Blitz! President Trump returns to familiar strategy that exhausts foes, delights friends

Donald Trump's return to Washington has been defined largely by bombarding the country with a dizzying amount of brash actions and rhetoric that opponents admit is exhausting.

"He’s throwing a lot of things at us at once. Lots of executive orders and lots of changes," Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the minority whip, told USA TODAY. "Some of them are confusing, chaotic. I don't think…we are going to keep up with it."

Hours after a catastrophic mid-air collision between a passenger jet and a military aircraft above the nation's capital, Trump entered the White House press briefing room Thursday offering a moment of silence.

But he immediately attacked his predecessors with unsubstantiated claims that offered diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives as a possible reason for the tragic accident, which killed 67 people.

Asked later in the Oval Office if he planned to visit the crash area, Trump said: "I have a plan to visit, not the site. Because you tell me, what’s the site? The water? You want me to go swimming?"

The day was vintage Trump in that it sparked an outrage among Democrats and their progressive allies before he added more indignation to the situation as bodies were still being fished out of the Potomac River.

"Politics is motion and Donald Trump is a study in motion," Craig Shirley, a Republican consultant who worked on then-Vice President George H.W. Bush's 1988 president, told USA TODAY.

"That is good for achieving his policy goals... but it's also good at keeping your opponents on the defensive."

Whether it is pardoning violent Jan. 6 defendants; firing inspectors general; revoking security detail for past critics; looking to end birthright citizenship; investigating media outlets; or having Dr. Phil join televised raids apprehending undocumented immigrants, the so-called "flood the zone" strategy, popularized in the first administration by former chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, has returned.

What's different, experts say, is the rapid fire appears to be have striking accuracy even as some actions ? such as freezing federal grant funding ? cause heartburn for friends and foes alike.

"As chaotic as it's been in the first few weeks, Trump 2.0 came in with a much better understanding of the federal government, and a team dedicated to helping him get his wins, including members of Congress," said Casey Burgat, director of the legislative affairs program at the George Washington University Graduate School of Management.

"It's clear that many of the Trump 1.0 folks stuck around D.C. and have been gearing up for a second Trump term."

'Excited': Polling shows Trump holds edge among more optimistic voters

Whether Americans are exhausted or elated by the frenzied pace, the president's second term begins with a wider berth than he had almost a decade ago when he first rocked Washington's traditions.

Trump carries a Republican-controlled Congress that has largely deferred to their party leader on serious questions about executive overreach.

"We're getting a lot done," Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said in an interview. "I think the President's quick movement is inspiring to his supporters and, yes, demoralizing to his opponents."

The first round of polling in the embryonic stages of Trump 2.0 bear this out, with a Quinnipiac University poll of registered voters released Wednesday finding 46% of voters approve of the job Trump is doing versus 43% who disapprove.

That is within the survey's 3% margin of error, but the same national poll was conducted about a week into his first term in 2017 and it showed Trump holding a 36% approval compared to 44% disapproval.

Trump fared even better in a poll released Thursday by Emerson College, which showed him carrying a 49% job approval rating versus 41% disapproval, well outside its 3% margin of error.

Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, who worked in the first Trump administration, said Trump is doing much of what he said he would during the campaign. The president will be "in a hurry" to achieve his stated goals with a single term left and two years ticking before the 2026 midterm elections.

"When he ran the first time around, he didn't quite know how he wanted to achieve his goals," Gilmore said. "Now it's clear that he does. He came into the office this time with his eyes wide open."

Part of the whiplash at Trump's pacing is tied to the contrast with former President Joe Biden, who exited office with some of the lowest approval ratings ever by an outgoing president. The late-night policy sessions and social media posts, crafted for an instantaneous affect, observers tell USA TODAY, were unheard of during those years.

"We live in an instantaneous society, instant coffee, instant orange juice. American people demand immediate solutions," Shirley, the presidential historian, said. "So what Donald Trump is doing comports with what the American people want."

At present, a majority of voters appear to be pleased with 52% saying they think the U.S. is headed in the right direction, according to the Emerson survey, versus 48% who think it is on the wrong track.

Americans had a completely different view earlier this year with just 33% who believed the country was going the right way compared to 67% who said it was going in the wrong direction.

Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., who helped deliver Trump an early win with the passage of the Laken Riley Act, which gives officers more power to detain unauthorized migrants when they're arrested for crimes, said the days of talking about problems are over.

"I'm excited. I think the American people spoke on Nov. 5, and they said, 'It's time for us to get to work,'" she said. "And I am a worker. I am a doer."

Democrats are dizzy but allies encourage strategic focus

The question at the moment in Washington is who will tap out first as both sides seek to define the second Trump administration: the White House, its Democratic opposition or the American public?

“That dizzying pace is leading to a lot of chaos,” Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, said in an interview.

Some Democrats believe the president will eventually exhaust his executive pen and return to ushering his agenda through Congress, which has small Republican majorities.

That thinking relies heavily, however, on enough squeamish GOP lawmakers opposing Trump's more controversial plans or ideas and there have been few defections on the right thus far.

Just three GOP senators, including former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., voted against Pete Hegseth’s confirmation as defense secretary, for example, and he ultimately ascended to the post after a tie-break vote by the vice president.

Others are betting on the courts to rein in his most controversial acts, such as with Trump's attempt to get rid of birthright citizenship, which was blocked by a federal judge and could ultimately land before the conservative-leaning Supreme Court.

"I think we’re going to win that case," Trump said Thursday in the Oval Office. "I look forward to winning it."

Some Democrats, such as Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a top Biden backer last year, are looking to match Trump's executive energy. The billionaire governor used his pen Thursday to issue an order blocking those involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol from holding state jobs, and he blasted Trump as someone "unfit to lead during a crisis" such as the D.C. airport accident.

As Democrats on Capitol Hill and in blue states come up with counteroffensives, others on the political left at the grassroots level said advocacy groups will have to be more disciplined with raising awareness and picking strategic battles.

The public's reaction and civic engagement, they say, will be another first line of defense against Trump's maneuvers.

They point out how many have a dislike for Trump’s free-wheeling style, as they did when he first took office. The Quinnipiac survey, for example, shows 46% of independents disapprove of Trump's job performance with 41% who approve.

Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party, a progressive political party , said grassroots leaders have learned not to take the bait on every outrage.

"The cruelty and the chaos is a choice and we were prepared for the 'flood the zone' strategy," he said.

Mitchell noted the national pushback from the Office of Management and Budget seeking to pause all federal grants and loans to ensure they complied with Trump's priorities was an example of the administration's vaulted speed turning into sloppiness, and that cost them politically among fellow Republicans.

"They are attempting to push the boundaries of presidential power," he said. "So we shouldn't be shocked that many of the things that they're doing are either unconstitutional or they violate the law or they violate norms. That also is the point, because they want to test us and these things."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump brings blitzing strategy back to White House