US midterms: 'Donald Trump's wings have been more than clipped'

Democrats in the United States are riding high following Tuesday night's results. The party, which picked up the House and the Senate, are pledging to get down to work as they seek to place guardrails on Donald Trump for the remainder of his presidency. Trump's domestic agenda remains dead in the water unless he can bring Democrats on board. We can bring in our foreign affairs commentator, Douglas Herbert, for more on all of this. Doug, good to see you. Donald Trump is down, but he's not out, is he? No, he's still president. He's a weakened president, right? Wings have been clipped. Yeah, his wings have been more than clipped. Listen, the more interesting question actually is whether how much he's down, how lame is he as a lame duck now, you know, just how lame is, how much does he actually care? It seems counterintuitive because you think, well, of course he cares. He's just, his party and his movement has just suffered a historic shellacking at the polls. At the hands of a lot of voters who had voted for him enthusiastically just two years ago, but are more than a little dismayed, are sometimes furious at what they see as a failure to deliver on his signature promises, whether it's bringing down the costs of your groceries, prices at the pump, starting a war that has made everyone's lives more difficult as far as making ends meet, all of those things. There was almost this sense on the day after of a president dazed and confused. A little bit, remember, he's 80 years old. Not really caring, because it always reverts to him. Donald Trump, one of his early statements after this, well, after all, you know, I wasn't on the ballot. It was the other Republicans who lost. I didn't lose. If I had been on the ballot, I would have done just great. He told voters to pretend he was on the ballot. Which is, he said, in the campaign's final stages, in the election's end stages, he said 47 times at rallies, 47, he told voters specifically, explicitly, pretend I'm on the ballot. So, you know, he flipped it afterwards, as he does. He turns on a dime and says, well, it wasn't me on the ballot. It was them on the ballot. So once again, not wanting in any way. And this is this is once again, also a signature Trump, not wanting to take responsibility or have accountability for anything that might reflect on his poor judgment or his record. What can he do now? Well, he can still use wield the veto. He was talking a lot about the presidential veto. And it's true. In order, if the Democrats come at him with legislation. aimed at undoing his tariffs, aimed at trying to restore some health care access to Americans who have now been deprived of health care access, whether it's on immigration, going after ICE, trying to reform the Customs and Immigration Enforcement and reverse some of the more draconian aspects of the crackdown on immigrants across America. On all of these fronts, even whether it's trying to unwind the Iran war, he can put his veto. Use his Sharpie pen, Reach for that Sharpie, put the veto on there. Um, and then what do you need? You need two thirds, uh, to override. It's very hard to override a presidential veto. Even with this mandate, this massive majority that the Republicans are now going to have in both the house and the Senate getting that, that veto overridden and Trump knows it's going to be difficult. There's also the executive decrees. We saw a flurry of those early on in the first days of the administration. Their executive decrees are very convenient tools to be in order to, to sort of do a circumvent to do an end run around congressional legislation or congressional green lights. He could do that. The question is, is he going to want to? He also signaled, and here's where it gets like contradictory, right? Because you can't read Trump because he can change on a dime. You know, he says, well, I'm not going to contest the results, right? And I'm actually ready perhaps to work with Democrats. We'll see if we can work things out. So perhaps there's a little bit, tiny bit of the fear in there of the potential for the Democrats to really come after him, investigate him, crack down. Uh, use their powerful committees that they'll now chair in the, in the house to come after him and his cabinet on any number of issues. And maybe there's just a sense of, he's an 80 year old guy right now, uh, will be 81 next year, not caring that much. He would have won if he had been on the ballot and he's more interested in his ballroom anyway, as he made clear on the day after taking reporters on a tour of the ballroom, showing the first beam going up and saying, imagine chandeliers everywhere. That's where his mind is, right? I mean, maybe now Democrats can also get Republicans to to support them in these efforts, given that Republicans hopefully will start growing a spine now that there's a possibility of that. Yes, we'll see what happens on that front. Now, I'm just curious with all this newfound power that Democrats have, given that during this Trump presidency, we have seen so much blatant corruption, Doug, unlike. Anything I have seen in my lifetime, you know, when we think about the jet gifted from Qatar, the crypto deals for Trump and his family, will Democrats use their power to investigate Trump and his close circle? Yes, they will. Not because I'm guessing, because the Democrats have explicitly said that the Democrats. Do not want to be perceived as, as just out to get a vendetta. You know, the other party in power always tries to impeach the, uh, the other party's president. It's not about that for Democrats. The issue of impeachment isn't simply, well, they've done it twice. Uh, they've impeached him twice and now they're going for a third time because they have power again. It's a real issue of accountability and basic morality as they see it. The Democrats, um, in Congress and in their, in their House oversight committees do have a constitutional remit. A mandate to do oversight, as the name suggests. And oversight means holding a president who is perceived to be either corrupt or committing malfeasance and wrongdoing in office, holding them to account. That is actually incumbent on whichever party, Republican or Democrat, sees the chief executive doing such things. So, yeah, they've made it clear they're going to investigate all the things you were talking about, the misuse of taxpayer funds. The self-enrichment lining your pockets. Donald Trump became two point two billion dollars richer by a lot of reporting. Um, in, in, in the second term, uh, president term of his presidency, um, investigating members of this cabinet, whether the national security director, Mark Wayne Mullen, uh, whether we're talking about the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, um, on any number of counts, those people should probably get ready for investigations, not petty, not politically motivated game playing, uh, investigations, but investigations borne out by evidence of allegations of serious wrongdoing, By them, by the secretaries in office. But they're also clear that they are still going to remain laser focused on affordability. They know that that's what the voters went to the polls about, the high cost of living, how tough life is. So, but they think they can walk and chew gum at the same time, the Democrats. They think they can investigate, do their oversight job, and also pass aggressive legislation that makes things affordable again and addresses that chief concern of American voters. And work with the president when they need to. When they can. Yeah. Doug, thank you very much for that. Douglas Herbert there.