A model of this story appeared in NCS’s What Matters publication. To get it in your inbox, join free here.
For the primary time in his second time period, President Donald Trump was confronted by his fellow Republicans. And he fell in line.
Rather than face a large defection of Republican votes within the House, Trump flipped to support a bill to power the Department of Justice to launch non-classified recordsdata associated to the convicted intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The flip-flop was a very long time coming. The House of Representatives stayed out of session for greater than a month throughout the federal government shutdown, which helped to protect Trump from this vote. After Trump in the end endorsed the invoice he had beforehand opposed, there was near-unanimity when the House voted on it Tuesday.
It now seems to be on a glide path to Trump’s desk.
It’s not clear that Trump will seem within the the rest of the recordsdata as he did in emails from Epstein’s estate launched by the House Oversight Committee final week. But it’s positively clear that Trump has no real interest in persevering with to speak about Epstein. When a reporter requested Trump within the Oval Office Tuesday why he doesn’t simply launch the recordsdata, he shot again that she was a dangerous reporter.
“Quiet, piggy,” was how he sternly reacted with a pointed finger to a different reporter final week on Air Force One when she requested concerning the Epstein recordsdata.
The argument that appears to have satisfied Republicans to interrupt with Trump on releasing the Epstein recordsdata and vote was greatest expressed by Rep. Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican who has tangled with the administration on a number of points.
“The deal for Republicans on this vote is that Trump will protect you if you vote the wrong way,” Massie instructed NCS’s Manu Raju final week. “In other words, if you vote to cover up for pedophiles, you’ve got cover in a Republican primary. But I would remind my colleagues that this vote is gonna be on your record for longer than Trump is gonna be president.”
Pair that sentiment with Trump’s latest acknowledgment that he is not going to be on the poll in 2028, which suggests he received’t be president in 2029, and you’ve got the makings of a lame-duck presidency.
There are different points dividing the GOP, as NCS’s Aaron Blake noted Tuesday. In addition to the Epstein recordsdata, Republicans are grousing about Trump’s international focus; his obvious lack of understanding of the issue of affordability and the way it pertains to his tariff coverage; the destruction of the White House East Wing; and the way in which his household is showing to complement itself.
Pretty a lot all of those points have been on show at Trump’s Oval Office look Monday, when he sat subsequent to and defended Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
None of which means that Republican lawmakers are going to activate Trump en masse within the close to future. But it does imply you’ll hear that time period, lame duck, with extra frequency.
Believe it or not, “lame duck” is a technical time period in US politics. Historians in each the House and Senate monitor lame-duck phrases.
To them, it refers to a politician within the interval after their successor has been elected, however earlier than that particular person is sworn in. The outgoing politician nonetheless technically has energy, however is now not actually accountable to voters.
From a technical standpoint, no. US voters will vote twice earlier than Trump leaves workplace: in midterms subsequent yr and the final election to exchange him in 2028. His presidency will play a consider each of these elections. The authorities must be funded annually, and pure disasters and different occasions would require management.
But the time period additionally has a extra colloquial which means that refers to anybody who can’t be reelected. That included Trump beginning on Day 1 of his second time period. But his superpower lately has been his maintain over the Republican Party. That energy, at the least in principle, will fade a smidge each time he asks Republican lawmakers to do one thing voters is not going to like.
Just as a result of a president is dropping energy doesn’t imply there may be nothing necessary happening. The final lame-duck catastrophe occurred in 1860, after the election of Abraham Lincoln however earlier than he was sworn in. That’s when Southern states began seceding from the union, starting with South Carolina in December.
George W. Bush ushered in a bailout to the monetary system throughout the Great Recession simply earlier than his successor, Barack Obama, was elected.
The twentieth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1933 partially to shorten the size of lame-duck periods. Originally, within the pre-modern horse-and-buggy period, except the president known as Congress into session earlier, lawmakers wouldn’t convene for a new Congress till 13 months after Election Day.
There’s a lot extra time than that — a little lower than 36 months — till the subsequent presidential election.