Trump's Goals

The Sandbox Political Topics
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CNN has an article about what Trump has promised to do as President. Here is what they list:

So what can he actually do on his own, and what does he need Congress (or others) to help with?

Mass deportation - I believe the current law states that illegal immigrants are to be deported. Enforcing the law is one of the main jobs of the President, so he should be able to do this without Congress getting involved.

Closing the border - this one isn’t clear. The border can definitely be closed to illegals, but Trump can’t violate existing immigration law. So he can put in more security, but can’t halt legal immigration/travel.

Ending birthright citizenship - this is in the Constitution, so it would require an Amendment to change it.

Tariffs - Congress granted the President power to impose tariffs in certain situations.

Tax cuts and government spending - These come from Congress, Trump can’t do it on his own. He can veto a budget he doesn’t like, but theoretically, Congress can override it.

Health and food systems - the FDA falls under the Executive Branch. Trump can appoint RFK to head it, and he ay be able to make the changes.

Climate Change regulations - these are laws which come from Congress for the most part, so Trump can’t undo them on his own.

New defense shield - the Department of Defense chooses where to allocate the military budget. The budget amount is granted by Congress. So this would be a joint effort - if he wants to spend more for a new system, either he needs Congress to increase the budget, or the DoD will have to cut spending in other areas to create the new system.

I’d be interested to see Trump try and grab power he’s not entitled to. I hope that if he does, the checks and balances that are in place are utilized to stop him.

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Those are stated goals. Might need to add the unstated goals of illegally siphoning money and power.

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Lets not forget about dismantling the criminal cases that are currently underway, blocking the ones in development, and pardoning his cronies and those involved with J6.

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He may run out of money before his target number of immigrants are deported. Congress would have to fund.

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Some of this is executive rule making. Particularly worrisome are methane regulations related to fossil fuel extraction, which could be relaxed or not enforced.

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The challenge will be that he needs manpower to do the roundups, a place to hold them until deportation, and judges to hold hearings. Some of that he will get either voluntarily or by bullying state and local governments (e.g. he’s already threatened to stop federal grants to state/local police departments that don’t assist)… but the rest he’ll need Congressional appropriations at a minimum to accomplish.

(Given that it looks like there will be a GOP trifecta…that might not be too difficult to achieve.)

Remember that the Fourteenth Amendment includes the phrase “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof”. It was intended to exclude indigenous people from citizenship, and today excludes children born to foreign diplomats citizenship. All the Trump administration needs to do is start interpreting it as not applying to children of undocumented immigrants, have the matter go to court, and have some friendly judges (and SCOTUS justices) confirm it.

It could go faster if Congress passed a bill declaring such and providing for a direct appeal to the Supreme Court.

With the GOP having control of the Senate, and the GOP likely to have control of the House, and given the MAGAness of today’s GOP, and given how SCOTUS has been behaving lately, I have very little faith in the system of checks and balances holding up at least until January 2027 (assuming the D’s can win back at least one house of Congress next election.).

Dems can filibuster in the Senate…but the GOP can change the Senate’s rules.

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I get pretty skeptical when I see statements like this now. We seem to have entered a stage where the President and the SC don’t care much for following the Constitution, existing law, and precedent, and the legislature is now full of, at best, p*ssy-*ss kiss-ups who aren’t going to go against the President in any significant way.

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Adding: he tried this in 2017, and it was repeatedly found Unconstitutional.
Executive Order 13768 - Wikipedia.

He’s also promised he would use the National Guard and maybe the Military, both of which would meet a lot of legal/constitutional/popular pushback. He’s specifically tossed out using a very old wartime law.

But yes, probably the sanest route would be to get like a lot of money from Congress and hire a lot of ICE.

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He didn’t hit many of the big promises from 2016. He did pass a big tax cut with the help of Congress, and he did appoint conservative justices to overturn Roe v Wade. Those were big deliveries for him.

Other big ones from 2016: he did not build a giant wall and make Mexico pay for it, repeal and replace Obamacare, bring back manufacturing jobs, create a big infrastructure fund, remove all undocumented immigrants,…

If he sticks with his plans for massive tariffs, which he could legitimately do, I think it backfires bigly on him in terms of inflation.

We’ll see what he does with Musk and alleged massive cuts to government spending. He’s said he won’t touch Medicare or SS, and generally cutting military spending is off the table for the GOP. If he doesn’t touch Medicare, SS, or military spending I don’t think cuts will amount to much, and particularly compared to his promised massive tax cuts. He might get rid of the Department of Education or Meals on Wheels, but that stuff is a drop in the bucket compared to the other moving parts.

His main goals IMO: personal enrichment, graft, and staying out of prison. I think he can likely check the box on the last one as accomplished already.

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we have long been in a place where the legislature refuses to act at all on things. they can’t agree or dont care to. but the public demands something and we get an executive order of dubious appropriateness and then it holds up or doens’t when challenged in the courts.

i think with the trifecta now not holding middling/traditional GOP (romney/mccain/etc) and the prior experience of how they got stuck by the old guard types - congress will act on all of it i suspect.

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We’ve seen recently that precedent doesn’t matter anymore.

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House Republicans, on the other hand…
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-house-republican-study-committee-budget-proposes-harsh-changes-to-social-security/

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Well sure, that was precedent in the Old America.

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Last time around, Trump levied 25% tariffs on on a number of Canadian goods. The tariffs were not permissible under either WTO or NAFTA so Trump invoked the “national security” loophole to block these imports. When Trudeau pointed out that Canada was actually a US ally, Trump’s response was “but you burned down the White House in the War of 1812”.

I expect Trump to invoke the national security loophole again to restrict imports.

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Yup. Trump isn’t going to work very hard to do anything other than make himself richer. His adminisration is going to quickly devlove into Elon, Vivek, and JD fighting with each other to play shadow POTUS while Trump just caters to whoever publicly writes the nicest love letter about him that day. Trump got the second term that his ego wanted.

He hasn’t posted on Truth Social anything other than articles about his victory and to prop up his DJT stock. He hasnt posted on X. Hasn’t been seen since his victory speech early Wednesday? I am guessing he will mostly just golf and bitch about the media asking him to do his job.

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Sanest.

Yet somehow I expect his plan is to have people driving around in buses dragging Latino looking people off the streets, then drive across the border to unload. Might be able to make three trips a day.

I don’t think logistics is his strong suit.

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I think that’s the only goals.

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This made me laugh out loud. What do you say to someone who clearly thinks so…badly.

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The battle lines are being drawn. California is going to sessions in December to “Trump proof” the state.

I am fascinated by the possibility of resisting Trump’s nonsense.