After two years of a Republican ‘trifecta’ which saw the party control the White House and both chambers of Congress, a period of divided government may ensue, just as happened at this stage of Trump’s first term in 2018.
The US is distinct from many other democratic settings in that political transitions unfold over a defined period of many weeks. In 1933, the Twentieth Amendment to the US Constitution set January 3 as the beginning of the Congressional term and January 20 as the start of the presidential term, moving both dates forward from the previous date of March 4.
This gives a transition period of about eight weeks for outgoing and incoming members of Congress and ten for presidents.
By contrast, in the United Kingdom, a prime minister who loses a general election leaves office the next day, and staff at 10 Downing Street assemble to ‘clap out’ the departing premier and then welcome in their successor within the hour. The sight of moving vans driving into Downing Street is a perennial feature of British political life.
This extended timeline has given rise to the concept of a ‘lame-duck’ session whereby the outgoing Congress continues to meet before its successor’s term begins. Many of these lame-duck sessions have largely focused on approving federal funding packages, defence appropriations, or judicial nominations, while others have been mostly pro forma in which very little substantive business is concluded.
On occasions where a party faces the imminent loss of control of one or both chambers, it may seek to sign legislation into law, as happened during the lame-duck session of the 111th Congress in 2010-11. This time around, Congress must, at a minimum, agree a stopgap funding measure by 11 December to keep the federal government open and avoid a fourth shutdown in Trump’s second term so far.
However, the lame-duck period this year is overshadowed by the threat of renewed war with Iran, as President Trump has repeatedly threatened to resume hostilities in the aftermath of the midterm elections, and media reports have spoken of plans for a ‘short, intense’ military campaign that would ostensibly target nuclear and energy infrastructure.
It may be that such rhetoric is part of the administration’s ratcheting up of pressure on Tehran as the US seeks to compel the Iranian leadership to accept a deal very much on Washington’s terms. However, it could also be the case that, should Trump face the prospect of the Democrats taking control of either or both House and Senate in January, he feels that the lame-duck session offers one last opportunity to strike Iran without any significant domestic constraint.
Whichever is the case, Iranian officials appear disinclined to make concessions that would cross their ‘red lines’ over issues such as the right to enrich uranium as part of a civil nuclear
programme. Amid a collapse of trust on both sides and a mutual conviction that the other party is negotiating in bad faith, the possibility of an escalatory spiral, whether intentional or not, is very real.
It is against this backdrop that mediators are racing to identify a framework for negotiations that could de-escalate tensions and form the basis for an eventual deal that would be more durable than the memorandum of understanding signed in June. The fact that Vice-President JD Vance sent a letter to Mohsen Rezaei, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, reportedly suggesting the revival of negotiations, also suggests that there could be a divergence of view within the Trump administration as to the optimal way forward.
The unique style of President Trump’s thought process and decision-making style makes it difficult to try and second-guess what he may say or do, and that adds a further layer of uncertainty to what is already an extremely unpredictable and volatile standoff.
For regional states, the stakes are high as they risk being caught in the middle once again, and incoming members of Congress will not be able to assert themselves until they take office in January. Getting through the next two months without any major incidents is therefore a priority, even if it seems an unlikely prospect given the sharp recent rise in threats and counterthreats.
There is also no playbook or recent precedent for a president or an administration which may choose to act in ways that do not appear rational to most dispassionate observers. If the Republicans lose the midterm elections it will be in part due to the public perception that the impact of the Iran war and associated economic and energy disruption has contributed to price rises and cost of living increases, thereby exacerbating the widespread concerns about affordability that did so much to propel Trump back into the White House in 2024.
It would thus seem perverse for the president to double down on a failing strategy in the aftermath of a political rebuke from the electorate, particularly as doing so might further damage Republican support as the party begins to move into an inevitable post-Trump era.
Perhaps the closest analogy is that of 2006, when the Democrats regained both the Senate and the House and President George W Bush responded by sacking Donald Rumsfeld, his Secretary of Defence associated with the faltering conduct of military operations in Iraq but then went against the recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group for a phased military drawdown and opted instead to increase the US presence. Against expectations, the surge did contribute to a reduction of violence in Iraq, but that calculated risk looks safe when compared to today’s situation with Iran.
• The writer is a leading scholar specialising in Gulf politics and international political economy, and a fellow at the Baker Institute and co-director of the Middle East Energy Roundtable.