The GOP is projected to control the House majority in the new Congress, giving President-elect Trump another red trifecta similar to what he had during the first two years of his first term in office.
This will make Trump’s agenda easier to pursue without opposition from a Democratic majority.
Republicans held a governing trifecta from 2017 to 2019. The GOP achieved much of their agenda, including sweeping tax reform and confirming judges to achieve a conservative majority in the Supreme Court. However, not all of their priorities cleared the finish line.
Here’s a look at their major accomplishments and notable setbacks:
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President Biden, right, meets with President-elect Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
1. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
One of the GOP’s most notable achievements during Trump’s first term was enacting major tax cuts for individuals and corporations while reshaping the tax code. No House Democrats supported the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
2. The Affordable Care Act (ACA)
While Trump’s allies in Congress tried to completely roll back the Obama-era ACA, including a much-anticipated vote in the Senate that never happened, it failed by a narrow margin in the House.
Republicans also failed to completely eliminate the so-called individual mandate from the ACA, but did succeed in zeroing out the financial penalty for failure to comply with it.
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Former President Trump speaks about immigration and border security near Coronado National Memorial in Montezuma Pass, Arizona, on Aug. 22. (Olivier Touron/AFP via Getty Images)
3. Building the border wall
While Congress passed more restrictive immigration laws, the construction of Trump’s famous border wall was only partially successful. Trump requested $25 billion for building the wall, but Congress only approved $1.6 billion in the 2018 budget negotiations.
In February 2019, after a monthlong government shutdown, Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border and reallocated roughly $8 billion from other military construction projects and other sources to fund the border wall.
In total, the Trump administration completed approximately 452 miles of border wall by the end of January 2021.
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Three Supreme Court justices were confirmed during Trump’s first term. (Robert Alexander/Getty Images)
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4. Federal court appointments
Trump sent the Republican Senate nominations for 161 federal judges, of whom a significant number were confirmed. Two Supreme Court justices, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, were also confirmed in the first half of his term.
Trump’s third and final Supreme Court nomination, Amy Coney Barrett — who replaced the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — was accomplished in 2020, the last full year of his first term.
5. Criminal justice reform
Passing with bipartisan support in Congress, Trump signed the First Step Act into law in 2018 to reduce recidivism rates and expanded eligibility for compassionate release for certain federal inmates. By 2022, the First Step Act had led to the early release or reduced sentences of thousands of inmates.
