Trump team interprets midterms debacle as a cue to go harder, further, faster

The Trump administration is heading into this week’s impeachment showdown over Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth— the first major test of the president’s power after his election debacle — with a clear warning that it plans to use executive authority with even greater force in the new political era.

There’s little sense of contrition or acknowledgment that Americans voted to impose restraints on President Donald Trump. The unequivocal White House response was instead represented by the appointment of Stephen Miller, the architect of many of Trump’s most aggressive policies, as White House chief of staff.

Attorney General Todd Blanche spelled out the message on CNN on Sunday morning, saying Democrats who plan to employ constitutional prerogatives to investigate the administration should be “worried” after Trump demanded Department of Justice criminal probes into their activity.

In dueling interviews on “State of the Union,” the administration and its critics laid down political battle lines for next year.

“Before they’re even in power, they’re already talking about investigations and impeachments, with no basis, no facts, just out there running around,” Blanche told CNN’s Dana Bash. “That should be something that President Trump is very concerned about, and certainly I am as well.”

But Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, warned the new Democratic Congress would not cow before a “threat” from Blanche. “He’s trying to stop us from doing real oversight. … The Constitution makes it very clear that it’s our job in the Congress to conduct oversight of the executive and the administration,” Garcia said.

But the first confrontation, over a potential House of Representatives vote to impeach Hegseth, will do more to test how the midterm wipeout has hurt Trump’s authority among Republicans than Democrats’ capacity to restrain him.

Republican Rep. Thomas Massie plans to bring articles of impeachment against Hegseth this week as the Pentagon chief intensifies a vehement campaign to keep his job despite criticism of his conduct of the Iran war.

There are growing suggestions that even many Republicans would like the combative Hegseth gone, especially after Rep. James Comer expressed reservations about him last week. Comer, unlike his fellow Kentuckian Massie, who was beaten by a pro-Trump rival in his primary, remains loyal to the president.

The White House is standing by Hegseth, so far. Trump told reporters last week his defense secretary was doing “a very good job.” And Hegseth reacted to Miller’s promotion by portraying him as a fellow fighter against the president’s enemies with a social media post reading “Stand. Fight.”

Hegseth’s viability, however, could be undermined by a strong vote against him by GOP members. Those who’ve lost their jobs amid public fury over Iran may have little incentive to stand strong with him and the president. It seems unlikely that there will be the two-thirds majority in the Senate needed to convict and remove Hegseth from office in an impeachment trial. But he’s made few friends in the Senate, and these are volatile political days.

The Hegseth impeachment drama will unfold against the last rites of the lame-duck Republican-led Congress, which must pass a funding bill by December 11 to keep the government open. The defense secretary’s controversial presence may also complicate the Senate passage of a critical defense spending bill.

In the first days after the Democrats’ midterm rout, Trump seemed subdued. But now it’s clear the White House wants a fight.

Asked on Sunday’s edition of CBS’ “60 Minutes” whether he could ever forgive his enemies, Trump answered: “I probably cannot do that, no, because I do hate some of my enemies and I always will.”

On Saturday, Trump complained on Truth Social that Democrats had sent threatening letters to Republicans and donors and ordered the Justice Department to investigate them, while claiming “these extortionists” should be imprisoned.

Last week, Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal issued a warning to individuals, companies and government agencies to cooperate with investigations into “cryptocurrency; corruption involving the Trump Administration’s self-enrichment and national security threats; rampant misconduct by federal immigration agents; Big Tech and other corporate enablers; and the Trump Administration’s lawless abuse of power.”

Blumenthal said that if the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations did not get responses by January, the new Congress would act. Also last week, Garcia said in a video that “crooks, the con men and the Trump crime family” need to “lawyer up.”

Blanche argued that such rhetoric goes too far.

“You have an incoming chairman threatening … they’re not even in charge yet — saying, ‘Lawyer up’ to anybody in particular. So, if that doesn’t bother you, if that doesn’t bother your viewers, then we really need to kind of wake up in this country, because it certainly bothers me,” Blanche told CNN.

The attorney general said Garcia’s complaints about his own vow to represent officials targeted by congressional investigations showed “a remarkable lack of understanding of how government works.” He added: “I would be very worried if I was a member on that committee.”

But Garcia hit back. “Quite frankly, what Todd Blanche is doing right now is a threat,” he said on “State of the Union.”

“He is threatening our committee. He’s trying to stop us from doing real oversight,” the California Democrat said of Blanche, arguing that “all he wants to do is protect Donald Trump, is protect Donald Trump’s Cabinet and administration officials.”

The appearances by Blanche and Garcia gave a preview of Washington next year and the risks both parties are likely to take during Trump’s last two years in office.

The administration is implying that any true oversight of the administration is illegitimate; what Trump called “Weaponization and Lawfare” on Truth Social. This strategy was successful when Trump leveraged investigations into his company, his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his retention of classified material into a narrative of political persecution that unified Republicans and helped him to reclaim the presidency in 2024. It’s not surprising that he’s trying to turn the same trick now, since Blanche, then one of his top personal lawyers, was a chief architect of his legal fight.

The Republicans’ midterm election defeat was about many things: the Iran war, the cost of living, soaring gas prices, public distaste with immigration crackdowns, and a sense Trump pursues his own interests over the country’s. But the administration is showing it plans to wring every ounce of power from Trump’s term.

Increasingly, top officials are speaking in rather apocalyptic terms. As he professed his “total devotion” and “absolute loyalty” to Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Friday, Miller warned that if it weren’t for the president, “the United States of America would not exist right now.” In his videos fighting for his job, Hegseth pledges to defend the republic against “all enemies, foreign and domestic.” All this implies the administration sees some domestic opponents as bent on destroying the country — which just voted in a democratic election to repudiate its current rulers.

Democratic Sen.-elect Adam Hamilton, who won a stunning upset victory in Kansas, expressed concern about the administration’s response to the elections. He described Miller’s appointment as “almost a doubling down” and told CNN that “people in my state, which is typically a pretty red state, have said, ‘This is not OK. This is not who we are.’”

But the aftermath of the elections also underscores the challenges facing the incoming Democratic majority. While Democrats made investigating Trump’s alleged corruption a centerpiece of their campaigns, and therefore have a mandate, voters primarily issued a cry for help with the cost of living. Acting on such concerns will be difficult enough, since Trump is armed with a presidential veto. A bitter climate of investigations could poison any hope of cooperation.

Xochitl Hinojosa, a CNN political commentator and former senior Justice Department official, told Bash she is “worried the Democrats will overreach.”

Hinojosa added: “I do think that there needs to be some oversight, because there have been no checks on this administration whatsoever. But both parties need to realize that the voters said, ‘We do not want infighting. We do not want Republicans and Democrats going at each other. What we want is people to deliver results.’”

Sunday’s fierce political exchanges show how hard that will be.