Trump is more powerful than ever. Can anyone stop him?
As the US president performed a victory lap this week after muscling his enormous package of tax and spending cuts through Congress, he reflected on the differences between his first and second terms.
'I think I have more power now,' he told a rally in Iowa on Thursday. 'More gravitas … more power.'
Having spent the past few weeks deploying troops to Los Angeles, authorising strikes on Iran and hinting at running for an unconstitutional third term, Trump had hit his self-imposed deadline for passing the One Big Beautiful Bill on July 4.
With typical bombast, he announced he would sign it into law beneath a flypast of B-2 Spirit bombers, F-22 Raptors and F-35 stealth fighters.
Only weeks ago he shut down the streets of Washington for another military parade, which was organised to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the US army but which happened to coincide with his own 79th birthday.
Protesters against Trump have taken to staging demonstrations under the banner of 'No Kings'. But speaking in the gleaming White House, where gilded ornaments have been brought in to accord with Trump's tastes, the president insisted he was no monarch.
'I don't feel like a king,' he said recently, against his golden backdrop. 'I have to go through hell to get stuff approved.'
In truth, there is little to curb him.
The Republicans effectively control the three pillars of US government: they hold the presidency and both houses of Congress, and the Supreme Court has a 6-3 split in favour of conservative justices.
The saga over the One Big Beautiful Bill demonstrated how tame resistance to Trump is on Capitol Hill, where Republicans are so cowed by him that those brave enough to speak out prefer to resign than face the wrath of the Maga base.
This week the Republican senator Thom Tillis criticised the cuts to Medicaid, which provides health insurance to the poorest Americans, in the One Big Beautiful Bill. Then he immediately announced he would stand down instead of defending his seat at next year's midterms.
• One Big Beautiful Bill summary: what does it mean for Medicaid?
Trump has nominated his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, to take Tillis's North Carolina seat. 'She grew up there,' he said.
Most world leaders, no matter their electoral successes, have to answer to the stock markets.
Yet Trump has seemingly forced Wall Street to accept his protectionist trade agenda after months of turbulence. The Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq have all surged in recent days.
And he looks like the victor in his row with Elon Musk, who has watched Tesla's value fall while Trump has swelled his own fortune by embarking on cryptocurrency ventures that blur the line between business and politics.
So can the president be stopped?
The Democrats have faint hopes of restricting Trump's power by winning seats in the midterms next November. They believe they can reclaim the House of Representatives, though the Senate looks more challenging.
The left of the party has been energised by the campaign of the youthful Zohran Mamdani, the frontrunner in the New York mayoral elections.
Yet Trump, a relentless campaigner who gave freewheeling speeches in Iowa and Florida this week as part of a packed schedule that would have surely exhausted his predecessor, appears up for the fight.
Despite his age there is little sign Trump's stamina is waning — nor his appetite for power. At the end of the week in which he succeeded in passing flagship legislation, he returned to a refrain from his first spell in office and the campaign trail,by sharing online the front page of the New York Post with the headline: 'Tired of winning yet?'
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