Why Trump's boast of newly found friends could prove fleeting

Donald Trump’s first term was all about the fight — with Democrats, the media and, at times, even fellow Republicans.

But notwithstanding his role in torpedoing a recent stopgap spending deal, the times appear to be changing, according to the president-elect.

“I did have dinner with Tim Cook. I had dinner with almost all of them, and the rest are coming,” Trump said Monday of the Apple boss and other Big Tech executives. “One of the big differences between the first term, and the [ongoing transition], everybody was fighting me. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend.”

With a shrug, the incoming commander in chief appeared puzzled at the change in tone from some former foes. “I don’t know. My personality changed or something,” he quipped during a wide-ranging news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

With an ambitious policy agenda and a packed legislative to-do list that will surely test the closely divided House and Senate, Trump and his team know that a fast start once he’s sworn in on Jan. 20 is a must.

At his final campaign event on Nov. 4 in Grand Rapids, Mich., the former reality television personality was nostalgic as he told supporters he had just realized it would be his final rally as a candidate. That means, by definition, Trump will be a lame-duck president once he takes office.

While former foes, including some Democratic lawmakers, have struck a chummier tone since his election victory, the 47th president could soon learn this old adage the hard way: “True friends stab you in the front.”

Republicans are slated to hold a governing trifecta come late January — but this is still Washington, after all, so Trump is once again betting big on his personal relationships.

“We will not rest until America is richer, safer and stronger than it has ever been before. And we have a big head start,” he said Monday. “Last time we didn’t, and last time we didn’t know the people. We didn’t know a lot of things. But by the time we got it up and going, it was incredible.

“We understand, No. 1, the people of Washington. I know them. I didn’t know any of them, virtually. I relied on other people for recommendations,” Trump said. “Some were very good recommendations. … We had a lot of great people. But we had some people that I wouldn’t have used in retrospect, and now I know them better than anybody, better than they know themselves.”

A more reserved opposition … for now

Many Democratic lawmakers have raised concerns about some of Trump’s proposed policies and howled over some of his controversial picks for key health care, law enforcement and national security Cabinet and senior administration posts. But the president-elect is correct about one thing: Democrats, so far, have not engaged in the kind of constant hand-wringing that dominated Trump’s first transition eight years ago — and his entire first term.

For one, they cannot quite determine what he wants to do during his second stint in the Oval Office.

“His agenda right now is totally inchoate and unclear. I mean, he has picked as his secretary of Health and Human Services someone who has stated emphatically and unequivocally his opposition to vaccines,” Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal said Tuesday of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“If that’s the president’s agenda, he will encounter fierce and ferocious opposition,” the Democrat added. “But, so far, nobody knows whether that will be his agenda. He has been on both sides of a lot of issues, and so I think there’s a kind of wait-and-see-where-he-goes attitude.”

Outgoing Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, who will remain the No. 2 Senate Democrat in the next Congress, said the less fervent tone about Trump from the Illinois senator’s party reflects Americans’ “voracious appetite for moderation and agreement and constructive work.”

“I hope that that feeling is rewarded by Congress and the new president,” the frequent Trump critic said, a bit of sarcasm obvious in his voice.

In contrast, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, an Alabama Republican and ally of the president-elect, was more serious as he tried to explain Trump’s friendlier reception this time around: “Because he knows a lot more about the people up here. He understands them. He understands why they do things, how they do things.”

It was different at the start of his first term, Tuberville said.

“He came in and, like a football coach going in as head coach, he was told, ‘Hey, you need to hire this guy, hire that guy,' ” the former college football head coach said. “He didn’t know anybody. Now he knows, and if that’s the reason a lot of his nominations are different than everybody else: because they don’t come from mainstream politics, and they don’t come from D.C. — they come from different areas that President Trump knows a lot about.”

But what Trump said he senses is not exactly oozing through every hallway on Capitol Hill.

“A lot of people, like myself, are fearful and heartbroken that he got elected president, people who are very concerned about his agenda,” Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern said. “I mean, hopefully, there’ll be some stuff we can work together on, but I don’t feel it necessary to suck up to him and pay him compliments when there’s really nothing to compliment him on.

“For the Democrats up here, we’re focused on finishing the year as strongly as we can, and we’ll deal with him come Jan. 20.”

Clouds on the horizon

If Trump’s first term and 2024 campaign are prologue, many Democratic lawmakers should end up sounding like McGovern. But even after blowing up the bipartisan government funding and disaster aid bill over several provisions he objected to, the president-elect was still boasting of his newly found friends.

“EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE MY FRIEND!!!” That was a Thursday morning decree on social media as lawmakers scrambled to avert a government shutdown and assuage his calls to address the debt ceiling before he returns to power.

“What does President Trump want Republicans to do: vote for the CR or shut down government?” retiring Sen. Mitt Romney wrote on social media. “Absent direction, confusion reigns.”

The Utah Republican has never been a Trump friend. But some House conservatives who oppose either raising or terminating the debt ceiling, as Trump has proposed this week, could find themselves falling off the next president’s Christmas card list. In fact, Trump suggested Thursday that one of them, Texas Rep. Chip Roy, be hit with a 2026 primary challenger more in line with his populist views.

“I hope some talented challengers are getting ready in the Great State of Texas to go after Chip in the Primary. He won’t have a chance!” the president-elect threatened on social media.

Before he’s even back in office, and with a paper-thin House GOP majority that will continue to include Roy and other conservative rebels, Trump might find himself muttering, “With friends like these …”

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