Donald Trump has sweeping plans for a second administration. Here’s what he’s proposed

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Vance leads behind-the-scenes Iran deal push

Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photos: Brandon Bell and U.S. Navy via Getty Images

Vice President Vance has spent the past two weeks personally involved in indirect talks with Iran aimed at reaching a new ceasefire and resuming nuclear negotiations, Axios' Barak Ravid reports. Why it matters: Vance's heavy involvement shows he's taking it upon himself to extract the U.S. from a conflict he blamed for the GOP's staggering losses in this week's election. It also elevates the latest round of indirect talks to the highest levels of the administration. 🔎 State of play: U.S. officials and regional sources say that, for now, Trump is willing to let diplomatic efforts play out and wants to see if any kind of deal is possible. But if he changes his mind, the U.S. military is ready to launch strikes on a relatively short timetable. Go deeper.

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🏗️ Trump arch will include "sniper nest"

Artistic rendering: United States Triumphal Arch Foundation A federal court has temporarily blocked groundbreaking for President Trump's towering memorial arch. But pushing ahead, he launched a glitzy website yesterday that rebrands the arch as a military tribute: The United States Military Triumphal Arch. The 250-foot-tall complex is slated to rise in a mass of blindingly gold ornamentation and stately gray granite on the Virginia side of the Potomac River, between Arlington National Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial, AP reports. Graphic: AP The website features the huge word "Triumph" in gold cursive script reminiscent of the typeface used at Mar-a-Lago. "Inside the two massive columns will be storage for munitions," the website says. "In addition, areas on the pedestal and Observation Deck will be set aside for snipers, countersnipers, and provisions for a sniper nest. Likewise, the open ground area at the base of the Monument will be designed for launching drones and other homeland security assets, if and when necessary." Keep reading.

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Judge wants former US attorney to investigate whether the government misled her in Trump golf case

A federal judge said Saturday she intends to appoint an ex-top federal prosecutor in the nation's capital during President Donald Trump's first term to investigate whether she was purposefully misled by lawyers and administration officials in a lawsuit challenging one of his prized Washington construction projects, the renovation of a historic public golf course along the Potomac River. Read More.

Trump’s grip on his party is in question as Republicans reel from the midterm wipeout

Republicans aren't holding back. Read More.

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First major Miller shakeup

White House deputy chief of staff Richard Walters is leaving the administration, the first major departure in an expected staff shakeup as incoming chief of staff Stephen Miller takes charge, Axios' Alex Isenstadt reports.

• Why it matters: The exit of one of outgoing chief of staff Susie Wiles' allies signals a changing of the guard inside the West Wing, with Miller's team poised to move into more powerful roles.

Walters was one of Wiles' closest political lieutenants, with a relationship stretching back more than a decade. He's a veteran Republican operative who served as the longest-tenured chief of staff in RNC history.

• Walters resigned Friday, the same day that Trump announced Miller would replace Wiles.

Read on.

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Trump's Jensen loyalty

President Trump stood by Jensen Huang last night, telling reporters that the Nvidia CEO is "an honorable guy" and "probably has an excuse" for his infidelity, Axios' Zachary Basu writes.

• Why it matters: Huang has become one of Trump's closest corporate allies, fashioning himself as a leader with unparalleled clout in Silicon Valley, on Wall Street and inside the White House.

🔭 Zoom in: The New York Times first exposed the suspected Chinese espionage operation on Oct. 29, reporting that a woman believed to be working for Beijing had developed a close relationship with Nvidia's CEO.

• The company portrayed their interactions as routine business dealings — an account now under scrutiny after Huang admitted he was "unfaithful" to his wife.
• U.S. officials believe Beijing's top spy agency recruited Alice Huang, an executive at Nvidia customer Megaspeed, to gather information and potentially influence Nvidia's campaign to expand advanced chip sales to China.

The intrigue: The Trump administration reportedly knew about the suspected Chinese intelligence operation long before it became public.

• Trump was briefed in 2025, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio personally oversaw a classified intelligence memo warning senior officials this spring, according to the Times.
• Yet Trump continued to embrace Huang as a trusted adviser, welcoming him to the White House as the Nvidia chief pressed to loosen restrictions on advanced chip exports to China.

🥊 Reality check: There's no public evidence that Huang's relationship influenced his advocacy for selling to China, a longstanding commercial priority for Nvidia.

• John Rizzo, the company's head of public policy communications, said in a statement yesterday: "Today's news will not slow NVIDIA. Jensen is committed to continuing to lead NVIDIA as CEO without interruption."

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Trump says his deportation policy ‘might have been too tough’ for voters in the election President Donald Trump in his first major interview since the midterm elections told CBS’s “60 Minutes” that he thinks his administration was too aggressive on deportations. He added he thinks he can work with Democrats in the new Congress on some kind of immigration deal. Read more.

What to know: Trump said his deportation policy was part of the reason Republicans lost, in the interview that aired on Sunday. Trump did not give specifics about what a deal with the new Democratic majority would look like — and shortly after taping the interview on Friday, Trump named the key architect of his hard-line immigration agenda, Stephen Miller, as his new chief of staff.   “Apparently, his solution was to put the man responsible for it in charge of the White House. That’s not a course correction. That’s a promotion,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer scoffed on social media Sunday after the interview aired.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Democrats face limits in trying to rein in Trump's immigration agenda Trump says he was just kidding about making UFC’s Dana White his press secretary Trump’s war against Iran not ‘necessarily popular’ but needed to stop a nuclear threat, Rubio says Democrats plan to push clean energy to lower bills and challenge Trump’s fossil fuel agenda Native American women made history in tribal, state and federal elections Still hitting refresh on our election results page waiting for the final calls in Alaska and Mississippi? Sign up for news alerts here, and we’ll bring the latest updates to your inbox.

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FBI is looking at Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s affair with an alleged Chinese agent, Trump says

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Monday that the FBI is investigating Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s affair with an alleged Chinese government agent, but said he doesn’t think the executive who has helped to develop artificial intelligence has a reason to worry.

https://apnews.com/article/china-denies-spy-jensen-huang-nvidia-3345b9f05c54d58909e88f6dcb9c1cd8?

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The Joke’s on Him

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When President Trump posted on Saturday that he’d asked Dana White, the head of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, to be the new White House press secretary, it felt like a callback to the freewheeling first-term Trump.

“I am pleased to announce that the Great Dana White, a violent Fighter and Warrior, has been offered the job of Press Secretary of the United States,” the president wrote on Truth Social, adding that he needed White and his band of mixed-martial-arts fighters “to defend us against the Lunatic Left. Dana will be a Press Secretary like none other. Dana, please take the job!”

By weekend’s end, the possibility of the appointment had dissolved, though not without a subplot of speculation that Trump was confusing the impresario with another Dana White who had actually served as a Pentagon spokesperson during his first term. CNN reported that White had declined, and last night, Trump told reporters he never meant it anyway. “I was only kidding, but Dana loves the idea,” he said.

Perhaps. Trump has a long record of launching outlandish ideas and then playing them off as jokes when they don’t work out. If it was all a jape, then the weak stab at humor seems to underestimate the electorate’s frustration with his antics. If he was serious and got rejected, it’s even worse. An old maxim goes that when the president of the United States asks you to do something, you do it. But Trump no longer has the juice he did in the early days of this administration, when billionaire tech CEOs were showering him with attention and the odd bauble. Last Tuesday evening, as election results rolled in, my colleague Jonathan Lemire wrote that “Donald J. Trump is now officially, thoroughly a lame duck.” Now we’re getting a glimpse of what that looks like in practice.

Start with the cool reception that Trump’s elevation of Stephen Miller to White House chief of staff received among Republicans. Representative Marlin Stutzman called it a “horrible decision.” Another legislator told Fox News that his reaction was “utter disbelief.” When a Politico reporter informed one member of the choice, they replied, “Please tell me you’re lying to me right now, just to get a reaction.” Take these statements with a grain of salt—Republicans have often been happy to talk trash about Trump anonymously while going along with him publicly—but whether or not they acquiesce with the president matters less now that the GOP is so outnumbered in Congress.

One test of where House Republicans actually stand will come this week. Thomas Massie, a renegade GOP member who Trump helped defeat in a primary earlier this year, refiled articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth today. Although Speaker Mike Johnson (speaking of lame ducks) had temporarily stymied Massie’s impeachment efforts in September by sending members home until after the midterms, the House is now back in session. Rounding up enough Republican votes to move the articles forward will be difficult but not impossible; a significant number of GOP members lost their seats last week, including many of the more moderate representatives, which means they are less in Trump’s thrall. Assuming that Hegseth is not impeached this month, it seems all but inevitable once Democrats take over. This weekend, presumptive Speaker Hakeem Jeffries said he’s a “hard yes” on impeachment.

Republicans’ losses have produced infighting elsewhere in the party too. As Miller moves to take over, fallout from his predecessor Susie Wiles’s tenure continues. Calley Means, a former aide to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast, where he accused Wiles and James Blair, a top Trump political adviser, of selling the MAHA movement out to corporate interests. The Wall Street Journal reports that, ahead of their public social-media fight, Blair texted Means, “If you are gonna try to knife me, I’m happy to return the favor.” Meanwhile Senator Ron Johnson, a hard-right figure from Wisconsin, has picked up on Means’s comments to accuse the Trump administration of “corruption.”

One person in particular left somewhat unmoored by the results is Vice President Vance, who built his entire profile on closeness to a politician whose toxicity is now made plain. In a long post-election X post, Vance pinned the midterm defeat on the Iran war. This was widely seen as a swipe at the president and an attempt to position himself for 2028, but as The New Yorker’s Jason Zengerle observed, Vance “didn’t so much throw Trump under the bus as try to bring him on board his bandwagon by essentially putting words in Trump’s mouth.”

But Trump does not seem inclined to cooperate. For one thing, he continues to defend the war. On 60 Minutes last night, he acknowledged the political fallout but said, “I think, historically, this will be a very good decision. Is it a good decision for today and tomorrow? Maybe not.” Speaking with reporters last night, he once again declared victory in the unresolved war with Iran and then claimed, falsely and callously, that “we haven’t lost anybody. No soldiers.”

At other times, though, Trump has sounded unusually chastened since Election Day. He told The New York Times that he looks forward to working with the Democrats. He also acknowledged on 60 Minutes that his deportation policy, which “might be too tough,” could explain the GOP’s shellacking. “I think I got an A-plus for closing up the border,” he said, “but I get hurt because we also took people that had good jobs, that created one violation, or breaking of the law, and that was that they came into the country illegally.” A deescalation on immigration enforcement seems unlikely with Miller as chief of staff, given his role in implementing that policy, but the fact that Trump was willing to offer conciliatory remarks suggests that he is beginning to recognize the challenges of life as a lame duck.

Related:

• Repudiation
• ICE after the blowout

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Trump nominates Justice Department official to a EEOC seat that was left open by Democrat's firing

President Donald Trump has nominated a Justice Department official to an open seat on a key civil rights agency, signaling his administration's determination to forge ahead with efforts to dismantle diversity policies it claims discriminate against white workers and others. Read More.

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Too Big to Fail? (Heather Diehl / Getty)

View in browser On Wednesday morning, Americans awoke to the news that the Democrats had retaken both the House and the Senate. The next day, the stock market hemorrhaged $2.5 trillion. The tech sector was hardest hit. Alphabet, Nvidia, and the major semiconductor companies shed billions. Tesla and SpaceX, whose founder, Elon Musk, had spent half a billion dollars trying to keep Democrats out of Congress, were suddenly worth approximately $420 billion less than they had been two days before. In some ways, the election results were a referendum on Big Tech. Recent polls have revealed that most voters want the government to impose new regulations on AI, and many victorious Democrats campaigned on a promise to move away from the unchecked expansionism that has defined the industry during the Donald Trump era. Texas Governor-Elect Gina Hinojosa and Senator-Elect Annie Andrews of South Carolina have both pledged to stop the construction of new data centers, which have been the subject of voter panic across the country in recent months. (These facilities—physical manifestations of the industry’s clout—can raise local electricity costs and pollute the air.) Others vowed to stand up to imperious Silicon Valley elites, or to hold the president accountable for his corruption—much of which is linked to his family’s cryptocurrency ventures. Last week’s sell-off was a sign that the stock market is taking lawmakers at their word. At the same time, the dip hinted at a potential challenge for Democrats. Voters made clear that they were unhappy with the cost of living, and many Democrats who ran on affordability ended up winning big. Widespread fears about what AI might do to jobs only fueled the party’s comeback. The irony is that AI companies are responsible for a sizable chunk of the United States’ GDP growth; AI products have invaded our professional and personal lives, as well as our pension funds and 401(k)s. All Americans now have a stake in the AI economy, whether they’ve opted in or not. It might even be more accurate to say that, at this point, AI is the economy. According to a recent Bloomberg story, “nearly $32 trillion in market value had been added to the S&P 500 Index since OpenAI released ChatGPT, and more than half of that gain came from just 10 companies—all linked to artificial intelligence.” The article also noted that “almost all the growth in US business spending last year came from spending on technology,” much of which is, of course, connected to AI and the ongoing data-center build-out. The technology’s effects on the economy are complex, and not purely positive: Demand for AI is contributing to inflation and helping keep long-term-bond yields relatively high. But AI has become so entrenched that Democrats’ efforts to target the industry could have ripple effects. Their challenge will be to regulate AI in the ways they campaigned on without damaging the economy they’ve promised to protect. It’s no accident that this technology has so thoroughly infiltrated the world of American business. Many companies have been eager to adopt it (despite the lack of proof that it makes workers more productive), and investors are hungry for a piece of what they see as humanity’s next great technical evolution. But the federal government has enabled this expansion too. Even though the industry’s leaders have warned that their technology may destroy the world, and even though AI’s ability to wreak havoc on vital infrastructure, such as banks and power grids, has become clearer and clearer, the Trump administration has refused to implement strict controls on the sector. In fact, the White House has gone out of its way to try to override state-level rule making on AI, asking Congress to adopt its pro-AI policy recommendations. And the president himself has maintained close relationships with Silicon Valley’s leaders and personally invested in AI firms. Recall that the CEOs of Meta, Apple, and Google stood behind Trump at his second inauguration, and that their companies collectively donated tens of millions of dollars to the new White House ballroom. Meanwhile, the administration’s other policies have weakened the economy. Although the stock market has done well during Trump’s second term, the health of the American economy is measured in more than just the valuations of its biggest companies. The president’s decision to implement tariffs and to start a war in Iran have pushed up the cost of living. Energy prices have spiked, and inflation has lately outpaced wage growth, meaning that workers’ dollars aren’t going as far. Now lawmakers have a chance to fight for the kind of changes they’ve been promising, and AI is an important part of their calculus. My colleague Matteo Wong wrote earlier this month that AI is an engine of growth, but it’s also hogging some of the attention and the investments that might have once gone to other sectors. “The industry seems to be holding not just the American economy but our entire society hostage,” he explained. “Nvidia, Google, and the like had better succeed financially, or there go your savings.” (Yesterday, Trump joined Silicon Valley leaders in defending Nvidia’s Jensen Huang after reports emerged that the CEO had cheated on his wife with an alleged Chinese spy—another acknowledgement of the country’s deep reliance on Huang and his company.) It doesn’t help that the Democrats don’t have a coherent plan for reining in AI. As my colleague Rogé Karma has written, individual candidates have proposed some ideas, including a federally controlled kill switch that can shut models down in an emergency and an outright pause on advanced AI development. Some have made the very reasonable point that slowing the growth of AI here in the United States is a moral imperative—a way to safeguard humanity, akin to nuclear disarmament—and that it’s more important than any economic trade-offs. But voters worried about their savings may not ultimately see it that way. There are geopolitical trade-offs, too: Although legislators can choose to hamper AI’s development in the U.S., it’s unlikely that China, the country’s primary tech rival, will choose to do the same. This week, the stock market has been well on the way to recovery. But if AI companies are weakened in the months and years to come, all Americans will eventually be affected—not just the early investors and executives stewarding this industry. Whatever congressional Democrats decide, the interconnectedness of the AI economy ensures that their moves will have consequences that extend well beyond their chosen targets. Related: America can’t afford an AI recession. Democrats have no coherent plan for AI.

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Trump's imperial last act

Photo illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios. Photo: Samuel Corum/Getty Images

President Trump, with the clock ticking and congressional investigators closing in, plans to govern even more imperially, hell-bent on stretching executive power, targeting those on his enemies list, pardoning allies, and daring the courts and Congress to slow him down, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen write in a "Behind the Curtain" column. Why it matters: Trump and his allies are exploring executive action on new tariffs and immigration restrictions, and asserting greater control over spending. On X over the weekend, Trump discussed targeting and perhaps jailing Democrats who investigate administration officials. He claimed politically motivated harassment. Trump is retooling his White House by elevating the one official who's synonymous with his all-gas-no-brakes style: Stephen Miller, who took over for Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff yesterday. Watch Miller and Russ Vought, the White House budget director, to understand how this approach will unfold. Both are architects and advocates of vastly expanding presidential power, believing there are virtually no restraints on what Trump can do as president. The Swamp can expect tougher sledding: Miller, unlike most of his predecessors, is driven more by ideology than by meetings with lobbyists or industry groups. "Stephen gives zero f*cks what K Street thinks," a Trump confidant told us. 🔎 Between the lines: Midterm losses pushed Presidents Clinton and Obama to the center. Trump's instincts are the opposite: Assert maximal power. The playbook: Restore MAGA. Two years ago, MAGA — mostly its network of podcasts, YouTubers and online activists — was a powerful, united force in media and politics. Today it's a hot, divided mess. Trump's attention to his base drifted. Now Vice President Vance and Miller desperately want to rebuild and rev up MAGA. That's why ending the Iran war, curtailing aid to Israel and pushing harder on RFK Jr.'s MAHA agenda are suddenly top-tier topics. Rule by pen. Miller, Vought and White House lawyers have been drafting executive actions to govern without Congress, with Justice Department opinions ready to defend them, Reuters reported just before the election. Remember: Vought was an architect of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 blueprint for maximizing executive power in Trump II. Target enemies. Before, it was pure payback. Now, it's also a preemptive warning that the Trump administration will target anyone, including elected members of Congress who target them. Trump ally Roger Stone told us: "Many Democrat lawmakers are going to find themselves under indictment and fighting conviction. Watch." Purge the "deep state." The Supreme Court's ruling in a case about independent agencies, Trump v. Slaughter, widened the president's power to remove officials. "The Slaughter case gives the president tremendous powers," Trump said in an Election Day phone interview with CBS News' Robert Costa. The June ruling handed Trump the power to fire the heads of the FTC and other independent regulators (like FERC) for any reason or no reason. More monuments. Trump's pharaonic need to gild the White House, build a ballroom, erect a triumphal arch and slap his name on buildings is also an exercise in raw power. He told New York Magazine's Ben Terris why he's honoring himself: "Nobody will do it once I'm gone. When I leave here, nobody will." No one can stop him. The Republican resistance: Expect very little inside the new Congress. The reason: Most of Trump's Capitol Hill critics are gone. What's left is a much smaller, but more Trumpian, band of middle-aged and older white Republicans with margins too small to matter much. The Trump bet: Congressional Republicans will quickly feel Democrats are overreaching and unify in solidarity with Trump, even if it's forced or begrudging. 🥊 Yes, but: One of Trump's most predictable attributes is his unpredictability. He said on election night that he'll "work together" with Democrats. What that may look like (with a heavy emphasis on "may"), based on reporting by Axios' Marc Caputo: Soften aspects of immigration enforcement, particularly regarding masked agents harassing U.S. citizens. Find common ground with MAHA's healthy food agenda, which has become the subject of vicious post-election infighting among Trump insiders. Sign legislation from the new Congress that would undo massive Medicaid cuts in his "One Big Beautiful Bill." The bottom line: Trump is still Trump. He's 80 and it shows. But he meets force with force and he'll go down swinging the more Democrats attack him. "Trump and his team are at our best when our backs are against the wall," one adviser told Caputo. "Trump comes out fighting. We're full-throated and full-throttle."

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💥 MAHA's White House revolt

Calley Means quickly rose from wellness entrepreneur to senior Trump health adviser — and now he's attacking the White House and suggesting top aides undermined the president's health agenda, Axios' Caitlin Owens and Adriel Bettelheim write.

• Why it matters: His scorched-earth campaign — which continued yesterday in comments to Axios — marks a stunning turn for one of the administration's most vocal advocates of the "Make America Healthy Again" agenda.

Means, who is widely credited with brokering the alliance between Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and President Trump in 2024, resigned from his administration post late last month.

• He told Axios he's going public with allegations of corruption — particularly involving former White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles — because "it is existential to the survival [of] America that we rid DC of Susie's brand of politics."
• Means launched his attacks Friday on "The Joe Rogan Experience" and continued them Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation" and across social media.

🖼️ The big picture: MAHA leaders have complained for months about a lack of progress on issues around healthy foods and pesticide use.

The intrigue: The MAHA base sees new chief of staff Stephen Miller as an ally. Miller's wife, Katie, hosted Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on her podcast and has posted photos of dishes with ingredients like raw milk.

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FBI is looking at Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s affair with an alleged Chinese agent, Trump says President Donald Trump said Monday that the FBI is investigating Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s affair with an alleged Chinese government agent but that he doesn’t think the executive who has helped to develop artificial intelligence has a reason to worry. Read more.

Why this matters: The sudden emergence of Huang’s infidelity has rocked the political class and America’s tech sector, creating new concerns about whether China has been able to access the cutting-edge chips designed by Nvidia that are powering the development of artificial intelligence. Trump suggested the extraordinary step of directly involving himself in a counterintelligence investigation, a sign of his friendly relationship with Huang and the possible geopolitical stakes. China denied Monday that it engaged in an attempt to ensnare Huang.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ What we know and don’t about the alleged plot WATCH: Who is Jensen Huang? Investigation puts a spotlight on chip billionaire’s personal life