Democrats will control Congress. Will it change Trump's approach to foreign policy?
The most useful part of the conversation was Applebaum's reminder that Congress has blunt tools, not surgical ones. Hearings and budget riders can embarrass an administration or slow a Saudi arms sale, but they won't rewrite a trade deal or move troops. So the real question becomes whether the threat of a subpoena or a hostile committee changes Trump's decisions before he makes them. There's some evidence he watches those pressures, especially on issues where Congress has clear jurisdiction, like Russia sanctions.
I'd want to know more about which specific policy areas produce actual collisions. Tariff authority is one, though the courts are involved. Another could be arms control, where treaty ratification needs two-thirds of the Senate, making that a genuine bottleneck. My sense is divided government will yield a lot of public friction and very little quiet compromise. But even that friction has a purpose if it forces the administration to explain its choices. That explanation is where accountability lives, and that might be the real shift.