President Donald Trump, once a casino owner and always a dealmaker, often compares politics to poker. He likes to remind people that he believes he holds the strongest hand. “We have much bigger and better cards than they do,” he said of China last month. About Canada, he declared, “We have all the cards. We have every single one.” And to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he bluntly said: “You don’t have the cards.”
These phrases show Trump’s worldview: politics is a game of power, and he wants to control the deck. Now in his second term, seven months in, Trump has been gathering presidential powers and using them aggressively against universities, media outlets, law firms, and individuals he dislikes. The man who once claimed to be a victim of the “deep state” is now supercharging government power and turning it on his enemies.
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His supporters, far from being alarmed, are cheering him on. “Weaponizing the state to win the culture war has been essential to their agenda,” said David N. Smith, a sociologist at the University of Kansas. “They didn’t like it when the state acted against Trump, but they’re happy to see it being used against his opponents.”
From the moment he returned to the White House in January, Trump began using the federal government to push his agenda. His approach has been fast, bold, and often unprecedented.
In recent weeks, he invoked a rarely used law to take control of law enforcement in Washington, D.C., sending in hundreds of federal agents and National Guard troops. He has threatened to do the same in Democrat-led cities such as Chicago, New York, Baltimore, and New Orleans. He also fired a Federal Reserve governor, citing unproven claims of mortgage fraud.
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Trump and his allies across the executive branch have aimed the government’s power at many targets:
He threatened to block a new stadium plan for the Washington Commanders football team unless it restored its old name, a racial slur it dropped in 2020.
He revoked security clearances and tried to bar attorneys from law firms he dislikes from accessing government facilities.
He pulled billions of dollars in research funding and tried to block international students from top universities. Under pressure, Columbia University paid a $220 million settlement, the University of Pennsylvania erased swimming records set by Lia Thomas, and the presidents of both the University of Virginia and Northwestern University resigned.
He has dismissed or reassigned federal employees who worked on cases tied to him, including prosecutors.
Trump sees these moves as playing his “cards.” To his critics, it looks like an abuse of power. To his supporters, it’s proof that he’s fighting for them.
