--- title: Donald Trump Still Leads The Republicans. That’s Bad for Almost Everybody description: Donald Trump is out of office. That doesn’t mean he’s out of power. canonical: https://time.com/6102500/donald-trump-gop-control/ author: Philip Elliott article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2021-09-29T18:07:37.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-14T09:15:15.788Z article:section: Politics og:title: Donald Trump Still Leads The Republicans. That’s Bad for Almost Everybody og:description: Donald Trump is out of office. That doesn’t mean he’s out of power. og:url: https://time.com/6102500/donald-trump-gop-control/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8a2ad3a3b44f83c8/698a1d55db29872566266edb/donald-trump-rally.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2400 og:image:height: 1350 og:image:alt: Donald Trump og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Donald Trump Still Leads The Republicans. That’s Bad for Almost Everybody twitter:description: Donald Trump is out of office. That doesn’t mean he’s out of power. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8a2ad3a3b44f83c8/698a1d55db29872566266edb/donald-trump-rally.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Donald Trump Still Leads The Republicans—And That’s Bad for Almost Everybody > 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. Senior correspondent Philip Elliott brings sharp context to the issues driving the capital, connecting the decisions made in Washington to the institutions, industries and people they affect. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. 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=c94e645f-5d07-4e96-9e14-a4a9a28a78cf&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The Stories Behind Donald Trump's TIME Covers [Watch (HLS stream): The Stories Behind Donald Trump's TIME Covers](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/W8uZ13Pz.m3u8) (5:07)  _Published 2021-01-21. TIME's D.W. Pine looks back at the various covers featuring Donald Trump, from his first appearance in 1989 to the end of his presidency._  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Sep 29, 2021 6:07 PM UTC TIME's D.W. Pine looks back at the various covers featuring Donald Trump, from his first appearance in 1989 to the end of his presidency.  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Sep 29, 2021 6:07 PM UTC _This article is part of the The DC Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up_ [_here_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/newsletter%5Fopt-in?qs=3a19a0aa35903a2d9f214b74f69a37910b58de73cf3f2b89adc123fac024f0478c72f91010ae9d01f08f46c616068cab3e74726837cd2cce70dac3796e46c2b4) _to get stories like this sent to your inbox every weekday._ Donald Trump is out of office. That doesn’t mean he’s out of power. In the last week, the former President has once again shown just how he plans to maintain control of the Republican Party’s brand. He has [refused](https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/27/politics/arizona-trump-election-lies/index.html) to accept the Republican-led audit of 2020 election results in Arizona that he is, in fact, still the race’s [loser](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/24/us/arizona-election-review-trump-biden.html). He continues to push for election [reviews](https://www.npr.org/2021/09/23/1039451858/republican-led-election-reviews-take-shape-in-pennsylvania-and-wisconsin) in Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—and seems to be on track to get them. Trump has been [hammering](https://www.newsweek.com/trump-slams-mcconnell-other-gop-senators-who-voted-destructive-infrastructure-bill-1633226) his supporters in Congress to [gum up](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/government-shutdown-fund-senate-gop-debt-ceiling-block-bill/) a [quartet](https://time.com/6101795/infrastructure-reconciliation-debt-congress/) of high-profile pieces of President Joe Biden’s agenda and keeps sprinkling his endorsements in races around the country, trying to exact revenge on corners of his party he has deemed insufficiently loyal. Trump has remade the Republican brand into one of chaos and obstruction, despite holding no official place in the party hierarchy. His contempt for norms continues and, especially among House Republicans, that is in itself a new norm. It’s tough to imagine a pre-Trump moment where such rancor was celebrated. In 2009, when Rep. Joe Wilson [shouted](https://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/09/joe.wilson/) “You lie!” at then-President Barack Obama, he [issued](https://www.rollcall.com/2009/09/09/wilson-apologizes-for-shouting-at-obama/) an apology almost immediately for his outburst. Now, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s [heckling](https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/marjorie-taylor-greene-s-good-christian-abortion-meltdown-ncna1280110) of fellow members on the steps of the Capitol about abortion and their faith is met with deafening silence from the GOP. (Party leaders, however, have already stripped her of committee assignments for peddling conspiracy theories.) Trump may have fled Washington even before Joe Biden took the oath but his influence never left, especially among Republicans who sincerely believe that Trump’s mix of bravado and trouble-making is a winning cocktail for victory in next year’s midterms and the 2024 race that, if Trump is to be [believed](https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2021/09/07/trump-builds-turnkey-campaign-operation-for-2024-1390750), could feature his return to the ballot. In fact, CNN polling [shows](https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/12/politics/cnn-poll-donald-trump-republicans/index.html) GOP voters prefer Trump to be the leader of the Republican Party by a 2-to-1 margin, even if those same voters say it’s a coin-toss whether he’d actually help them retake the White House as the nominee. Trump is still drawing [crowds](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/28/trump-can-still-draw-crowd-just-like-lot-oldies-acts/) across the country, and some [$82 million](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/07/31/trump-committees-fundraising-2021-fec/) in cash in the first half of the year moved into Trump-affiliated accounts at a network of political committees. It’s easy to dismiss the shift in what it means to be a Republican these days as something that only matters inside the Beltway; something for cable news pundits to fret about. After all, the share of Americans who actually [identifies](https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx) as a member of the Republican Party hovers around 30% year over year. (Democrats come in around that same level. The biggest voting bloc in America is unaffiliated voters, and has been for decades.) The problem is that for many voters, supporting Trump goes hand in hand with rejecting some of the nation’s basic guiding principles. In communities across this country, yard signs still are promoting Trump’s re-election last year. Many Republicans still believe he is the legitimately elected President of the United States: [two-thirds](https://news.yahoo.com/poll-two-thirds-of-republicans-still-think-the-2020-election-was-rigged-165934695.html) of GOP voters said in a poll released last month that Trump was the winner of the election, a number that has remained consistent since November despite overwhelming evidence otherwise. It’s tough for rank-and-file Republican lawmakers to ignore _that_ reality, even if meaningful election fraud is fiction. Which brings us to this disturbing [finding](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/09/28/declining-share-of-republicans-say-it-is-important-to-prosecute-jan-6-rioters/), released this week from the Pew Research Center. In a massive survey of more than 10,000 people, Pew found only 57% of Republicans believe those who heeded Trump’s [advice](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/10/us/trump-speech-riot.html) to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell” on Jan. 6 deserve prosecution for the failed insurrection. That’s still a majority, sure, but it’s down from the 78% who said the same in March. And among Republicans who think the mob that stormed the Capitol and sent lawmakers into hiding deserve to face consequences, the intensity has dropped off, with the 50% of Republicans who in March said it was “very important” to prosecute the offenders falling to 27%. In other words, Trump and his allies have been working tirelessly to normalize the Jan. 6 [attacks](https://time.com/5927664/capital-siege-trump-supporters/) and, at least among Republicans, it’s working. Their near-universal [refusal](https://time.com/6082950/pelosi-mcarthy-january-6-committee/) to cooperate with Congress’ Jan. 6 investigation has delegitimized it, and the work more broadly to discredit a free and fair election continues to prove a threat to America’s democracy. To borrow an [observation](https://www.newsweek.com/trump-succeeded-where-russia-failed-attacking-election-integrity-ex-gop-arizona-ag-says-1632709) from a former Arizona Attorney General, an ex-Republican who was John McCain’s chief of staff, Trump’s efforts to undermine American democracy may be succeeding where Russia’s failed. And that’s something that all Americans across the political spectrum should watch with worry. _Make sense of what matters in Washington._ [_Sign up for the daily D.C. Brief newsletter._](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/politics?source=dc%5Farticle) ## Transcript I happened been on their cover like 14 or 15 times. I think we have the all time record in the history of Time magazine. Donald Trump has always had a fascination with time. He first landed on the cover on January 16th, 1989, 28 years before his inauguration, since before his election. Trump has regularly campaigned to be named Time's Person of the Year using rallies and his Twitter feed to comment on Time's choices. They should have picked me for the Person of the Year, but they didn't know. They said. And perhaps most notably, fake time travelers were designed to hang in his golf course clubhouses. Time has a long history of featuring presidents on the cover, and Trump has been no exception. Eight of the top ten people to appear most often on Time's cover are U.S. presidents. Trump finished his term with 35 covers, the fourth most of any president behind Richard Nixon's 55 covers. Ronald Reagan with 46 and Bill Clinton with 40. Rounding out the top ten are George W Bush with 32. Barack Obama 31. Jimmy Carter 27. Jesus 22. And Hillary Clinton and George H.W. Bush tied at 21. We first introduced candidate Trump to Time's readers in August of 2015, when photographer Martin Schaller and Time editor at large Paul Moakley brought a live bald eagle to the Trump Tower in New York City for a portrait. This symbol of democracy was particularly animated during the photo and video session, even angrily nipping at the president's hand during the 2016 campaign. We produced seven covers featuring Trump and created an original visual language for this president with the artwork of artist Adele Rodriguez. Rodriguez, who worked as Time's international art director in the 1990s as a strong, simple, graphic style that immediately grabbed worldwide recognition with the meltdown cover, a reflection of his slumping campaign following the Republican National Convention. Two months later, in response to the release of the infamous Access Hollywood tape, Rodriguez followed with an updated image with the headline Total Meltdown. Of course, TIME reports many different topics, and the visual approaches on the cover reinforces that variety. We have presented President Trump as a frenetic Twitter user, crumbling at the Washington Monument, a punching bag, a graphic wrecking ball, an angry character with his hair on fire, a cross between himself and Vladimir Putin, a king looking into a cover, a slingshot holding fighter, dueling with Nancy Pelosi, a happy president, whistling under an umbrella in the rain, and a man who has painted himself into a corner. We've also photographed Trump for multiple covers, including a White House tour for our May 22nd, 2017 cover and an Oval Office conversation in the summer of 2019 on Trump's plan to keep the White House. My favorite time cover of Trump is nothing to See Here from February 27, 2017. I believe the strongest time covers leave space for a variety of perspectives for this cover. If you're an opponent of President Trump, you look at the cover and you see all the chaos that this man has created. And if you're a supporter of the president, you look at it and say, even among all the chaos in Washington, look how resolute he is sitting behind that desk. That is a great place for a time cover to be. That image was created by longtime Time collaborator Tim O'Brien, who has painted more covers in the past 30 years than any other artist. It was the first of what would become a series of four paintings from O'Brien depicting Trump in a growing storm within the Oval Office. Our Trump covers have certainly not been without debate. An image we created of Trump staring down at a young immigrant girl for our Welcome to America cover sparked controversy. During the campaign, Trump frequently used the cover, proclaiming how Trump won as a selling point on the campaign trail. On numerous occasions, the president also tweeted out a fake time cover animation of how Trumpism outlasts Trump. A cover from October 22nd, 2018. But for most of the past year, the president's image on the cover took a backseat to front line workers. Racial injustice, protests and the rising COVID numbers. And even though the image of Trump wasn't physically shown on two recent covers, his influence was still present. While Trump's presidency has come to a close, it's certainly possible that we haven't seen the last of him. On the cover of Time. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6102500/donald-trump-gop-control/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6102500/donald-trump-gop-control/"},"headline":"Donald Trump Still Leads The Republicans—And That’s Bad for Almost Everybody","datePublished":"2021-09-29T18:07:37.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-14T09:15:15.788Z","description":"Donald Trump is out of office. 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