Democrats just swept the midterms. The natural read is that the Iran war, the tariffs and the rest of this administration's foreign policy are going to be constrained. I think we're going to see an acceleration at least for the next two months. Remember, no one is seated yet.

Here is my reasoning, then the reporting on what the new majorities can and cannot do once they arrive.

The current administration can do some things without the majority and it must work with the majority to do other things. Here are the two baskets as I see them:

Basket one (what the admin needs congress for.) Expect a push to confirm nominees who will hold the line after January: the Director of National Intelligence, flag officers, ambassadors. Expect a fight over the December 11 funding deadline, where House Republicans have been seeking up to $60 billion more for the military through reconciliation. The September stopgap excluded Iran war funding, and Senate Democrats can use the 60-vote threshold to keep it out of the next one.

There's a big constraint here however. Maybe the most important constraint in all politics: spite. Retiring and defeated Republicans have nothing left to fear from the White House. For a lot of them, the administration's unpopular policies are the reason they lost. An outgoing senator who decides not to confirm a nominee or fund a line item doesn't have to worry about offending the Trump Administration.

In a lame duck session the old majority is less reliable for the president and the new one will be predictably against him. Knives, as they say… are out.

Basket two has bombs in it (what the admin doesn't need congress for.) The executive branch has shown all year that it does not need congressional approval for strikes. It has done this by using the War Powers Act and renaming conflicts. There are also wide economic powers which it has wielded previously. Operation Economic Fury didn't require congress, just Scott Bessent and a lot of phone calls.

The administration can also order troop withdrawals to settle scores with Europe and South Korea. Potentially most damaging is the fact that tariffs can continue to run under statutory and emergency authorities. If the administration wants to continue these policies it has to make them a one-way door that the next government has to enter and probably can't easily walk back through.

Here's another analogy that I like better:

Some foreign policy moves are like pushing toothpaste out of a tube. You cannot put it back. In the next couple months there will be toothpaste everywhere. Here's what I'm watching for: troop withdrawals from Europe and South Korea, an Iran settlement signed as an executive agreement rather than a treaty, and a general acceleration of operations that leaves the incoming Congress holding a situation it did not choose.

Here's the notional worst case, which I am describing rather than predicting: US service members deployed into Iran and effectively stranded there for a Democratic Congress to deal with. Pack up and go home, or keep fighting? That question gets much harder once there are losses on the battlefield. This is how things spiral out of control and adventurism becomes decades of conflict. A majority can refuse to fund a new war. Refusing to fund troops already in contact reads as abandoning our soldiers.

War powers votes will pass. They will not bind. Democrats have forced more than a dozen Iran war powers votes since February. The Senate adopted one 50-48 in June and failed on another 49-50 in September, with the same handful of Republicans (Collins, Murkowski, Paul, and later Tillis) crossing each time. The House has passed versions at 215-208, 214-208 and 220-204. In January these pass easily. The problem is what they are.

A concurrent resolution never reaches the president, so it cannot be vetoed, and it also has no force of law. A joint resolution does reach him, and he vetoes it. The White House has already ignored a resolution that passed and argues the War Powers Act is unconstitutional. The override threshold is where this dies: 13 Republican senators and roughly 32 Republican House members, against a track record of four.

Money is the only binding lever. Congress funds Customs and Border Protection, so an appropriations bill can bar CBP from spending a dollar to collect specific tariffs. Congress funds the Pentagon, so a bill can restrict funds for operations in Iran. A veto of a funding bill means a shutdown fight, and shutdown politics rarely shower the majority in glory.

The precedent that should worry Democrats is 2007, when a new majority tried to defund Iraq and folded. The precedent that should worry the White House is that tariffs now bring in real revenue, and a Congress that controls the purse can decide what happens to it.

Oversight starts on day one. Rep. Robert Garcia, in line to chair House Oversight, has told the administration to lawyer up. Subpoenas do not need a presidential signature, and they can go to private companies directly if the White House stonewalls. The target list is already public: World Liberty Financial and its pending bank charter, the $500 million Emirati stake, the Binance pardon, Pentagon contracts tied to the president's sons, the Noem and Lewandowski arrangements, the Epstein files, DHS and ICE.

The limits are the first-term playbook: executive privilege, slow-walked documents, and a Justice Department under acting Attorney General Todd Blanche that will not prosecute contempt referrals. Civil enforcement through the courts takes years. Oversight produces headlines and records, not compliance.

Remember, the ongoing strategy of the Trump Administration has been to be faster than prosecution and to use the process itself to run out the clock.

Confirmations stop. A Senate majority can simply decline to confirm. That is why basket one matters now: every nominee seated before January 3 is one the administration does not have to ask Democrats for. After January, expect acting officials and vacancies to do the work that confirmed ones cannot.

Impeachment is available in the House and dead in the Senate. Democrats are united on impeaching War Secretary Pete Hegseth and divided on Trump impeachment. Jeffries has said it is neither on nor off the table. Conviction takes 67 senators. This means that is is very likely that Democrats will go after the appointees since Trump has survived impeachment previously.

They cannot pass legislation the president will not sign. Tariff repeal, a war-ending bill, a stock trading ban, an Epstein files bill: each can clear both chambers and each dies at the veto unless a dozen-plus Republicans walk. They cannot break a filibuster. Fifty-four is not sixty, and the big-ticket items on the wish list (voting rights, codifying Roe, a minimum wage increase) go nowhere without it. They cannot unsign an executive agreement with Iran, bring withdrawn troops back to Europe, or reverse a strike that already happened. This is all the toothpaste I have been talking about.

What they can do is make every one of those moves expensive, on the record, and attributable, and then fight the 2028 election on the receipts.

Forecast: 80 percent chance that at least one Iran war powers resolution passes both chambers by February 28, 2027, and 15 percent chance that any of them becomes binding law before the 2028 election.

Forecast: 60 percent chance the administration announces a troop reduction in Europe or South Korea before January 3.

Bottom line: the new government will be able to constrain the executive, but not right away and not with the tools people assume. The White House's incentive between now and January is to lock in one strategic path, the one it already chose, so that the only decision left for Democrats is whether to pay for it.