HUNT VALLEY, Md. (TND) — While some polls tighten amid Vice President Kamala Harris's presidential bid, former President Donald Trump still maintains a lead in most over the expected Democratic presidential nominee. If he goes on to win a second term, some of his allies expect Trump to be more unrestrained than in his first four years in the Oval Office.
In that scenario Trump would return to the White House without concern for a future election atop the ticket, giving him the opportunity to implement his vision knowing he can move forward unconstrained by concerns of another re-election. This is a viewpoint expressed by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., at the Republican National Convention earlier this month, noting the lack of political pressure would make it easier to enact changes.
“He can tackle some big problems, and it’s going to take a president with the courage of not worrying about re-election," Johnson said.
Former officials during Trump's White House years say another term won't be afflicted with a cabinet full of officials who feel an obligation to push back on potential excesses. His first term saw a wave of leaks and backbiting, and ultimately Trump's Vice President Mike Pence refused to help the former president overturn the results of the 2020 election. Pence would later say Trump turned away from his pledge to uphold the United States Constitution.
“There wouldn’t be any hesitation to act on some of his more controversial ideas,” Sarah Matthews, a former Trump White House spokeswoman, told The Wall Street Journal earlier this month. “It’s just going to be a bunch of yes men and yes women.”
Matthews stepped down following the January 6, 2021, Capitol Hill riot.
A possible new term will likely lead to a continuation of fights Trump had in his first go-around but also new ones, too. Here are some of the plans the former president says he'd put in place if he wins in November.
WHAT ABOUT TAXES AND TARIFFS?
Along with permanently extending the 2017 tax cuts, which are set to expire next year, Trump is also now pushing the idea of lowering the corporate tax rate to 15% from 21%. That contrasts with President Joe Biden, who pledged to raise those rates to 28% before he withdrew his re-election bid.
Vice President Kamala Harris has not yet announced details about what she wants to do with taxes, though Democrats are strongly urging her to keep with Biden's pledge not to raise income taxes on people earning less than $400,000 a year.
The former president is floating other exotic ideas.
Trump wants to exempt tips from taxes, an attempt to appeal to service workers in critical swing states. That idea, if put into practice, could add between $150 billion to $250 billion to the federal budget deficit over the next decade, according to theCommittee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
Reprising another one of his proposals from the past, Trump is again promising to expand on the targeted tariffs that he used throughout his four years in office. He is proposing a 10% across-the-board tariff on imported goods, and possibly replacing the entire income tax system with all tariffs.
Trump and many of his supporters believe those import restrictions can raise revenue for spending on national security.
IMMIGRATION AND THE SOUTHERN BORDER
One of the first things Trump says he will do at the southern border is restore his 2019 "Remain in Mexico" program, which required non-Mexican asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for the resolution of their cases before entering the United. States.
Biden terminated the program at the outset of his term, pledging what he said are more humane immigration policies.
The president has struggled with record levels of migrants crossing the southern border ever since, choosing recently to sign an executive order temporarily shutting down asylum requests once the daily encounters top 2,500 per day between ports of entry.
Trump has also pledged to launch a mass deportation effort, focusing on what he says are criminals but aiming to send millions back to their home countries. He also told Time that he would not rule out building immigration detention camps, which he says will allow him to remove migrants at a speedy pace.
The former president also suggested the possibility of drone strikes against Mexican cartels is on the table, citing concerns about the distribution of fentanyl from across the border.
"Absolutely," Trump said when asked in a recent Fox News interview about the possibility of strikes. "Mexico's going to have to straighten it out really fast, or the answer is absolutely. They're killing 300,000 people a year with fentanyl coming in."
FOREIGN POLICY
Another Trump White House would mean reconsidering traditional understandings of national security. A new plan would mean focusing on what the former president says is peace through strength, an attempt to move past criticisms he would act as an isolationist.
The new foreign policy would be about deterrence, according to Richard Goldberg, senior adviser at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and a former Trump administration official.
"They're prioritizing China as our top threat to national security," Goldberg told Fox News. He said investing in the U.S. military would "ensure that we are able to overpower the CCP and Beijing and its wider access around the world."
Goldberg cited the assassination of Iranian major generalQassem Soleimani, who was killed by an American drone strike in Iraq with Trump's blessing.
"There was that moment where I think President Trump demonstrated to all the enemies of the United States that he's not an isolationist," Goldberg added.
EXECUTIVE ORDERS
If Trump wins and Republicans maintain their majority in the House, and flip the Senate, then the former president has an easier road to move forward on some of his agenda. He was able to cut taxes in the second year of his first term because the GOP enjoyed a majority in both chambers.
The former president will likely switch to executive orders if Democrats maintain control of the Senate or flip the House.He issued 204 orders, compared to former President Barack Obama's 276 in two terms, former President George W. Bush's 291 in two terms, and former President Bill Clinton's 364 in two terms.
Some orders would likely include asserting more White House control over the Justice Department, which Trump believes should be remade to target his perceived critics and enemies, including former allies.
“I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” Trump said in June. “I will totally obliterate the Deep State.”
Another idea Trump has floated would reclassify tens of thousands of civil service workers, who routinely stay on the jobs regardless of the administrations in charge. Turning those officials into at-will employees could make it easier to fire them.
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