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IS TRUMP A LAME DUCK YET?  
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Robert Kuttner
November 21, 2025
The American Prospect

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_ Are we out of the woods? No, we are not. However, something
fundamental has shifted. Trump is not a dead duck, but he is
increasingly a lame one. We may yet redeem our democracy. _

A rattled President Trump tells a female reporter, "Quiet, piggy"
aboard Airforce One, screen grab

 

At several points in the past few months, it looked as if Trump had
gone too far and that resistance to his incipient dictatorship had
reached a turning point. But each time, it didn’t quite happen.

In mid-September, I wrote a moderately optimistic piece for the
_Prospect_
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taking stock of the various elements of resistance, most notably
courts and elections. Many readers felt I was being a little too
hopeful.

_MORE FROM ROBERT KUTTNER_
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Since Election Day, however, there has been a notable shift. And each
aspect feeds on the others. They include:

* A Democratic wave election that is likely to be repeated and
intensified in 2026
* Lower courts becoming even bolder in striking down Trump’s
excesses
* The Supreme Court likely to overturn three key Trump cases:
tariffs, his efforts to fire Federal Reserve governors, and birthright
citizenship
* At least some states, such as Indiana and Kansas, resisting
Trump’s redistricting demands
* The continuing fallout from the Epstein files
* Republican defections. The most important sign of impending
lame-duckery is Republicans finding that they can defy Trump with
impunity. The examples are legion. They keep cumulating and nurturing
each other.

Trump kept pressuring House Republicans not to sign the discharge
petition to force the Justice Department to release the Epstein files.
He threatened to punish Republicans who resisted, but in the end it
was Trump who was thoroughly humiliated.

The White House, by trying to delay release of the files by launching
a whole new investigation, is miscalculating again. This only keeps
Epstein in the headlines: What is Trump hiding?

But the Republicans’ Epstein revolt is only the beginning.
Republican legislators have defied Trump’s demand to end the
filibuster, his scheme to engage the cost-of-living issue by sending
everyone a $2,000 “tariff rebate” check, his proposal for a
$10,000 subsidy for people to buy private health insurance, his idea
for 50-year mortgages
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They are not taking him seriously.

Republicans have joined Democrats in expressing unease about his
illegal demolition of fishing boats as alleged drug smugglers, his
plan for a splendid little war on Venezuela, and his latest pro-Putin
scheme to sell out Ukraine.

His threats to primary disloyal Republicans are going nowhere. And the
more Republicans are willing to stand up to him, the more his threats
ring hollow.

There is also the sheer incompetence of Trump’s efforts to use
selective prosecutions
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to punish political opponents. Trump’s effort to prosecute former
FBI director James Comey has turned into an embarrassing fiasco. The
Department of Justice admitted that it never presented
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the two-count indictment to the full grand jury.

The appalled magistrate wrote, “If this procedure did not take
place, then the court is in uncharted legal territory in that the
indictment returned in open court was not the same charging document
presented to and deliberated upon by the grand jury.” The whole case
may be thrown out.

And Trump’s crony, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill
Pulte, who has combed mortgage records to find ways to prosecute
prominent Democrats, is now on the defensive himself, as lawyers
challenge his flagrant conflicts of interest. Trump’s minions even
managed to bungle a slam dunk by admitting the sheer racism in the
Texas redistricting plan, which was then overruled by a three-judge
panel, with the most indignant comments coming from a Trump appointee.

Appellate Judge Jeffrey Brown wrote that “it’s challenging to
unpack the DOJ Letter because it contains so many factual, legal, and
typographical errors. Indeed, even attorneys employed by the Texas
Attorney General—who professes to be a political ally of the Trump
Administration—describe the DOJ Letter as ‘legally[] unsound,’
‘baseless,’ ‘erroneous,’ ‘ham-fisted,’ and ‘a
mess.’”

Meanwhile, the Republican victory in forcing Democrats to reopen the
government with no concessions on health care is looking more and more
like a defeat because it keeps the issue of unaffordable health
insurance front and center. In the most recent polls, approval of
Trump is underwater by 17 points. Even among Republicans, his approval
is 68 percent, sharply down from 92 percent in March. As we head into
an election year, with Democrats flipping both Houses a distinct
possibility, more and more Republican legislators are looking to save
their own skins—which gives them more reason to distance themselves
from Trump, and the process keeps intensifying.

So are we out of the woods yet? No, we are not.

The more Trump is on the defensive, the more hysterical he becomes.
The latest example is his call to execute Democrats who pointed out
that the professional military has an obligation to defy illegal
commands. Even the White House press office had to walk that back. But
Trump is continuing to use carrots and sticks with the corporate
parents of media organizations to destroy a free and critical press.

And as an increasingly desperate Trump tries to keep changing the
subject and the headlines, watch out for even more reckless
foreign-policy adventures.

However, something fundamental has shifted. Trump is not a dead duck
yet, but he is increasingly a lame one. And the more he proves
impotent to punish defiant Republicans, the more they will keep acting
to distance themselves and to weaken Trump.

We may yet redeem our democracy. That seemed a long shot just a few
months ago. Not a bad cause for Thanksgiving.\

_ROBERT KUTTNER is co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect,
and professor at Brandeis University’s Heller School. His latest
book is __Going Big: FDR’s Legacy, Biden’s New Deal, and the
Struggle to Save Democracy_
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Follow Bob at his site, __robertkuttner.com_
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_Used with the permission. The American Prospect, Prospect.org, 2024.
All rights reserved. Click __here_
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* Donald Trump
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* Jeffrey Epstein
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* elections
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