Breaking: Trump is already wielding power and causing massive disruption….. See More

President-elect Donald Trump is already flexing raw power, showing he may try to subvert Washington’s checks and balances and leaving foreign leaders scrambling to come to terms with his victory.

Early signs from Mar-a-Lago, the Florida club and estate where Trump is building his new administration, suggest that when he moves back into the White House in January, bolstered by a thumping win and a democratic mandate, he will act with maximum force.

Trump has already taken to social media to issue orders to Senate Republicans running in this week’s majority leader election to endorse recess appointments for his Cabinet nominees — and all three candidates quickly signaled they’re open to the idea. He’s showing he plans to rule a GOP monopoly on power — if Republicans win control of the House, which CNN has not yet projected — with unchallenged authority. He sees Congress as a rubber stamp rather than a separate, co-equal branch of government.

In a move that recalled the late-night drama of his first term, Trump posted on Truth Social shortly before midnight that he had named Tom Homan, the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and an advocate of Trump’s plans for mass deportations, as border czar. Homan argued in a recent CBS “60 Minutes” interview that “families could be deported together” but ruled out mass sweeps of neighborhoods or “concentration camps.”

His selection is likely to bolster concerns of Trump’s opponents about the former president’s hardline intentions. But the president-elect made no secret of his plans on the campaign trail and his policies will reflect the desire of millions of voters in his governing majority for a wide-ranging shake-up of America’s direction at home and abroad.

For instance, Trump’s decisions herald a new administration infused by outsider populism rather than conventional power brokers. He, for example, ruled out Cabinet posts for Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley, who both had top foreign policy spots last time around. On Sunday, he offered the job of US ambassador to the United Nations to New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, two sources familiar told CNN. And his inclusion of billionaire tech visionary and rabble rouser Elon Musk on a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — a privilege normally reserved for senior foreign policy aides — showed how Trump’s unorthodoxy will challenge every governing convention.

Longer-term implications of Trump’s triumph are sinking in. Speculation about future Supreme Court positions and potential retirements is highlighting the next president’s potential to extend the dominance of the ultra-conservative majority he built into the middle of the century.

Federal workers are now dreading an expected purge of career bureaucrats by Trump allies keen to install political appointees who will not hesitate to carry out orders that could shred the regulatory state and central government authority. And CNN reported last week on discussions in the Pentagon about how the military would respond to any order to deploy against Americans, following Trump’s warnings as a candidate that he could shatter taboos on the use of forces on US soil.

And another question is taking on added urgency: how far will Trump go in exacting the revenge he promised against his political opponents following the impeachments, indictments and one conviction on which he anchored his campaign? Cabinet nominations expected in the days ahead, including for attorney general, will shed light on the depth of his thirst for retribution.

Democrats are, meanwhile, coming to terms with the massive fallout of their failure to stop Trump’s return to power, even as they dissolve into self-recrimination. They lack a clear leader to revive their message or a platform of power if Republicans retain control of the House. This will only strengthen Trump’s hand in the weeks ahead.

Overseas, Trump’s victory is forcing a massive geopolitical reassessment. From Europe to Taiwan and Iran to Russia, foreign leaders are gaming out how to deal with the unpredictability of Trump’s return. Some are racing to flatter the president-elect. Others are bracing for his wrath.

A growing sense of frantic reordering and recalculation inside the United States and abroad underscores how Trump will return to office more powerful than he ever was in his first term, with the advantage of fewer restraints. His march to victory in all seven battleground states — he won Arizona, according to a CNN projection on Saturday — offers him popular legitimacy. And his historic achievement of becoming only the second president to win a non-consecutive term means he’s now a historic figure not an aberration.

This new Washington reality will be on display Wednesday when Trump returns to the White House to lunch with President Joe Biden — who vanquished him in 2020 — but whose power ebbs by the hour as Trump establishes his own