Trump set to lurch further right, claiming US took ‘giant step back’ in elections

Donald Trump set the stage for his administration to lurch further to the right this weekend, claiming the US had taken a “giant step back” by widely rejecting his party.

The US president’s hardline aide, Stephen Miller, will begin as White House chief of staff on Monday. He will also meet with Dana White, CEO and president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, after offering him the job of press secretary.

“America took a giant step back in History with the results of the last Election,” Trump claimed in a post on his Truth Social platform on Sunday morning, citing the sharp sell-off in global markets, fueled a rout of US tech stocks. “But have no fear, we will be back, BIGGER AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE!”

Despite Republicans losing control of both chambers of US Congress in Tuesday’s decisive US midterm elections, and voters across the country expressing frustration with key pillars of Trump’s controversial agenda, from the Iran war to sweeping tariffs, the administration appears set to press ahead.

Miller’s promotion has stoked expectations that Trump is poised to double down on an aggressive immigration crackdown, stoke cultural war battles, and refuse concessions to the new Democratic majority in Congress. The move “signals the administration is going to ⁠have a fighting-from-a-bunker approach the last two years”, Dan Eberhart, a Trump donor and energy executive, told Reuters.

Trump abruptly announced on Saturday that he had offered White, whom he described as “a violent Fighter and Warrior”, the role of White House press secretary, which has been largely vacant since Karoline Leavitt departed the administration this summer. Leavitt initial replacement, Katie Zacharia, lasted five days in the job.

“Dana will be a Press Secretary like none other,” said Trump. “Dana, please take the job!”

After Trump also threatened Democrats planning to conduct oversight of his administration and family, announcing he had ordered the US Department of Justice to “look into” them, attorney general Todd Blanche told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday that “there could be” investigations. Republicans have faced “dangerous” threats, Blanche claimed, without specifying what crimes he believed had been committed. “You have to draw the line.”

Democrats have made clear that Miller and Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a close Trump ally, are likely to be targets of congressional investigations once the party retakes control of Congress in January.

Congressman Robert Garcia, a Democrat from California, who is set to chair the powerful oversight committee in the House of Representatives next year, said on Sunday that investigations are set to explore Musk’s involvement in the Department of Government Efficiency’s mass firing of federal workers last year, and Miller’s role in Trump’s immigration crackdown. “I think there’s a lot ⁠of interest – not just from our committee, but from committees across the Congress – to speak to Mr Musk,” Garcia told CNN.

Representative Jamie Raskin, poised to become the chair of the House judiciary committee, has also requested information on the business dealings of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and son Donald Trump Jr.

With 33 of 35 Senate races called, the Democrats had won 54 seats to the Republicans’ 44. Votes are still being counted in Alaska, which had long been seen as a key battleground, and Mississippi, a previous Republican stronghold which remains too close to call.

Congressman James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky who currently heads the House oversight committee before his party cedes control to Democrats, told Fox News that the committee is going to dedicate the last two months of this congress investigating Alaska over the controversy surrounding its Senate race.

Trump has already threatened Democratic candidate Mary Peltola with criminal prosecution over reports that her campaign was linked to the recruitment of a second “Dan Sullivan” in Alaska’s Senate race, with the same name as the Republican candidate.

Democrats meanwhile embarked on a victory lap this weekend, celebrating their historic wins on Tuesday. Democratic candidates won after running on policies that would “change working peoples’ lives”, New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani told Fox News on Sunday.

“We are seeing a moment in time where working class Americans have made very clear that they are tired of waiting,” said Mamdani. “They are tired of being told, again and again, that there is less for them to make ends meet, while we see the world’s first trillionaire emerge in Elon Musk.”

But there has been friction within the party regarding the incoming congressional leadership, with Chuck Schumer set to become the next majority leader in the US Senate Hakeem Jeffries widely expected to become House speaker.

Senator-elect Adam Hamilton of Kansas – the first Democrat the state has sent to the US Senate in almost a century – told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday the Schumer is a “kind of polarizing figure” adding: “It feels like it is a time for fresh and new ideas, and somebody who can unite us instead of dividing us.”

The celebrations continued, though.

During a Saturday Night Live skit this weekend, a member of the cast impersonated Trump attacking James Talarico, the Democrat who ran for US Senate in Texas, and called him “Talafreako” – only for Talarico himself to walk out on stage.

“That’s senator Talafreako,” he said, to loud cheers, after becoming the first Democrat to win statewide office in Texas since 1994.