Trump Plans His Second Term

Published with the generous permission of Amee Vanderpool. For more of Amee's work, visit her Shero newsletter.

By Amee Vanderpool

The Republican Party has fully embraced Donald Trump as their presumptive nominee, despite his recent criminal conviction in New York. The proof: Congressional Republicans will meet with the convicted former president today for the first time since he left in 2020, in an attempt to flesh out a more cohesive transition plan for taking office in 2025.

The meeting — which will involve a breakfast event this morning with conservative House Members and then a lunch session for their counterparts in the Senate this afternoon — is a big deal for the GOP as a collective whole, because it signifies their acquiescence to the inescapable fact that there is nothing now that can save the Republican Party from Trump’s continued chokehold. I keep imagining Trump’s black gloved hand gesturing a death grip that strangles Mitch McConnell from a distance with one hand (with a blueberry muffin in the other hand), as the rest of the GOP lines up for their turns.

While it is not unusual for a political party to caucus to get on the same page with messaging and strategy headed into the last few months of an election, the fact that Trump has not been able to corral his party until now is significant. It seems that most conservatives who are not firmly riding the Trump train are doing what they have always done — nothing. The only thing left for the hold-outs now is to fall in line and accept the Trump agenda, which has been in development over the last few years thanks to former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

Meadows, who is currently under indictment in Georgia and Arizona for his role in attempting to keep Trump in office despite his loss to Biden in 2020, has been running the Conservative Partnership Institute, which has been hosting luxurious trips for conservative Representatives and Senators in an effort to develop and organize an agenda for Trump’s second term. The following is an excerpt from a SHERO article published a few weeks ago, that explored the CPI mission and their strategy for drastically changing American political doctrine once Trump is in office:

The main objective for CPI is to further develop MAGA partnerships and implement a stronger network that was not in place during the Trump administration. Meadows, was critical in implementing Trump’s agenda which included the "Schedule F" executive order. This ongoing plan was developed and refined in secret over most of the second half of Trump’s term, and launched 13 days before the 2020 election with the goal of radically reshaping the federal government and eradicating thousands of civil servants in order to fill career posts with Trump lackeys and his America First ideology.

Ultimately, this elite group provides the resort clubhouse for a secret fraternity of Trump loyalists, who are currently developing the Human Resources department that will implement the MAGA infrastructure to incorporate the federal government. While the group has been busy working to amplifying stolen election conspiracies, and Republican election agendas that seek to bastardize commonly accepted social principles like “critical race theory,” they have been actively working to infuse the mainstream Republican Party with right wing extremists who will fall in line with the Trump agenda on Day 1 of another Trump presidency.

Meadows, Trump’s former Chief of Staff and a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, used the CPI to lead the charge against Kevin McCarthy, who was seeking the Speakership a year ago. According to tax filings, Meadows is paid more than $500,000 per year to manage the pro-Trump think tank that has seen its revenues soar to $45 million since Meadows joined in 2021. CPI counts Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) as its most loyal members. Members of the Freedom Caucus hold their weekly meetings at CPI headquarters, which has been deemed a club-house of sorts for the misfit MAGA-centric House crew.

Make no mistake, while Donald Trump is acting as the figure-head for today’s meetings, which are more of an event for show than they are of substance, Mark Meadows will be doing all of the legwork to secure compliance from Republicans who have previously walked a fine line between furthering Trump’s policies and endorsing the man himself. The strategy is now in place. Meadows has seen to that. All that is left to do is make sure that members of the mainstream GOP are aware of their obligation to the presumptive nominee, and stay out of the way. This is something they all know how to do.