Skip to content
Project 2025
Search

Latest Stories

Follow Us:
Top Stories
USA Presidential voters on electoral college map

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact Federalism at Its Best

US Senate candidate Dan Osborn

7 Independent Campaigns to Watch in the Final Days of the Midterms

President Donald Trump

Trump doesn’t care about the midterms. You should

Smoke hangs over the city against a twilight sky following an explosion during an air raid alert on October 2, 2026 in Kyiv, Ukraine

Axis of Aggressors: How Four U.S. Adversaries Strengthen Each Other

U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth stands for anthems at the Pentagon on October 15, 2026 in Arlington, Virginia. The two defense officials discussed NATO financial commitments by European countries.

Secretary Hegseth's Tenure Ban Fails Our Officers and the Academy

Claim: President deployed National Guard to Minn. over objections of state leaders. Fact check: False

Minnesota National Guard

Members of the Minnesota National Guard surround the statet Capitol on May 31.

Scott Olson/Getty Images
Silvia Martelli
By Silvia MartelliJul 06, 2020
Silvia Martelli
Silvia Martelli, Medill School is a contributor for The Fulcrum, a nonpartisan publication dedicated to strengthening democracy by fostering informed civic engagement and elevating diverse perspectives.
See More Writings by author
"Minnesota's Democrat governor [Tim Walz] failed to urgently deploy the National Guard — it took President Trump for that to eventually happen; his suggestion — and the ultimate descendance into chaos there in Minneapolis." — White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, June 29

President Trump and his team repeated multiple times that he was responsible for deploying the National Guard to deal with rioting in Minnesota. The first time Trump took credit for the deployment was during an interview with Nexstar on June 17.

"I brought it out five days after they started. They wouldn't use the National Guard. I brought the National Guard to — I told them, I said, 'You got to get the National Guard.' We got them in," he told Nexstar. "Everything stopped in Minneapolis. It was really an amazing thing, actually, to see, and they had no problems after we called out the Guard."

Two days later, Trump tweeted: "Forced Democrat run Minnesota to bring in the National Guard & end rioting & looting after seeing the destruction & crime in Minneapolis."

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany made a similar claim during her official briefing on June 29.

But it was actually Minnesota's Democratic governor, Tim Walz, and not Trump, who deployed the Minnesota National Guard. Walz, who served in the Army National Guard for 24 years, first activated the Guard on May 28, more than seven hours before Trump publicly threatened to do it himself. According to his office, he was not acting under the president's advice, but rather under requests from officials in Minneapolis and St. Paul — cities also run by Democrats. Furthermore, the Guard was deployed two days after the riots had started, rather than the five claimed by Trump.


Latest news

President Donald Trump
Ethics & Leadership

Donald Trump’s Midterm Delusion: Why a Red Wave Turned Blue

Close up of a judge hammering a gavel
Rule of Law

Just the Facts: Trump, DOJ and the Legal Process

ICE agent
Governance & Legislation

I Believe in Immigration Enforcement. But, What Happened to TK Should Concern Us All.

Flock camera
Governance & Legislation

Flock Cameras and ALPR technology: We shouldn't trade privacy for the false promise of public safety

Read More

A woman protesting holds a sign that readds, "Our Raise! Labor Safety Costs, surrounded by other people.

Uber drivers participate in a rally outside of the Uber Headquarters on January 05, 2023 in New York City. Uber drivers in NYC participated in a 24-hour strike outside of the company's NYC headquarters

Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

21st-Century Gig Workers Need Portable Benefits

In recent years, the US labor force has been undergoing a fundamental transformation. In today’s "Uber economy," gig workers, freelancers, contractors, temps, permatemps, remote workers after COVID, and so-called “independent workers” have been championed by Silicon Valley and Wall Street as the “new way to work”—the wave of the future, especially with AI changing the nature of work itself.

Many US consumers have driven in an Uber taxi, but don’t realize that most drivers earn below minimum wage after accounting for vehicle expenses, gas, maintenance, and unpaid time waiting for passengers. Those drivers are so-called “independent contractors,” so the billion-dollar Uber is not responsible for providing healthcare, Social Security contributions, workers' compensation, or unemployment compensation, not to mention sick leave or vacation pay.

Keep ReadingShow less
Little kids playing with colorful wooden building blocks on the table

Colorado, Maui County, and Washington State are connecting early childhood services and putting families at the center. Here’s what worked and why.

Lourdes Balduque/Getty Images

Community Partnerships Build Systems for Early Childhood Success

In Colorado’s San Luis Valley, a family looking for developmental support for their toddler may drive over an hour to reach a specialist, if one is even taking new patients. In too many communities across the country, like the San Luis Valley, the problem isn’t that services don’t exist. It’s that pediatricians, childcare providers, and mental health professionals are all working toward the same goal, but may not be working together.

When families have to navigate a maze of disconnected programs and providers, children start to miss opportunities for timely developmental support. Not because communities don’t care, but because the systems around them were never built to function as one.

Keep ReadingShow less
US Capitol building
The United States Capitol building with its white dome against a blue sky
Photo by Louis Velazquez on Unsplash

Would Congressional Term Limits Make Congress Better—or Worse?

Starting in the 1990’s, the idea of putting term limits on members of Congress became a recurring idea to reform the institution and improve democracy. The idea was born out of the theory that replacing the current crop of legislators with a new batch would produce a better Congress. More than 30 years later we now have quantitative and qualitative data showing the impact of term limits.

Twenty-one state legislatures have enacted some kind of term limit on legislators since 1990. Since then, dozens of academic studies have examined the impact on such factors as: complexity of legislation, influence of lobbyists and staff on legislative outcomes, and interactions with constituent. Here are some key findings.

Keep ReadingShow less
Hand points to the word tax on a screen

Data calculations

Getty Images

Inconvenient Numbers Are a Sign the System Works

Earlier in October, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that consumer prices rose 3.7 percent over the past year, a little higher than the month before, with gasoline accounting for more than half of September's increase. Rising prices are the kind of news no incumbent politician wants weeks before an election. The report was published anyway, on schedule. That is the quiet discipline of a trustworthy statistical system. It tells us what is true even when the number is unwelcome to whoever holds power.

So, do Americans trust government data? We do. But that trust is incomplete, and it has room to grow.

Keep ReadingShow less
© Copyright 2026