- As Donald Trump returns to the White House, loyalty will be a key aspect of his second term.
- Unlike 2017, Trump is no longer a political outsider adjusting to Washington for the first time.
- On Inauguration Day, Trump will swear a firm grip on the Republican Party.
When President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in for a second term on Jan. 20, much will have changed since his 2017 inauguration, when he came to office as a political outsider who still drew skepticism from many in the Republican political class. of Washington.
“They just didn’t expect to win,” Peter Loge, an associate professor and director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University, told Business Insider about Trump’s 2016 victory. “This time, there’s a whole infrastructure. .He has plans for Ka Project 2025. He is much more like a traditional candidate who is ready to start governing on day one.
Here’s a look at how Trump and the country have entered a whole new era as the president-elect’s second term approaches:
Trump has collected post-election money
From Meta and Amazon to Ford and GM, a wide range business and CEOs have contributed to Trump’s inauguration fund.
In 2017, Trump raised $107 million for his inaugural committee, a staggering amount at the time. Just four years ago, then-President Barack Obama’s inaugural committee raised roughly $43 million.
Trump has so far raised at least $170 million for his second inauguration, according to the Associated Press. A full accounting of his inaugural funds is not expected until after he takes office.
Trump’s business and technology support has grown
Before Trump’s first term, there was optimism among many in the business community about what they saw as his pro-growth agenda.
Trump’s $1.5 trillion tax bill, which cut the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, was applauded by leaders who had been vocal about the need for American businesses to remain competitive in a global marketplace.
However, Trump’s relationship with many of these leaders soured after the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., where white nationalist groups unleashed a wave of violence. And many top leaders turned away from Trump shortly after the January 6, 2021 riots at the US Capitol, where legions of pro-Trump supporters stormed the compound in an attempt to stop the certification of President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
Trump praised Musk’s technological advances during the presidential campaign. Brandon Bell/Pool via AP
However, after Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in November, many business and technology leaders began actively renewing or establishing relationships with the incoming commander in chief.
Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, was ahead of the curve. He spent heavily to help elect Trump and other GOP candidates last year, and Musk is now seemingly never too far from the president-elect during major public appearances.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Musk will be invited to Trump’s inauguration, according to NBC News and Bloomberg.
Loge told BI that many businesses have decided it’s “better to be on the Trump train than under it,” pointing to the president-elect’s penchant for rejecting the traditional workings of Washington and a desire for business leaders to have access to power. .
“As a result, many businesses are lining up behind Trump very quickly,” he said.
An evolution of the cabinet
During Trump’s first term, several high-profile members of his cabinet, such as former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, had troubled tenures and were fired by the president.
President-elect Donald Trump nominated longtime Fox News political commentator Pete Hegseth to serve as his secretary of defense. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
This time around, Trump is leaning heavily on loyalists and longtime supporters to pick his second-term cabinets and other top-level appointees.
Many of the names stand out. Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York has been nominated to serve as US ambassador to the United Nations, pending Senate confirmation. Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth endured a difficult confirmation hearing, but is likely to win enough GOP votes to secure the post. And former presidential candidate and nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who supported Trump’s campaign after ending his candidacy — has emerged as a popular figure in Trumpworld over his stances on food and vaccine policies.
The million-dollar question of Trump’s second term is whether picking loyalists for his cabinet will give him the kind of stability he lacked in his first administration.
A less shocking victory compared to 2016
Many Americans, who saw the plethora of national polls showing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ahead of Trump in 2016, were genuinely surprised when he won that November.
Dan Schnur, who teaches political communication at the University of Southern California and the University of California-Berkeley, told BI that Trump’s first election “caused much more divisiveness” than in November 2024.
Newspapers around the world featured Trump’s upset victory in November 2016 on their front pages. Metin Aktas/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
“The idea of Trump beating Clinton was inconceivable to most of the political universe,” Schnur said.
After Trump’s tumultuous first term and his lonely departure from Washington after losing to Biden in 2020, a large segment of the public saw the president-elect’s political career as over.
Still, Trump maintained his grip on the GOP base, which powered his dominant caucus and primary victories last year. This was the case despite his myriad legal troubles, which threatened his general election campaign.
Although Harris’ presidential candidacy increased enthusiasm among Democrats after Biden withdrew as the party’s nominee, Trump still maintained an edge on the economy — which was a key issue for voters last November.
So when Trump won, it wasn’t a shock to many. And the results showed that Trump broadened his appeal, winning every important state and even securing a plurality of the national popular vote.
Congress will be more convinced
Trump is entering his second term with perhaps his strongest hold on Republicans yet. Lawmakers who may have been reluctant to align themselves with Trump in the past have put aside old feelings, embracing the fact that Republicans will now control the levers of power in Washington.
House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana will play a critical legislative role during the first two years of Trump’s second term. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Republicans who challenge the party in critical votes are more likely to face swift consequences this time around, mostly in the form of primary challenges and pressure campaigns on social media platforms like X.
Trump will also rely on GOP leaders in Congress — specifically House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana and Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota — to pass his ambitious immigration and tax legislation.
However, while Republicans will enjoy a 53-47 advantage in the Senate, they currently hold a slim 219-215 majority in the House, which is expected to shrink even further after the expected departures of two members for administration roles. Trump.
The wind is at Trump’s back
In 2017, Trump was still a political novice and relied on the legislative relationships that then-Vice President Mike Pence had amassed during his years on Capitol Hill.
“Back then, he tended to rely on established figures who he thought would give him the credibility he needed in Washington,” Schnur told BI. “But he learned during those four years that many of those figures were not as loyal to him as he expected.”
“This time, he has put much more of a premium on personal relationships and loyalty. He is much more confident that the team around him is motivated towards the same goals as he is,” Schnur added.
Trump now has a unified Congress, and he won a second term on the back of earlier economic data, giving him a level of public support he lacked at the start of his first term.
Once he returns to office, it will clearly be a new day in Washington.
