What Trump shares with Truman after a midterm shellacking

Brett McGurk is a CNN global affairs analyst who served in senior national security positions under Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden. He is the author of Brink : Inside the Race to Free the October 7 Hostages.

Shortly after World War II, as the United States faced a rising Soviet Union, a devastated Europe, and the dawn of a Cold War, President Harry S. Truman's Democratic Party got clobbered in midterm elections.

In 1946, Republicans gained 55 seats in the House and 12 in the Senate, taking control of both chambers for the first time in 16 years.

Truman's presidency seemed finished. One senator from his own party, J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, suggested that Truman appoint a Republican secretary of state and resign, handing over the presidency under the succession law then in effect.

Truman turned to Senator Arthur Vandenberg, a former isolationist from Michigan who became chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in the new Congress.

Their unlikely partnership helped produce the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and ultimately the North Atlantic Treaty establishing NATO. Together, they helped build a strategy that contained Soviet expansion and laid the groundwork for winning the Cold War decades later.

Vandenberg's guiding principle: partisan politics should stop "at the water's edge."

The two men continued fighting. Truman campaigned against the "do-nothing" Republican Congress. Vandenberg was still a Republican with presidential ambitions.

But they agreed on the challenges confronting the United States and found ways to work together where it most mattered for the country.

Eighty years later, that seems almost unimaginable.

Trump now faces a predicament Truman would recognize: a midterm shellacking that handed both houses of Congress to the opposition.

We are in a technology race with China over artificial intelligence — and with it the future of economic and military power. Europe faces the risk of a larger war as Russia's invasion of Ukraine nears the five-year mark. The US is mired in a stalemate with Iran with no easy exit and no reason to expect Tehran to abandon its hostility toward America, support for terrorism, or nuclear ambitions.

All these threats will outlast Trump's presidency. Each requires decisions now that may take years or decades to bear fruit. And each becomes harder when Washington cannot sustain a policy long enough to make it work.

Consider the view from the other side of the ocean.

If you are Vladimir Putin, why compromise if America is divided and its support for Ukraine might collapse first? The same goes for China's president, Xi Jinping, who views the United States as riven with divisions and in terminal decline.

Or Iran's leaders: why compromise when the United States might soon abandon the Middle East altogether? Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran's new Supreme Leader —albeit one who has never been seen — seemed to speak for all three when he said "the US's collapse has accelerated" after the midterms.

Even here at home, if you are an American manufacturer being asked to expand weapons production, why build a factory without confidence that Washington will purchase what it produces?

Call it the price of uncertainty. Adversaries press advantage. Allies hedge. American industry holds back.

The Truman–Vandenberg partnership worked because both men accepted responsibilities that went beyond efforts to defeat the other party.

Truman had a theory of the case: Soviet expansion threatened American security, and the US needed to strengthen countries vulnerable to Soviet pressure.

The Marshall Plan supplied economic means. The emerging Atlantic alliance supplied military means. Bipartisan congressional support gave both durability.

Truman also accepted that Vandenberg would help shape the policy.

His administration consulted the senator as proposals developed. Vandenberg demanded changes and brought skeptical Republicans along. He took responsibility for policies because he had helped design them.

There is a lesson here for both parties today.

A partnership for the good of the country requires political trade-offs. The president must accept that his legacy now requires working with Democrats, who must in turn accept that a policy worth supporting might also give Trump a win.

Neither comes naturally in Washington today. Neither came naturally in Truman's Washington, either.

To be sure, a similar partnership today is unlikely, but the need for one is no less urgent. And it's not impossible to envision.

Senator Chris Coons of Delaware is expected to chair the Foreign Relations Committee. Representative Gregory Meeks of New York is positioning to lead its House counterpart. I have worked with both across administrations. Both are deeply experienced and able to forge compromises where necessary with the White House. And both understand the responsibilities involved and represent pragmatic wings of their party.

They would face resistance from Democrats who see the election result as a mandate for two years of confrontation with Trump — not cooperation. But the new Congress can still exercise its oversight and hold Trump to account while pursuing bipartisan deals in foreign affairs.

Trump presents the more fundamental obstacle. A congressional partner needs to know what he is being asked to support — and whether the president will support it tomorrow. Consistency and shared ownership are hardly Trump's political instincts.

But presume a Truman–Vandenberg spirit. What could be accomplished?

On Ukraine, a multiyear agreement might sustain military, economic, and intelligence support, ask more of European partners, and expand American weapons production to replenish our stocks at scale.

On China, an agreement might accelerate the energy and computing infrastructure needed to win the AI race while addressing electricity costs and economic disruption.

On Iran, Trump launched a war without clear objectives or an endpoint. A cooperative approach might define objectives, benchmarks, and a strategy to wind down the conflict while containing Iran and preventing it from rebuilding its nuclear program.

In each case, a president forced to define objectives and reconcile aims with resources produces better and more lasting policies.

The election divided responsibility for governing. It did not suspend the challenges confronting the United States. Those challenges may accelerate as enemies seek advantage and friends hedge against a Washington treading water until another election.

That was the danger in 1946, as well. Truman and Vandenberg gave other countries — friend and foe alike — reason to believe American commitments would survive American elections.

To be sure, Trump would have to offer coherent strategies and accept a congressional role in shaping them. Democratic leaders would have to accept responsibility for making them work.

The alternative is to spend two years proving to foes that they can outlast us—and to friends that they should make other plans.

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