Donald J. Trump, the former president, sat at the center of an U-shaped table, encircled by his steadfast conservative allies. On a Friday evening, just ten days before his inauguration, in the white and gold ballroom of Mar-a-Lago, he was elucidating to a couple of dozen members of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus about his perception of the impending moment of power. It seems that he is poised to exploit the Democrats’ current predicament, acknowledging that ‘a wounded animal can be the most dangerous,’ yet still displaying his ambition. Whether it’s his idea for a ‘one big, beautiful bill’ to push through his multi-trillion-dollar legislative agenda, his eagerness to broker a deal to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict (and perhaps fulfill his first-term dream of a Nobel Peace Prize), or his desire to acquire Greenland, the Panama Canal, and Canada for the United States, or his insistence on signing executive orders on Inauguration Day ‘until my hand breaks’—all these actions of his seem to echo the phrase ‘power in hand, ambition in heart’.
Read from: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/19/us/politics/trump-return-power.html