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CONGRESS NUDGES BACK
By Lisa Desjardins, @LisaDNews
Correspondent
But for years *executive* power has risen pronouncedly. And that was before the second term of President Donald Trump.
In some ways, Trump is a continuation of the trend. But in many cases, he is trying to expand presidential powers in unprecedented ways, including by deploying the National Guard widely across the country, dismantling independent agencies and unilaterally deploying billions of private and public dollars in ways we are still understanding.
In the last week however, we have seen some important pushback from some Republicans in Congress. Their numbers are not large, but the GOP lawmakers who are breaking with the president are doing so, unmistakably, in two key areas.
Venezuela war powers
Watch the segment in the player above.
The House has been full of surprises recently. But not the Senate. Until last week.
That is when five Republican senators voted with Democrats to advance a measure to end all military action in or against Venezuela immediately. Any future action would have to be congressionally approved.
This week — likely tomorrow — the Senate expects to vote on that measure. It is likely to pass.
The measure is having ripple effects across the Senate calendar, taking up precious space as the chamber is under pressure on a host of issues, including funding the government.
The president has thrown pointed punches at those five Republicans. And today, Senate Republicans had a group discussion, including those senators. Our initial reporting out of that meeting is that none of them have changed their views.
Now this bill is almost certainly not going to become law. It will get blocked in the House or by the president himself.
But it is a change in temperature in the Trump climate at the Capitol. And it is not the only one.
In a likewise unprecedented step, Powell responded with a video statement stressing the rule of law and saying, “This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions — or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.”
The news and the response lit some quick and pointed pushback in Congress.
North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said the investigation called into question the credibility of the DOJ itself. Soon after, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, joined in the blunt pushback, writing, “it’s clear the administration’s investigation is nothing more than an attempt at coercion.” She has also called for an investigation into the DOJ.
And then this morning, Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for Washington D.C., seemed to be aiming for a softer tone. She wrote that the DOJ investigation was prompted by a lack of response from Powell. She did not say that the underlying probe is over.
Tillis has said he will not consider any Trump nominees for the Federal Reserve until this is resolved, a threat that has teeth given his place on the Senate Banking Committee, which handles those nominees.
What happens next?
Wednesday is another big day.
Senators plan to debate and vote on Venezuela. And all in Washington will watch how the branches handle the pressure from the White House on Powell.
And I’ll be watching if more members of Congress say publicly what they believe privately.
More on politics from our coverage:
Watch: Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell pushes back as Trump's DOJ launches unprecedented investigation into the independent agency.
One Big Question: How have Republicans responded to Trump’s threats to the Fed? NPR’s Tamara Keith and Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter discuss.
A Closer Look: The Supreme Court appears likely to uphold states' bans on transgender students playing school sports. Listen to Tuesday’s oral arguments here.
Perspectives: Former Fed chair Janet Yellen says Trump's intimidation of Fed's leadership threatens economic stability.
WHY TRUMP’S IMMIGRATION PUSH FEELS DIFFERENT RIGHT NOW
A federal agent throws a riot control grenade, following an incident where a civilian's car was hit by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Minneapolis. Photo by Tim Evans/Reuters
By Joshua Barajas
Senior Editor, Digital
The use of deadly force by ICE against a 37-year-old mother in Minnesota has renewed scrutiny of the Trump administration’s aggressive tactics in pursuing immigration enforcement.
Protests have multiplied in response to federal agents' presence in various cities, from Minneapolis and Chicago to Portland, Oregon, and Washington, D.C., where federal agents have smashed car windows, pointed their guns at civilians and wrestled people to the ground.
Masked agents in tactical gear fanning out across communities to make their arrests — captured in numerous bystander videos on social media — is “perhaps the defining image of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement agenda so far,” says a new Migration Policy Institute report focused on the ways President Donald Trump is reshaping immigration in his second term in the Oval Office.
“This is a ramping up of the deportation machinery that was already there,” said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, policy analyst and attorney at the Migration Policy Institute’s U.S. Immigration Policy Program.
Federal agents carry away a woman in Minneapolis, days after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in the city. Photo by Tim Evans/Reuters
“We inherited the worst border anywhere in the world, and we quickly turned it into the strongest border in the history of our country. In other words, in a few short months, we went from worst to best,” Trump said in a primetime address to the nation last month. “We're deporting criminals, restoring safety to our most dangerous cities.”
Among its many takeaways, the report keys in on two big shifts in immigration enforcement in Trump’s latest crackdown: location and money.
On location: The administration is “taking what had been done at the border — these border policies of fast deportations — and bringing them into the interior of the United States,” Bush-Joseph said. “And it looks very different to be doing immigration enforcement in communities than it does at the border.”
ICE’s actions also feel different in Trump’s second term in part because they’re “out in the open,” she said, adding that, previously, ICE would conduct pre-dawn operations that required lengthy planning, such as plotting out someone’s route to work.
On money: Immigration enforcement is receiving an unprecedented amount of funding.
The Republican-controlled Congress approved some $170 billion for immigration enforcement and border security in Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” That massive infusion of cash included $45 billion for new detention centers, as well as nearly $30 billion to support ICE’s enforcement and deportation operations, such as hiring additional officers and staff.
DHS said earlier this month that the agency hired more than 12,000 officers and agents in less than a year, doubling its work force. (Though NOTUS found the math in DHS’ claim to be a little fuzzy.)
One under-the-radar point: Bush-Joseph said Congress’ role in Trump’s immigration campaign is not being fully appreciated right now because people are viewing it as a “very president-driven” operation or something largely spearheaded by Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff and key architect of Trump’s immigration policies.
While in large part that may be true, Congress has backed the president up, she added.
A final note: The pace of actions from Trump’s immigration crackdown has made it hard to keep up with all the different changes, Bush-Joseph said.
“In a way, that has kept people thus far from looking ahead to what this is going to mean,” adding that the Trump administration is “going to go so much bigger than this” as they continue to ramp up arrests, detentions and deportations.
“It's taken [the Trump administration] time to get to this level, and they're going to keep building,” she said.
“One Homeland. One People. One Heritage. Remember who you are, American.”
The U.S. Labor Department posted that messageon social media over the weekend, part of a Trump administration push across departments that borrows imagery and phrases from right-wing and white nationalist circles, including Nazi propaganda.
Cynthia Miller-Idriss, an expert on extremism and director of the Polarization and Extremism Research Innovation Lab at American University, spoke with PBS News about how this post and others like it signal “a turning point in the propaganda campaign.”
“We have a moment when the American public is seeing what's happening, are watching abuses, are watching cellphone video, especially the recent murder of a protester,” she said. “That is why we're seeing this kind of campaign to try to position what ICE is doing as in the public interest, as safety, and — of course — with a lot of dog whistles, or sometimes not even dog whistles, making racist and conspiratorial claims about what would happen if they don't do it.”
Our question: Which U.S. historical figure is featured prominently in the Labor Department’s video?
Send your answers to [email protected] or tweet using #PoliticsTrivia. The first correct answers will earn a shout-out next week.
Last week, we asked: How big was Congress’ legislative output in 2025? Give us your best guess on how many bills were signed into law.
The answer: 38. That’s according to data tracked by C-SPAN and Purdue University. That figure also means Congress set a modern record for lowest legislative output for the first year of a new presidency. And thanks to the pair of readers who pointed out how inelegant the original trivia question was last week. While Congress is responsible for passing legislation through both chambers, it is the president who signs bills into law.
Congratulations to our winners: Steven Greek and Michael Skarzynski, whose guesses were closest to the figure.
Thank you all for reading and watching. We’ll drop into your inbox next week.
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