After losing Congress, Trump has three options: vetoes, executive orders, or deals with Democrats

As the United States midterm election results landed late on Tuesday night, President Donald Trump took a phone call from the news outlet Politico. In that interview he said he would be willing to work with Democrats. 'They've already called, and they want to work with me. I have the right to veto everything, but I don't want to be just sitting there for two years just vetoing everything,' he said.

A wave for the Democratic Party had sunk Trump's Republican Party in this election. For the first time in his two stints as president, the Republican Party no longer controlled either chamber of Congress. While a handful of seats remain to be counted, the Democrats have won at least 253 seats out of 435 in the House of Representatives and at least 54 out of 100 in the Senate.

Trump has since posted a picture on his Truth Social account using the Make America Great Again red baseball hat to read 'VETO'. Under Article 1, Section 7 of the US Constitution, the president has the power to reject legislation passed by Congress through a veto.

Congress can override the veto, but would need a two-thirds majority. The Democrats do not have that majority in either chamber.

According to analysts, Trump now has three options to affect legislation: veto legislation, enforce executive orders, or make deals. His comments to Politico underscore the possibility that he may pick and choose when to veto, and when to work with Democrats.

Since Trump was inaugurated in January 2025, he has passed 292 executive orders — 67 this year and 225 last year, according to the Federal Register.

Andrew Proctor, a lecturer in US politics at University College London, said Trump has even less leverage than before with Congress. He said the biggest thing is probably a decent amount of gridlock: the Democrats will try to pass policies, but Trump has the power to veto them, and Democrats do not have enough seats in either chamber to overcome any veto. Recent history, he added, says it is unlikely Trump will try to work with Democrats on passing legislation.

Still, some Democrats have said they would work with the president to advance programmes central to their campaign promises. Michigan's Abdul El-Sayed, the first Muslim elected to the US Senate, has already said he could work with Trump — even though the president had used racist and Islamophobic rhetoric to target El-Sayed during the campaign.

El-Sayed told MSNOW on Thursday that if Trump was interested in getting money out of politics, putting money in pockets and passing Medicare for All, that is what he ran to do, and he is looking forward to working with anyone willing to do that. He said Trump is the president of the United States and he will be one United States senator, and on getting more people healthcare, ending the Medicare cuts, ending the war and stopping the tariffs with Canada, they could talk and deliver for the public.

Progressive Senator Bernie Sanders has also said in recent interviews that he would not rule out Trump signing onto a Medicare for All bill if Democrats pass it in both chambers of Congress. He described Trump as a 'politician' who was not 'too ideological'.

Proctor argued that Trump could indeed make a deal with the Democrats based on how good it could make him look, but that getting Medicare for All passed in the next two years appeared unlikely. He said a place where common ground could emerge on healthcare is rolling back specifically the subsidies that were cut under Trump's earlier legislation, which would make healthcare more affordable for millions of Americans. He also pointed out that some Republicans in 2025 had said they were willing to negotiate with Democrats on healthcare reforms.

Though Trump has said he would be willing to use the veto, he has historically not been among the most avid proponents of the practice. He has so far used the veto twice in this term, and used it 10 times during his first term. Joe Biden used it 12 times in his single term, while Barack Obama used the veto a dozen times over two terms. Bill Clinton vetoed legislation 37 times between 1993 and 2001, George H W Bush used it 44 times in his single term, and Ronald Reagan used it 78 times over his two terms.

Proctor also said Republicans have a different tool to try to block legislation: the filibuster, a tactic that delays a vote on a specific piece of legislation by using extended debate. He said Senate Republicans will probably try to do the same thing they did to former President Barack Obama, which also means legislation may never reach Trump in the first place, so the question of a veto does not arise.

Since the Democrats swept the midterms on Tuesday, calls for investigations against the administration have already emerged. Representative Robert Garcia, who is set to become chairman of the House Oversight Committee, wrote on X: 'LAWYER UP.' Senator Ron Wyden, who is expected to lead the Senate Finance Committee, wrote in a post on X: 'Subpoenas.'

However, the Trump administration has already denied any wrongdoing. White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said on Wednesday that if Democrats choose to pursue sham investigations and radical left policies, they are choosing to work against the American people. Reports also suggest that impeachment proceedings against Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth might be imminent, over the Iran war that Trump and other Republicans have blamed for the party's losses.