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As White House and congressional Republican negotiators met to hammer out a way to raise the nations debt limit, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., cast blame for the nations $31 trillion-plus debt on the most recent Republican president, Donald Trump.

The debt limit could be met as soon as early June, and a failure to raise the limit could force the government to default on payments to bondholders, federal employees, contractors and beneficiaries of programs such as Social Security. Republicans have proposed raising the limit in tandem with spending cuts, but the White House considers the scale of the Republicans proposed cuts untenable.

In a May 12 tweet, Jeffries said Republicans were to blame for much of the debt. Jeffries wrote, "Trump ran up more debt than any other President in American history. He wants Republicans to force a dangerous default if they dont get their way. We cannot let right-wing extremists hold our economy hostage."

Strictly speaking, former President Barack Obama accumulated more debt than Trump. But Trump accumulated the most debt per year served in office.

Jeffries office did not answer an inquiry for this article.

What are the numbers?

Treasury Department data shows the gross federal debt rose by about $7.8 trillion on Trumps watch. But that wasnt the biggest increase of any president in raw dollars.

The record for the largest increase was set by President Barack Obama, with more than$9.5 trillion.

One caveat: Obamas figure is larger than Trumps partly because Obama served eight years, while Trump served four.

If you adjust the measurement for that reality by looking at debt accumulated per year in office, Trump does stand alone.

If you divide the debt accumulated during each presidents tenure by the number of years they served, Trump oversaw an increase in the debt of almost $2 trillion per year. President Joe Biden has overseen the addition of almost $1.6 trillion per year in his two-and-one-third years in office, which ranks second. In third place is Obama, who presided over the addition of nearly $1.2 trillion a year.

Why president-to-president comparisons are hard

The blame game on federal debt is not clear cut.

Much of the current federal debt stems from mandatory payments, such as those for Social Security and Medicare. These began spiking when the baby boom generation started drawing heavily from these programs around 2010. Not coincidentally, thats when the federal debt began accelerating.

Generations of politicians in both parties approved and modified these programs long before Trump took office.

"It is always challenging to figure out how much spending was on whose watch," said Steve Ellis, president of the federal budget-watching nonprofit group Taxpayers for Common Sense.

The biggest single spikes in the federal debt came from the initial rounds of coronavirus relief legislation in 2020. Trump signed them, but they passed with broad bipartisan support.

"Everyone, including me, said it was worth it, and without it, things would have been worse," said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the center-right American Action Forum. "So, (its) not fair to blame Trump exclusively for something everyone thought was needed."

Our ruling

Jeffries said Trump "ran up more debt than any other president in American history."

Obama ran up more debt than any other president in American history. If you look at debt accumulated on a per-year basis, Trumps rate of increase in the debt was higher over four years than over Obamas eight.

Assigning debt to a particular president can be misleading because so much of it traces back to decades-old, bipartisan legislation that set the parameters for Social Security and Medicare.

The statement contains an element of truth but ignores evidence that would give a different impression, so we rate it Mostly False.

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Did Donald Trump rack up more debt than any other president? - PolitiFact

Authorities say a 19-year-old Missouri man with a Nazi flag in the truckcrashed a U-Haul into security barriers near the White House late Monday night. The Nazi flag that authorities say he had with him was later photographed unfurled on the ground near the truck. He could face multiple charges, including threatening to hurt the president.

Trump Jr. wrote, If the threat of white supremacy is so real, why do they have to outsource all the hate?

Donald Trump Jr., the son of the former president, soon retweeted a post that expressed skepticism about the official version of events and added more skepticism of his own. He said of federal law enforcement, You would think they would be able to do a much better job at creating fake crimes and fake hate. Later, in a tweet that drew attention to the suspects Indian name, Trump Jr. wrote, If the threat of white supremacy is so real, why do they have to outsource all the hate?

That wasnt the first time weve seen Trump Jr. accusing federal authorities of exaggerating the white supremacist threat.Last Saturday, after about a hundred members of the white nationalist group Patriot Front marched in Washington, Trump Jr. suggested the marchers were all feds: Do we really want to pretend its not a fed operation? he asked on a podcast. He was preaching to the choir of conspiracy theorists across platforms that echoed similar sentiments. Popular podcaster Joe Rogan joked with guest Matt Taibbi that the marchers had to be federal agents because, he said, there were no fat people among them.

Those high-profile people werent alone. In fact, claiming that federal authorities are falsely connecting crimes to white supremacists has become a trend. Almost as fast as the Secret Service descended on the man in the U-Haul, far-right MAGA followers launched a counteroffensive against any implication that the driver was one of theirs. Were in an interesting moment when followers and close associates of a former president seem compelled, sometimes in unison, to deny any association with the authoritarian, white supremacist, white nationalist or even neo-Nazi ideologies some of them seem to espouse. To paraphrase a character in Shakespeares Hamlet, Methinks they doth protest too much.

This new strategy involves claiming that any violent incident by someone who even appears to have such leanings is not just a false flag operation but maybe a false flag operation staged by the government. These claims happen so quickly, in such large volume and across so many social media platforms, that the word feds was trending on Twitter for much of Tuesday morning. At that time, we didnt yet have the report from authorities that the U-Haul suspect had praised Hitler to police and told them that his intent was to kill President Joe Biden. Facts werent needed. Someone had to defend the honor of MAGA loyalists.

The same strategy of feigned disbelief was on display after the May 6 mass shooting at a mall in Allen, Texas. The police reported that the Latino suspect had neo-Nazi ideation and wore associated patches and tattoos, but the MAGA faithful pretended it was all a government ruse designed to make them look bad. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., tweeted: Only dumb white people would believe that a Mexican gang member is killing people for white supremacy.

The fact that people who arent white have been known to identify with white supremacy didnt stop people from making arguments that law enforcements reports about the Allen shooter were wrong. Twitter CEO Elon Musk also joined in and claimed the shooters alleged ideologies seemed suspicious.

There are three reasons why this strategy of denying the validity of reports linking violent crimes to white supremacy and deflecting them onto scheming federal agents has become so prevalent.

The same strategy of feigned disbelief was on display after the May 6 mass shooting at mall in Allen, Texas.

First, the strategy sends a reassuring message to far-right adherents who might think that a hate-fueled mass shooting, or other violent attack, is their cue to leave the MAGA movement. Well-publicized claims that such crimes or the hateful marchers dressed in khaki cargo pants arent real, provides the kind of solace that helps delude adherents into sticking around. Effectively, the message to the MAGA masses is, Dont worry.We didnt do this.

Second, denial and deflection tactics help far-right extremists convince themselves that the problem of violence associated with white nationalism is overblown. It encourages far-right opinion writers to cherry-pick anecdotes in an attempt to demonstrate that the racism problem isnt as bad as its made out to be. But the data tells another story. Violent hate is on the rise.

In 2020, Christopher Wray, the then-FBI director who'd been appointed by Trump, said in testimony before Congress that the Bureaus data indicates that motivated violent extremistsin recent years have been responsible for the most lethal activity. Similarly, President Biden told the graduating class of Howard University last Saturday that white supremacy is the most dangerous terrorist threat to our homeland.

Third, the deniers and deflectors are increasingly aware that the feds, as they consistently call them, are not only investigating their leader but may be close to indicting him. They fear whats coming. If and when charges come, folks such as Donald Trump Jr. will need to be able to refute any charges by repeating the mantra that the feds make stuff up, including, even criminal cases. Theyll likely tell their followers that the folks who investigated Trump are the same people who staged violent incidents to make it look like MAGA followers were responsible.

Denial, deflection and delusion. Thats not just a Trump Jr. thing. It's also the strategic opiate of the chronically unaware. Sad to see how often it works.

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Donald Trump Jr.'s response to White House U-Haul crash reveals ... - MSNBC

Trump calls Jan 6 a beautiful day during CNN town hall

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Donald Trumps legal troubles could be hotting up after the National Archives found a trove of records proving the former president knew he was breaking rules by taking classified documents to Mar-a-Lago, according to a report.

The National Archives sent a letter, obtained by CNN, to Mr Trump this week revealing it had found 16 records showing he and his top advisers were aware of the correct declassification process when he was president.

The 16 records in question all reflect communications involving close presidential advisers, some of them directed to you personally, concerning whether, why, and how you should declassify certain classified records, wrote archivist Debra Steidel Wall.

These records will be turned over to Special Counsel Jack Smith as part of the criminal investigation into Mr Trumps handling of classified documents.

The revelation comes as Mr Trump continues to lash out at Ron DeSantis, as the Florida governor prepares to launch his 2024 campaign next week.

After campaigning for five months, and going nowhere but down, it looks like Ron DeSanctimonious will soon be entering the race. He has ZERO chance, and MAGA will never forget! Mr Trump fumed on Truth Social on Thursday night.

President Joe Biden would be vaulted to a massive lead over Donald Trump if the former president faces further criminal charges from the federal and state criminal investigations into his conduct, according to a new poll obtained by The Independent.

The poll of 1,571 registered voters was conducted by WPA Research, a Republican polling firm. The CEO of WPA is an adviser to Never Back Down, the Super PAC supporting Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, but the survey was conducted independently without his input and was not sponsored by the Super PAC.

It found that voters currently prefer Mr Biden over Mr Trump by a margin of 47 per cent to 40 per cent, including a 14-point lead for the sitting president among registered independents.

Ariana Baio20 May 2023 07:00

FBI officials repeatedly violated their own standards when they searched a vast repository of foreign intelligence for information related to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol and racial justice protests in 2020, according to a heavily blacked-out court order released Friday.

FBI officials said the violations predated a series of corrective measures that started in the summer of 2021 and continued last year.

But the problems could nonetheless complicate FBI and Justice Department efforts to receive congressional reauthorization of a warrantless surveillance program that law enforcement officials say is needed to counterterrorism, espionage and international cybercrime.

Ariana Baio20 May 2023 06:00

The Georgia prosecutor investigating whether former president Donald Trump and his allies broke the law while trying to overturn his 2020 election in Georgia is seemingly hinting that any grand jury indictments in the case would likely come in August.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis sent a letter on Thursday to other Fulton County judges indicating that she plans to have much of her staff work remotely during the first three weeks of August.

In the letter, Ms Willis asked that judges not schedule trials and in-person hearings during part of that time.

Thank you for your consideration and assistance in keeping the Fulton County Judicial Complex safe during this time, Willis wrote in the letter, first reported by The New York Times.

The Georgia investigation is one of several that threatens his campaign for 2024 president.

Ariana Baio20 May 2023 05:00

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is confident in his abilities to win the 2024 presidential election, according to statements he made on a call as heard by The New York Times.

On Thursday, Mr DeSantis reportedly called donors and supporters to unofficially declare his campaign.

On the call, Mr DeSantis allegedly said, You have basically three people at this point that are credible in this whole thing,- Biden, Trump and me.

And I think of those three, two have a chance to get elected president Biden and me, based on all the data in the swing states, which is not great for the former president and probably insurmountable because people arent going to change their view of him, Mr DeSantis added.

Ariana Baio20 May 2023 04:00

Donald Trump has again complained that he is the victim of what Republicans baselessly claim is the weaponisation of the federal government.

The one-term president made the remark in response to the Jim Jordan-led House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government hearing on Thursday.

The committee descended into chaos with lawmakers shouting at each other as two suspended FBI agents and one fired agent spoke about how the agency had retaliated against them for claims they had made about it.

Ariana Baio20 May 2023 03:00

The Georgia prosecutor investigating former president Donald Trump and his allies possible interference in the 2020 election has indicated there could be an indictment by August.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis sent a letter to Fulton County judges asking to not schedule trials during the first three weeks of August and announced remote working days for most of her staff.

Already, Ms Willis has requested additional security around the courthouse.

Ms Willis and her office have spent more than two years investigating the case.

Ariana Baio20 May 2023 02:00

Chris Christie, the former Governor of New Jersey and former presidential candidate, is apparently gearing up to announce another bid for 2024 president.

Mr Christie, who has been outspoken about his disdain for Donald Trump, told supporters last month during an event in New Hampshire that, Tonight is the beginning of the case against Donald Trump.

Youre not going to beat someone by closing your eyes, clicking your heels together three times and saying, Theres no place like home. Thats not going to work. In American politics, you want to beat somebody? You have to go get them, he added.

Though Mr Christie has not formally announced a campaign, rumours are swirling that he may announce next week as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is also expected to.

Ariana Baio20 May 2023 01:00

Donald Trumps former attorney has boldly predicted that the former president is going to jail as the criminal investigation into the trove of classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago continues to heat up.

Ty Cobb, who worked as a White House attorney for the Trump administration from July 2017 to May 2018, told CNN that he believes the evidence against Mr Trump will lead to a conviction and prison time.

Ariana Baio20 May 2023 00:00

After a two-year investigation by a Trump administration prosecutor charged with undermining and discrediting the FBIs probe into alleged ties between former president Donald Trumps 2016 campaign and the Russian government has ended after four years and just a single criminal conviction, a report on the findings of that investigation found that the FBI was justified to open a preliminary probe into the matter.

Eric Garcia and Andrew Feinberg report:

An investigation into the origins of the FBIs probe into ties between Russia and Donald Trumps 2016 presidential campaign has finally been concluded

Ariana Baio19 May 2023 23:00

CNNs town hall with Donald Trump proved so divisive that even its own staff have taken issue with the event - with Christiane Amanpour the latest of the networks high-profile names to voice their dissatisfaction.

The New Hampshire event drew 3.3 million viewers, who watched as the former president sparred with CNN moderator Kaitlan Collins, whom Mr Trump referred to as a nasty person.

Speaking in an address to Columbia Journalism School on Wednesday, Amanpour said if she were Collins, she would have dropped the mic as soon as Mr Trump called her nasty, adding that she had spoken with the networks CEO Chris Licht and told him the ex-president should not have been able to appear in that particular format.

Ariana Baio19 May 2023 22:30

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Trump slams DeSantis as damning evidence found in classified documents probe live - The Independent

One of Donald J. Trumps longtime lieutenants, Allen H. Weisselberg, was recently released from the notorious Rikers Island jail complex after pleading guilty to a tax fraud scheme. Yet Mr. Weisselbergs legal troubles are far from over.

The Manhattan district attorneys office is now considering a new round of criminal charges against Mr. Weisselberg, 75, and this time he could be charged with perjury, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The threat of new charges represents the latest effort in a two-year campaign to persuade Mr. Weisselberg to testify against Mr. Trump. And it comes at a crucial time, just weeks after the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, unveiled an indictment of the former president.

Mr. Weisselberg has so far refused to turn against his former boss, but the prosecutors recently ramped up the pressure, warning his lawyers that they might bring the perjury charges if their client declined to testify against Mr. Trump, two of the people said.

The potential perjury charges stem fromstatements Mr. Weisselberg made under oath during a 2020 interview with the office of the New York attorney general, Letitia James, who was conducting her own separate civil investigation into Mr. Trump and his family business. It is not clear which part of his testimony raised red flags for prosecutors and Ms. James, or how Mr. Bragg might prove that Mr. Weisselberg intentionally made a false statement.

As a trusted financial gatekeeper to Mr. Trumps family for nearly a half-century, Mr. Weisselberg was privy to behind-the-scenes machinations that could make him a valuable witness on several fronts.

He could help Mr. Bragg in the case unveiled against Mr. Trump last month which stems from a $130,000 hush-money payment to a porn star during the 2016 presidential campaign as well as with a separate investigation into whether Mr. Trump fraudulently inflated his own annual financial statements. Ms. Jamess office is participating in that ongoing investigation.

If Mr. Weisselberg refuses to cooperate, he could face a range of new charges. In addition to pursuing the perjury case, the prosecutors have indicated to his lawyers that they are considering unrelated insurance fraud charges against him.

They also appear to be weighing whether to charge Mr. Weisselberg with inflating the numbers on Mr. Trumps financial statements. The prosecutors recently sought to interview one of Mr. Weisselbergs former Trump Organization colleagues, who might be able to shed light on his involvement in crafting the annual statements, the people said.

There is no sign that Mr. Weisselberg, who recently retired from the Trump Organization with a hefty payout, is close to breaking, or that charges are imminent. But the latest prosecutorial pressure campaign may raise questions about the fairness of threatening a man of advanced age who just got out of jail.

The guy has already been prosecuted and served his time, and hes 75 years old, said Daniel J. Horwitz, a criminal defense lawyer who served in the district attorneys office for nearly a decade. Most defense lawyers are going to scratch their heads and say, Is this fair?

But Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics professor at New York University School of Law, said, There would be nothing improper about charging Mr. Weisselberg a second time with different crimes.

Mr. Weisselbergs lawyer, Seth L. Rosenberg, declined to comment, as did a spokeswoman for Mr. Bragg and a lawyer for Mr. Trump.

Mr. Bragg is not the only prosecutor scrutinizing Mr. Trump. The former president might also face criminal charges in Georgia, where a local prosecutor is examining his effort to undo the 2020 election results, and in Washington, where federal prosecutors are investigating his handling of classified documents, among other matters.

The possibility of new criminal charges from Mr. Bragg marks a return to an earlier focus of the criminal investigation into the former president.

When Mr. Bragg took office in January 2022, prosecutors in his office were already presenting evidence to a grand jury about Mr. Trumps financial statements. His predecessor, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., who did not seek re-election, had authorized the prosecutors to move forward with the case.

But Mr. Bragg soon became skeptical, concerned that they lacked enough evidence to demonstrate Mr. Trumps intent to falsify the statements, a key element of proving the case. Mr. Bragg also lacked confidence in relying on the testimony of Michael D. Cohen, a former fixer for Mr. Trump who was directly involved in the hush-money deal but played a lesser role in Mr. Trumps financial statements.

Enter Mr. Weisselberg, the Trump Organizations former chief financial officer, a role that provided him a front-row seat to the creation of the financial statements.

The district attorneys first pressure campaign against Mr. Weisselberg peaked in the summer of 2021, when Mr. Vance, unable to secure Mr. Weisselbergs assistance, brought criminal charges against him and the Trump Organization in the tax fraud case. Despite refusing to implicate Mr. Trump personally, Mr. Weisselberg ultimately pleaded guilty and testified against the Trump Organization at its trial last year.

The company, which continues to pay for his lawyers, was convicted. And Mr. Weisselberg, as part of a plea deal, served 100 days in the Rikers Island jail.

Now, Mr. Weisselbergs release from jail, rather than representing a reprieve, is expected to deliver him back into the jaws of the same predicament: He can turn on Mr. Trump, or potentially spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Although perjury is a low-level felony, Mr. Weisselberg could still face significant prison time. The judge who has overseen Trump-related cases, Juan Merchan, sentenced Mr. Weisselberg to 100 days in Rikers Island in the tax fraud case and warned him that he typically imposes tougher sentences in white-collar cases.

Even if Mr. Weisselberg were to turn on Mr. Trump, the former presidents lawyers have potential defenses to a case built around the financial statements. Those annual statements, which assigned values to Mr. Trumps hotels, golf clubs and other assets, contained disclaimers noting that the values were unaudited estimates. And in general, assigning values to real estate is a subjective process, not an exact science.

Yet Mr. Vance felt that the financial statements case was strong, even without Mr. Weisselbergs cooperation, leading him to authorize the grand jury presentation before he left office at the end of 2021. The two lead prosecutors on the case, Mark Pomerantz and Carey R. Dunne, continued that presentation in the early days of Mr. Braggs tenure.

When Mr. Bragg halted the presentation in February of last year, it prompted Mr. Pomerantz and Mr. Dunne to resign and set off a media and political uproar that engulfed Mr. Braggs early tenure.

But the investigation continued.

As one group of prosecutors pushed forward with the case centering on a hush-money payment to a porn star the one for which Mr. Trump was recently indicted a separate group continued to investigate Mr. Trumps financial statements.

While the hush case is moving ahead with Mr. Cohen as the prosecutions star witness, Mr. Bragg has been reluctant to charge Mr. Trump for his financial statements without Mr. Weisselberg on board.

And so, while Mr. Weisselberg was behind bars, Mr. Braggs prosecutors told his lawyer that he might face charges in the unrelated insurance fraud inquiry, The Times reported early this year. That inquiry has focused on whether Mr. Weisselberg lied to an insurance company by claiming that the value of the Trump Organizations real estate holdings had been assessed by an independent appraiser, when in fact they had not been.

In recent weeks, the prosecutors broadened their focus to include the potential perjury charge, which would center on Mr. Weisselbergs 2020 interview with Ms. Jamess investigators, the people with knowledge of the matter said. Last year, Ms. James sued Mr. Trump and Mr. Weisselberg for overstating the former presidents net worth by billions of dollars. (Her investigators interviewed Mr. Weisselberg again this month, as Ms. Jamess lawsuit against him and Mr. Trump proceeds.)

In 2020, Ms. Jamess investigators questioned Mr. Weisselberg about some significant errors in Mr. Trumps financial statements. At one point during the interview, court records show, Mr. Weisselberg acknowledged that the Trump Organization had overvalued Mr. Trumps penthouse apartment in Trump Tower by give or take $200 million.

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Trump Ally Could Face Perjury Charge if He Doesn't Cooperate With D.A. - The New York Times

Yet Trump remains popular with Republican voters and is the clear frontrunner to win the GOP nomination in 2024. What explains this ongoing dilemma, where Republicans have been dragged down by Trump, but cant seem to quit him?

For years, political scientists have judged presidents on their strength as party leaders how theyve been able to grow a coalition and cement a majority but Trump is changing the way we think about politics.

Instead, it now seems that Trump is not so much a party leader, but a movement figure. This might seem like the kind of distinction that only academics care about. But its key to understanding the current state of American politics, and the dilemmas now facing GOP leaders as the MAGA movement threatens to completely overtake the Republican Party itself.

Social movements, on the right or the left, engage the faithful the most ideological and committed to the cause. Making dramatic change in politics or society typically requires challenging the institutions and systems currently in place, including the existing political parties.

For Trump supporters and the MAGA movement, the indictment in New York, for instance, is not just evidence of partisan warfare; to them, its also evidence of a corrupt system where politics unduly influences law, and ordinary people like them are excluded and persecuted. Undermining such a system is a goal, not a drawback.

Movement adherents are in a weird relationship with both parties and presidents. Movements want fundamental change. Parties and presidents are usually more cautious: Presidents are charged with preserving the constitution, and parties tend to be risk-averse and protective of a winning election coalition.

Under normal circumstances, presidents and parties are caught in a cycle of mutual dependence, while sometimes working at odds with each other.

Presidents need parties to campaign and build support. Parties need presidents to attain their policy goals and hold on to power. But their incentives and objectives arent always aligned. Presidents are interested in their own careers and legacies, and parties are focused on both longer-term and, sometimes, more local concerns, and typically consist of people who want to expand the tent and grow the coalition.

In some ways, Trump changed all of that. While not completely severing the relationship between party and president, Trump largely ignored the partys needs, both electorally and legislatively. Instead, he focused on building his own movement within the party. That made him a different kind of president.

Trump did help remake the GOP coalition, but he didnt ultimately grow it. While Republicans won more voters of color than at the partys low point in the Barack Obama years, they still cast their ballots in large numbers for Democrats. The shift by white working-class voters to the GOP sped up under Trump, though that was offset by more middle- and upper-class white voters swinging to the Democrats. Trump has made it far more difficult for Republicans to win in the suburbs.

Former President Donald Trump focused on building his own movement within the Republican party.|Spencer Platt/Getty Images

But as MAGA adherents seized control of the GOP, it became clear that Republican primary voters mostly didnt care, even as it cost the party. In the 2022 midterms, Trump-backed MAGA candidates like Kari Lake and other swing-state politicians who were the most vocal in their denials of the 2020 election result, and the loosest in their commitments to basic democratic institutions and values, were the ones who lost races that traditional Republicans might have won.

The 2022 elections offered some of the strongest evidence that Trump was a movement president rather than a party leader. His inclination to back a MAGA foot soldier who embraces his grievances and election lies reveals his priorities; hes more intent on channeling the energies of his far-right base than appealing to swing voters or even party regulars.

Trump hasnt been a complete failure as a party leader. He remade the GOP in his image and scared off dissenters in the Republican ranks like Paul Ryan and Jeff Flake. No other president not Reagan, not FDR, not Lincoln has been able to reshape his party from the top down in quite the same way. As political scientist Daniel Galvin observes, Trump used his public prominence to elevate supporters and push out dissidents from within his own party, and a group of loyalists made a concerted effort to elect Trump supporters in state party elections throughout the country.

But where other presidents have made real change in their parties policies or united them under his legislative agenda, Trump faltered. Congressional leaders demurred on funding for his border wall and pursued a typical GOP agenda; the landmark bill of the Trump presidency was a package of massive tax cuts. Trump also notably failed to unify his party around a plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act, a yearslong Republican goal.

Now as he embarks on a third presidential bid, Trump is focused on grievance, not policy. His main vow is to impose vengeance on his and by extension the MAGA movements enemies. This approach violates much of what political scientists have come to expect from politicians: that theyll seek to build broad coalitions in pursuit of electoral advantage. Turning away from that strategy is one of the most striking features of Trump-style Republicanism.

Movements, like parties, have historically had a complicated relationship with presidents. They can be useful sources of political support and energy. Republicans, in particular, have relied on the groups associated with the Christian conservative movement for four decades. At the same time, politicians sometimes prefer to keep a safe distance from the most extreme elements of a social movement. Reagan avoided directly addressing the March for Life in person in 1981, at the advice of aides who were concerned that too much emphasis on social issues would be divisive. On the left, politicians have endeavored to ally with environmentalists and civil rights activists without endorsing all of their tactics and messages.

More than other Republican politicians, Trump has encouraged relationships with violent far-right forces like the Proud Boys (Stand back and stand by), alongside more traditional activists like evangelicals and gun owners. Some of these groups are important to the Republican Party, providing them with campaign resources, communicating the party message and rallying the faithful sometimes literally. But theyre not the party, exactly. And this helps to explain why Trumps influence in the GOP has been so strong, yet has consistently put elected leaders in the position of having to defend and explain things they dont want to defend and explain, from Charlottesville to Jan. 6.

What does this mean for the relationship between presidents and parties, and particularly for presidents after Trump?

Obviously, Joe Biden is a much more traditional party figure than Trump. Hes the clear leader of the Democrats, but he doesnt dominate them in the same way as Trump or seemingly shrink the partys reach like Trump. Furthermore, no one would associate Biden with many of the movements that now animate the Democratic coalition.

But these progressive movements have also had a significant impact on Bidens presidency; in the wake of the Dobbs decision, abortion rights activists have clearly pushed Biden to be more aggressive. Political scientist Robert C. Smith argues, the protest activity against racial injustice in the summer of 2020 has led the Biden administration to break with past patterns and adopt rhetoric and policies targeting systemic racism.

Its more complicated for the GOP. So far, other Republican presidential hopefuls seem to be both courting the MAGA movement and following the traditional party playbook while they pay visits to the early primary states of New Hampshire and Iowa. Some of these candidates hope to fulfill the dream of Trumpism without Trump. But so far that looks like a fantasy, with Trumps core supporters sticking with him no matter what.

I recently spoke with Sidney M. Milkis and Daniel J. Tichenor, the authors of Rivalry and Reform: Presidents, Social Movements, and the Transformation of American Politics. They pointed out continuities as well as important differences between todays MAGA movement and the socially conservative right of Reagans era. Social conservatives of the 1980s, Tichenor said, were rooted squarely in electoral politics, conventional politics and claimed to simply want a seat at the table and to support Reagans presidency.

By contrast, elements of the MAGA movement that are close to Trump and increasingly driving the GOP agenda are, to put it mildly, hostile to pluralistic politics and not entirely peaceful in their tactics. Milkis and Tichenor also agreed that Trump was more of a movement president than any other in the past.

As for the future, there are several possibilities, not all mutually exclusive. The alliance between mainstream Republicans and the MAGA movement could reach a breaking point, with election deniers and extreme candidates repeatedly costing the party elections until the GOP ultimately jettisons the far-right. Second, the movement could fuel an across-the-board shift in party priorities; House GOP politics since January suggest there may be something to this, with MAGA Republicans exacting major concessions from Speaker Kevin McCarthy in order for him to hold power.

A third possibility is that Congress and the parties institutions designed to represent a wide swath of interests to act collectively could simply become less relevant as the relationship between presidents and movements becomes closer, especially on the GOP side. If movements can gain direct access to the White House and promise voter mobilization in return, then these other institutions might wither even more.

Trumps time in office shows what can happen from a governance perspective: Less may get done legislatively, but the tools of the executive branch can deliver plenty that a movement demands: the right rhetoric, executive orders and judicial appointments. Thats particularly true for a movement that prioritizes things like tightening immigration restrictions. And as the strength of the MAGA movement holds firm, there may be few Trump skeptics in the GOP left to object.

Ive been writing about the importance of presidency-centered government for a long time, Milkis said. And even Im shocked.

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Trump's Dominance in the GOP Isn't What It Seems - POLITICO