and those working to combat bird flu.
“If you take on the lobbyist bureaucrat system slowly, they’ll just surround you and envelop you,” Gingrich said. “So Trump has relied on a sledgehammer effect.”
Opponents have argued the DOGE errors show an administration more concerned about sending a message than making smart reforms.
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy also shrugged off some of the early stumbles, arguing that Musk and DOGE are committed to quickly correcting mistakes. McCarthy said he believes the broader push to rein in government spending is popular enough that voters are willing to accept mistakes.
“If Elon would stop every time he sent a rocket up and it had a little problem, we wouldn’t be in the position we are today. We wouldn’t be at the forefront,” McCarthy said of the SpaceX and Tesla CEO.
More:Musk’s DOGE touted slashing an $8 billion contract. It actually cut $8 million.
Testing the limits of power
Trump’s penchant for testing the limits of his power has extended to an array of other moves, from proposing to acquire Greenland, Canada, the Gaza Strip and the Panama Canal to his Justice Department dropping corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams so he can help Trump’s immigration agenda.
The Adams decision led to a top New York federal prosecutor, who was promoted by Trump and had sterling conservative credentials, to resign along with others in New York and Washington.
More:New FBI director: Senate approves Kash Patel for ten-year term
Trump has been able to change the conversation around international issues such as Russia’s war in Ukraine and the Gaza conflict through statements assailing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and jaw-dropping propositions like one suggesting the U.S. should take control of Gaza.
But the made-for-TV strategy can take Trump only so far.
High-level officials such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, national security adviser Michael Waltz and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff were in Saudi Arabia this week to launch negotiations with Russia to end the war. But they’ll need Ukraine’s sign-off to get an agreement.
“These are very hard issues he’s grabbed. It will only get harder, because then it’ll be time to implement, and we have to get the rest of the folks in place that will do that,” said Victoria Coates, a former Trump deputy national security adviser who’s now at the Heritage Foundation.
Getting legislation through Congress is another big test and a tougher challenge than Trump has faced so far. Republicans have just a three-vote majority in the House, and lawmakers in the upper and lower chamber have not been able to agree on an approach to passing legislation that formalizes Trump’s agenda.
And Congress can’t be forced into action at the stroke of a president’s pen.
“Congress has a tight, tight majority, so it’s never easy,” McCarthy said. “But he’s never been stronger. I think that makes all the difference.”
