Washington | Oct. 23, 2026, 11:21 a.m. ET | 7 min read

At his second inaugural, President Donald Trump portrayed the assassination attempt he had survived months earlier in Butler, Pennsylvania, as a transformative experience.

“I felt then and believe more so now that my life was saved for a reason,” President Trump said in his address to the nation on Jan. 20, 2025. “I was saved by God to make America great again.”

Since then, Mr. Trump has conducted a presidency like no other – even compared with his own first term – with a boundary-smashing use of executive power, a Republican-controlled Congress that has rarely pushed back, and accumulation of personal wealth unparalleled by a sitting president.

Now, with polls showing his average job approval at a second-term low of around 36%, Mr. Trump faces a hinge point: the Nov.…