Trump’s Vindictive Second-Term Agenda

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The Washington Roundtable: In recent weeks, Americans have begun to get a clearer picture of what a second Donald Trump Administration could look like. Some clues have come from organizations like the Heritage Foundation, which has laid out policy proposals for the Trump campaign. Others have come from the former President himself. Trump has said he would appoint a prosecutor to “go after” Joe Biden and his family; on Veterans Day, this past weekend, he pledged to root out opponents and critics who he said “live like vermin within the confines of our country.” “Trump wants to get rid of all of these guardrails that protect the government from becoming a spoil system,” the staff writer Jane Mayer says, including by firing members of the federal civil service. Ultimately, how different would a second Presidency be from the last time that Trump was in the White House? “There are two words that I would say really underscore the difference this time, and why Trump in 2024 is arguably a much bigger threat in many ways than he was even eight years ago,” the New Yorker staff writer Susan B. Glasser says. “The two words are ‘retribution’ and ‘termination.’ ” The staff writer Evan Osnos joins Mayer and Glasser to weigh in.