Key facts
- Stephen Miller and Russell Vought worked with the White House Counsel's Office since April on executive actions, three people said.
- Actions under consideration included tariffs on critical minerals and wind turbines, per the White House official.
- Vought examined which priorities could proceed using money already appropriated by Congress, two people said.
- Democrats needed a net gain of four seats in the House and four in the Senate, per the report.
- Trump signed a package of tax and spending cuts into law in July 2025, the report said.
President Donald Trump's White House spent months preparing for a possible Democratic takeover of Congress, developing plans to keep advancing parts of his agenda through executive power while preparing for investigations of his administration, according to a White House official and two people familiar with the plans.
Senior officials, including deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and budget director Russell Vought, worked with the White House Counsel's Office since April to identify executive actions on immigration, tariffs, housing costs and federal spending that Trump could pursue without congressional approval, the three people said, speaking on condition of anonymity. White House counsel Will Scharf and his team also examined what Trump could legally do on his own, where he could push the limits of his authority and how to defend those decisions in court, the White House official said.
Among the actions under consideration were new tariffs on imports of critical minerals and wind turbines, tighter rules on visas for international students and temporary foreign workers, and measures aimed at lowering housing and construction costs, the White House official said. Federal agencies submitted proposals and legal reviews of actions the administration could take unilaterally, one of the people said. Vought, whose Office of Management and Budget oversees federal spending, examined which priorities could move forward using money already appropriated by Congress and wanted to change federal grant rules to give political appointees more say over which programs receive taxpayer money, two of the people said.
Trump was briefed on the preparations and took part in discussions about them, the White House official said. Asked how comfortable Trump would be governing through executive authority under a Democratic Congress, one of the people said, "very comfortable."
The White House pushed back on the prospect of Republican losses. "This administration and commonsense Republicans will continue to secure our borders, restore law and order, putting more money back into the pockets of hard-working Americans, and deliver wins for the American people," spokeswoman Lauren Bis said.
Democrats needed a net gain of four seats in the US House of Representatives and in the US Senate to overturn Republican majorities of 218-214 and 53-47. Opinion polls favored Democrats to win the House, while the Senate was too close to call. Trump had held rallies across the country for a month trying to preserve Republican control of Congress.