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The Gospel According to Buck

A lively conversation with Brendan Buck, the former top G.O.P. aide turned strategist, about the new risk calculus on Capitol Hill and whether Congress is edging closer to abdicating its powers to the White House.

Brendan Buck
"You have a president right now with extreme power over his party in Congress, but at the same time, seemingly very little interest in what Congress does. Even with the Big Beautiful Bill, you were not seeing an engaged president throughout the process," says strategist Brendan Buck. Photo: William B. Plowman/NBC/Getty Images
Leigh Ann Caldwell
August 10, 2025

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Just a little over six months into his second presidency, Donald Trump has browbeaten Congress, cultural institutions, universities, the justice system, the healthcare industry, and more into reflecting his MAGA worldview. At the principal level, this has been accomplished through the usual heavy-handed tactics: executive orders, tariff threats, federal investigations, etcetera. But Washington in the Trump 2.0 era has also been transformed in more subtle ways, with loyal lieutenants like Stephen Miller, Russ Vought, and James Blair leaning on Capitol Hill, hard, to abrogate legislative powers to the White House.