Speaker 1: President Trump is wrapping up his whirlwind first week on the job now back home in Florida. Tomorrow, he'll be attending the GOP's January retreat at his Doral golf course in South Florida, where Republican leaders will be gathering to map out a plan to enact a sweeping agenda in Congress. Two more of the president's cabinet nominees have been confirmed and sworn into office this weekend, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Pete Hegseth, Trump's new defense secretary, who needed a tie-breaking vote from Vice President J.D. Vance to get confirmed. This week, three more cabinet picks will be facing a grilling on Capitol Hill. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump's pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Tulsi Gabbard, the nominee for the Director of National Intelligence. And Kash Patel, Trump's choice to head the FBI. I'm joined now by Ron Brownstein. He is a CNN senior political analyst and senior editor for The Atlantic. Great to see you, Ron. OK, so it took a tie-breaking vote by the Vice President J.D. Vance for Hegseth to get confirmed. Do you see any of these three nominees facing kind of similar difficulties in a confirmation votes? Yeah, I mean, I think the three who,

Speaker 2: the three Republican senators who voted against Hegseth, Murkowski, Collins and McConnell, are likely to vote at least, I think, against Tulsi Gabbard and maybe RFK Jr. as well. And the question will be whether there is a fourth that will block any of these. I mean, in many ways, Fred, I think the larger story is all the part of the iceberg that was under the water. The fact that 50 Republican senators were unwilling to, you know, stand in the way of Hegseth, even though he faced accusations and evidence that probably would have prevented him from getting promoted if he was serving in any of the military branches that he would now oversee. So to me, the bigger story is how much room Trump has. But with that narrow majority, I think it is, yes, possible that there could be a fourth vote against either of them, maybe both. But more likely, the bigger piece, as I said, Republicans are mostly falling in line.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, among those three senators who did not vote in support of Hegseth, Senator Mitch McConnell. I mean, he took a page, perhaps, you know, from the late Senator John McCain, McConnell, you know, joining Murkowski and Collins with a thumbs down vote for the now confirmed U.S. defense secretary. So McConnell did so quietly, apparently, I mean, not even trying to persuade other members of the caucus. Is this McConnell now focused on his legacy, his conscience and less about, you know, fealty to party or president?

Speaker 2: I think yes. But I mean, there was a, you know, there was a great book written years ago about the relationship between Lyndon Johnson and Robert F. Kennedy called Mutual Contempt. And I think we could, you know, update it and put plug in McConnell and Trump. I mean, this has been true really, you know, since Trump arrived. But what McConnell above all can do is compartmentalize. I mean, you know, there are points where he can break with Trump. But I think on the biggest policy goals of the Republican Party, confirming justices, McConnell was the one who, in essence, stole the seat from Obama back in 2016 after Antonin Scalia died, passing the tax cuts. McConnell will be there, but that doesn't mean he's going to be there always. And certainly, I think now that he's leaving office, he is letting his true feelings for Trump be, you know, a little better. Go back to the period right after January 6th, he excoriated him on the floor, but he blocked him from, you know, really from being convicted by the Senate in a way that paved the road for everything that followed, allowing him to run again. I mean, I think that's I think that's pretty much what you're

Speaker 1: going to get from McConnell. There were a lot of contradictions, though, you know, exhibited at that time. Now we'll see if it's any different. So, you know, Trump campaigned on the economy, on immigration. And in this first week in that stack of executive orders, you know, pardoning violent J6 rioters, ending birthright citizenship, you know, plus, you know, he professed renaming the Gulf of Mexico and prosecuting local officials who resist ICE. So is this what Americans voted for? Well, look, I mean, immigration was an important issue

Speaker 2: for his voters. But I think even for most of his voters, immigration was second to the economy. I mean, he was hired to do one job above all is to help people get their cost of living under better control. I mean, that was the critical dynamic in this election. Voters who disagreed with him on other issues, who still held doubts about his character and aspects of his agenda, were willing to vote for him because they thought Biden had mismanaged the economy, and they recalled it being better under Trump. And as you point out, you know, amid the fire hose of activity in this first week, I mean, openly defying the law in firing inspectors general, seemingly, you know, pushing against the boundary of the law on TikTok, hardening people who violently assaulted police officers, there have been precious little from Trump about the economy. I mean, the price of eggs literally is, you know, double what it was a few months ago in many parts of the country. And I don't know how this fight with Colombia will play out and whether these tariffs will ever go into place. But you know, now you've taken breakfast, you've taken the eggs, and now you may be raising the price of coffee by 25% since Colombia is our second largest, you know, source of imports of coffee beans. So like on a lot of different

Speaker 1: flowers, and the flowers in time for Valentine's Day, and the flowers about, you know, there has

Speaker 2: always been attention. All the economists who looked at Trump's agenda in 2024 said, mass deportation and tariffs were more likely to accelerate than tame inflation. Voters kind of look past that because they were dissatisfied with their immediate circumstance. But now, you know, he has to square all of these circles. And we'll see if the price of living is not only failing to come down, you know, the cost of living, but actually getting more difficult for people. That is not going to be a happy scenario for Republicans heading into 2026.

Speaker 1: Do you see that potentially, because so much is happening so fast, that there will be some Republicans compelled to try to draw the line? I mean, Lindsey Graham was asked today, you know, on the IGs, and he says, on one hand, well, that's a terrible thing. But then again, you know, he can, he can be surrounded by the people that he wants.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, right. I don't see I don't see a big pushback from from Republicans in Congress. I think, you know, the big to me, the biggest message of this first week, if you're looking for a unifying thread through all of this flurry of actions, is that the focus of the Trump presidency is going to be on executive unilateral executive branch action, executive orders, regulatory actions, and a lot of things he does that presses right up against and maybe beyond the boundaries of the traditional constraints on the arbitrary exercise of presidential power. And I don't see this Republican Congress really pushing back against him to office, which too often, which means that the real arbiter here, the real locus, the fulcrum of how far he can go in this term, in terms of redefining the presidency, and maybe barreling through restraints that have limited the presidency for over 200 years is going to be the courts, and particularly those six Republican appointed justices on the Supreme Court, what the country looks like after four years of Trump, I think is in the hands of John Roberts and his colleagues more than anyone

Speaker 1: else. All right, Ron Brownstein, we'll leave it there. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.