5 ways a second Trump administration would be different from the first

In a second term, Donald Trump would have an easier time pushing policy goals thanks to a political environment that has shifted greatly since he was last in office.

A little more than a month before the Iowa caucuses, a Republican political operative was sitting in a Washington bar ticking through the dynamics of his party’s presidential primary. A veteran of campaigns across more than two decades of election cycles, he weighed the strengths of the winnowing list of Republican contenders and the potential risks of nominating a former president staring down four indictments and dozens of criminal charges. He didn’t hedge in his conclusion. “One thing that hasn’t changed: This is Trump’s party,” the operative said. But he wanted to make clear that didn’t mean a second term for Donald Trump would replicate the first. “Everything around him has changed,” he said of the former president. “To his benefit.” Six months later, Trump is indeed the presumptive Republican nominee.