How Trump uses the power and imagery of his presidency
Just five days after Donald J. Trump left office, one of his aides emailed a lawyer to request approval for a formal-looking seal for use on depositions from the 45th president's office.
Margo Martin, one of his closest personal aides, told lawyer Scott Gast that advisers had designed a subtly customized seal for Mr. Trump. “They said they changed a few things to avoid trademark issues,” she wrote, asking Mr. Gast if the design was acceptable.
The final image that Mr. Trump's team used — a recognizable eagle from the Great Seal of the United States, placed in a circle — was reminiscent of the presidential seal that identified Mr. Trump with the job he had just left. And while he is hardly the first former White House resident to add an eagle to his website, early conversations about presidential imagery have revealed what has proven to be a major obsession of Mr. Trump's: being seen as both a future president and a former one.
Mr. Trump left the White House before noon on January 20, 2021, as required by the Constitution. But from the moment he arrived home at Mar-a-Lago, his members-only club in Florida, he has taken every opportunity to assume the role of sitting president, including by using the hallmarks of a post -presidency. in an attempt to win back the office.
At the very least, that approach may have helped soothe Trump's bruised ego. But it has undeniably become a crucial factor in his bid to return to power.
Polls show that a majority of Republican voters view Mr. Trump not as a “defeated former president,” as President Biden often calls him, but as a wrongfully impeached president whose reelection would right a grave injustice. Elected Republicans who once privately mocked conspiracy theories about a stolen election are now publicly claiming that Trump was the true winner, for fear of offending their voters or him.
This widespread adherence to Trump's denial of reality has given him enormous political advantages. His attitude as president in exile deprived his rivals in the Republican primaries of one of their strongest arguments against him. While calling for his presidency has been a net gain for him in the Republican Party primaries in the short term, it will be used against him — especially on abortion policy — by Democrats and the Biden campaign if he Becomes Republican candidate in the general election.
From the moment he began his post-presidential life, Trump refused to act like someone whose days as president were over.
He shut down all talk of building a Trump presidential library. He clung to secret government documents, reveling in his knowledge of the government's most important secrets and showing them to visitors and aides – an act that resulted in one of his four indictments. “I get to keep my title for life,” he told a member of the House of Representatives in 2017 about the power of the presidency.
On January 25, 2021, Mr. Trump's office emailed a press release, signaling the formal opening of his post-presidential office, under the headline: “Statement from the Office of the Former President.”
The word 'former' was never used again. Subsequent statements were sent by “45th President Donald J. Trump.”
As he coasts toward the Republican nomination — which would make him the first former president to win his party's nomination since Grover Cleveland in 1892 — Trump is taking advantage of his unusual status to twist the process in his favor in ways big and small.
He has portrayed himself as both the rightful president and the inevitable future president. He has taken advantage of the privileges, pageantry and powers conferred on the presidency to make his rivals seem unimportant. And he has infused his campaign with presidential imagery, traveling in a plane his aides call “Trump Force One” and using his Secret Service motorcade and security details as a muscular expression of pseudo-incumbency. Uniquely, his only remaining rival, Nikki Haley, was appointed by him as ambassador to the United Nations and served under him, making her foreign policy achievements also his.
He has also used his post-presidency as a shield, both inside and outside the courtroom. He claimed presidential immunity from charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election. And his team granted news networks' requests to place dashboard cameras in Trump's motorcade during courthouse visits, turning his criminal charges — there were four in 2023 — into compelling live TV spectacles.
Asked about Trump's use of presidential imagery in the Republican nomination contest, Trump communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement: “President Trump is the most famous person in the world and he is running for the White House. The media needs him and his campaign because their entire existence revolves around what he does.”
Mr. Trump has used his power as party leader to pressure Republicans in Congress, intervening in the House speaker races and the current fight over a border security and financing deal for Ukraine. He has used the power of his support to aggressively assert and maintain control of the party.
Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian and writer, said Mr. Trump “had used the presidency as a stepping stone to re-election, but when you're an election denier, he's basically saying to the country, 'I'm actually a shadow.' government.'”
“So that's where the water gets muddy,” he added.
In this campaign, Trump, like no other in American history, has tried to act more like a sitting president than a typical candidate. He has received many of the benefits of incumbency – the grandeur of the office, the deference of rivals and voters – but so far none of the political repercussions of actually occupying the White House, such as being held responsible for foreign wars or inflation. .
Press Control
In the period immediately following the 2020 election, some of Trump's aides and confidantes encouraged him to graciously concede his loss. They argued that if he took credit for Republican victories in the House and Senate races and acknowledged Mr. Biden's narrow victory, he would preserve a future for himself in American politics.
That future, they believed, was invariably marred by his election lies and the attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob on January 6, 2021.
Those aides and confidantes were wrong. Trump's refusal to accept his loss — a months-long rampage that culminated in a deadly attack on the Capitol — certainly didn't ruin him, but it almost certainly helped secure his political future: It kept his grip on the Republican Party and enabled him to run for office. his 2024 campaign as if he were the rightful occupant of the Oval Office and merely seeking his return to power.
Mr. Trump — who has inhaled media attention like oxygen for decades — had no interest in the quieter, less visible lives of other former presidents. George W. Bush took up painting and gave well-paid speeches. Barack Obama gave speeches, played golf, sailed on superyachts with wealthy friends and raised money for various causes, including a presidential library in Chicago.
Mr. Trump played a lot of golf, but that's where the similarities end.
Cut off from social media after being banned from Twitter and Facebook in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Trump built his own pipelines to voters. He created his own social media website, Truth Social; gave interviews to right-wing influencers with their own platforms; and communicated with his supporters through email fundraising appeals.
Mr. Trump clung to the trappings of the presidency — as instruments of power, influence and, as some have suggested, psychological comforters. Many Republicans have welcomed him as a sitting president. One of his most talked about early stops as a candidate last year was in East Palestine, Ohio, the site of a train derailment that President Biden had yet to visit. There he met with local officials and urged action to help residents. Mr. Trump's arrival at a nearby airport and his descent from high airplane stairs from his plane were reminiscent of the arrival of Air Force One.
Mr. Trump has also never stopped acting like the leader of the party, holding rallies, intervening in Republican primaries and working to end the careers of Republicans in Congress who had opposed him. Candidates traveled to Mar-a-Lago to seek his support. And Mr. Trump made them work for it. He treated their support for his false claims of widespread election fraud in 2020 as a litmus test.
In time, he would expect Republicans to return the favor and support him. She did not disappoint.
A president in court
Perhaps most strikingly, Mr. Trump has attempted to use the powers of his former position as a defensive measure in his criminal and civil lawsuits.
He has asserted immunity by virtue of his office as a defense for his conduct in the months leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, both in a criminal complaint and in civil liability lawsuits. This claim of immunity is currently being litigated and is expected to ultimately be ruled by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the civil defamation trial against him in Manhattan, Mr. Trump talked back to the judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, without suffering the penalties that an ordinary defendant might. And while Judge Kaplan called him “Mr. Trump” throughout the trial, when Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, announced her client as her final witness, she said, “The defense is calling President Donald Trump.”
Similarly, in a separate civil case in Manhattan that found Mr. Trump and his company engaged in widespread financial fraud, he faced no consequences for sharply and vociferously criticizing the president, Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron of the state. from the witness stand.
And when opposing lawyers protested Trump's filibustering, his attorney Chris M. Kise suggested that Judge Engoron “should allow the former president of the United States” — who, he quickly added, “may soon future president of the United States would become” States – a little leeway to explain themselves.”