Frankly Speaking: What a Trump foreign policy might look like

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Updated 11 November 2024
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Frankly Speaking: What a Trump foreign policy might look like

  • Former US ambassador and current senior fellow at the Middle East Institute outlined his expectations for the Middle East and beyond
  • Robert Ford appeared on the “Frankly Speaking” show as Republican President-elect Donald Trump prepared to take the reins of power

DUBAI: Donald Trump’s imminent return to the White House after a resounding victory in the Nov. 5 election is set to reshape America’s foreign policy. Since it comes at a time of unprecedented tension and uncertainty in the Middle East, regional actors are closely watching for signs of how a new Republican administration might wield influence and power.

In a wide-ranging interview, Robert Ford, a veteran American diplomat with extensive Arab region experience, outlined his expectations for the Middle East and beyond, indicating that it is important to set expectations for what can be achieved. 

Middle East conflicts, especially those in Gaza and Lebanon, have dominated the international conversation since a deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7 last year sparked a devastating Israeli military retaliation. “With respect to President-elect Trump’s promises to end wars, I don’t think he can end a war in a day,” Ford said on “Frankly Speaking,” the weekly Arab News current affairs show.

“I don’t think he can end a war in a week, but he can push for negotiations on the Ukraine war. And with respect to the war in Gaza and the war in Lebanon, he has an ability to influence events. (But) I am not sure he will use that ability.”

Ford noted that there is little support within the Republican Party for a two-state solution to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, making it unlikely that the incoming Trump administration will pressure Israel on this issue. 




Robert Ford, a veteran American diplomat with extensive Middle East experience, outlined to Frankly Speaking host Katie Jensen his expectations for the Middle East and beyond following the election of Donald Trump as US President. (AN Photo)

“The American Republican Party, in particular, has evinced little support for the establishment of a Palestinian state over the past 15 years. There is no (faction) in the Republican Party exerting pressure for that,” he said. 

In fact, he pointed out, “there are many in the Republican Party who back harder line Israeli politicians who reject the establishment of a Palestinian state.” 

In the current political climate, when there is strong Arab-Islamic unity over the Israeli invasion of Gaza and the consequent high civilian death toll, recognition of a Palestinian state has become a matter of priority for regional actors. Saudi Arabia has been leading efforts to boost international cooperation to reach a two-state solution. In September, the Kingdom’s government formed a global alliance to lead efforts aimed at establishing a Palestinian state.

Ford, who is a current senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, believes that any push for progress on this issue will likely come from Gulf leaders. “The only people who will have influence with President Trump personally on this are in fact leaders in the Gulf. And if they make Palestine a priority, perhaps he will reconsider, and I emphasize the word ‘perhaps’,” he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is keen on normalizing ties with Saudi Arabia, but the Kingdom has made it very clear that normalization will be off the table unless it sees the recognition of a Palestinian state.

“The first thing is I would imagine that the incoming Trump administration will ask the Saudi government whether or not it is still insistent on a Palestinian state — or at least concrete measures toward a Palestinian state — as part of a package deal involving a US-Saudi defense agreement,” Ford told Katie Jensen, the host of “Frankly Speaking.”

“I think the Trump people would rather not have any kind of Saudi conditionality regarding Palestine as part of that agreement, because, in large part, the Israelis won’t accept it.” 

The US has long been the largest arms supplier to Israel. Last year, after Israel began its assault on Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups, it asked the US for $10 billion in emergency military aid, according to a New York Times report. The Council on Foreign Relations, an independent US-based think tank, estimates that the US has provided at least $12.5 billion in military aid to Israel since last October.

Trump has reportedly told Netanyahu that he wants the war in Gaza, which so far has claimed more than 43,400 Palestinian lives, most of them civilians, to finish by the time he takes office in January. Does that mean a Trump administration will put pressure on the Israeli leader to wrap up the war?




Trump waves as he walks with former first lady Melania Trump at an election night watch party at the Palm Beach Convention Center, Wednesday, Nov. 6. (AP)

Ford ruled out the possibility of a reduction in US supply of weapons to Israel. “It’s extremely unlikely that, especially in 2025, President Trump and his team will impose an arms embargo on Israel,” he said. 

Ford expects Trump’s well-known disdain for foreign aid to affect US assistance for Israel in the long term, but without the use of reductions as a threat. 

“I do think that President Trump does not particularly like foreign aid. He views foreign aid as an expenditure of American money and resources that he would rather keep in the US,” he said. 

“So, over the long term, and I stress the word ‘long term,’ I could imagine that President Trump might look for ways to begin to reduce the annual American assistance to Israel, which is over $4 billion in total. 

“But I don’t think he would do that in a way that is used as a threat against Israel. It’s much more likely it would be part of a Trump measure to reduce foreign aid to a lot of countries, not only Israel.”

The Middle East’s second major conflict, between Israel and Hezbollah, has been raging for 13 months now in Lebanon, taking a toll of 3,000 lives, including combatants, and displacing 1.2 million people from the country’s south. In Israel, 72 people, including 30 soldiers, have been killed by Hezbollah attacks and 60,000 people have been displaced during the same period.

The war shows no signs of ending: Israel says it is carrying out new operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure across Lebanon and in parts of Syria, while Hezbollah continues to launch dozens of rockets into northern Israel.

Ford sees potential for early US involvement in discussions on Lebanon “fairly early in the administration,” adding that the engagement would begin through a family connection between Trump and Lebanon.

Although he does not think Lebanon is high on the incoming administration’s agenda, he finds “it is interesting that there is a family connection between President-elect Trump and Lebanon.”

“The husband of one of his daughters is connected to Lebanon, and his daughter’s father-in-law,” Ford, said referring to Massad Boulos, a Lebanese-American businessman whose son Michael married Tiffany Trump two years ago and who acted as a Trump emissary to the Arab American community during the election campaign.

“Because Trump operates very much with family, and we saw that in the first administration — first Trump administration — supposedly this Lebanese American gentleman, businessman, may be involved in some discussions.”

Ford also noted that “Israeli success against Hezbollah and against Iran has made the Hezbollah and Iranian side more flexible in their positions,” adding that “it might be easier to reach an agreement on ending the war in Lebanon than, for example, it will be in Gaza.” 

Moving on to Syria, Ford, who served as the US ambassador in Damascus from 2011 to 2014, said while the country “is very low on President Trump’s priority list,” Trump might pull the remaining American troops out.

The US is reported to have a military presence of approximately 900 personnel in eastern Syria and 2,500 in Iraq as part of the international coalition against Daesh. The troops in Syria serve various purposes: helping prevent the resurgence of Daesh, supporting Washington’s Kurdish allies and containing the influence of Iran and Russia — both of which also have a military presence in Syria.

“I think it more likely than not that President Trump will withdraw the remaining American forces in Syria, which numbers somewhere around 1,000,” Ford said, adding that the president-elect might also “withdraw the American forces that are now in Iraq as part of the international coalition against Daesh.” 

He added that Trump “may, perhaps, accept a bilateral relationship, military relationship with Iraq afterward,” but Syria remains “low on his priority list.”

Ford also thinks it is “impossible” for Syrian President Bashar Assad to abandon his alliance with Iran, against which the new Trump administration is expected to reapply “maximum pressure.” 

“The Iranians really saved him (Assad) from the Syrian armed opposition in 2013 and 2014 and 2015,” he said. “There is no alternative for President Assad to a continued close military relationship with Iran.”

He added: “I’m sure President Assad is uncomfortable with some of the things which Iran is doing in Syria and which are triggering substantial Israeli airstrikes. But to abandon Iran? No, that’s difficult for me to imagine.”

He said to expect the Syrian leader to trust Gulf Arab governments more than he would trust the Iranians would be “a big ask.”

When it comes to US policy toward Iran, Ford expects the new Trump administration to return to the “maximum pressure” policy. “For a long time, the Biden administration ignored Iranian sales of petroleum to Chinese companies. ... But the Trump administration is certainly going to take more aggressive action against Chinese companies that import Iranian oil and other countries,” he said.




Demonstration by the families of the hostages taken captive in the Gaza Strip by Hamas militants during the Oct. 7 attacks, calling for action to release the hostages, outside the Israeli Prime Minister's residence in Azza (Gaza) Street in central Jerusalem last month. (AFP)

“It’s highly unlikely that the Trump administration is going to accept that Iraq imports and pays for Iranian energy products, such as electricity and natural gas.”

Ford sees the Trump team as split into two camps: the extreme conservatives, who want regime change in Tehran, and the isolationists, who oppose the US entering a war with Iran.

“There is a camp of extreme conservatives, many of whom actually do favor attempting regime change in Iran. They won’t use the words ‘regime change’ because the words have a bad air, a bad connotation in the US now, but they are, in effect, calling for regime change in Iran,” he said. 

“I should hasten to add that they don’t know what would replace the Islamic Republic in terms of a government.” 

According to Ford, the second camp “is a more, in some ways, isolationist camp. J.D. Vance, the vice president-elect, would be in this camp; so would American media personality Tucker Carlson, who’s a very strong Trump supporter and who has influence with Trump. 

“They do not want to send in the American military into a new war in the Middle East, and they don’t advocate for a war against Iran.”

Ford’s own sense of Trump, from his first administration and from recent statements, is that “he, too, is very cautious about sending the US military to fight Iran.”

Similarly, the Trump team is divided when it comes to the Ukraine war, according to Ford, so it will take some time “for Trump himself to make a definitive policy decision.”

“There are some, such as former Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, who are very firm supporters of the Ukrainian effort against Russia. Others, like Vance, are not.”

The second reality regarding Ukraine, Ford said, is that Trump himself is skeptical about the value of NATO, or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

“I cannot imagine that he will be enthusiastic in any way about Ukraine joining NATO. That will at least address one of Moscow’s big concerns,” he said. “The third point I would make: The Americans may propose ideas. But the American ideas about, for example, an autonomous region in eastern Ukraine or freezing the battle lines.”

He added: “I’m not sure that (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelensky is going to be enthusiastic about accepting them. I’m not sure the Europeans will be enthusiastic about accepting them. And therefore, again, the negotiation process could take a long time.”

On who might advise Trump on Middle East policy after he moves into the White House in January, now that Jared Kushner, the former senior adviser and Trump’s son-in-law, has announced he does not plan to join the administration this time, Ford said Trump places a very high regard on loyalty to him personally.

“People such as Richard Grenell, who was his acting director of national intelligence, and Pompeo pass that kind of loyalty test,” he said. (On Sunday, Trump announced he would not ask Pompeo or former primary opponent Nikki Haley to join his second administration.)

“Trump’s agenda this time is massive change in the Washington federal departments among the employees. And he will trust loyalists … to implement those deep changes — the firing of thousands of employees,” Ford said. “We will see a very different kind of Trump foreign policy establishment by the time we arrive in the year 2026-2027.”

 

 

 


BRICS offered Turkiye partner country status, Turkish trade minister says

Updated 17 sec ago
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BRICS offered Turkiye partner country status, Turkish trade minister says

  • Turkish officials have repeatedly said potential membership of BRICS would not affect Turkiye’s responsibilities to the Western military alliance
ANKARA: Turkiye was offered partner country status by the BRICS group of nations, Trade Minister Omer Bolat said, as Ankara continues what it calls its efforts to balance its Eastern and Western ties.
Turkiye, a NATO member, has in recent months voiced interest in joining the BRICS group of emerging economies, comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Ethiopia, Iran, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan attended a BRICS leaders’ summit hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Kazan last month, after Ankara said it had taken formal steps to become a member of the group.
“As for Turkiye’s status regarding (BRICS) membership, they offered Turkiye the status of partner membership,” Bolat said in an interview with private broadcaster TVNet on Wednesday.
“This (status) is the transition process in the organizational structure of BRICS,” he said.
Ankara sees the BRICS group as an opportunity to further economic cooperation with member states, rather than an alternative to its Western ties and NATO membership, Erdogan has said.
Turkish officials have repeatedly said potential membership of BRICS would not affect Turkiye’s responsibilities to the Western military alliance.
Aside from full membership, BRICS members introduced a “partner country” category in Kazan, according to the declaration issued by BRICS on Oct. 23.
Bolat did not say whether Ankara had accepted the proposal.
An official in Erdogan’s ruling AK Party told Reuters this month that while the proposal had been discussed in Kazan, partner country status would fall short of Turkiye’s demands for membership.

1 million migrants in the US rely on temporary protections that Trump could target

Updated 14 November 2024
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1 million migrants in the US rely on temporary protections that Trump could target

  • People from 17 countries, including Haiti, Afghanistan, Sudan and recently Lebanon, are currently receiving such relief
  • But President-elect Donald Trump promised mass deportations and suggested he would scale back the use of Temporary Protected Status

NEW YORK: Maribel Hidalgo fled her native Venezuela a year ago with a 1-year-old son, trudging for days through Panama’s Darien Gap, then riding the rails across Mexico to the United States.
They were living in the US when the Biden administration announced Venezuelans would be offered Temporary Protected Status, which allows people already in the United States to stay and work legally if their homelands are deemed unsafe. People from 17 countries, including Haiti, Afghanistan, Sudan and recently Lebanon, are currently receiving such relief.
But President-elect Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, have promised mass deportations and suggested they would scale back the use of TPS that covers more than 1 million immigrants. They have highlighted unfounded claims that Haitians who live and work legally in Springfield, Ohio, as TPS holders were eating their neighbors’ pets. Trump also amplified disputed claims made by the mayor of Aurora, Colorado, about Venezuelan gangs taking over an apartment complex.
“What Donald Trump has proposed doing is we’re going to stop doing mass parole,” Vance said at an Arizona rally in October, mentioning a separate immigration status called humanitarian parole that is also at risk. “We’re going to stop doing mass grants of Temporary Protected Status.”
Hidalgo wept as she discussed her plight with a reporter as her son, now 2, slept in a stroller outside the New York migrant hotel where they live. At least 7.7 million people have fled political violence and economic turmoil in Venezuela in one of the biggest displacements worldwide.
“My only hope was TPS,” Hidalgo said. “My worry, for example, is that after everything I suffered with my son so that I could make it to this country, that they send me back again.”
Venezuelans along with Haitians and Salvadorans are the largest group of TPS beneficiaries and have the most at stake.
Haiti’s international airport shut down this week after gangs opened fire at a commercial flight landing in Port-Au-Prince while a new interim prime minister was sworn in. The Federal Aviation Administration barred US airlines from landing there for 30 days.
“It’s creating a lot of anxiety,” said Vania André, editor-in-chief for The Haitian Times, an online newspaper covering the Haitian diaspora. “Sending thousands of people back to Haiti is not an option. The country is not equipped to handle the widespread gang violence already and cannot absorb all those people.”
Designations by the Homeland Security secretary offer relief for up to 18 months but are extended in many cases. The designation for El Salvador ends in March. Designations for Sudan, Ukraine, and Venezuela end in April. Others expire later.
Federal regulations say a designation can be terminated before it expires, but that has never happened, and it requires 60 days’ notice.
TPS is similar to the lesser-known Deferred Enforcement Departure Program that Trump used to reward Venezuelan exile supporters as his first presidency was ending, shielding 145,000 from deportation for 18 months.
Attorney Ahilan T. Arulanantham, who successfully challenged Trump’s earlier efforts to allow TPS designations for several countries to expire, doesn’t doubt the president-elect will try again.
“It’s possible that some people in his administration will recognize that stripping employment authorization for more than a million people, many of whom have lived in this country for decades, is not good policy” and economically disastrous, said Arulanantham, who teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, and helps direct its Center for Immigration Law and Policy. “But nothing in Trump’s history suggests that they would care about such considerations.”
Courts blocked designations from expiring for Haiti, Sudan, Nicaragua and El Salvador until well into President Joe Biden’s term. Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas then renewed them.
Arulanantham said he “absolutely” could see another legal challenge, depending on what the Trump administration does.
Congress established TPS in 1990, when civil war was raging in El Salvador. Members were alarmed to learn some Salvadorans were tortured and executed after being deported from the US Other designations protected people during wars in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kuwait, from genocidal violence in Rwanda, and after volcanic eruptions in Montserrat, a British territory in the Caribbean, in 1995 and 1997.
A designation is not a pathway to US permanent residence or citizenship, but applicants can try to change their status through other immigration processes.
Advocates are pressing the White House for a new TPS designation for Nicaraguans before Biden leaves office. Less than 3,000 are still covered by the temporary protections issued in 1998 after Hurricane Mitch battered the country. People who fled much later under oppression from President Daniel Ortega’s government don’t enjoy the same protection from deportation.
“It’s a moral obligation” for the Biden administration, said Maria Bilbao, of the American Friends Service Committee.
Elena, a 46-year-old Nicaraguan who has lived in the United States illegally for 25 years, hopes Biden moves quickly.
“He should do it now,” said Elena, who lives Florida and insisted only her first name be used because she fears deportation. “Not in January. Not in December. Now.”


India’s toxic smog cuts off visibility in several areas

Updated 14 November 2024
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India’s toxic smog cuts off visibility in several areas

  • Delhi pollution ranked in the ‘severe’ category for the second day in a row
  • Pollution in New Delhi is likely to stay in the ‘severe’ category on Friday as well

NEW DELHI: Toxic smog blanketed northern India on Thursday, becoming too thick to see through in several places, as high levels of pollution combined with humidity, low wind speed, and a drop in temperature, officials said.
The city of Lahore in neighboring Pakistan ranked as the world’s most polluted in winter’s annual scourge across the region, worsened by dust, emissions, and smoke from fires burnt illegally in India’s farming states of Punjab and Haryana.
However, operations at New Delhi’s international airport were not affected by the smog, which weather officials expect to scatter during the day as breezes pick up.
Visibility remained at 300 m (980 ft), the airport operator, Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) said, while some airlines warned flights could be affected.
“Winter fog may impact flights” with Delhi, the city of Amritsar in Punjab, where authorities said visibility was zero, and the temple city of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, IndiGo said in a message on X.
New Delhi’s international airport diverted some flights on Wednesday.
The minimum temperature in Delhi fell to 16.1°Celsius (61°F) on Thursday from 17°C the previous day, weather officials said.
Its pollution ranked in the ‘severe’ category for the second day in a row, with a score of 430 on an index of air quality maintained by the top pollution panel that rates a score of zero to 50 as ‘good’.
Pollution in New Delhi is likely to stay in the ‘severe’ category on Friday as well, the earth sciences ministry said, worsening to ‘very poor’ later, or an index score in the range of 300 to 400.
The number of farm fires to clear fields of paddy stubble in preparation for the planting of wheat in north India has risen steadily this week to almost 2,300 on Wednesday from 1,200 on Monday, the ministry’s website showed.
In Pakistan, Lahore, the capital of the eastern province of Punjab, was rated the world’s most polluted city on Thursday, in live rankings kept by Swiss group IQAir. Authorities there have also battled hazardous air this month.
The province has already shut schools, halted some building work, banned most outdoor activity, and ordered early closures of some businesses in efforts to combat the problem.


Philippines Marcos’ says will not block ICC if ex-president Duterte wants to be investigated

Updated 14 November 2024
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Philippines Marcos’ says will not block ICC if ex-president Duterte wants to be investigated

  • Ferdinand Marcos Jr.: ‘The Philippines will not cooperate with the ICC but it has obligations with Interpol’
  • ’If that’s the wish of (Duterte), we will not block ICC. We will not just cooperate’

MANILA: Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said on Thursday his government would not block the International Criminal Court (ICC) if former leader Rodrigo Duterte wants to be investigated for alleged crimes against humanity in his anti-drugs crackdown.
The Philippines will not cooperate with the ICC but it has obligations with Interpol, Marcos told reporters.
“If that’s the wish of (Duterte), we will not block ICC. We will not just cooperate,” Marcos said. “But if he agrees to be investigated, it is up to him.”
The remarks follow a marathon congressional hearing on Wednesday during which Duterte, president from 2016-2022, refused to apologize for his role in the bloodshed and urged the ICC to start its investigation
All testimony provided by Duterte will be assessed to see their legal consequences, Marcos said.
Duterte unilaterally withdrew the Philippine as a member of the ICC in 2019 after it announced it had started a preliminary examination into thousands of killings in his anti-narcotics campaign. He questioned its authority to conduct an investigation.
Under Duterte, police said they killed 6,200 suspected dealers who had resisted arrest during their anti-drug operations.
But human rights groups believe the real toll to be far greater, with thousands more users and peddlers gunned down in mysterious circumstances by unknown assailants.
Authorities at the time said those were vigilante killings and drugs gangs eliminating rivals. Rights groups and some victims accuse police of systematic cover-ups and executions, which they deny.


Republicans win 218 US House seats, giving Donald Trump and the party control of government

Updated 14 November 2024
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Republicans win 218 US House seats, giving Donald Trump and the party control of government

  • A House Republican victory in Arizona and California gave the GOP the 218 House victories that make up the majority. The GOP also controls the Senate
  • In 2016, the GOP also swept Congress, but many Republican leaders resisted Trump's policy ideas and the Supreme Court had a liberal majority. Not this time

WASHINGTON: Republicans have won enough seats to control the US House, completing the party’s sweep into power and securing their hold on US government alongside President-elect Donald Trump.
A House Republican victory in Arizona, alongside a win in slow-counting California earlier Wednesday, gave the GOP the 218 House victories that make up the majority. Republicans earlier gained control of the Senate from Democrats.
With hard-fought yet thin majorities, Republican leaders are envisioning a mandate to upend the federal government and swiftly implement Trump’s vision for the country.
The incoming president has promised to carry out the country’s largest-ever deportation operation, extend tax breaks, punish his political enemies, seize control of the federal government’s most powerful tools and reshape the US economy. The GOP election victories ensure that Congress will be onboard for that agenda, and Democrats will be almost powerless to check it.
When Trump was elected president in 2016, Republicans also swept Congress, but he still encountered Republican leaders resistant to his policy ideas, as well as a Supreme Court with a liberal majority. Not this time.
When he returns to the White House, Trump will be working with a Republican Party that has been completely transformed by his “Make America Great Again” movement and a Supreme Court dominated by conservative justices, including three that he appointed.
Trump rallied House Republicans at a Capitol Hill hotel Wednesday morning, marking his first return to Washington since the election.
“I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say, ‘He’s good, we got to figure something else,’” Trump said to the room full of lawmakers who laughed in response.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, who with Trump’s endorsement won the Republican Conference’s nomination to stay on as speaker next year, has talked of taking a “blowtorch” to the federal government and its programs, eyeing ways to overhaul even popular programs championed by Democrats in recent years. The Louisiana Republican, an ardent conservative, has pulled the House Republican Conference closer to Trump during the campaign season as they prepare an “ambitious” 100-day agenda.
“Republicans in the House and Senate have a mandate,” Johnson said earlier this week. “The American people want us to implement and deliver that ‘America First’ agenda.”
Trump’s allies in the House are already signaling they will seek retribution for the legal troubles Trump faced while out of office. The incoming president on Wednesday said he would nominate Rep. Matt Gaetz, a fierce loyalist, for attorney general.
Meanwhile, Rep. Jim Jordan, the chair of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, has said GOP lawmakers are “not taking anything off the table” in their plans to investigate Special counsel Jack Smith, even as Smith is winding down two federal investigations into Trump for plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Still, with a few races still uncalled the Republicans may hold the majority by just a few seats as the new Congress begins. Trump’s decision to pull from the House for posts in his administration — Reps. Gaetz, Mike Waltz and Elize Stefanik so far — could complicate Johnson’s ability to maintain a majority in the early days of the new Congress.
Gaetz submitted his resignation Wednesday, effective immediately. Johnson said he hoped the seat could be filled by the time the new Congress convenes Jan. 3. Replacements for members of the House require special elections, and the congressional districts held by the three departing members have been held by Republicans for years.
With the thin majority, a highly functioning House is also far from guaranteed. The past two years of Republican House control were defined by infighting as hard-line conservative factions sought to gain influence and power by openly defying their party leadership. While Johnson — at times with Trump’s help — largely tamed open rebellions against his leadership, the right wing of the party is ascendant and ambitious on the heels of Trump’s election victory.
The Republican majority also depends on a small group of lawmakers who won tough elections by running as moderates. It remains to be seen whether they will stay onboard for some of the most extreme proposals championed by Trump and his allies.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, meanwhile, is trying to keep Democrats relevant to any legislation that passes Congress, an effort that will depend on Democratic leaders unifying over 200 members, even as the party undergoes a postmortem of its election losses.
In the Senate, GOP leaders, fresh off winning a convincing majority, are already working with Trump to confirm his Cabinet picks. Sen. John Thune of South Dakota won an internal election Wednesday to replace Sen. Mitch McConnell, the longest serving party leader in Senate history.
Thune in the past has been critical of Trump, but praised the incoming president during his leadership election bid.
“This Republican team is united. We are on one team,” Thune said. “We are excited to reclaim the majority and to get to work with our colleagues in the House to enact President Trump’s agenda.”
The GOP’s Senate majority of 53 seats also ensures that Republicans will have breathing room when it comes to confirming Cabinet posts, or Supreme Court justices if there is a vacancy. Not all those confirmations are guaranteed. Republicans were incredulous Wednesday when the news hit Capitol Hill that Trump would nominate Gaetz as his attorney general. Even close Trump allies in the Senate distanced themselves from supporting Gaetz, who had been facing a House Ethics Committee investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.
Still, Trump on Sunday demanded that any Republican leader must allow him to make administration appointments without a vote while the Senate is in recess. Such a move would be a notable shift in power away from the Senate, yet all the leadership contenders quickly agreed to the idea. Democrats could potentially fight such a maneuver.
Meanwhile, Trump’s social media supporters, including Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, clamored against picking a traditional Republican to lead the Senate chamber. Thune worked as a top lieutenant to McConnell, who once called the former president a “despicable human being” in his private notes.
However, McConnell made it clear that on Capitol Hill the days of Republican resistance to Trump are over.