- As Donald Trump returns to the White House, loyalty will be a key aspect of his second term.
- Unlike in 2017, Trump is no longer a political outsider adjusting to Washington for the first time.
- On Inauguration Day, Trump will take the oath of office with a firm grip on the Republican Party.
When President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in for a second term on January 20, much will have changed since his inauguration in 2017, when he took office as a political outsider who still sparked skepticism among many in the Republican political class in Washington.
“They just didn’t expect to win,” Peter Loge, associate professor and director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University, told Business Insider of Trump’s victory in 2016. “This time there is a whole infrastructure He has projects. There is Project 2025. He looks much more like a traditional candidate ready to govern from day one.”
Here’s a look at how Trump and the country have entered a whole new era as the president-elect’s second term approaches:
Trump raked in money after the election
From Meta and Amazon to Ford and GM, a wide range of companies and CEOs contributed to Trump’s inaugural fund.
In 2017, Trump raised $107 million for his inaugural committee, a staggering sum at the time. Four years earlier, President Barack Obama’s inaugural committee raised about $43 million.
Trump has so far raised at least $170 million for his second inauguration, according to the Associated Press. A full accounting of his inaugural funds is not due until after he takes office.
Trump’s business and technology support has grown
Before Trump’s first term, many in the business community were optimistic about what they saw as his pro-growth agenda.
Trump’s $1.5 trillion tax bill, which cuts the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, was applauded by leaders who stressed the need for American businesses to remain competitive on the global market.
However, Trump’s relationships with many of these leaders collapsed after the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where white nationalist groups sparked wave of violence. And many top leaders shunned Trump in the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol, where legions of pro-Trump supporters stormed the complex in an effort to stop the certification of President Joe’s election victory Biden in 2020.
During the presidential campaign, Trump praised Musk’s technological advancements. Brandon Bell/Pool via AP
After Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in November, many business and technology leaders actively began renewing or building relationships with the new commander in chief.
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, was ahead of the curve. He spent heavily to help elect Trump and other Republican candidates last year, and Musk is apparently never far from the president-elect during his big public appearances.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Musk will be guests at Trump’s inauguration, according to NBC News and Bloomberg.
Loge told BI that many companies have decided it’s “better to be on Trump’s bandwagon than under him,” highlighting the president-elect’s tendency to reject traditional Washington operations and the desire of business leaders to company to have access to power.
“As a result, many companies are getting behind Trump pretty quickly,” he said.
An evolution of the Cabinet
During Trump’s first term, several prominent members of his cabinet, such as former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, had turbulent tenures and were fired by the president.
President-elect Donald Trump has nominated longtime Fox News political commentator Pete Hegseth as secretary of Defense. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
This time around, Trump is leaning heavily on his longtime loyalists and supporters to select his cabinet nominees for his second term and other high-level appointments.
Lots of names stand out. Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York has been named U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, pending Senate confirmation. Defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth endured a tough confirmation hearing, but he is likely to win enough votes from the Republican Party to get the job. And former presidential candidate and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who supported Trump’s campaign after ending his own candidacy — has become a popular figure in Trumpworld due of its positions on food and vaccine policies.
The million-dollar question of Trump’s second term is whether picking loyalists for his cabinet will give him the kind of stability he lacked in his first administration.
A less shocking victory compared to 2016
Many Americans, who saw the multitude of national polls showing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ahead of Trump in 2016, were genuinely surprised when he won in November of that year.
Dan Schnur, who teaches political communication at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Berkeley, told BI that Trump’s first election “caused a lot more disruption” than November 2024.
Newspapers around the world ran headlines about Trump’s shocking victory in November 2016. Metin Aktas/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
“The idea of Trump beating Clinton was inconceivable to most of the political world,” Schnur said.
After Trump’s tumultuous first term and his solitary exit from Washington following his defeat to Biden in 2020, much of the public considered the president-elect’s political career to be over.
Yet Trump has maintained his hold on the Republican base, which powered his dominant caucus and primary victories last year. This was the case despite his countless legal problems which threatened his general election campaign.
Even though Harris’ presidential bid sparked enthusiasm among Democrats after Biden withdrew as the party’s nominee, Trump maintained an edge on the economy — which was a major issue for voters last November .
So when Trump won, it didn’t come as a shock to many. And the results showed that Trump broadened his appeal, as he won every key swing state and even secured a plurality of the national popular vote.
Congress will be more obedient
Trump enters his second term with perhaps the strongest influence over Republicans yet. Lawmakers who may have been reluctant to align with Trump in the past have largely put aside their old feelings, acknowledging the fact that Republicans will now control the levers of power in Washington.
House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana will play a critical legislative role in the first two years of Trump’s second term. Puce Somodevilla/Getty Images
Republicans who defy the party on critical votes are more likely to face rapid repercussions this time around, primarily in the form of primary challenges and pressure campaigns on social media platforms like X.
Trump will also lean on Republican Party leaders in Congress – namely House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana and Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota – to pass his ambitious legislation. immigration and taxation.
However, although Republicans will enjoy a 53-47 advantage in the Senate, they currently have a razor-thin 219-215 majority in the House, which is expected to shrink further following the expected departures of two members for positions in the Trump administration.
The wind is at Trump’s back
In 2017, Trump was still a political novice and relied on the legislative connections that Mike Pence, then vice president, had accumulated during his years on Capitol Hill.
“At the time, he tended to rely on establishment figures who he believed would give him the necessary credibility in Washington,” Schnur told BI. “But he learned over those four years that many of these figures were not as loyal to him as he had hoped.”
“This time he places much more importance on personal relationships and loyalty. He is much more sure that the team around him is motivated to achieve the same goals as him,” Schnur added.
Trump now has a unified Congress and he won a second term on the strength of his past economic record, giving him a level of public support he lacked at the start of his first term.
Once he returns to power, it will clearly be a new day in Washington.
