Donald Trump has been playing nice with Democrats since his election wipeout, but don’t expect that to last.
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President Donald Trump’s massive midterm wipeout will make him more likely to “lash out,” according to his biographer.
From January, the 80-year-old president will find both the House and the Senate controlled by Democrats, after a blue wave washed away the GOP’s majorities on Tuesday.
It will deprive him of the built-in route through Congress he enjoyed in his first two years back in the White House and instead leaves him more dependent on the executive powers of the presidency.
“A Trump cornered in his previous incarnations was usually a Trump who lashed out, and it’s likely that’s the president the world will live with for the next two years,” wrote Timothy L. O’Brien, who wrote TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald. It was published in 2005.
Writing for Bloomberg, he discussed how, throughout Trump’s career, he has had a capacity for operating as a lone wolf, and that “preference for piloting solo also encourages him to double down when he fails, with little regard for consequences.”
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Trump has not questioned the election result and has even suggested he would be open to working with Democrats during his new lame-duck era, saying, “I think I can work with everything.”
O’Brien said it harked back to Trump in his previous career.
Bettmann/Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
“Congratulations to the Democrats,” he told Fox News immediately after the election. “I think the Democrats did a good job. I really do. I think they did a good job. They fought hard. They were, you know, they’ve been fighting for a long time. They’ve been fighting me for a long time. This fight’s been going on for ages.”
Asked if he would work with Democrats during the same interview, he said: “I would do that. Yeah, I think the Democrats want to work with me.
Trump said he’d be open to working with Democrats.
Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images
“I have a lot of friends that are Democrats,” he told Fox. “They obviously want to talk, but I have the power of veto, and the power of veto is, you know, it’s impervious.”
But Trump had already waved the veto around like a loaded gun. “I have the ultimate power—it’s called ‘veto,’” he told CBS News before polls closed.
On Sunday, he told the New York Post’s Pod Force One podcast that he intended to use it for “a month or two” before reaching deals.
Trump may be about to get into building, in a big way.
“I guess I’ll become Mr. Veto,” he said.
Insiders have speculated that Trump’s priorities will change after Tuesday’s result.
“He undoubtedly recognizes that the library development season opens now, and he will go for it,” one senior administration official told CBS News.
A second person told the same outlet: “All things he can control, which means: Building.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
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