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It’s enough to make anyone’s head spin.
In the last week, President Donald Trump met with the King of Jordan and empowered Elon Musk’s DOGE by signing an executive order promising “large scale” workforce cuts. He brought at least one wrongful detainee back from Russia and spoke to President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He ordered production of the penny to cease the same day he attended the SuperBowl, where he poked fun at foe Taylor Swift.
He imposed 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, and began sending undocumented migrants to Guantanamo Bay. He sought to bar transgender women from female sports, create a sovereign wealth fund and revoked Joe Biden’s access to intelligence briefings.
And that’s an incomplete list.
Trump’s rapid-fire approach is quickly becoming the defining feature of his second term in office, as he targets everything from Greenland to paper straws. Many allies say it’s an intentional strategy designed to overwhelm Democrats and the media with so much activity that they can’t keep up.
“It’s blitzing as much as we can until everyone is just tired,” one Trump aide explained. “What people don’t realize is all of this has been planned during transition.”
Dubbed by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon as a “flood the zone” strategy, the effects are disorienting and debilitating for many in Washington — especially Congress. Democrats are in a reactive posture toward Trump as he once again dictates the news cycle, and their resistance to Trump is hardening by the day.
Democratic leaders are even calling audibles on press conferences at times, like when they shifted focus from his pardons of Jan. 6 defendants to a sweeping funding freeze — both huge moves from January that now seem like they were months ago.
“That is a key element of his strategy: Throw it at the wall, some of it sticks, some of it doesn’t. One way or the other it’s distracting. And it’s infuriating,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who is now voting against every Trump Cabinet nominee in protest.
Even Republicans find themselves playing catch-up. They’re wondering what programs he’s cutting and what the effects are back home. Republican lawmakers released statements in the past week urging international food aid to be distributed and defending the health research in their states from cuts, amid the DOGE onslaught.
“He wanted to hit the ground running and make a lot of changes very, very quickly. And unfortunately, it’s created a lot of anxiety, chaos, consternation, confusion,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, one of the few GOP senators to question Trump’s decision-making.
“But I don’t think it’s a strategy. I think it’s sort of the Elon Musk style,” she said, referring to the blur of his management decisions at companies like X and Tesla.
Know More
Trump and his allies planned the blitz literally for years, according to Trump aides. Trump had four years to sit and watch then-President Joe Biden, giving his team time to plot his second term, which includes items they were working on ahead of the 2020 election.
And it’s all gas and no brakes. “Why wait?” a second Trump aide argued.
“The laundry list of crap that Joe Biden left with was so large that President Trump’s had to do it,” explained Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio. “It’s probably providing whiplash to people here who are used to things moving at glacial pace.”
Bannon has explained in detail that the more content that comes out of the White House, the more overwhelmed the opposition and the media will be. Trump’s team believes that more volume coming from the White House, the harder it makes it for their opponents, who they believe “can’t stop everything,” the second aide noted.
The spaghetti-at-the wall mentality has downsides: After the flash, comes the courts. Several of Trump’s plans are blocked or delayed by lawsuits, including his efforts to end birthright citizenship and offer deferred resignation to federal workers.
Trump himself alluded to how this affects his goals: “He’s slowed down the momentum, and it gives crooked people more time to cover up the books,” he told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday regarding one judge’s ruling on DOGE.
“The judicial system is a lagging and slower indicator,” Blumenthal said. “It will take awhile, but the distraction has a limited shelf life.”
Room for Disagreement
Not everyone interviewed for this story thought there was some brilliant maelstrom strategy propping up Trump’s early days. Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen said it’s partially true that Trump is flooding the zone but that Democrats are zeroing in on Musk.
“The overall theme of these actions are essentially empowering Elon Musk,” Van Hollen said. “You’ve got the richest man in the world engaged in these illegal raids on federal agencies to further empower the billionaires at the expense of the American people.”
Meanwhile, some Trump allies in Congress disputed that his fast-paced actions are all part of some big, disorienting plan. Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., a key Trump ally, attributed Trump’s flurry to “being gone for four years. There’s a lot of pent up energy.”
Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., echoed Schmitt and downplayed the notion that Trump is carrying out Bannon’s playbook: “I don’t even pay attention to Steve Bannon. I haven’t talked to Steve Bannon since I don’t know when. And so he’s not involved in what we’re doing here, and I don’t know what his involvement is” at the White House.
Shelby and Burgess’ view
The blitz strategy is working in some ways: White House reporters note the overwhelming amount of news coming from the administration, and Democrats wrestle with tactics to push back.
What happens when the administration runs out of things to do? Trump’s team says that’s a long way off. But there’s another related challenge that could slow the Trump administration’s move fast, ask questions later mentality: Congress.
For Trump allies, it’s not clear how quickly lawmakers will be able to move Trump’s agenda. And so far, he’s largely deferred to them on legislation.
“That’s the speaker’s biggest challenge, for sure,” a Trump ally said. “The jury’s out. I think they might surprise us.”
Notable
- The New York Times’ Ezra Klein is pushing back on the theory that team Trump is prepared and methodical, arguing in an audio essay that “they are scrambling and flailing already.”
- Steve Bannon spoke with Semafor’s Ben Smith about the dizzying early days of Trump 2.0: “It’s worked,” Bannon declared. “The media is a complete total meltdown.”