The Dictatorship
Trump’s speech to Congress comes as he wields vast power almost daring lawmakers, courts to stop him
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump arrives this week on Capitol Hill to deliver a speech to Congress, a coequal branch of government he has bulldozed past this first month in office, wielding unimaginable executive power to get what he wants, at home and abroad.
The Tuesday night address will unfold in the chamber where lawmakers crouched in fear four years ago while a mob of his supporters roamed the halls, and where Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney and others vowed to prevent him from ever holding office again. It’s the same House chamber where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy received a hero’s welcome for fighting off Russia’s invasion, in the first year of that war.
Since his reelection, Trump has blazed across the federal government, dismantling not just norms and traditions but the very government itself. With billionaire aide Elon Musk by his side, he is firing thousands of federal workers, closing agencies established by law and publicly badgering Zelenskyy while positioning the U.S. closer to Russia.
As legal cases mountmore than 100 so far challenging the legality of the Trump administration’s actions, the Republican president is daring the other branches of government — Congress and the courts — to try to stop him.
“This whole thing about approaching a constitutional crisis is not quite true,” said Rep. James Clyburn, of South Carolina, a senior Democrat in the House. “We’re already there.”
Trump revels in going it alone, but there are limits
Reveling in the might of going it alone, Trump is about to test the limits of his executive branch authority as he turns to Congress to deliver tax cuts and other key aspects of his agenda. Only Congress, by law, can allocate funds — or pull them back — but the Trump administration’s actions have been testing that foundational rule, enshrined in the Constitution.
Trump also needs lawmakers to fund the government and ensure federal operations don’t shut down when money runs out March 14. And he will need Congress to pass legislation to prevent an economically damaging debt default, something he has pushed lawmakers to resolve.
While Trump enjoys the rare sweep of power in Washington, with the Republicans controlling the White House, the House and the Senate, he relies on political fear as well as favor to motivate lawmakers. With Musk having poured $200 million into electing Trumpthe president has a ready patron whose vast political funds can influence any resisters.
House Speaker Mike Johnsonwho has positioned himself as a partner to the presidenthas said he’s excited about what Trump is accomplishing in rooting out waste, fraud and abuse to downsize government.
“Fireworks,” is what Johnson, R-La., said he expects from Trump’s speechdismissing as “nonsense” concerns that Congress is ceding too much power to the White House.
“The president is doing what he said on the campaign trail he would do,” Johnson said Sunday on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures show.
Democrats, after their stunning rejection by voters, are slowly beginning to mount a resistance. They are fighting Trump in court, with amicus briefs to protect federal workers, and filing legislation to serve as a check on what House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York calls the “parade of horribles.”
But as the minority party, they are limited in their power. Jeffries brushed off calls for Democrats to boycott Trump’s address. “It’s the people’s House. It’s the House of Representatives,” he said on BLN.
Instead, Democrats are inviting fired federal workers as their guests.
Tax cuts and mass deportation funds all at stake
One of Trump’s top campaign promises, extending the tax breaks approved during his first term in 2017, is posing one of his party’s biggest challenges.
Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota are marshalling the GOP majority to deliver what Trump calls a “big, beautiful bill” extending those tax breaks — and providing new ones. But Republicans also want some $2 trillion in budget cuts with changes to Medicaid and other services that millions of Americans count on, which Trump could decide is too much to bear.
Trump’s other big campaign promise — the biggest deportation operation in U.S. history — is running short of cash, and border czar Tom Homan has implored Republicans on Capitol Hill to loosen the purse strings to give the Homeland Security and Defense departments the money needed.
Those budget debates all come as the Trump administration is ripping the federal government apart and freezing federal funds. It’s challenging the Nixon-era Impoundment Control Act, which prevents the executive branch from halting allocations Congress has already approved, setting up a showdown that could wind up at the Supreme Court.
“Testing the boundaries a little, I would expect that,” said Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., who said he supports much of what the Trump administration is doing, to a point.
“We’ve got separate but equal branches of government,” said Womack, whose committee controls vast funding. “What we don’t want is, we don’t want a constitutional crisis.”
Lives, livelihoods and the echoes of Jan. 6
It’s not just constitutional issues at stake but the lives and livelihoods of Americans. Communities depend on federal dollars — for health care clinics, school programs and countless contracts for companies large and small that provide goods and services to the federal government. Many are watching that money evaporate overnight.
Republican Sen. Jim Justice of West Virginia, a former governor, said voters back home have concerns even as they support the idea of downsizing government.
“People are always afraid of the dark,” he said, citing potential changes to Medicaid and preschool programs in particular. “Let’s give it time to see really what materializes before we run through the streets with our hair on fire.”
And the threat of Jan. 6, 2021, hangs over the building.
Trump will stand on the dais where Pelosi, then the House speaker, was whisked to safety as the mob ransacked the Capitol. He will look out over the rows of lawmakers, some of whom blocked the back door to the chamber as Capitol Police were fending off rioters, steps away from where Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt was shot and killed. Visitors will be watching from the galleries where representatives crouched on the floor in gas masks before being evacuated.
The Supreme Court granted Trump’s presidential actions wide immunity from prosecutionand the four-count criminal indictment against him over Jan. 6 was withdrawn once he was reelected, in line with Justice Department policy.
In one of his first acts on Inauguration Day, Trump issued a sweeping pardon of all the rioters, including extremist leaders Stuart Rhodes and Enrique Tarriowho were convicted of sedition. They have both returned to make appearances at the Capitol since their release from prison.
Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., was in the Capitol on Jan. 6.
“I acknowledge that he won and he’s got the right to use all the executive authority to pursue his policies. He doesn’t have a right to exceed constitutional authority,” Welch said. “So how he does this should be of great concern to all of us.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday accelerated its dismantling of the Education Departmentdelegating much of its work to protect the nation’s at-risk students.
The Department of Justice will take on enforcement of civil rights in education, while the Department of Health and Human Services will oversee special education, administration officials announced. With those moves, the Education Department has now carved away the vast majority of its functions for other agencies to handle.
The two Education Department offices involved — the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services and the Office for Civil Rights — defend the rights of children with disabilities and those who experience discrimination based on race, sex or religion. Advocates worry the change could mean lapses in communication for families and school officials who need help.
Trump, a Republican, campaigned on shutting down the Education Department, saying he would “move education back to the states where it belongs.” While only Congress can close the department, Trump’s education secretaryLinda McMahon, a billionaire and former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, has formed agreements with other federal agencies to handle much of her department’s work.
McMahon said the agreements align federal responsibilities with the agencies best positioned to support them.
“The Trump Administration has been clear: as we scale back federal micromanagement when it hinders success, we are equally committed to bolstering the efficacy of federal oversight where it is essential,” McMahon said in a written statement.
Critics warn of impacts to student services
Advocates said the changes would create uncertainty around services relied upon by millions of students and families.
“As is too often the case, traditionally underserved students — including students with disabilities, Black and Latino students, multilingual learners, students from low-income backgrounds, and students in rural communities — will bear the greatest burden created by this reckless decision, to which the disability and civil rights communities have already been vehemently opposed,” said a written statement from EdTrust, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that advocates for educational equity.
The Education Department already has offloaded some of its programs through 10 earlier internal agreementsbut the offices affected by Tuesday’s announcement were among the most closely watched.
The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services manages billions of dollars in grants and oversees state compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The Office for Civil Rights, which has been thinned by mass layoffsinvestigates complaints of discrimination at the nation’s schools and universities.
The Department of Justice also will take over work protecting student privacy and will provide some training and advisory help to schools.
While Justice and Health and Human Services will handle over most day-to-day duties of the assigned offices, the Education Department will continue to perform some tasks, such as responding to audits and issuing final determinations in civil rights cases, which it is explicitly required to do by law.
Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., ranking member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said the announcement Tuesday was a political one intended to fulfill the president’s campaign promise. The changes, he said, will likely widen inequities for students of color and students with disabilities.
The agreements are scattering education programs to agencies that do not have the expertise to manage them, said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.
“Instead of helping kids get a great education, this administration is spending its time, energy, and taxpayer resources fixated on where employees sit and illegally trying to shutter the Department of Education,” Murray said in a written statement.
Rachel Gittleman, president of the union that represents department employees, said the moves will create chaos for families, students and schools.
“This will leave our most vulnerable students and families who have been shut out of our education system without the services they need and without protection when they face discrimination,” Gittleman said in a written statement.
Families of students with disabilities opposed the decision
The transfer of special education to Health and Human Services most alarmed disability advocates, who say oversight of whether schools are adequately serving children with disabilities is best handled by education experts — not medical experts.
“The IDEA is intended to equip students as they learn alongside their peers, not cure them — the HHS is not prepared to oversee and administer the IDEA program effectively. Health and education systems speak in entirely different languages, including variations in terminology, training and disciplines,” said Jennifer Coco, interim executive director of the Center for Learner Equity.
The Education Department said McMahon spent over six months in listening sessions with families, advocates and educators to better understand concerns around how the department’s dismantling could affect special education. Many families raised concerns about obstacles to obtaining proper services for their children, but Coco said participants in those sessions were united in their opposition to moving special education oversight out of the Education Department.
“I think we agree on the problem,” Coco said. “We have stark disagreement on the solution and these transfers today don’t feel like a solution to that problem.”
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The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Rep. Mike Collins won Georgia’s Republican Senate primary runoff Tuesday, defeating former University of Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley.
Now, he will have the far larger task of knocking off Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in one of the most competitive Senate race this election cycle.
The runoff was triggered after Collins and Dooley each failed to win a majority in the May 19 primary, forcing a second round in a contest that Republicans view as one of their best opportunities to flip a Democratic-held Senate seat in 2026. President Donald Trump endorsed Collins over the weekend, boosting his chances in the runoff.
Collins, a congressman representing Georgia’s 10th District, finished first in the primary. The trucking company owner and staunch ally of Trump built his campaign around support for the president’s agenda, border security, immigration enforcement and conservative cultural issues. Collins sought to portray himself as a proven conservative fighter with experience in Washington and strong ties to the Republican base.
Dooley, meanwhile, leaned on his name recognition as a former college football coach and member of one of Georgia’s most prominent political families. His father, Vince Dooley, was the legendary University of Georgia football coach and athletic director. Although Dooley has never held elected office, he has campaigned as a political outsider capable of attracting independent and swing voters in a general election.
Collins argued that Republicans need a candidate with a proven conservative record and close ties to Trump. Dooley has countered that his outsider status and broader appeal would make him a stronger challenger in November.
But some Republicans are worried about Collins, including his hardline stance on abortion rights and an Office of Congressional Conduct probe into his office’spotential misuse of resources that the Republican lawmaker has referred to as a “nothing burger.”
His social media tonewhich includes severely downplayingthe U.S. Capitol attack where some pro-Trump rioters injured members of law enforcement, gives credence to the president’s view of him as a “a true Friend, Fighter, and WARRIOR,” as Trump wrote in his post endorsing Collins.
But those sentiments also spotligh a few of the vulnerabilities for a statewide candidate coming from a reliably red congressional district.
Collins will now face Ossoff, who is seeking a second term after winning a pair of runoff elections in 2021 that helped Democrats gain control of the Senate. Since taking office, Ossoff has built a national fundraising network. His re-election campaign has emphasized lowering costs for families, protecting access to healthcare, supporting economic development and promoting government accountability.
In a statement published shortly after Collins’ win, Ossoff called the congressman a “notorious bigot” who was under federal investigation.
“Donald Trump’s handpicked candidate Mike Collins is a notorious bigot, antisemite, and extremist currently under federal investigation for the illegal misuse of tax dollars,” Ossoff said. “Collins, who is only a congressman because his daddy was a congressman, voted to double health insurance premiums for more than a million Georgians, for the Iran War, and for the Trump tariffs.”
The House Ethics Committee is investigating allegations that Collins used government funds to benefit an aide.
Georgia remains a key battleground state heading into the midterm elections. Once considered a reliably Republican stronghold, the state has become increasingly competitive over the past decade.
Republicans see Georgia as one of their strongest pickup opportunities in a midterm cycle where control of the Senate could once again hinge on a handful of closely contested races. Democrats, meanwhile, are expected to invest heavily to protect Ossoff’s seat, viewing him as a key part of the party’s future.
Ebony Davis is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked at BLN as a campaign reporter covering elections and politics.
Senate Republicans are still waiting for details of the preliminary U.S.-Iran agreement. But they’re already making one thing clear: Congress should have a vote on any final deal.
President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf signed a memorandum of understanding on Monday, formally giving the two countries 60 days to negotiate an agreement.
While there’s a healthy dose of skepticism about the deal and whether it will actually materialize, Republicans want a say on the eventual agreement.
“If there is a final deal, and I hope there is, it should come to the Senate for approval,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told reporters on Tuesday.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said if the final agreement is a treaty — and it “sounds like a treaty,” he said — then it “certainly seems like” the deal should be subject to a vote by Congress.
And Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, echoed his colleagues.
For now, it appears Trump agrees with Senate Republicans.
During a bilateral meeting at the Group of Seven (G7) summit in France on Tuesday, Trump suggested he would be open to sending the eventual deal to Congress. “I wouldn’t mind,” he said.
“I never thought about sending. Never even thought about it,” Trump added. “But I will — I will send it to Congress. I like the idea.”
Trump’s comments quickly made their way to Washington, where Republican senators like Lindsey Graham and Roger Marshall repeatedly pointed out that Trump said he would give Congress a vote.
“I hope he does,” Marshall said.
Despite the GOP desire for a vote, it’s far from clear Congress will ever hold one. For starters, the talks could fall apart before a final agreement is reached. And if the deal ultimately resembles elements of the Obama-era accord that Republicans long opposed, GOP leaders may be reluctant to force lawmakers into a politically fraught vote — particularly if Democrats line up against it.
The dynamic highlights a familiar tension on Capitol Hill.
For years — decades, even — lawmakers have talked about replacing the sweeping 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force with a more targeted authorization. The law has been used to justify dozens of military operations in more than 22 countries. But when it comes time to take ownership of a new war authorization, many in Congress seem content to defer to the president and the nearly 25-year-old law.
To be sure, there were some GOP voices on Tuesday who suggested a vote on Trump’s emerging Iran deal isn’t needed.
Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., argued that a law signed amid the debate over the Obama-era deal never explicitly required a vote — just congressional review.
“You might decide your opinion is we should vote on it, but there is no requirement that we do,” Schmitt said.
And some other Republican senators kept their cards close to their vest, insisting they need more information on the deal before asserting that a vote is necessary.
“Everybody’s got to see what it is first,” Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said. “None of us have seen it.”
Pressed on whether he wants a vote, regardless of the terms of the deal, the Oklahoma Republican offered a congressional truth: “It depends on what the deal is.”
Part of the insistence on a vote, Republicans say, is because the Iran nuclear deal brokered under President Barack Obama — formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA — wasn’t affirmed by Congress. That allowed Trump to singlehandedly dismantle it during his first administration.
This time, lawmakers say they want a deal to outlast the Trump presidency.
Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, said Congress should “absolutely” vote on the final agreement, if negotiators reach one.
“That was one of the problems with President Obama’s deal,” Curtis said.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said he thought it “makes more sense” to have Congress give any agreement its stamp of approval, pointing to Obama’s now defunct deal.
“Obama made a mistake when he didn’t do the work to have it rise to a level of a treaty, and I believe that we should here, otherwise it’s only good for two and a half years,” Tillis said.
“Why don’t we do the hard work of making sure that it has staying power?” he added.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle — particularly Republicans — would be happy to approve an Iran peace agreement that advances U.S. interests. Republicans are inclined to support Trump, and few lawmakers seem eager to prolong the Iran “excursion,” as the president has put it.
But approving a deal that’s less-than-stellar for the United States isn’t such a popular prospect. And congressional leaders might hesitate to put the agreement up for a vote out of fear that lawmakers may shoot it down.
A failed vote would put Trump and the United States in a difficult position.
Just having to vote on the deal could put lawmakers in a tough political spot of their own — and right before the midterm elections.
If the final agreement ends up resembling the Obama-era JCPOA, Republicans could be forced to either support a deal they’ve long criticized or risk drawing Trump’s ire. Neither choice is ideal.
Meanwhile, if Democrats vote against a final deal, they could face accusations that they don’t want the war to end. Some Republicans see political value in forcing Democrats to take a position.
“When there’s a deal, of course, put the Democrats on record,” Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, told MS NOW.
But if the final deal is one Republicans don’t love, don’t expect the agreement to come before Congress.
Already on Monday, several Republicans expressed nervousness about the early contours of a deal, as described in press reports about a yet-to-be released memorandum of understanding. And on Tuesday, the top Senate Republican — John Thune of South Dakota — said he had still not been briefed on the contents of the memorandum.
A handful of Republicans revealed to reporters that they had been in touch with senior U.S. officials to get some of their questions answered.
Moreno, for instance, said he was given some details about the agreement on Monday from Vice President JD Vance and White House peace envoy — and Trump son-in-law — Jared Kushner.
Asked about the delay in revealing the preliminary memorandum, Moreno insisted the Trump administration was just being “methodical,” in part so as not to upend the internal politics in Iran.
“It’s not going to kill everybody to just take a breath and wait until Friday,” Moreno said.
Mychael Schnell is a reporter for MS NOW.
Kevin Frey is a congressional reporter for MS NOW.
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