Donald Trump had a choice after Tuesday’s drubbing. He could have brought in a chief of staff whose first assignment was to make peace with the incoming Democratic Congress. Instead he picked Stephen Miller. Trump announced Friday that Miller, the longtime aide who helped design his immigration crackdown, will take over from Susie Wiles on Monday. [1] A president looking to lower the temperature had other numbers he could have called.

Democrats won the House and the Senate, and the headlines say Trump just lost his power. He did not. The Constitution handed the new majority real tools and handed him some of its own, and a good many of them cancel each other out. Here is what each side actually holds.

The Veto Is a Wall

Start with the one that matters most. Every bill Congress passes goes to the president. If he vetoes it, Congress needs two-thirds of both chambers to override. [21] That is the whole game.

Democrats do not have those numbers and cannot get them on their own. Every override depends on Republicans voting against a president who controls their primaries.

History shows how rare that is. Trump vetoed 10 bills in his first term. Congress overrode exactly one, the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2021, and it took a 322 to 87 vote in the House and 81 to 13 in the Senate. [25] That was a bipartisan defense bill that passed with huge margins, and it still needed a Republican-led Senate willing to defy him in the last days of his term. A progressive bill on healthcare, taxes, immigration or climate will not come close.

So the practical result is simple. Any bill Trump opposes is dead on arrival, and Democratic leaders know it. A Democratic Congress can pass messaging bills all day. It cannot make them law.

The Purse Cuts Both Ways

Democrats do hold one real lever. Congress controls the money, and the Constitution says no funds leave the Treasury except through appropriations made by law. [21] A spending bill is the one thing that has to pass, which gives the majority leverage in every budget fight.

But Trump holds the veto on those bills too, and a shutdown fight is costly for whoever gets the blame. And enforcing the spending laws once they pass is slower than it sounds. In August 2025 the Government Accountability Office concluded that NIH had violated the Impoundment Control Act by withholding funds Congress had appropriated. [23] A GAO finding is a legal opinion. It does not release the money. The fight over whether the administration has to spend it moves to the courts, and the courts take time.

Executive Orders and Executive Power

Trump does not need Congress to act. He can use executive orders to direct federal agencies within his constitutional or statutory authority. When he oversteps, courts can block the order, and Congress can pass a law to rein him in. That law faces his veto.

The courts have also narrowed the weapon opponents used against him the last time. In Trump v. CASA , decided June 27, 2025, the Supreme Court ruled 6 to 3 that universal injunctions likely exceed the authority Congress gave federal courts, and limited relief to what each plaintiff with standing needs. [19] Class actions, state lawsuits and challenges under the Administrative Procedure Act remain open, so the route is not closed. But every challenge is now narrower, slower and more expensive, and an order stays in force for everyone else while the case moves.

Democrats can hold hearings about an executive order. They cannot undo one without winning in court or beating a veto.

Trump’s Justice Department

Then there is the Justice Department. It belongs to the executive branch, and Trump’s attorney general oversees federal prosecutions and the government’s litigation. [22] That matters more than it sounds, because the House has no prosecutors of its own.

When a witness defies a House subpoena, the Speaker can certify a contempt citation to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. [7] That prosecutor works for the president. And the Justice Department has a long record of refusing to prosecute officials who withhold documents at the president’s direction. It declined to charge Eric Holder in 2012, William Barr and Wilbur Ross in 2019 and Merrick Garland in 2024. [4, 12, 14] That record spans three administrations of both parties, which is exactly the point. It is the institutional default, and Trump’s Justice Department will follow it.

The White House can fight over documents, assert privilege where it applies and defend its policies in court. A Democratic chairman can announce a subpoena in ten seconds. A Republican White House can respond with a privilege claim, and the fight over it can last for years.

Lawsuits and the Clock

Democrats can sue to enforce a subpoena, but the calendar works against them, and the record proves it. In April 2019 the House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed former White House counsel Don McGahn. The litigation ran through a divided appeals panel and a rehearing by the full D.C. Circuit. It ended in August 2021, after more than two years, with a limited transcribed interview and a dismissal. [11]

The Supreme Court has also raised the bar. In Trump v. Mazars in 2020, the justices held that courts must weigh separation-of-powers concerns when Congress subpoenas a sitting president’s information. They set out four considerations, including whether the information is necessary, whether the request is narrow and how heavy the burden on the president would be, and sent the cases back to the lower courts. [20]

Run the clock forward. The new Congress arrives in January 2027. A subpoena issued in the first half of the year can easily still be in litigation when the 2028 campaign begins, and committee subpoenas generally lapse when a Congress ends. The side that can slow things down has the advantage, and a two-year majority is not long.

Democrats Won a Majority. What Can They Agree On?

My read of Tuesday is that plenty of Americans voted against Trump. Democrats earned those votes, but they should think hard about what moved the voters. The AP Voter Poll found that about four in ten voters said they wanted their House vote to push back against Trump, while fewer than two in ten wanted to back him. About half called the cost of living crucial to their vote, and about half said the same of government corruption. [2] A voter who wanted a check on the president may also want Congress to do something about the grocery bill. Both can be true in the same household.

Schumer, Jeffries and the Missing Pelosi

Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer have the titles. Neither has the authority, and the party is already showing it.

Start with Schumer. Democrats had not finished celebrating before five incoming senators said they will not back him as leader: Peggy Flanagan, Troy Jackson, Abdul El-Sayed, Juliana Stratton and Adam Hamilton. James Talarico of Texas will not commit either. [8] The Hill put the headline plainly: new Senate winners vow to reject Schumer as Democratic leader. [15] Schumer’s answer is that the problem is not him and that he expects to be reelected. [8] A leader whose newest members will not promise him their votes before they are sworn in is a leader on probation.

Jeffries has the same problem in the House. In June, two challengers backed by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez, beat House incumbents Jeffries had endorsed. Of the three insurgent winners that night, only Brad Lander had committed to voting for Jeffries as speaker. At one watch party the crowd chanted "you’re next" when Jeffries appeared on television. [16] Avila Chevalier’s day-one list includes ending weapons sales to Israel, a Green New Deal for public housing and abolishing super PACs. [6] Jeffries has been cool toward Medicare for All, and the left has noticed. [6]

Now add the other side of the caucus. A centrist bloc has already defied leadership on procedural votes, at times helping Republicans. Jeffries’s team has reportedly considered penalties for members who break ranks, and progressives and centrists both oppose the idea. [6] Rep. Josh Gottheimer has called the democratic socialists "bomb throwers." [16] Try running that room.

Defenders will point to Nancy Pelosi, who managed the 2018 Squad by embracing its members and limiting their influence, and who says Jeffries "will be fine." [16] That is exactly the problem. Pelosi is leaving. She announced in November 2025 that she will not seek reelection. [13] Even sympathetic coverage describes Jeffries as a consensus-builder, unlike Pelosi’s top-down style. [18] Consensus is a fine thing in a seminar. It does not hold together socialists, moderates, a restless Senate freshman class and a base that wants blood.

Jeffries says voters do not want Democrats trying to get even. He ought to have that conversation with his own committee chairs before they start competing for airtime. [3] Pelosi could count votes and make members fear her. These two ask nicely. With Trump holding the veto and five factions pulling in five directions, the Democratic majority will not be torn apart by Republicans. It will tear itself apart.

The Target List

Now look at what the new majority has already said out loud. Call it oversight if you like. I call it a target list, and it is long.

Rep. Robert Garcia, who is expected to chair House Oversight, answered the results with two words: "Lawyer up." [10] His office says the committee will go after what it calls the "Trump Crime Family," including the family’s crypto ventures, Donald Trump Jr.’s business dealings and the family members "sitting on boards and getting contracts." He says administration officials, including acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, could face subpoenas on day one. He has also asked the Pentagon’s inspector general to look at whether companies tied to Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. won defense contracts. [10]

The list reaches well beyond the Trump family and into the business world. Democrats have signaled probes of World Liberty Financial, the Trump-linked crypto platform, and of the pardon of a Binance co-founder. [10] Rep. Jamie Raskin has opened an inquiry into 1789 Capital, the investment firm Donald Trump Jr. joined, and Garcia has written to Jared Kushner and Michael Boulos about their Middle East business dealings. Elon Musk is on the list too, over Starlink and his run at DOGE, and so are the corporate donors to Trump’s White House ballroom. [9] Reuters reports that Democrats plan to subpoena private companies directly if the White House resists, with inquiries possibly starting in February. [10] Add the Epstein files, a review of Trump’s stock trades from Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Garcia, and Rep. Pete Aguilar’s promise of "a host of investigations." [9]

Then comes impeachment. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is the most frequently named Cabinet target, and Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican, introduced articles against him recently. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Blanche have been floated as possible targets. Jeffries says Democrats have not ruled impeachment out. [17]

Some of this is warranted, and I have said so. Real evidence of wrongdoing deserves a hearing. But look at the pattern: Republican leaders, the president’s family, the president’s business partners and now private companies and tycoons who happen to have done business with him. The White House calls it a witch hunt. Democrats call it accountability. The voters who sent them to Washington were mostly thinking about something else.

None of it lowers a grocery bill. None of it earns Democrats a single vote they did not already have. What it does is divert their energy, and Democrats have run this play before. They spent the last ten years building their politics around one man, through the Russia investigation, two impeachments and every fundraising email since. They won the argument with their base each time and lost ground with everyone else.

That is the point they keep missing. About four in ten voters told AP they wanted to push back against Trump. About half said cost of living was crucial to their vote. [2] Even Axios noticed the gap, running the story under the headline that Democrats vow Trump investigations "but voters have another priority too." [3] A vote against a man is a loan. Spend it on subpoenas and impeachment articles and the voters will want it back.

By All Means, Spend Two Years on It

Congress has every right to investigate credible allegations of corruption or abuse. But if Democrats turn every hearing into an audition for the next impeachment, they will be making a choice about how to spend the two years voters just gave them. The House can impeach by a simple majority. Removing Trump would take 67 senators, and Democrats are 13 short even on CBS’s best projection. They would need 13 Republican votes to get there. [24]