By Susan Ferrechio and Kerry Picket (The Washington Times)
PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Trump is gearing up for a bloody, partisan brawl with Congress during his final two years in office.
He spent the weekend huddling with his closest advisers at Mar-a-Lago, plotting a strategy for what was shaping up to be a vicious showdown with Democrats who were preparing to pounce.
Democratic Party leaders said Sunday that they would subpoena Mr. Trump’s administration and family and impeach members of the president’s Cabinet after they take control of the House and Senate in January.
“If you’ve got folks out there who’ve been shortchanging the American people, screwing over the American people, or stealing from the American people, then they need to be held accountable in a manner consistent with Congress’ role, constitutionally, as a separate and coequal branch of government and a check and balance on an out-of-control executive branch,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, New York Democrat, said on ABC’s “This Week.”
Mr. Trump moved quickly after his party’s election losses. He reset his staff with big changes at the top, suggesting he was ready for a nasty fight.
He ousted White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and replaced her with Stephen Miller, one of his most incendiary aides and the mastermind of the “America First” agenda as well as the administration’s aggressive illegal immigrant deportation program.
Mr. Miller is a longtime, trusted confidant who has proved himself unafraid to organize, execute and promote some of Mr. Trump’s most polarizing policies.
In addition to the deportation blitz, Mr. Miller oversaw the rollback of federal diversity policies, the bid to take over Greenland and the military strikes against suspected “narco-terrorist” boats in the Caribbean and Pacific.
Mr. Miller spent the weekend hunkered down with Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
The president told reporters that Mr. Miller was a “very good manager” and the right person to take over the position.
“Stephen has been with me from the beginning,” Mr. Trump said. “He gets it, very good politically, and he’s a very good man. He’ll do a great job.”
Mr. Miller pledged his “absolute loyalty” to Mr. Trump while onstage at the conservative CPAC event at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday. He credited the president with saving the United States and its military.
“We need to stand with the man who has stood with us and this country with every fiber of our being,” Mr. Miller told the CPAC crowd.
Mr. Trump dismissed threats from Democrats.
He ordered Attorney General Todd Blanche to launch an immediate investigation into Democratic lawmakers.
The president said Democrats broke the law after the elections by threatening to use their majority to punish Republicans, Republican donors and Big Tech CEOs who have worked with him.
“This is extortion at the highest level, and they should be held accountable for this,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Blanche said on “Fox News Sunday” that the Trump administration would not ’tolerate’ threats from Democrats against Republican lawmakers, but he stopped short of pledging a Justice Department investigation demanded by the president.
“It is important that they exercise oversight responsibly. They are not allowed to just go around threatening existing members of the administration, to just go around threatening companies. And that is what President Trump is extremely worried about, and he should be,” Mr. Blanche said.
Democrats plan to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and are discussing attempts to oust additional Cabinet members, including Mr. Blanche and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Sen. Bernard Sanders, a Vermont independent in line to head the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in the next Congress, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he was “absolutely open” to impeaching Mr. Kennedy, whose position on some vaccines had angered Democrats.
Mr. Sanders accused Mr. Kennedy of endorsing “crazy conspiracy theories.”
Democrats said they plan to block or reverse much of Mr. Trump’s agenda.
Mr. Jeffries said House Democrats would move to stop the Iran war, end Mr. Trump’s slate of tariffs, reverse the reductions and expanded work requirements for Medicaid and food stamps, and reimplement the expired, Biden-era subsidies for Obamacare.
“And hopefully we’ll see some courage by a few of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to work on these issues to get things done,” Mr. Jeffries said.
Mr. Trump, meanwhile, is preparing his veto pen.
The president posted an image on social media over the weekend of a red MAGA-style baseball cap emblazoned with “VETO” in white letters, indicating his plans for any Democratic legislation that reaches his desk.
Mr. Trump said in a social media video that he would get along with Democrats as much as possible and that bipartisan cooperation “could be very productive.”
Mr. Trump said that if “bad or foolish ideas come in, we’ll veto.”
The president told CBS’s “60 Minutes” in a taped interview that aired Sunday night that he would tone down his rhetoric to reach big deals with Congress.
Mr. Trump said he could “very easily” refrain from using insulting nicknames for Democrats if it would help pass legislation he supports.
Democrats are projected to win more than 250 seats in the House, giving the party a more than 30-seat majority. In the Senate, Democrats will have at least a four-seat majority.
The House can easily pass legislation, but it likely will not go far. Thanks to the Senate filibuster, Democrats will need support from up to six Republicans to pass most legislation, depending on who wins the yet-uncalled races in Alaska and Mississippi.
Mr. Trump can easily block a bill he opposes that reaches his desk. It takes 67 votes in the Senate and 290 in the House to override a presidential veto.
The numbers put much of the far-left Democratic wish list, including a “Medicare for All” proposal, out of reach in divided government.
Over the weekend, Mr. Trump offered UFC CEO Dana White the job of press secretary. He described Mr. White as a “violent fighter and warrior,” although it was unclear whether Mr. Trump was trolling his followers, as he has done in the past. Mr. White reportedly declined.
This article was made available to WMAL via The Washington Times.
