WASHINGTON − The message came at 4:28 p.m. on a Wednesday, seven days before Christmas and Hanukkah. Governing by social media was back, and so was Donald Trump.

Lawmakers had been eager to head home for the holidays after unveiling a stopgap funding bill to keep the U.S. government open that by all accounts looked to be cruising toward final passage. The president-elect had other plans, calling the bipartisan legislation pushed by GOP House leadership a “betrayal of our country” in a joint statement with Vice President-elect JD Vance posted on X.
Trump’s lightning bolt from Mar-a-Lago rocketed through the marble-floor halls of the Capitol. It stunned lawmakers, who had to go back to the drawing board. Chaos enveloped as frustrated Democrats urged their GOP colleagues to stand firm. Republicans seemed baffled.

“Enormous political disruption,” said Vermont Democratic Sen. Peter Welch after a reporter showed him Trump’s statement on a phone outside the Senate chamber. Speeding past journalists into an elevator, Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski uttered, “It’s all a fascinating mess.”
Trump 2.0 was already looking a lot like Trump 1.0 – unpredictable and tumultuous, with plenty of Republican infighting. He wasn’t even president yet, but Trump was flexing his authority over the legislative process and demonstrating his appetite for conflict. As Trump’s second-term Inauguration Day approaches on Monday, the president-elect’s allies and his critics tell USA TODAY they expect ample upheaval over the coming months, with a new Republican administration arriving stocked with bomb-throwers and advisers like Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, claiming massive change is needed to save the country. It’s exactly what Trump promised during the campaign and what many voters want from the next four years.
Polls have shown a majority of Americans approved of Trump’s 70-plus day transition since his victory over Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. During this period, Time magazine named Trump person of the year. The history-making criminal cases that consumed so much of Trump’s time and attention during his 2024 presidential campaign have been falling away. His Mar-a-Lago estate in South Florida became a conservative celebrity magnet and host of headline-generating press events where the star attraction’s remarks have geopolitical consequences. It’s also where Trump strategized over his picks for key administration roles, making decisions that signal an American leader who plans to move fast and break things, according to interviews with nearly three dozen Trump insiders, allies and opponents.
“I think he’s going to come out of the box with a head of steam and he’s going to move very quickly in a way that will be dizzying, and for some disorienting,” said Ralph Reed, founder of the Faith & Freedom Coalition and a longtime Trump supporter.