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By Devon Ombres

A throughline of President Donald Trump’s second term in office is that his administration believes it can act with impunity when it comes to the law and to the U.S. Constitution. In a recent interview, President Trump responded to a question as to whether he had to uphold the Constitution with, “I don’t know.” In the more than 150 executive orders (EOs) that President Trump has issued during the first four months of this term, he frequently asserts that he is acting under authority granted him by Article II of the Constitution. In fact, the Constitution is intended to limit the powers of the presidency, not provide nearly limitless authority as President Trump is contending. The Constitution does not give a president the power to violate the Constitution, create or change congressional statutes, or override U.S. Supreme Court decisions—no matter what the EOs say.

When a president acts beyond the scope of his constitutional powers, members of his administration and the other branches of government must step in to stop him, lest the nation face not just a constitutional crisis but also the dismantling of American democracy. Congress has thus far failed to serve as a check on executive overreach, perhaps out of fear of political retribution. Thus, it is falling to the courts to robustly fulfill their constitutional role in policing the executive branch when it violates the Constitution and the laws as enacted by Congress. -- READ MORE

By Aurelia Glass and David Madland

Following the 2024 presidential election, commentators speculated about a seemingly wide ideological gulf: 56 percent of working-class voters cast their vote for Donald Trump, and an equal percentage of college-educated voters did the same for Kamala Harris.1 A new analysis, however, shows that working-class and college-educated voters are similar in their support for progressive economic policies. A Center for American Progress analysis of data from the 2024 election and review of pre-election surveys finds that working-class voters—defined as voters without a four-year college degree—and college-educated voters want similar things: decent pay for hard work, a strong voice on the job, and for the rich to pay their fair share to support public goods. (see the Methodological appendix for a full discussion of the sources used in the analysis) Both working-class and college-educated workers overwhelmingly support unions a higher federal minimum wage higher taxes on the rich greater public investment in the roads, bridges, and other infrastructure Americans use every day and an expansion of the social safety net, especially Medicaid. In particular, this issue brief finds that:

*Clear majorities of both working-class and college-educated people wanted a decent minimum wage, with 67 percent of working-class and 58 percent of college-educated people strongly or somewhat supporting a $17 per hour federal minimum wage. -- READ MORE

By Colin Seeberger, Andrea Ducas, & Lily Roberts

Last month, House Republicans passed H.R. 1: the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. This bill would make historic cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) while terminating clean energy tax credits that have both lowered energy costs for the American people and created hundreds of thousands of good-paying American jobs. This would be done solely to give the wealthiest Americans a new massive tax break. In the absence of a complete score by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) ahead of the vote, the Center for American Progress released state- and congressional-district-level estimates of health insurance coverage losses individuals at risk of losing some or all SNAP benefits and jobs—both operational and construction—at risk by eliminating the clean energy tax credits.

New projections released this week by the CBO show that the devastating harms of the House Republican plan are even larger than presented in CAP’s previous estimates. Specifically, the CBO found that the House-passed bill, when coupled with proposed Trump administration changes to the Affordable Care Act, would lead to 16 million people losing coverage by 2034. This article includes updated state- and congressional-district-level estimates for how the bill would reduce Americans’ access to health coverage and food assistance as well as put jobs at risk by eliminating clean energy tax credits. -- READ MORE

By Natasha Murphy and Andrea Ducas

Congressional Republicans are advancing health care proposals that would make coverage more expensive and less accessible for millions of Americans. Specifically, their plans would impose higher costs on American families by slashing Medicaid funding and by allowing the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) enhanced premium tax credits to expire.

A new Center for American Progress analysis finds that ACA health insurance marketplace premiums will increase by thousands of dollars each year if Congress enacts cuts that lead states to eliminate their Medicaid expansions and fails to extend the enhanced premium tax credits beyond 2025. For example, a middle-class family of four in Charlotte, North Carolina, could see their annual marketplace premium costs increase by nearly $9,500.

Dual threats to health care affordability

Congress is considering a budget reconciliation package that would enact the deepest Medicaid cuts in the program’s history. -- READ MORE

By Aurelia Glass

The Trump administration claims to speak for American workers, but it took away the collective bargaining rights of 1 in every 15 workers protected by a union contract.

In spite of its claims of “putting American workers first,” the Trump administration has ended collective bargaining for 4 out of 5 federal workers represented by unions at more than a dozen federal agencies. According to a Center for American Progress analysis of federal employment data, the Trump administration ended collective bargaining rights for more than 1 million American workers, or nearly 1 out of every 15 workers nationwide covered by a union contract, via an executive order issued on March 27, 2025, and a prior decision to end collective bargaining at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). According to Georgetown University labor historian Joseph McCartin, this order is “by far the largest single action of union-busting in American history.”

The Trump administration’s actions end collective bargaining for more than 1 million workers. -- READ MORE

By Neera Tanden, Ben Olinsky, & Damian Murphy

The Trump administration has dangerously escalated its immigration enforcement tactics, targeting interior cities. Such escalations seem designed to provoke protest and to justify harsh responses, including the deployment of the military to respond to protests of the administration’s policies. For the first time in 60 years, a president has deployed the National Guard over the objections of a governor in the affected state. Such a deployment, unnecessary at the time given the facts on the ground in Los Angeles, has served only to grossly inflame the situation and drive thousands to the streets, leading to chaos and an increase—not a decrease—in violence.

The Los Angeles Police Department stated on Saturday that the protesters they encountered were mostly peaceful and that they remained “fully prepared to respond swiftly and appropriately.” The Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard was not necessary for order at the time and seems likely to inflame tensions and spark even more response. As the former acting vice chief of the National Guard Bureau said, “The President’s deployment of the National Guard over the official wishes of the governor is bad for all Americans concerned about freedom of speech and states’ rights. ​ ​-- READ MORE