The sequel to President Donald Trump's first year in office is opening with the lead player hamstrung by a government shutdown and hunkering down amid investigations, crises and political unease.
President Donald Trump points at a sign that reads "Merry Christmas" as he arrives at a tax reform rally at the St. Charles Convention Center, Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2017, in St. Charles, Mo. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
After 365 days in the Oval Office, Trump has found that his drive to deliver quickly on campaign promises has yielded to the sobering reality of governing — and the prospect of an electoral rebuke in November. Administration aides, outside allies and Republicans on Capitol Hill see the Trump White House continuing to face many of the same challenges it wrestled with last year, with fresh plot twists to boot.
Special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election keeps moving ever closer to the Oval Office. The government shutdown highlights the legislative challenges that persist even with Republicans controlling the White House and both the House and Senate, and makes clear the administration's need to more carefully target its political capital on specific agenda items. And the fall elections are shaping up as a referendum on Trump's tenure.
Then-White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon listens as President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting on cyber security in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2017. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
"In the second year, you no longer are one-dimensional," said Ari Fleischer, press secretary when George W. Bush was president. "There's an inevitable pivot that every administration makes, and that is to recognize that it's no longer about future events and promises, it's now about defending and promoting last year's accomplishments."
No administration comes into office fully ready for the task of leading the government, and Trump's team has taken disruption to a new extreme. Republicans outside the White House are now hoping the Trump administration will be more politically savvy. But the 71-year old president has proved set in his ways, trusting his instincts over the advice of his aides, and there is no reason to expect that won't continue.
President Donald Trump congratulates Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., while House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis., watches to acknowledge the final passage of tax overhaul legislation by Congress at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2017. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)
Yet Trump has been changed by the experiences of the past year, according to aides and outside advisers, most of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss internal dynamics. The president has grown more fearful of leaks. His inner circle of friends is smaller, most recently with the banishment of former chief strategist Steve Bannon. This smaller group of informal advisers has seen Trump favor those who tell him what he likes to hear, according to several people who talk to him regularly. And that, combined with chief of staff John Kelly's determination not to manage the president, is furthering the Trump's impulsive streak.
What comes next?
Personnel changes are afoot to streamline the West Wing political and legislative affairs teams in preparation for the November elections, and Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are preparing aggressive campaign and fundraising schedules.
President Donald Trump shakes hands with supporters after arriving at Salt Lake City International Airport, Monday, Dec. 4, 2017, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
Despite a booming economy, Trump's approval rating is at historic lows for a first-year president, weighed down by partisan controversy and his own divisive actions and statements. The fall contests represent a make-or-break moment for Trump and could influence his pursuit of a second term, an effort that will begin in earnest next year.
GOP lawmakers frame the importance of keeping control of the House and Senate in self-serving terms for Trump: Democratic control would grant subpoena power to the president's fiercest critics.
Wary of potentially losing the Senate, the White House plans to continue its aggressive push to appoint conservative judges before Congress breaks for campaign season.
For all the legislative ambition of the first year, Trump's second stands to be a more muted affair.
Immigration, the sticking point in the current shutdown, stands as the most promising option after the president provoked a crisis by setting up the March 5 expiration of protections for roughly 700,000 young immigrants brought illegally to the U.S. as children. He's hoping to use it as leverage to pass his hard-line immigration priorities.
Before the State of the Union address Jan. 30, the White House has been preparing much-delayed policy proposals on infrastructure and welfare, but little progress is anticipated as lawmakers have begun turning their focus to their own re-elections.
White House officials said Trump is looking forward to spending much of the year promoting his achievements on judicial nominations, deregulation and passage of the tax overhaul.
"If year one is about tallying campaign promises," said White House spokesman Hogan Gidley, "in year two, we can talk about results."
Administration officials pointed to Trump's speech Thursday in Pennsylvania, where he highlighted the benefits of his tax plan, as an example of his efforts to sell his first year to the public.
Overseas, many of the same challenges remain. The nuclear threat from North Korea occupies an ever-growing focus inside the West Wing. And while the Islamic State group's foothold in Iraq and Syria has been diminished, Trump is facing new questions about the role of U.S. troops in the region.
NEW YORK (AP) — Prosecutors in the hush money trial of former President Donald Trump have called porn actor Stormy Daniels to the witness stand.
Daniels has alleged that she had a sexual encounter with Trump a decade before the 2016 presidential election. Trump has denied it.
Trump stared straight forward as Daniels entered the room, turning his head slightly in her direction as she approached the witness stand.
Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger led off by asking Daniels about her upbringing in Louisiana. Daniels talked about having grown up poor and wanting to become a veterinarian.
In the final weeks of Trump’s 2016 Republican presidential campaign, his then-lawyer and personal fixer, Michael Cohen, paid Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about what she says was an awkward and unexpected sexual encounter with Trump at a celebrity golf outing in Lake Tahoe in July 2006.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump returned to his hush money trial Tuesday facing a threat of jail time for additional gag order violations as prosecutors geared up to summon big-name witnesses including porn actor Stormy Daniels.
An attorney for Daniels, Clark Brewster, told The Associated Press that the actor, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, is “likely” to be called as a witness Tuesday. Earlier in the day, Trump said in a Truth Social post that he had been “recently told” who the witness would be and complained that he should have been given more notice. He later deleted the post.
In the final weeks of Trump’s 2016 Republican presidential campaign, his then-lawyer and personal fixer, Michael Cohen, paid Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about what she says was an awkward and unexpected sexual encounter with Trump at a celebrity golf outing in Lake Tahoe in July 2006. Trump denies having sex with Daniels.
Daniels' testimony, even if sanitized for a courtroom setting and stripped of tell-all details, is by far the most-awaited spectacle in a trial that has toggled between tabloidesque elements and dry record-keeping details. Her turn on the witness stand will represent a remarkable moment legally and politically. Courtroom testimony from an adult film performer about an intimate encounter she says she had with a former American president adds to the long line of historic firsts in this case.
Prosecutors and defense lawyers quibbled at the start of the day over the contours of her testimony.
A Trump attorney, Susan Necheles, asked that Daniels be barred from testifying about “the details” of the alleged sexual encounter. Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger said such details were relevant to her credibility but also offered reassurances that they would be “really basic.” Judge Juan M. Merchan agreed to permit limited testimony.
Testimony has made clear that at the time of the payment to Daniels, Trump and his campaign were reeling from the Oct. 7, 2016, publication of the never-before-seen 2005 “Access Hollywood” footage in which he boasted about grabbing women’s genitals without their permission.
The candidate spoke with Cohen and Hope Hicks, his campaign’s press secretary, by phone the next day as they sought to limit damage from the tape and keep his alleged affairs out of the press, according to testimony.
Cohen paid Daniels after her lawyer at the time, Keith Davidson, indicated she was willing to make on-the-record statements to the National Enquirer or on television confirming a sexual encounter with Trump. National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard alerted publisher David Pecker and then, at Pecker’s direction, told Cohen that Daniels was agitating to go public with her claims, prosecutors said. Daniels had previously sought to sell her story to another celebrity gossip magazine, Life & Style, in 2011.
Pecker testified earlier in the trial that he balked at having the Enquirer pay a “catch and kill” fee for Daniels that Cohen later made.
The first witness Tuesday was Sally Franklin, an executive at Penguin Random House, which published several of Trump’s books through one of the company's imprints.
Prosecutor Becky Mangold had Franklin read excerpts from the 2004 volume “Trump: How to Get Rich” that illuminated Trump’s approach to business. The readings appeared to be designed to show that Trump was hands-on at his company and willing to retaliate against those he perceives have done him wrong.
Among the excerpts: “If you don’t know every aspect of what you’re doing, down to the paper clips, you’re setting yourself up for some unwanted surprises,” and “For many years, I’ve said that if someone screws you, screw them back.”
The jury on Monday heard from two witnesses, including a former Trump Organization controller, who provided a mechanical but vital recitation of how the company reimbursed payments that were allegedly meant to suppress embarrassing stories from surfacing and then logged them as legal expenses in a manner that Manhattan prosecutors say broke the law.
The testimony from Jeffrey McConney yielded an important building block for prosecutors trying to pull back the curtain on what they say was a corporate records cover-up of transactions designed to protect Trump’s Republican presidential bid during a pivotal stretch of the race. It focused on a $130,000 payment from Cohen to Daniels and the subsequent reimbursement Cohen received.
McConney and another witness testified that the reimbursement checks were drawn from Trump’s personal account. Yet even as jurors witnessed the checks and other documentary evidence, prosecutors did not elicit testimony Monday showing that Trump dictated that the payments would be logged as legal expenses, a designation that prosecutors contend was intentionally deceptive.
McConney acknowledged during cross-examination that Trump never asked him to log the reimbursements as legal expenses or discussed the matter with him at all. Another witness, Deborah Tarasoff, a Trump Organization accounts payable supervisor, said under questioning that she did not get permission to cut the checks in question from Trump himself.
“You never had any reason to believe that President Trump was hiding anything or anything like that?” Trump attorney Todd Blanche asked.
”Correct,” Tarasoff replied.
The testimony followed a stern warning from Merchan that additional violations of a gag order barring Trump from inflammatory out-of-court comments about witnesses, jurors and others closely connected to the case could result in jail time.
The $1,000 fine imposed Monday marks the second time since the trial began last month that Trump has been sanctioned for violating the gag order. He was fined $9,000 last week, $1,000 for each of nine violations.
“It appears that the $1,000 fines are not serving as a deterrent. Therefore going forward, this court will have to consider a jail sanction,” Merchan said before jurors were brought into the courtroom.
Trump sat forward in his seat, glowering at the judge as he handed down the ruling. When the judge finished speaking, Trump shook his head twice and crossed his arms.
Yet even as Merchan warned of jail time in his most pointed and direct admonition, he also made clear his reservations about a step that he described as a “last resort.”
“The last thing I want to do is put you in jail,” Merchan said. “You are the former president of the United States and possibly the next president as well. There are many reasons why incarceration is truly a last resort for me. To take that step would be disruptive to these proceedings.”
The latest violation stems from an April 22 interview with television channel Real America’s Voice in which Trump criticized the speed at which the jury was picked and claimed, without evidence, that it was stacked with Democrats.
Prosecutors are continuing to build toward their star witness, Cohen, who pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the hush money payments. He is expected to undergo a bruising cross-examination from defense attorneys seeking to undermine his credibility with jurors.
Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with the hush money payments but has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing. The trial is the first of his four criminal cases to reach a jury.
Tucker reported from Washington.
FILE - Stormy Daniels arrives at an event in Berlin, on Oct. 11, 2018. Witness testimony in Donald Trump's hush money trial is set to move forward again and all eyes are on who will be called next. An attorney for Stormy Daniels says the porn actor is expected to appear as a witness on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)
Former President Donald Trump attends his trial at the Manhattan Criminal court, Monday, May 6, 2024, in New York. (Win McNamee/Pool Photo via AP)
Former President Donald Trump attends his trial at the Manhattan Criminal court, Monday, May 6, 2024, in New York. (Win McNamee/Pool Photo via AP)
Former President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media before departing Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 6, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson, Pool)
