<Music> Welcome to Party Politics, where we prepare for your next political conversation.

I'm Jeronimo Cortina political science professor at the University of Houston.

And I'm Brandon Rottinghaus also political science professor here at the University of Houston.

Thanks for hanging out and talking about politics with us.

Obviously, transitions are apparent.

We are seeing a lot of this change in Texas and the federal level, not the least of which is that we have a new old president coming in.

So we're going to kind of take a step back from our kind of weekly just sort of documentation of what goes on in that week and talk more about kind of what to expect in Trump term two.

There's been a lot of speculation and he's made lots of promises.

The question is, you know, what is it really going to look like?

And can he follow through on these promises.

And what are the implications politically if he does or if he doesn't?

So let's just kind of set the scene to start.

And it is the case that the president is now returning to office in a very different environment than he did when he first took power.

He is now more loved, or at least more liked.

Maybe loved is too strong an answer, but he's got both houses of Congress on his side, which is something that he, you know, didn't always have.

This is also a moment where he's got more unity inside the party, and he's had before the Supreme Court, effectively a sort of on his side, at least in spirit, if not like in every decision, which I'm happy to be challenged on.

You've got a new media ecosystem which is more favorable to him getting his message out.

He's probably more disciplined.

Certainly his team is more disciplined.

And you've got a lot more friendships with billionaires, right?

Like Elon Musk or a basically like, you know, BFFs or roommates.

In effect, none of them want to get dodged.

And so they're probably all thinking, if we sidle up to Trump, then this should be okay.

So we're in a very different world.

The other thing to note is that from a kind of institutional capacity, the presidency is as strong as it's ever been.

And this is in saying that, like we've seen strong presidents come and go, we've seen over time the power of the presidency grow.

So this is really the moment for Donald Trump to get something done if they can accomplish it.

And the question for you is, can they accomplish it?

What do you think?

Well, I don't know.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Either.

I mean, the big question here is when you look at the beginning of the sequel.

Yeah.

It's the basic premise that the Trump campaign was using is we're going to fix the economy.

Yeah, we're going to fix, grocery prices.

Yeah.

We're going to have high paying jobs.

We're gonna end up inflation.

Yeah.

Fix the border.

Yeah, sure.

That's a, that's whatever.

That's a, that's a.

Lift.

That's a heavy lift.

Right.

It is very heavy lift.

Why.

Because whatever he's administration does or does not do is going to have implications on that.

We havea narration prices are not coming down.

Didn't immediately come down.

Inflation still an issue.

The fed is still debating monetary policy.

So it's going to be very hard to deliver on those very, very things.

Those are very important.

Yeah.

And those were the things that were using the campaign.

And that's why he got so, so, so much support.

Yeah.

So if he doesn't deliver in two years, then we're going to have a completely different, ball game.

Yeah.

Immigration is another big issue.

Yeah.

Mass deportations, kind of complicated.

Yeah.

Financially and just.

Financial and logistically You can deport, people that are already in custody that are, undocumented.

Felons and whatnot.

That would be very simple.

Just, finish the sentence or not even finish in the Senate.

Just write them up and send them whatever they came from, and that's the end of it.

And that could be something.

Yeah.

The issue of mass deportations is very complicated because, undocumented migrants play a very important economic role.

Especially here in.

Texas, especially here in Texas, play a very important role on those very own donors of, President Trump.

So when you go there and basically mess up the, you know, the real issue that generates money for these come it's going to be complicated.

It'd be.

Tough.

Yeah.

And this is all in the context of basically the government will run out of money about spring break.

Right.

And so they're going to have to have a continuing resolution as part of this early negotiation.

The Republicans are generally aligned with getting something done and making sure that there are no waves.

But there are some Republicans who definitely are holding to their principles saying, we have to shrink the budget.

We've got to bring down the deficit.

That could create some friction inside the party.

And, you know, definitely is going to be some horse trading that goes on.

Let's talk about the president's first 100 days in general.

Now, obviously, the president's done a lot the first few days in office.

There's certainly, a lot of time to go, but the.

Expectation.

Is are really the issue here, right?

FDR kind of sets this high bar for what it means to have a first 100 days be successful.

We've seen President Trump, you know, engage in these three asterisks.

This is exactly what FDR did.

Right?

Like it was sort of this big, bold set of right arrangements, some of which were substantial, some of which were less than substantial.

But it doesn't matter, because really, you're trying to kind of manage those expectations for those first 100 days.

And really the goal is to kind of set the foreshadowing of the presidency to come, so that the things that you do the first few days are really designed to say, like, look, we're in charge now.

We're going to make things happen.

And that's something that, you know, you have to be able to take command.

And I think that it's better this time.

He's disciplined.

This time he's more kind of on focus this time, partly because the team's a little bit more cohesive than it was his first, term.

So like the sequel seems to be going a little bit better short, which is really the case.

Like what sequel was better than the original, right.

Maybe The Godfather, right.

Like, it's hard to say.

Like, you know, you could count on one hand the number of times that the sequel was as good, but for sure, it's the case that presidents want to maintain that visibility.

And so obviously, you know, President Trump wants to be able to sort of hit that mark.

We've seen the number of orders, you know, be basically between where Biden was and where Trump was the first time.

This is sort of, you know, generally sort of where the expectations are, but obviously there's a lot more to be done.

And so the question is, you know, how is the president going to handle this new kind of environment where he's going to have to navigate, you know, Democrats are looking to the midterms and Republicans who are a bit divided.

So there's a couple let me count 1 to 3 things, okay.

First, Congress, the House has a very, very slim majority and everything has to be very well, estimated, calculated and finally implemented, so on and so forth.

If you don't have that very meticulous planning, things can go away.

Well, in 39.

So yeah, very, very quickly.

That is one problem.

The Senate is also a very small majority.

Two votes gone and then you lose everything.

Yeah.

So does that mean that the president has to go and a appease those members that may or may not align with his policies.

Maybe or maybe not.

We don't know.

He has a very particular way of pushing people to do whatever he wants to do.

And frankly, he's successful in doing those things.

And we would expect the president in these kind of politically fraught times, politically divided times, to have more success bargaining with his own members.

And I think we'll see.

That is kind of the real question mark of the Trump presidency.

Can't keep them in line.

Yeah.

I think the answer is yes.

He could.

The question is, you know, is it going to be able to be executed?

You know, presidents always face this, but I think that's like a realistic possibility for him.

And if he can do that, then you can do pretty much anything.

I mean, he's got a huge agenda of things that he's promised, some of which are sort of, you know, pie in the sky, but many of which, even if you get half of what he's asked for sure are going to be base rallying and successful.

Well, that depends on number two.

Okay.

All right.

I like jump the gun.

All right.

So number two is going to be the role of the Supreme Court.

For me, the Supreme Court in these four years is the real the real 100% player.

The Supreme Court, since, Trump's nominations, in terms of, the new justices.

Yeah, has been very mixed.

Yeah.

We just saw a couple of weeks ago, justice Amy Coney Barrett saying, you know what?

The, sentencing should move forward in the case of, New York, so we don't know, made is something that is still up in the air.

Yeah.

And I think that especially, Chief Justice Roberts and, justices understand the historical importance and the weight.

Yes, that they have on their shoulders in terms of curtailing presidential power, maintaining balance of powers, and maintaining, I guess, these shared responsibility between Congress, the Supreme Court and the president.

So.

So for me, that's the real key playing these things.

It's a.

Great point.

And number three, before you in to rob me.

But wait, I have something to say.

A number three is how Democrats.

Yeah, regroup if they can.

And try to find out once again the righteous path for whatever they want to do.

Right.

So that's also very important in terms of how they start communicating with their base and with the general public.

Great point.

And if they're going to get into these new way of making and doing politics in the US.

Yeah, I think it's a great point, actually.

I think that the Trump's presidencies have revealed more about the strengths and weaknesses of the Democrats priorities and approaches than any other thing that.

That's a.

Great point.

The first Trump Trump term for sure, right.

They didn't maybe learn every lesson they could have.

And when Trump was reelected, I think, as you know, you know, they have to pivot to thinking about kind of how we're going to kind of find a path here.

It's a jujitsu style move where, like, you use the kind of momentum of your opponent to your advantage.

And what this reveal, what this election revealed, was that people want to have their needs met, and they need to have somebody who's talking about those issues to them.

So all the scandals in a world war matter, all the controversies about, you know, picking, you know, funding a new part of the, you know, globe to conquer all these things are not relevant to like, you know, how much your hot dogs cost.

And so I think that Democrats probably learned that lesson the very, very hard way.

And they're looking to 2026 to see like can we maintain that.

So they're going to have a lot of opportunities to make that happen.

But it's a challenge though.

Trump got a huge microphone right.

So much free media.

The way that he approaches the office is going to be, you know, so much more dramatically visible than any other president.

We're coming off of a Joe Biden presidency who did very little to sell his policies, some of that strategic.

But a lot of that is just sort of he just didn't do anything, which is kind of controversy and concern for Democrats.

So they're really have to kind of start over here.

But the Trump presidency definitely revealed a lot of the way that that happened.

Let's talk about taxes and how Texans kind of play into this.

Now we're seeing speaking of transitions, a lot of transition in Texas.

A lot of the members who are least long standing, sort of operatives in the Republican Party, people who had been, you know, in committee chair positions and powerful roles for a long time are leaving.

So, you've got Kay Granger, who's leaving, Cole Burgess, who's leaving?

Kevin Brady left a couple sessions ago.

Michael McCall's is leaving at least his chair position.

So there are a lot of new members who are on good committees, like Joey Arrington on House budget, Roger Williams on small business, and Ted Cruz in charge of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, all like good roles.

But they don't take the place of where Texas was in terms of its influence.

Do you think Texas will have influence in the Trump administration and how?

I mean, to a certain extent, but I don't see that specific weight that they had before.

Yeah.

The Texas delegation was the Texas delegation.

And now, yes, it's still the Texas delegation, but perhaps not all caps.

Right.

So I think that it's a new breed of members of Congress that are going to try to carve their way into these leadership positions.

They're going to have.

Yes, because they have numbers.

Yeah.

And that's important for the conference.

Yeah.

But are they going to exert a significant pressure in terms of those things?

Maybe, but not likely.

Okay.

Yeah.

Let's talk about, one of the big promises the president has made.

And that's to basically kind of streamline government through what he's calling doge.

Okay.

Government efficiency.

It's not a official cabinet position that would take Congress.

It's not even kind of a, like blue ribbon committee the way that, like, most of these sorts of things are from the executive.

It's basically just, you know, Ramaswamy and Musk saying, this has got to go.

This can stay there.

All friends at least for now.

So it's working okay.

Maybe this the optics of it are valuable.

But I guess my question for you is are they raising expectations too high in terms of what they can actually accomplish in terms of cutting government spending or cutting the size of.

Oh, yeah, 100%.

And then how does that play out with a base who sort of wants to see big changes?

Or can you just point to ten things?

We did.

We saved X dollars and like, good to go.

I mean, I think that whatever I think that, cutting that level of red tape or something like that, it's only for the billionaires.

Yeah.

For the average folk.

It's.

Yeah.

I mean, how many times do you interact with the federal agents?

Yeah.

And do you really feel like government smaller?

Do you feel like it's more efficient because we've eliminated certain rules or like, sort of.

Not like you don't know.

Right.

I mean, unless you are industry specific.

Yeah.

Right.

But but overall is and I think here it is.

In Steve Bannon gave an interview to, an Italian newspaper.

Wow.

Do you research this day?

Thank you.

And, and I think that that is going to be a very, very interesting battle.

Yeah.

Steve Bannon versus Elon Musk.

Yeah.

Bannon went not saying nice things really about Musk.

Like very very bad things.

So funny.

And and he talked about these new techno populist right.

And techno is those that do technology Musk and Ramaswamy.

Yeah.

In such a way that is here's a fight and that fight is going to continue.

And as access to, Donald Trump.

Interesting.

Yeah.

And, you're definitely seeing kind of this inside outside divide, right.

Like a lot of the people who are part of the first administration, who may have been just sort of insurgents like, wanted to really mix things up, aren't like welcome in the term too.

Right?

You're not in the sequel, right?

We have a new caste.

Right.

But and it could be a problem.

Yeah.

Bannon went to jail.

Yeah yeah.

Yeah.

For partially for that.

President Trump because he refused to cooperate with Congress.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So he bought the bullet.

Yeah.

Right.

Interesting.

So he's going to be a very significant dynamic.

He's pushing like he shouldn't have access to the president.

He shouldn't have access to the West Wing.

He shouldn't have top secret clearing, whatever it is.

Right?

Yeah.

I mean.

Interesting.

It's going to be very interesting.

And the clash of personalities is I think it'll be more apparent in this time than than in the first, first term.

And Bannon I mean, obviously he doesn't have the huge megaphone that, Musk has, in terms of, x. Yeah, but he's very influential.

Still with the.

People that matters in terms of pulling people back into office.

Yeah, that Musk may not necessarily have.

So yeah, that is going to be important.

The other important thing between these personnel is, is where can you cut the budget?

Yeah, I feel like don't see the trillions of dollars that they want to.

Yeah.

And Musk kind of backed off that a little bit after the after the election saying like well 2 trillion is a lot.

Maybe we'll trim it to like a trillion, which is still a lot.

I mean, still.

Right.

If you can put a.

Few billion between friends, like we'll just write you and your musk a.

Couple of billions.

And then the other thing is, you know, the perhaps the conflict of interest, it's that oh, you don't want Department of Transportation?

I don't think that we should report crashes the way we do.

I don't think that, you know, if we use batteries are not 100% saved should something so.

Right.

That is also going to have implications.

And we already saw, Musk getting against the core Trump supporters in in regarding immigration H-1b visas.

It he's like hell no.

But then he says, oh no, no, we need we need capable people.

Yeah, you need capable people for your business.

Yeah.

Yeah, literally for your business.

Yeah.

That's a great point.

I so that's what I mean is like, they've got to temper expectations, right?

Like, what can they do?

What can't they do?

What they can't do probably is to cut more of these entitlement programs that people have come to rely on.

Right.

That's an issue that really does kind of create potential political liabilities for them.

And so that's one issue.

They probably can't cut the size of the workforce too much where they've already got it pre lean as it is.

What they can do though are things like recession.

They can trim.

Take back some of the money the Congress hasn't spent.

Or the presidency agencies haven't spent.

They can engage in permitting reform potentially saving money kind of in the long, short.

I mean, they can engage in deleting regulations and limiting regulations.

President Trump did this in his first term.

So there are some tangible things that they can do or recommend that be done that might solve some of this.

And I think that if you package together enough of this, then you can make a pretty good case to the American people that you've done something.

Yes.

Kind of the that's the kind of though, that's the I think the selling point.

Right.

Like you can put a big bow on this and people say like, yeah, you you promised it.

Sure.

Well, I think about this like, you know, Reagan did the same thing, right?

And they found a fairly healthy amount of cuts, not nearly as much as people expected, or they said that they could, but it was enough that we still talk about it like Clinton's reinventing government.

Right.

Al Gore is kind of in charge of this.

Yeah.

Every time I see al Gore, I still think about this.

Right.

He was at Jimmy Carter's funeral.

I'm like, hey, there's al Gore.

He invented the internet and reinvented government.

Right.

That was just sort of this memo that, like, was able to carry throughout time.

So politically it could be so valuable politically.

But the big question is that I think still applies.

He's even cutting regulation for whatever thing Ramaswamy and Musk come up with is going to lower prices.

And that is the key point.

Yeah, right.

I mean, purchasing a new vehicle right now, it's insane.

Yeah.

I mean he's.

So.

Expensive.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So yeah like.

That's a great point.

I mean I think you think about the parallels like, you know, Reagan coming into office in a bad economy and trying to fix it before the midterm was tough.

He did fix it before.

Well, address it and to some degree, alter it before he was reelected.

So there's a opportunity there.

Obama the same.

Right.

They're able to put some legislation in place that was going to be successful that did end up helping get him reelected.

So, you know, there's an opportunity here for Trump to help his party.

Obviously, he can't run for reelection again.

You know, assuming that all things are normal, which, you know, is not maybe the best bet in today's politics, but, like, he can help his party, which is really something that he's done to kind of reform and kind of reshape and rebrand.

No, no, I get it.

And I'm in and I hope, really hope that the economy gets better for, for everyone.

But the big question is, are you going to get the economy better?

Saying, well, we're going to impose tariffs on Mexico, Canada.

Yeah.

Denmark, this and that, etc., etc.. That's a wild it is.

Yeah.

Wait.

Like fine.

Explain me and we have said before is a strategy that President Trump, utilizes to extract something out of someone.

Yeah.

Like pushing them.

Like, if you don't do it, I'm going to go yeah.

These way.

And at the end is, is is something that has worked work with NATO or with some other, other big, important issues.

But the big question is, given that the team proposed that and that the team firmly believes in those type of issues.

Yeah.

Are we going to see that unity within the administration?

Yeah.

We should have an imposed 11,000%, tariffs on Mexican agricultural products.

Fair.

All right.

Let's do it.

Yeah.

What is that going to do.

Yeah.

To voters pocketbook.

Yeah.

Getting increased prices is going to generate more inflation.

And he's going to have the opposite effect.

So that the thing that I still don't understand yes we're very early.

Yeah.

And we don't know the real implementation of these policies is how are you going to deliver.

Yeah.

On these very basic promises that you make up in the campaign.

That's what I steal.

Yeah.

Like, okay.

Please.

Yeah.

Publish the report so I can read it.

And part of the attractiveness of Donald Trump was that he promised sort of not a quick fix, a basically like the, understanding that he would be the one who could fix it.

Well, if you don't, then it's a potential problem.

So they've set themselves up in a way that makes it hard for them to really succeed.

Right?

Unless things happen in sort of the exact perfect way, which they might, but they almost never do for presidents.

Right.

And I think actually, this will be a term in office where you'll see foreign policy more important than we've seen in the past.

So the Middle East could be an issue.

China is definitely going to be.

Oh, yeah.

You know, you're certainly going to see yeah, South America, Central America an issue.

So all these different kind of international issues are going to come to a bubbling top right during Trump's second term.

And that could be something that really kind of kicks him off his game.

So we'll pay attention to the way that all these things interact.

And presidents have got to pay attention to like the whole map.

Right.

It's not just kind of one thing.

So I'm still going to be tough because in the international arena when you're thinking about trade.

I mean if you are I don't know.

Yeah.

Bolivian right.

Yeah.

And you have nickel or whatever.

Yeah.

These minerals, they have these I'm going to sell it to China.

Why not.

Yeah exactly.

And how do you prevent that.

And you cannot prevent how do you.

Manage all that.

Yeah.

That's a it's a really good point.

So so that is the risk I mean where is the Mexican advocado is going to go I mean if they don't come here.

Yeah I mean yeah.

You don't want those tariffs in time for the Super Bowl.

Right.

Like that's a terrible choice right.

Everybody wants guacamole But but these are the real implications.

So so I'm just waiting in terms of how it's going to do.

And then the issue of can I blame Democrats.

Right.

Like Biden is gone.

Right.

Democrats, don't have the majority in any of the House.

Right.

It's going to be hard.

People will forget pretty soon.

So but we won't forget.

And the last thing we want to talk about is sort of you can always see kind of how things are positioned for the incoming president by looking at the outgoing president.

Joe Biden had kind of a tale of two presidencies.

His legacy is really, I think, kind of two fold, like one is passing a bunch of big bills, right?

Like getting a significant infrastructure bill, getting the chips act and sort of pulling the country out of Covid.

But then you have the kind of moment where he fumbles on the debate stage, a national moment where people look at his performance and say something is not right, and it's becoming more apparent and more complicated in terms of discussing kind of exactly what he's been doing for the last two years.

Republicans and Democrats alike have been sort of calling this out.

So, you know, then you see kind of the situation in Gaza, then you see him, pardon his son.

There's just a lot of this sort of last year or so of activity that people look at as a tarnish on his legacy.

So legacies are always contested.

And so the question is like, how do we remember Joe Biden?

Well, I mean, it depends.

I think that if you look in terms of the pure public policy issues, and I think his legacy is pretty strong, infrastructure bill, chips act, things that really matter in pure public policy.

Period.

Yeah.

Besides that, I think it's a very, I would say not very good legacy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He promised a kind of bipartisan approach, which he sort of had for a while.

But then that went away.

He did promise to kind of make these institutional reforms, which he didn't see the opportunity for.

So like Supreme Court reform, one filibuster reform another.

Like they could have gone all in on this.

Yeah.

There were certainly wings of the Democratic Party that wanted to see that.

But he didn't.

Did he pass power too late to his?

Yeah.

The next generation.

That's another kind of legacy concern.

So there's a lot of I think liability here that do I think create problems for his legacy.

Yeah.

And I think again is the public policy legacy.

And then you have these political legacy that is kind of mixed.

Yeah.

And I think the public policy is always contentious.

Yes.

Yeah.

And they're always reevaluated.

So right.

We'll never fully know.

But yeah, it's worth noting that this is sort of at this point pretty highly contested.

So these are going to be some of the topics that we're going to be continuing through the rest of this season.

I'm Jeronimo Cortina And I'm Briandon Rottinghaus the conversation keeps up next week <Music>