David Graham

Where might he try to push congressional Republicans to give him new powers or do things that they wouldn't block?

And then after a new House is sworn in, if it's a Democratic majority, the question is how he will interact with them.

For example, would he comply with subpoenas?

Will he comply with oversight requests?

During his first term, he was really eager to kind of stonewall Democrats in the House.

But he's gone further on many things than he did in his first term.

And so I'm curious to see what that might look like, how he might be more aggressive in refusing to cooperate with a new Democratic majority.

Money in American politics is so central.

And even though voters have consistently indicated a preference for stronger rules, they're not there.

We have seen billionaires flocking to Trump in particular, and although Democrats have billionaire backers of their own.

One concern is whether the system will remain equitable and also whether Democrats are able to rely on their sort of small dollar donations.

When you have something like Act Blue under investigation, it's a real threat to the Democratic fundraising machine.

And so you already have a system that is shot through with money.

You have fewer restrictions on it.

You have bodies like the Federal Election Commission basically hamstrung by partisanship and by lack of appointments.

And so campaign finance is a little bit of a Wild West right now, and it creates more opportunities for the federal government to put thumbs on scales.

It's a challenging thing.

And, you know, there have been plenty of occasions where I have talked to experts and they've said this is not possible.

And then something happens anyway because Trump simply goes around the law or defies the law or the Supreme Court issues something unexpected.

I just try to ground this really closely in understanding both what the law is and how Trump might try to get around it and to pay close attention to these things that he and the people around him are saying.