President Trump says the difference between his two administrations is simple: “The first time, I had two things to do—run the country and survive; I had all these crooked guys,” he told The Atlantic in its June issue. “And the second time, I run the country and the world.”
True enough, if the first 100 days of his second term are anything to go by.
Much of Trump’s first term was spent dealing with the Russian collusion pseudo-scandal, during which national security bureaucrats and a hostile media attempted to bring down Trump’s presidency through the auspices of special counsel Robert Mueller.
Now, Trump is surrounded by loyalists. Democrats are unpopular and locked out of power. And an unleashed president pursues his vast agenda of remaking the federal government, revamping U.S. foreign policy, and ushering in the “golden age of America.”
Still, there’s another way to distinguish between first- and second-term Trump.