Just hours after his domestic policy megabill squeaked through Congress on Thursday, President Trump stood before a crowd of supporters and marveled at how well it all seemed to be going for him lately.
“We had a good two weeks, right?” Mr. Trump said at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, where he was taking a quick victory lap. “This has to be the best two weeks — has anybody ever had a better two weeks than this?”
Yes, in the history of Washington there has probably been a better two weeks than this. But there is no doubt that, at least on his terms, Mr. Trump can claim accomplishments one after another.
His order to bomb Iran set back that nation’s nuclear program without triggering a broader conflict. He flew to Europe and got NATO members to pony up more money for their own defense. The Supreme Court continued a pattern of backing his assertions of executive power. The economy showed resilience in the face of predictions that his tariffs would send it spiraling, and the stock market hit record highs.
Illegal border crossings plummeted last month to the lowest numbers seen in decades. The parent company of CBS agreed to pay $16 million to settle his complaint that “60 Minutes” had favored his opponent in last year’s election. And passage of his signature legislation by the House and the Senate demonstrated once more his dominance of the Republican Party and set fiscal and social policy for years or decades to come.
The mood at the White House at the moment might be described as aggressively chipper. Presidential aides are practically whistling while they walk the halls of the West Wing. And nobody seems happier than the boss.
There are, of course, asterisks — dissenting views and serious questions about the wisdom and durability of the path on which he has set the nation. He remains, if anything, more polarizing than ever, and by traditional political calculus he has put Republicans at risk in next year’s midterms, not to mention leaving future generations heavily burdened by ever-swelling government debt.
But there is little argument that, in fewer than six months since returning to office, Mr. Trump, for better or worse, has driven the nation in new directions through muscular use of presidential and political power, with neither Congress nor the courts serving as much of a check on him.
“No question, the president has been on an amazing winning streak,” said Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster. “It’s a testament to his stranglehold grip on the G.O.P. I can’t remember a president in recent history who has had such sway with his partisans.”
He cautioned that the cumulative effect of what Mr. Trump has set into motion will not be known for some time. “His victories could be hollow if he and the party are not able to ‘sell’ his Big Beautiful Bill to voters and hold onto the G.O.P. majority in ’26,” Mr. Newhouse said. “Clearly, Trump has won this initial policy battle. But the war is next November, with control of Washington at stake.”
Mr. Trump’s political opponents protest that just because he is getting stuff done that does not necessarily mean it is all to his benefit. “People can whistle all they want and have a spring in their step,” said the Democratic strategist James Carville. But, he said, Mr. Trump’s polling numbers are nothing to brag about.
“So whatever he’s getting done, it doesn’t seem to be sitting very well with the public, does it?” Mr. Carville said.
Just 29 percent of voters support the legislation, according to a recent Quinnipiac University poll. Roughly two-thirds of Republicans supported the bill in that poll, a relatively low figure from the president’s own party for his signature legislation, and independents opposed it overwhelmingly.
Roughly half of all voters — including 20 percent of Republicans — say they expect the bill to hurt them and their families, according to a Fox News poll. Still, Mr. Trump’s political operation continues to raise money at a prodigious rate to back him, the candidates of his choosing, and his agenda going into 2026. He owns his party completely.
Not everything has gone Mr. Trump’s way. The first few months of his second term in office have seen molten melodramas, embarrassing leaks, confirmation fights that left scar tissue, and a tangle of court cases.
Many Democrats warn of creeping authoritarianism and the future of American democracy. And even as his supporters fall in line behind Mr. Trump, they are papering over some deep philosophical and political divides and parrying eruptions of criticism from no less than Elon Musk, his biggest donor who just months ago was granted nearly coequal billing by the president.
But in the short-term, at least, the last stretch has been a fruitful one and Mr. Trump knows it. He has a history of defying the laws of political gravity, and so far in this term, some people in this country are just happy to see something — anything — getting done in sclerotic Washington. Last month, thousands of the president’s supporters flooded the capital for the military parade he planned on his birthday and said they were pleased by what they see as his constant motion.
“I think he’s doing what he promised, and if you look at it that way, then you’re very happy,” Maggie Flynn, a 67-year-old nurse from North Wildwood, N.J., said that day.
“He’s doing great,” concurred a 63-year-old retired military man from Altoona, Pa., named Mike Mickey. “He’s just doing what he promised to do.”
After Republicans in the House voted to pass the president’s bill on Thursday, the conservative commentariat lit up with glee about the president’s good fortune these last two weeks. “TORNADON” blared The New York Post on Friday as his hometown tabloid hailed the “whirlwind” of activity around him.
Earlier in the week, on Wednesday, one White House official said that the president had been in an especially upbeat mood for days, even though at that point it was still entirely unclear whether his bill would pass. He opted for a charm offensive with most Republican holdouts instead of getting nasty. The official said that on Tuesday, Mr. Trump was feeling so excited about the course of events that he took a total of 74 questions from reporters in one day. He did not want to stop talking.
He has planned a big party for Friday night on the South Lawn of the White House to celebrate the Fourth of July. The young administration aides who work across the White House complex are staying in town for it. They have been waiting all week to party.
Shawn McCreesh is a White House reporter for The Times covering the Trump administration.
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