Moderator Kristen Welker interviews President Donald Trump on Meet the Press.

Dear Commons Community,

President Donald Trump wouldn’t take responsibility for the shrinking economy, expressed uncertainty whether he must uphold the Constitution to carry out his deportation agenda and said he’s not looking at running for a third White House term during a wide-ranging interview with NBC’s Meet the Press. 

Trump’s interview with host Kristen Welker, which aired yesterday, comes as he marked his first 100 days in office during his second term with a media blitz.

While the president has touted his work on central 2024 campaign promises – including sweeping tariffs and a nationwide immigration crackdown – he’s been pressed on rising economic anxieties as his approval ratings reach new lows.

Here are five takeaways from the interview as Trump looks to the rest of his second term courtesy of USA Today.

Trump says he’s not looking at running again in 2028

Trump, during the interview that was conducted May 2, said he’s not looking at running for a third term for president in 2028 and acknowledged he’s not allowed to do so ‒ after repeatedly floating the idea since returning to the White House.

“I’m not looking at that,” Trump said, even as the Trump Organization recently started selling “Trump 2028” hats on Trump’s online store.

“I will say this. So many people want me to do it. I have never had requests so strong as that,” Trump said. “But it’s something that, to the best of my knowledge, you’re not allowed to do. I don’t know if that’s constitutional that they’re not allowing you to do it or anything else.”

Serving a third presidential term is explicitly barred by the 22nd Amendment, which states, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”

Trump said he’s “looking to have four great years and turn it over to somebody, ideally a great Republican, a great Republican to carry it forward.”

He added: “I’ll be an eight-year president; I’ll be a two-term president. I always thought that was very important, to be honest with you.”

Trump says he’s responsible for only ‘good parts’ of economy

Trump again refused to take responsibility for the state of the economy and blamed his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, after the U.S. gross domestic product shrank at a 0.3% annual rate in the first three months of the year.

“It partially is right now,” Trump said when asked when the economy becomes his. “And I really mean this. I think the good parts are the Trump economy and the bad parts are the Biden economy because he’s done a terrible job.”

Trump said he’s been able to “get down the costs,” although economists warn his tariffs could end up causing consumer prices to increase.

The first quarter GDP covers the first three months of the year, the first three weeks of which were helmed by Biden, whose last full day in office was Jan. 19.

Amid stock market turbulence, Trump last week declared, “This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s,” even though Wall Street’s volatility has widely been caused by his tariff polices. But after stocks surged over the past week, Trump touted the recent turnaround.

“Ultimately, I take responsibility for everything,” Trump said. “But I’ve only just been here for a little more than three months. But the stock market, look at what’s happened in the last short period of time. Didn’t it have nine or 10 days in a row, or 11 days, where it’s gone up? And the tariffs have just started kicking in. And we’re doing really well.”

Trump Not Sure if He Has to Uphold the Constitution

Trump said he does not know whether he’s required to uphold the Constitution as he defended his administration’s actions to remove people who are in the country illegally.

Trump’s comments follow the Supreme Court last month saying his administration must “facilitate” the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland sheet metal worker and father of three who was wrongfully deported to an El Salvador prison without receiving a trial.

“I don’t know,” Trump said when asked whether he needs to uphold the Constitution. “I have to respond by saying, again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said.”

The Trump administration has said it doesn’t need to request Abrego Garcia’s release from El Salvador, where he’s originally from, because of how the court worded its decision. Democrats and other critics have argued that such statements show the administration is refusing to obey the nation’s highest court.

Pressed whether he agrees that everyone deserves due process under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution ‒ which says no person “shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” ‒ Trump said he wasn’t sure.

“I don’t know. It seems – it might say that, but if you’re talking about that, then we’d have to have a million or 2 million or 3 million trials,” he said.

Trump officials have accused Abrego Garcia of being a member of the MS-13 gang and said if he were returned to the United States, he would be deported back to El Salvador because of his immigration status. Abrego Garcia has denied he was a member of MS-13 or any other gang.

Trump doubles down on kids getting fewer dolls

Trump said little girls in America don’t need to own so many dolls, doubling down on an example he gave last week to defend his universal tariffs on imports that could spike the prices of many goods, particularly imports from China.

“I don’t think that a beautiful baby girl needs – that’s 11 years old – needs to have 30 dolls,” Trump told Welker. “I think they can have three dolls or four dolls because what we were doing with China was just unbelievable. We had a trade deficit of hundreds of billions of dollars with China.”

The Trump administration has imposed tariffs totaling 145% on imports from China, while he’s paused reciprocal tariffs on goods from other nations for three months. Trump’s baseline 10% tariffs on other countries remain in effect.

Nonetheless, Trump said his doll scenario is not an acknowledgement that prices for Americans are going to increase or that store shelves could become empty under his economic agenda.

“No. I think tariffs are going to be great for us because it’s going to make us rich,” said Trump, who has argued his steep tariffs are needed to rejuvenate domestic manufacturing in the U.S. “No, I’m not saying that,” he said of empty store shelves in the future. “I’m just saying they don’t need to have 30 dolls. They can have three. They don’t need to have 250 pencils. They can have five.”

A growing number of experts have told USA TODAY that they foresee a recession by the second half of the year, spurred by tariffs as well as Trump’s sweeping federal layoffs, removal of migrants and other actions.

Trump says it will be ‘OK’ if U.S. economy falls into recession

Trump downplayed economic anxieties caused by his tariffs, saying that everything would be “OK” even if the U.S. enters a recession in the short term.

“Everything’s OK,” Trump said, arguing the United States is in a “transition period” following the implementation of his steep new tariffs last month.

Asked whether he is concerned about an economic recession, Trump said he’s not. “No, I think we’re going to have the greatest economic … ,” he said, but added that he can’t rule it out.

As the Trump administration negotiates trade deals with more than 170 countries, Trump did not rule out the possibility that some of the tariffs could be permanent.

“No, I wouldn’t do that because if somebody thought they were going to come off the table, why would they build in the United States?” Trump said.

This interview was not great but better than most of his other interviews!

Tony

Claudia Sheinbaum. Reuters/Carlo Allegri/Raquel Cunha.

Dear Commons Community,

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum revealed yesterday that she had rejected President Donald Trump‘s offer of troops to help combat drug trafficking in Mexico, saying, “Sovereignty is not for sale.”

Responding to a Friday report from The Wall Street Journal that Trump was pressuring Mexico to allow for further U.S. involvement in combating drug cartels, Sheinbaum described a tense phone call shared with her northern counterpart last month.

“He said, ‘How can we help you fight drug trafficking? I propose that the United States military come in and help you.’ And you know what I said to him? ‘No, President Trump,’” Sheinbaum told supporters gathered in eastern Mexico.

She continued, “Sovereignty is not for sale. Sovereignty is loved and defended.”

According to the WSJ report, the 45-minute phone call, which took place on April 16, saw Trump push for the U.S. to not just send troops into Mexico but to take a leading role in the fight against the country’s drug cartels. Sheinbaum responded that while her administration would cooperate when it came to intelligence-sharing, it would not accept a direct military presence.

In a presidential memorandum published last month, Trump laid out a plan to have the Department of Defense claim jurisdiction over a strip of public land along the border, known as the Roosevelt Reservation, in order to enable further military activities like border wall construction and the placement of detection equipment.

While Sheinbaum has cooperated with Trump on matters of immigration and trade—Trump agreed to a pause on his tariffs in exchange for Mexico reinforcing their side of the border with 10,000 members of Mexico’s National Guard back in February—she is now making it clear that U.S. military presence in Mexico is where she draws the line. “We can work together, but you in your territory and us in ours,“ said Sheinbaum.

“We will never accept the presence of the United States military in our territory,” she declared.

Standup for what is best for Mexico, President Sheinbaum!

Tony

Anthony Albanese

Dear Commons Community,

For the second time in a week, voters in a prominent US ally angered by President Donald Trump punished conservatives and re-elected a left-leaning incumbent. 

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was poised to win the largest victory for his center-left Labor Party since 1946, both in terms of two-party preferred and overall seat count. He’s the first Australian leader to win consecutive elections in more than two decades, and the only one to increase his party’s vote share after one term since World War II.

“We do not need to beg, or borrow, or copy from anywhere else,” Albanese said in his victory speech on Saturday night. “We do not seek our inspiration overseas. We find it right here, in our values and in our people.” 

Similar to Canada’s election last week, the outcome in Australia would’ve been hard to predict just months earlier. Both ruling parties were on the ropes, with conservatives in both countries seeking to capitalize on the momentum of Trump’s solid election win in November.

Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney took to X on Saturday to congratulate Albanese on his win. “In an increasingly divided world, Canada and Australia are close partners and the most reliable of friends,” the newly re-elected prime minister said.

Loser Peter Dutton’s choice of MAGA-style policies, a broader pushback against conservatives and a swing toward stability by voters were all evidence of how Trump influenced Australia’s election, according to Steven Hamilton, assistant professor of economics at George Washington University.

“Without the Trump factor, I think Labor still would’ve got a majority, but I think Trump contributed to the vast margin that Albanese has secured,” Hamilton said. “It made things worse.”

Trump was deeply unpopular in Australia even before he placed broad tariffs on the nation’s exports. A poll by Redbridge in March found that 59% of voters surveyed had an unfavorable view of the US president.

Trump is deeply unpopular everywhere!

Congratulations, Mr. Albanese!

Tony

Pope Francis in 2014. Photo by Jeffrey Bruno/ALETEIA ( CC BY-SA 2.0 )

Dear Commons Community,

Even in his final moments, Pope Francis maintained his heart for justice and mercy. 

As Catholics around the world mourn the death of the late pope, more details are surfacing about his final days.

Monsignor Benoni “Don Ben” Ambarus, who was the official responsible for managing Francis’ charity and prison pastoral care in Rome, said that before his death, the pope donated €200,000 (or about $226,400 USD) to a juvenile prison in Rome: Casal del Marmo.

It was the last of his personal wealth, and  it went to fund a pasta factory — Pastificio Futuro, or “Future Pasta Factory” — that operates in the prison.

“[Pope Francis] called for more to be done to restore dignity to the prisoners … But there was no direct result of his appeals. Like on the reduction of sentences,” Ambarus added.

“A great sadness enveloped the prisoners when they realised that the institutions had done nothing, not even a small gesture. Small gestures — a letter, a conversation, practical help with shoes or clothing — can reignite the human dignity that prison walls so often extinguish.”

But Pope Francis will be remembered far beyond a gesture. The pasta factory in Casal del Marmo received his blessing years ago, employing inmates to work toward reintegration in society and prevent recidivism.

“It all goes back to March 2013,” Alberto Mochi Onori told El Mundo, when the pope visited the prison for Holy Thursday for the first time.

“At the end of the visit, he delivered a brief homily, proclaiming: ‘Do not let yourselves be robbed of hope!’”

After a prison chaplain spoke with the Pontiff on this visit, Onori said Pope Francis declared: “We have to do something for these kids.” The pope later donated the initial funding to start the pasta factory.

Casal del Marmo held a particularly special place in the history of Pope Francis. In 2013, he celebrated his first Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday there. 

And in 2023, he returned to wash the feet of 12 young inmates.

It was a ritual that recalls the foot-washing Jesus performed on his 12 apostles at their Last Supper before his crucifixion. In this Holy Thursday moment, Pope Francis assured the youth of their dignity, adding that “any of us” can fall into sin.

Pope Francis’ commitment to people in poverty and prison was prominent throughout his papacy, demonstrating his belief that the Catholic Church should help and provide attention to people living on the margins of society.

“We have to help each other … giving one another a hand is beautiful,” Pope Francis said in his remarks at the feet-washing ritual in 2023.

“In society, we profit from each other … how many injustices [are there], how many people without work, without money to buy what they need? If that’s not me, it’s for the grace of God.”

Ambarus said that even in his tired and frail state, Pope Francis would be remembered as someone who fought for the rights of prisoners.

“He (fought for) them until his last breath,” Ambarus told La Repubblica. “That is why the prisoners saw hope in him. A father died for them.”

Tony

Sethuraman “Panch” Panchanathan

Dear Commons Community,

Sethuraman “Panch” Panchanathan, the scientist  Donald Trump chose during his first term to lead the National Science Foundation (NSF) resigned last week after apparently being unable to stomach the massive changes Trump has imposed on the agency during the first 100 days of his second administration. As reported by Science.

“I believe that I have done all I can to advance the mission of the agency and feel that it is time to pass the baton to new leadership,” Panchanathan wrote on April 24^th in  a letter to the staff. Panchanathan, a computer scientist whom the Senate confirmed to lead NSF in August 2020, leaves 16 months short of the end of the 6-year term.

“I cannot imagine how difficult it must have been trying to protect the NSF, its programs and staff, and the U.S. research community from White House directives and actions that are in conflict with NSF’s mission, decades of congressional appropriations, and the law,” says Rice University physicist Neal Lane, who led NSF under former President Bill Clinton.

Panchanathan didn’t give a reason for his sudden departure, but he could not have been happy with orders from the White House to accept what could be a 55% cut to the agency’s $9 billion budget next year and to draw up plans to halve its 1700-person staff. But his resignation letter was the first public indication of his unhappiness. “While NSF has always been an efficient agency,” he wrote, “we still took [on] the challenge of identifying other possible efficiencies and reducing our commitments to serve the scientific community even better.”

The last straw may have been a decision in mid-April by billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to terminate up to $2 billion in existing NSF grants. The list appears to have been drawn from a report last fall by Senator Ted Cruz (R–TX) identifying what he said were 3483 “woke science” grants NSF had made to increase diversity in science, foster environmental justice, and study the spread of misinformation on social media. As Science went to press, researchers had reported the termination of some 550 awards since the agency’s 18 April announcement it would begin to cancel grants.

Before leading NSF, Panchanathan had spent 20 years as a faculty member and then senior research administrator at Arizona State University. When nominated he was also serving on the National Science Board, NSF’s presidentially appointed oversight body. His achievements included creating NSF’s first new directorate in 30 years, for technology, innovation, and partnerships, and launching 10 regional “engines” that seek to spur economic development.

During his 5-year tenure, Panchanathan worked to build bipartisan ties to congressional leaders, who reciprocated in statements reacting to his resignation. ” thank Dr. Panchanathan for his vision, integrity, and unwavering commitment to U.S. scientific innovation,” said Representative Brian Babin (R–TX), who leads the science panel in the House of Representatives.

The top Democrat on the Senate panel that Cruz chairs praised Panchanathan but also pointed a partisan finger at the Trump administration. Its proposal to cut NSF’s budget represents “a deliberate dismemberment of America’s innovation engine by DOGE” and the head of the White House budget office, Russell Vought, said Senator Maria Cantwell (WA). “Don’t blame Panch for stepping down.”

Brian Stone, who joined NSF in 2000 as a facilities manager and has spent the past decade as chief of staff to the director, is now acting director.

What a tragic loss for science research!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Dick Barnett, a basketball Hall of Famer who played on both New York Knicks NBA championship teams after being part of a historic college powerhouse at Tennessee A&I, has died. He was 88.

The Knicks announced the death of the former guard earlier this week.  

 Knicks said in a statement. “He left a positive impact on everyone he encountered and this organization is incredibly fortunate to have him be such an integral part of its history. His jersey will forever hang in the rafters of Madison Square Garden, and his play throughout his career will forever be a part of Knicks fans memories.”

Barnett played on the Knicks’ title teams in 1970 and 1973 and reached the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as both a player and as a member of his college teams at Tennessee A&I (later Tennessee State), the first HBCU to win a national championship in basketball.

On the Knicks, he was the quiet one, who contributed every game.  Around him were the “stars” including Willis Reed, Walt Frazier, Bill Bradley and Dave DeBusschere.  Walt Frazier, who has been announcing Knick games for decades, always praised Barnett for his on court play.   As reported by The Associated Press.  Frazier would also refer to Barnett as Dr. Dick because he had received a doctorate in education from Fordham University.

A native of Gary, Indiana, Barnett went on to star for the Tennessee A&I teams that made up one of college basketball’s first dynasties. The Tigers won three straight NAIA championships starting in 1957, with Barnett being chosen an All-American each season and twice being selected the MVP of the NAIA Tournament.

He was taken by the Syracuse Nationals with the No. 5 pick in the 1959 draft and also played for the Los Angeles Lakers before coming to the Knicks in 1965. He spent nine years with the Knicks, averaging 15.6 points and playing on their championship teams in 1970 and 1973.

Barnett is ninth on the Knicks’ career scoring list and his No. 12 jersey was retired in 1990.

Barnett led a long quest for recognition for his college team. The Tigers were eventually enshrined in the Hall of Fame in 2019, represented on stage by Barnett, and in 2024 visited the White House to meet with Vice President Kamala Harris.

Barnett, who was selected for one NBA All-Star Game, was inducted in the Hall of Fame as a player in 2024.

He was a class act.

May he rest in peace!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Former CNN political analyst Chris Cillizza argued on Monday that journalists’ own unconscious biases stopped them from noticing then-President Joe Biden’s decline.

Cillizza released a video titled, “Why it *still* matters that the media missed the big Biden story,” where he reflected on how Axios’ Alex Thompson used his award speech at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner to “call out how both the Biden White House and the media mishandled President Biden’s cognitive decline during the 2024 election.” 

Had it been a Republican in office rather than Biden, he suggested, it may have been a very different story.

“They didn’t ask enough questions. Their skepticism meter was not honed—turned up high enough. And I think that had it been a Republican in that office, particularly if that Republican had been Donald Trump, there would have been less credulity. There would have been less willingness to just go along with what the Trump White House was saying like, ‘Oh he’s fine, you don’t see him in his great times He’s amazing.’”

He added, “I think there would have been more hard questions asked, and I think there should have been more hard questions asked by the media of Joe Biden and Joe Biden’s staff about his health. I absolutely think that’s true.”

I agree.  The media especially outlets like CNN and MSNBC took a pass on Biden’s mental decline and misled their viewers.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Over forty-thousand British citizens have signed a petition demanding Donald Trump be blocked from addressing parliament during his upcoming state visit.

Trump has said he expects to visit the UK in September.  As reported by The National and other media.

Keir Starmer handed over an invitation letter from King Charles when he visited the White House in February.

A group of MPs and peers have already urged the Speakers of the House of Commons and House of Lords to turn down any request for Trump to address them while he is here.

It has now emerged that a petition on the change.org website echoing that demand has attracted 43,000 signatures in just one week.

The petition has been set up by philanthropist and campaigner Corin Dalby.

He said: “President Trump has shown a consistent disregard for democratic values.

“He has made troubling remarks about the UK and its institutions, and is unable to clearly condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine – which all UK political parties have strongly opposed. 

“The UK parliament should not provide a platform to a figure whose actions and words are so at odds with the principles we hold dear.”

Dalby added: “We are a proud democratic country, and we should be protective of that status. Therefore, we should be extremely vigilant by not affording anyone, regardless of their position or status, and who do not align themselves, either verbally or by actions, with our own values with the privilege of addressing parliament.”

The last American president to address parliament was Barack Obama in 2011.

Former Commons Speaker John Bercow blocked Trump from doing so the last time he was president.

A spokesperson for current Speaker Lindsay Hoyle said: “Should a request be made to address the Houses of Parliament, it will be considered in the usual way. No request has been received, but any decision would be made by both speakers.”

Trump – the leader of the free world – HAH!

Tony

Photo courtesy of The Guardian.

Dear Commons Community,

Conservative Rick Hess , Director of Education Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute,  had an essay in yesterday’s Education Week chiming in on President Donald Trump’s first 100 days as have already felt like being “trapped inside a Russian novel—and we’re barely underway.”  Entitled, “Trump’s 100 Days: The Good, the Bad, and the Confounding,” here is his entire essay.

Here’s my take on what we’ve seen in K-12. Be forewarned, you’ll need to look elsewhere for a blistering denunciation or an exercise in cheerleading. That’s because I’m feeling pretty conflicted. On the one hand, I support Team Trump’s priorities and vision. On the other, I think responsible government is less a matter of what you intend to do than what you actually do. And, on that score, there’s much to give me pause.

Character is destiny, in Russian novels as in life, and what we’re seeing reflects Trump’s. But unlike Trump 1.0, when his staff often tempered his impulsiveness, bombast, and distaste for detail, we’re getting the Full Trump this go-round. I didn’t fully anticipate the resulting chaos. Much of what’s happened over the past three-plus months has startled me. It’s not the priorities that have surprised me: I anticipated the emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion; gender ideology; school choice; and reducing the federal footprint. But I’ve been taken aback by the number and sweep of executive orders, the blunderbuss posture, and just how indiscriminate DOGE proved to be.

What’s surprised me in particular? First, what we’ve seen has been far less deliberate than I’d expected, given the Trump team’s thick (metaphorical) playbook and deep bench of talent. Second, the prominence and relentless aggression of the DOGE chainsaw. Third, the taste for confrontation, even when it made it tougher to rack up wins. Fourth, the failure to coherently make the case for many of their more controversial actions.

Look, I thought DOGE had enormous potential. I’ve long argued that the U.S. Department of Education could be run far more efficiently and responsibly—as have others, like Mark Schneider, my AEI colleague and a former director of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). The department suffered under a troubled culture and a padded payroll, and its contracts would benefit from a good scouring. Moreover, previous administrations have lacked the will (or even the desire) to tackle any of this. So I was inclined to give DOGE’s grip-it-and-rip-it tactics a chance. But I noted that success would depend on the coherence of what followed. What we got was a capriciousness and clumsiness that raised red flags. DOGE’s mission was to promote efficiency and ensure money is spent on the things that matter. Well, months after ED’s contracts were yanked and staff were first let go, it’s entirely unclear that this will produce a more effective agency—and not just a smaller one. There’s been a disconcerting lack of clarity about what’s being cut, the rationale for specific cuts, how much money is being saved, or how things will work going forward.

Take the National Assessment of Educational Progress. DOGE either ignored the secretary of education’s promise to preserve NAEP or didn’t realize that it was cutting NAEP-essential staff and contracts (similar lapses, of course, have been evident across a number of agencies). While the small NAEP unit attached to the National Assessment Governing Board was preserved, that team is charged with management, strategy, and communications. The staff members who actually coordinated and crunched the data for NAEP got wiped out, along with more than 90 percent of IES. As the administration scrambles to recover from this misstep, NAEP is getting put back together with bubble gum and duct tape, while chunks of it (including the U.S. history test) are jettisoned. I get less of an impression of streamlining than of DOGE just gutting everything in its path.

Trump’s executive order to dismantle the Department of Education is better understood as an emphatic memo asking the secretary of education to do what she was already doing (since abolishing the department or moving components to other agencies requires an act of Congress). That’s why many of us assumed the president would urge Congress to act and then focus on things he could control. Instead, the long-shot push to dismantle ED plays on, even as Team Trump reassures everyone that no spending cuts are coming to ED’s major programs like Title I, IDEA, or Pell Grants (though there’s been talk of moving IDEA, for instance, to the Department of Health and Human Services—a move that would require not-in-the-cards congressional approval). Trump’s budget proposal does call for zeroing out Head Start, though it’s unclear whether Congress will go along. Moreover, the push to shrink Washington’s role sits uneasily alongside the new executive order on artificial intelligence, which calls for Uncle Sam to actively promote AI integration in schools.

Then there’s DEI. Obviously, those who support DEI hate everything Trump has done on this count. If you’re like me, though, you think the administration has a compelling case. Federal civil rights law requires schools and colleges to abide by the Civil Rights Act’s prohibition on discrimination based on race, color, or national origin. It seems obvious that when school officials are organizing race-based affinity groups or restricting programs based on student race or ethnicity, they are violating federal law—and creating a “hostile learning environment” for some students. Moreover, since 2021, four years of state-level legislative and legal efforts have offered up lessons about how to craft directives and legislation that are broadly popular and take First Amendment concerns seriously. I expected the administration’s ability to draw on those experiences would be an enormous boon.

Well, that hard-earned wisdom sure seems to have fallen by the wayside. The administration’s executive order and “Dear Colleague Letter” on DEI did little to distinguish between discriminatory conduct by schools, on one hand, and classroom instruction or materials that touched on matters of race, on the other. The federal government has both a right and an obligation to tackle the first. But not only is ED statutorily barred from interfering in matters of curriculum and instruction, the sense that it wants to raises First Amendment concerns—and reframes its efforts not as a response to DEI excess but a worrisome exercise in illiberalism. That’s made it easy for blue state chiefs to reject the administration’s DEI directive while credibly arguing that they’re not “pro-DEI” (unpopular) but “pro-First Amendment” (very popular). It’s also given Trump’s opponents a strong legal hand, as seen last week when three different federal judges ruled that the DEI directive doesn’t pass legal muster.

The same kind of good, bad, and confounding analysis applies to much of Trump’s agenda. On gender identity, his EO clarifying that Title IX’s use of sex means “biological sex” was necessary and appropriate. After all, the Biden administration sought to unilaterally rewrite Title IX to include gender identity and then force schools to overhaul policies governing locker rooms, dormitories, and more. Trump’s EO was a much-needed reaffirmation of what the law actually says. The issue is with how Team Trump has followed up. Trump personally confronted the governor of Maine over its transgender sports policy, threatening to strip federal K-12 funds—and then rapidly did so. If it were to stand, this would be a stunning expansion of presidential authority in education. But it’s not likely to stand. Republican attorneys general successfully challenged Biden’s Title IX guidance, and Maine will likely prevail, too. Meanwhile, Trump’s move to strip vast sums based on an executive order is a lousy precedent, an odd move for a president who talks of empowering states and a tactic that invites backlash against an otherwise popular policy.

On school choice, there’s been a genial executive order, ED has (thankfully) dropped the poison pill regulations that the Biden administration imposed on the charter school program, and the department has invited states to apply for waivers and is looking to make programs more choice-friendly. Congress may adopt a groundbreaking tax credit for scholarship programs in this year’s budget reconciliation bill. But the reality is that choice is mostly a state issue. The Every Student Succeeds Act already grants states enormous flexibility that they’re not using, and empowering states is less about rhetoric than about changing laws or overhauling regulations. Thus far, as best I can tell, there’s been little obvious activity on tackling rules and regulations.

Like I said up top, I’m conflicted. I’ve been impressed by the willingness to mount fights that are overdue, necessary, and challenging. But I can’t look past the disorder, opacity, and disregard for established law. Doing so much via executive action is a horrific norm that serves no one well. These proclamations can be reversed on day one by the next president. Conservatives were rightly livid when Biden’s White House operated this way, and ratcheting things up will eventually come back to haunt Republicans.

As we hit the 100-day mark, there’s still much time to course-correct. I’m rooting for a recalibration, for some sensible restraint and respect for due process. Trump has altered course on priorities like tariffs and student visas; next to that, bringing more discipline to the education agenda is an easy lift. And it certainly appears that DOGE’s role in education is waning. Elon Musk is mostly out, and DOGE has already cut all it readily can. Meanwhile, veteran K-12 state chiefs Penny Schwinn and Kirsten Baesler will be stepping into senior roles soon, if confirmed by the Senate. What we’ve seen thus far could be a product of who’s been at the table, so these shifts could yield something of a reset.

Team Trump risks taking issues where they entered with broad-based public support and turning them into political losers. Now, some in the administration believe that, if they only move fast and forcefully enough, they’ll be able to drive lasting cultural changes. Some deem education such a captive of the left that there’s no real price to be paid for breakage—that there’ll be no blowback. But that’s a dicey bet.

The past decade has shown that over-the-top tactics may serve mostly to alienate normies and energize the opposition. The way to make lasting change is by enacting legislation. Republicans entered 2025 with public support on much of this and control the House and the Senate, yet Congress has mostly been on the sidelines. Meanwhile, Trump is bleeding support. During Biden’s first two years, Democrats could have legislated on student loans or amended Title IX to reflect gender. They didn’t even try, instead they left it to dubious White House freelancing. That proved to be bad politics and a recipe for reversal. I suspect the same will prove true here.

It was Vice President J.D. Vance who said in 2022 while running for the Senate, “We’re going to have to get pretty wild, and pretty far out there, and go in directions that a lot of conservatives right now are uncomfortable with.” Well, so far, Trump 2.0 has delivered on that promise. But plunging presidential popularity, internal discord, and market gyrations are creating fierce headwinds. We’re 100 days in, with 1,361 left to go, and I can’t yet say whether what we’ve seen thus far is a prologue or a plot device. I suppose this is what it feels like to be a character in a Russian novel.

Also, in keeping with the Russian novel metaphor, Trump has convinced himself that his delusions are reality!

Tony