29 June 2024

Trump’s Most Unhinged Plans for His Second Term | New York Magazine UPDATED JUNE 28, 2024

EARLY AND OFTEN 

Trump’s Most Unhinged Plans for His Second Term

By senior editor for Intelligencer who has worked at New York since 2012

Fill his Cabinet with people like Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon
. . .While Trump “hasn’t settled on specific roles for specific figures,” according to Axios, he is planning to put some of his most loyal — and most notorious — supporters in his Cabinet and other high-profile positions. 
Names being floated include 
  • Stephen Miller (possibly for attorney general), 
  • Steve Bannon (as potential chief of staff), and 
  • Jeffrey Clark, the former Justice Department official who was indicted along with Trump in Georgia (who nearly became attorney general during Trump’s final days in office).
While many of the characters on the short list would have a hard time winning Senate confirmation, Trump has already made unprecedented use of the “acting” designation, and may do it again. 
“I sort of like ‘acting,’” Trump said in 2019. “It gives me more flexibility.”


For months the polls have shown that Donald Trump has a very good shot at winning the 2024 presidential race, and after Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance a Trump win seems even more likely. Perhaps, like me, you’ve been comforting yourself with the thought that you already survived his first administration. How bad could a second Trump term really be?

As it turns out, pretty bad! Trump has been releasing policy papers and videos on what he calls Agenda 47 for months, and he and his advisers are openly bragging about their radical plans for a second term. Some of the worst elements of Trump’s first-term agenda were thwarted by scrupulous government officials, legal challenges, and the Trump team’s general ineptitude. But the former president and his well-funded allies in the conservative movement are already working to make sure they’ll be more successful if he winds up back in the White House.
Many of Trump’s proposals for his second term are surprisingly extreme, draconian, and weird, even for him. Here’s a running list of his most unhinged plans.
Many of Trump’s proposals for his second term are surprisingly extreme, draconian, and weird, even for him. Here’s a running list of his most unhinged plans.
  • Let states monitor pregnancies and prosecute women who get abortions
  • Give the president unchecked power over federal agencies
  • Restore the president’s authority to bypass Congress

Appoint special prosecutor to ‘go after’ Biden

Hours after he was indicted on 37 criminal counts for allegedly mishandling classified documents in July, Trump took to Truth Social to announce his plan to appoint a special prosecutor to go after Joe Biden and the “entire Biden crime family.”

  • Use the Justice Department to get revenge on all of his enemies
  • Expand presidential immunity
  • Purge the civil service
  • Install thousands of loyalists throughout the federal government
  • Round up, detain, and deport millions of undocumented immigrants
  • Deploy U.S troops for ‘war’ on southern border
  • End birthright citizenship
  • Reinterpret anti-racism protections to benefit white people

Construct ‘Freedom Cities’

Trump released a video in March 2023 announcing his plan to hold a nationwide contest to design and develop ten new “Freedom Cities” to be constructed on federal land.

“In other words, we’ll actually build new cities in our country again,” Trump said. “These Freedom Cities will reopen the frontier, reignite American imagination, and give hundreds of thousands of young people and other people, all hardworking families, a new shot at home ownership and in fact, the American Dream.”

Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with investing in urban areas or making it easier to buy a home. But as economist Richard McGahey explained in Forbes, “Waving a magic wand isn’t how cities develop.” Plans released by the Trump campaign offer no further detail on how this massive undertaking would work. It’s almost like Trump is pitching the idea solely because the term “Freedom Cities” sounds cool.

  • Put flying cars in Americans’ driveways
Rescuing America’s Auto Industry from Joe Biden’s Disastrous Job-Killing  Policies! #AGENDA47

Rescuing America’s Auto Industry from Joe Biden’s Disastrous Job-Killing Policies! #AGENDA47

Uploaded: Jul 20, 2023487K Views73K Likes
73K likes, 2,982 comments - realdonaldtrump on July 20, 2023: "Rescuing America’s Auto Industry from Joe Biden’s Disastrous Job-Killing Policies! #AGENDA47".

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Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the Heritage Foundation is recruiting candidates to serve in Trump’s second term. Project 2025 is not a candidate-specific effort.

This piece has been updated throughout.

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