Steve Bannon has likened the Republican-controlled Congress to the Duma – Russia’s largely ceremonial parliamentary assembly – while senior administration advisers have joked about ruling Capitol Hill with an “iron fist,” according to a report.
Explaining the failure of Republican representatives and senators to stand up to President Donald Trump in his second term, his former White House chief strategist told The Wall Street Journal that he believed the president’s four years “in the wilderness” between 2021 and 2025, when Joe Biden was in power, had hardened his resolve to realize his aims.
“He’s doing things now he wouldn’t have ever considered the first time,” Bannon said. “He’s jackhammering away on levels you haven’t seen before.”
The WSJ offered the example of House Speaker Mike Johnson turning up at the 40th birthday party of Trump’s Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller at Ned’s Club in Washington, D.C., on August 23 to pay tribute to the official as an example of congressional Republicans bending to the president’s will.
The newspaper also cites the move to name Trump’s signature tax and spending legislation the “One Big Beautiful Bill” over lawmakers’ objections as another instance of bending the knee. It describes the decision to quietly drop calls for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files as yet another.
“People laying down their arms on the most jealously guarded power that Congress has tells you a lot about what people think their likelihood is of being successful in fighting back,” said Brendan Buck, a one-time aide to Johnson’s predecessor as speaker, Paul Ryan.
California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom was among those incensed by Bannon’s remarks, commenting sarcastically on X: “Nothing to see here.”
Columnist Richard Hanania wrote: “They’re openly celebrating the Putinization of the Republican Party.”
“The White House is laughing at Republicans in Congress, because they know they’re dog walking them,” said long-time Democrat Christopher Webb. “They see Congress as theirs to control, and Republican leadership keeps proving them right… They’re Trump’s puppets, and everyone knows it.”
The WSJ reports that the president is feeling increasingly emboldened just now, having announced the mass firing of federal workers, increased tariffs on China, and the grand jury indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James, an old enemy, all in a matter of days.
“This time, he’s having way more fun,” Trump ally David Urban is quoted as saying, comparing his present actions to those of his first term.
“What he is doing now are things that we warned could happen, but he’s taking it to an extreme level more quickly than most of us imagined he would,” added Adrienne Elrod, a former strategist to top Democrats Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris.
Kathryn Wylde, the chief executive of the Partnership for New York City business group, meanwhile, spoke to the chilling effect Trump’s aggression has had on U.S. corporate leaders when she said: “I don’t think anyone wants to suffer the consequences of any public comment whatsoever that might be interpreted as an excuse to go after them.”
“Everyone’s on my side now,” the president reportedly boasted to his advisers earlier this summer. “They were fighting me last time.”
