Trump completely controls Washington with the ‘trifecta’, but he won’t always get his way

On election night, Donald Trump repeated the phrase: “Promises made, promises kept.”

Now that the Republicans have officially taken control of Congress, their “promises” are much easier to keep.

In the language of Washington politics, it is called the “governing trifecta”, where the president’s party controls both chambers of Congress – the House of Representatives and the Senate.

That control is what the Republican Party of Donald Trump has now.

Single-party control used to be common, but in recent decades it has become rare and long-lasting. Usually, the ruling party loses seats when the mid-term congressional elections come about two years later.

Both Trump and Joe Biden enjoyed trifectas in their first two years in the White House, and both realized such control was no guarantee that a president would get their way.

In his first two years, Trump passed a signature tax bill – lowering the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% and some tax cuts for individuals.

But with some members of his team not wanting to rise to the top in 2016, he struggled with other goals.

His plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act (known as Obamacare) failed when his party’s senator, John McCain, refused to vote for it. He also failed to pass the infrastructure bill as he promised.

In his first two years, when Democrats controlled the House and Senate, Biden enjoyed success in passing the American Rescue Plan, the Investments and Jobs Act and the Chips and Science Act. But he, too, had to significantly scale back his export and investment plans – billed as the Build Back Better package – after opposition from one of his senators.

A major obstacle to total control by either party is that Senate bills require a three-fifths majority, or 60 votes, to pass a filibuster, which allows senators to delay legislation by keeping debate open. That means if a party has a simple majority in the Senate, it needs to go all the way to pass a bill.

Even with a healthy majority in the Senate this time around, Trump will not have the 60 seats that would allow him to overcome any opposition efforts to delay the legislation.

On Wednesday, Senate Republicans chose John Thune as their majority leader over Rick Scott of Florida, the clear favorite in the Trump camp, a sign that some lawmakers may reassert their independence (Trump has not officially endorsed Scott).

That said, the trifecta, if managed intelligently, paves the way for the possibility of major legislative initiatives.

Trump’s leverage could be key to pushing through his big promises like the largest deportations of immigrants in history, sweeping import tariffs, and rolling back environmental protections.

Using legislation to achieve these goals will make such programs more difficult to overturn in the courts – something Donald Trump suffered from in his first term when he used executive orders that were often challenged and often successfully challenged.

The judicial landscape has shifted in Donald Trump’s favor.

The signature achievement of his first term was putting three conservatives on the Supreme Court – cementing a two-thirds majority for decades to come.

He also appointed more than a dozen judges to the courts of appeals, transforming several circuits into a revolutionary one.

The Republican majority in the Senate provides another important advantage.

Trump will know that his nominees for office are easily approved, something he faced back in 2017 when opposition to him within the Republican Party was still a significant factor.

All of this means that the next two years will be busy and potentially turbulent. But, as recent history shows, these trifectas don’t last that long. Incoming managers will want to move on.