--- title: Donald Trump: Incoming President Tests Republicans description: The incoming President differs from his Republican Party on core issues, yet the GOP is showing flexibility on its beliefs. canonical: https://time.com/4638683/donald-trump-inauguration-gop-beliefs/ author: Alex Altman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-01-19T04:23:52.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-07T07:13:59.894Z article:section: Politics og:title: How Trump Tests Congressional Republicans' Beliefs og:description: They disagree on everything from taxes to trade. og:url: https://time.com/4638683/donald-trump-inauguration-gop-beliefs/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt244d8fa3ce6055c7/6988b631524fc0b761dfac7c/donald-trump7.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: Trump Attends D.C. Dinner Aimed At Meeting With Foreign Diplomats og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Trump Tests Congressional Republicans' Beliefs twitter:description: They disagree on everything from taxes to trade. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt244d8fa3ce6055c7/6988b631524fc0b761dfac7c/donald-trump7.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Donald Trump Tests Congressional Republicans > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME D.C. Brief: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition D.C. Brief is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. Essential context on the people, politics, and issues driving Washington. D.C. Brief goes beyond the Washington headlines to explain the politics, personalities and power dynamics shaping what happens next. 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It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=400a984c-85e8-4398-bc4c-bd54fe188693&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: TIME 2016 Person of the Year: Donald Trump [Watch (HLS stream): TIME 2016 Person of the Year: Donald Trump](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Q0tBuF3M.m3u8) (4:12)  _Published 2016-12-07. The 2016 Person of the Year is Donald Trump, the President of the divided states of America._ by [Alex Altman](https://time.com/author/alex-altman/) and [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/) Jan 19, 2017 4:23 AM UTC The 2016 Person of the Year is Donald Trump, the President of the divided states of America. by [Alex Altman](https://time.com/author/alex-altman/) and [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/) Jan 19, 2017 4:23 AM UTC They don’t see eye to eye with [Donald Trump on Russia](http://time.com/4599771/russia-donald-trump-secretary-of-state/). They don’t agree on trade or [tariffs](http://time.com/4591500/donald-trump-tariffs-congress-republicans/) or the details of [reworking the tax code](http://time.com/money/4563073/election-2016-trump-taxes-economy-healthcare/). They’ve said his disregard for NATO is dangerous and called his immigration proposals political suicide. And that’s just the start of congressional Republicans’ sharp differences with the President-elect. Trump’s plan to dole out a billion dollars in infrastructure spending, his promise to provide universal health care coverage, his commitment to bolstering entitlement programs instead of trimming them—all of these ideas were anathema to conservatives during Barack Obama’s administration. But winning has done wonders for GOP flexibility. Many of the same Republicans who fought bitterly over the last eight years against policies Trump is touting seem ready to tolerate them for now. From right-wing think tanks to the leadership offices in the Capitol, the doctrinaire conservatism that Republicans invoked to oppose Obama’s agenda has melted away amid giddy visions of all they can accomplish under one-party rule. “Welcome to the dawn of a new unified Republican government,” House Speaker [Paul Ryan announced](http://time.com/4574493/donald-trump-chaotic-transition/) after Trump’s surprise victory. How long that unity will survive is a different story. As Trump prepares to be inaugurated on the west front of the Capitol on Friday, the biggest question looming over Washington is whether congressional Republicans will govern according to conservative principles or bend to the whims of an unorthodox new President with a sharp tongue and a fervent group of populist supporters. Fear and awe are powerful motivators. There have been fitful signs of Republican resistance. Party veterans on Capitol Hill have sharply criticized the President-elect’s views on Russia and his criticism of the leaders of the U.S. intelligence community. Others have urged him to delete the Twitter account that he has used to litigate feuds with critics like Rep. John Lewis, a Democrat from Georgia and a civil-rights icon. Lonely constitutional conservatives have excoriated his policy proposals as fiscally irresponsible. “We can’t afford more spending and more debt, regardless of whether it’s demanded by a Democratic president or a Republican president,” tweeted Michigan Republican Justin [Amash](https://twitter.com/justinamash/status/820017643734212608), explaining why he would vote against the House GOP’s bloated budget, which included instructions to begin the process of repealing Obamacare. Yet there’s been no coherent chorus of Republican opposition. So far the GOP has largely stood behind Trump’s Cabinet nominees. When tensions have flared, senior Trump advisers, congressional leaders and powerful outside groups with grand visions of reshaping Washington under unified GOP control have scrambled to douse the uprisings. Their pitch warns agitated conservatives to focus on the big picture. Long-cherished GOP goals such as tax reform and the repeal of the Affordable Care Act are at the top of the party’s agenda and within striking distance. Trump has said he will [nominate a conservative Supreme Court justice](http://time.com/4631607/donald-trump-supreme-court-justice-nominate-two-weeks/) during his first two weeks in office. There are spoils to be collected. The Republican donor class, most of which never embraced Trump, is holding its fire for now. Conservative kingpins like Charles and David Koch can only groan at Trump’s intervention in corporate decisions. When Trump brags about cutting deals with corporate bosses that preserve American jobs, free-market industrials see an example of doling out corporate welfare. The Kochs sat out the 2016 presidential election but are unlikely to sit idly as Trump intervenes into individual boardrooms. And the Kochs have tremendous sway in the halls of Congress—and not least because one of their longtime operatives, Vice President-elect Mike Pence’s former chief of staff, Marc Short, will be leading the White House’s relations with the legislative branch. Privately, GOP lawmakers are burning up Pence’s phone, trying to suss out just how serious Trump is when he stakes out new ground on policy—how malleable he may prove. Pence is telling former House colleagues and friends in the Senate that the Trump Administration will not be cause for alarm. Similarly, incoming West Wing anchor Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, has been taking calls from skittish Republicans about how Trump will navigate his first job in government. Incoming counselor Kellyanne Conway and chief of staff Reince Priebus have also been trying to ease allies’ fears. Yet Trump’s inner circle—which includes few officials with senior-level experience in government—knows the challenge ahead. They won the nomination and then the White House by rallying crowds against institutional Washington. [“Drain the swamp”](http://time.com/donald-trump-drain-swamp/) was a powerful slogan against the District of Columbia and its professional political class. Trump’s voters will be looking to Trump to deliver on that promise. Yet delivering on his pledge to “make America great again” might hinge on how well the incoming administration can manage the levers of Washington power and massage the egos and political demands of his own party. Trump has shown little deference to party principles. In [an interview with TIME in November](http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2016-donald-trump/) shortly after winning the White House, he professed a willingness to ignore years of GOP budget-consciousness in the name of fiscal stimulus. “Sometimes you have to prime the pump,” he said. It was an argument the GOP has spent the last eight years railing against. Yet there are also signs that Trump is willing to yield to the legislative branch’s wishes and the realities of governing. His massive infrastructure plan is being scaled back and delayed. He’s walking back criticism of House Republicans’ tax plans, and providing more GOP-friendly talking-points on his Obamacare replacement. There is nary a mention of that “deportation force” Trump wanted to deploy to move immigrants in this country illegally to the other side of that wall along the U.S.-Mexican border. At the moment, Republicans have had muted responses to Trump’s notions. But all relationships have a breaking point, and the unity that Republicans are trying to project may falter this spring when the White House and Congress start collaborating on a bill to keep the government open. Trump already has tested the GOP’s flexibility. Just ask the local elected officials who chose to ignore or excuse Trump’s comments about women, Hispanics and policy. Without Trump’s electoral movement energized, 2018’s elections could end up a disappointing referendum on the President, and standing with arms linked with Trump may prove bad politics—especially if Trump’s movement stays home with their idol off the ballot. While the control of Congress will almost certainly not be swayed in two years, a sour turnout would boost Democrats in a year where they are on the defensive. So while Trump may win in the short term, the victories may spell bigger losses for his party in the coming years. _With reporting by Zeke J. Miller_ ## Transcript MUSIC ] Every year we choose the Person of the Year who is the individual who has had the most influence on events for better or worse. The Tod argue that anyone had no influence that Donald Trump over the events of this year. [ MUSIC ] I didn't get Beyonce and Jay Z and Goose Bernstein to get crowds, I had just me. And ideas that people wanted to hear. But there is a profound argument about whether his influence was for the better or for the worse. And that really is the challenge that faces the country came through this election season more divided conspicuously publicly than at any time through any election cycle that most of us Can remember. [ MUSIC ] We're gonna have a lot of jobs put back. I think we're gonna have a lot of fuel companies leaving our country. I believed we will be successful with defeating ISIS or bringing them down to a level where it's almost the same thing. And I hope I'm judged from the time of the election as opposed to from January 20th because the stock market has had a tremendous bounce and people are seeing very good things for business in this country. [ MUSIC ] One of the things that was remarkable in going to see him, to interview him, is to be in that Penthouse which is the most austiontacious, imaginable marble and mirrors, and gold. And see him in the suit and the diamond cuff links. There is a kind of distance that repressed him about, of how is it that the billionaire is the tribune of the working man? He said, he thought that it had to do With that he wasn't a phony, that there have certainly been wealthy politicians before. Doing some cases would bend over backwards to make themselves appear like the common man, or do anything that they could, eating the corn dog at the Iowa State Fair, wearing a flannel shirt in New Hampshire. I think he had a very strong instinct that his wealth and that flamboyant display of his wealth Was not a liability that it was actually an asset. [ MUSIC ] Donal Trump is very comfortable sitting down and answering questions, although he very frequently does not remotely answer the question that you asked. In one sense it feels very undisciplined and in another sense maybe it's very disciplined in that He knows what he will and will not talk about and is unabashed in completely changing the subject. Do you feel changed by your election, and how you do think, if I play this tape back in four or eight years, the office will have changed here? Well, it's a It's a very humbling experience, I can tell you, as somebody that loves this country, it's a very large country, but it's also an even more powerful country than the numbers, because, if you look at China, and India, and you have others with more people, but, when you look at what we do in this country, it's The most incredible place on earth. [ MUSIC ] A lot of people think that Person of the Year just because the nature of the name is an honor. And certainly there have been years where we have recognized people's whose influence has been altogether, unassailably worthy. Normally, that's not the case. I know there are a lot of people who disagree with so much of what Donald Trump said and are very apprehensive about what his presidency means for them and for the country. I think I would challenge them to suggest that someone else this year had more influence than a way greater Surprise than what he did in 2016. 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