Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Will Congress Fight for Its Right to Govern?

For those who see the steep decline in congressional functioning as central to why Washington seems broken, the response to tonight's televised address by President Donald Trump could create a bellwether moment.

If the president declares some sort of immigration national emergency and then asserts the gravity of the situation gives him unilateral authority to construct a border wall, he will launch one of the most important balance-of-power fights in recent memory.


Whether this divided Congress stands up to such an assertive claim on executive power will go a long way to determining if this president and his successors can push their dominance of the federal system to new heights, or whether the legislators are capable of drawing a bright line on executive overreach or even clawing some power back for themselves.

The speech is set for 9 p.m. Eastern. After balking a bit, and questioning whether the gravity and immediacy of the situation on the border warrants a disruption of prime-time programming, all four of the major broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC) will join the cable news channels in carrying the address.

The president is also heading to the southern border Thursday, when the partial government shutdown created by the impasse over the wall will close in on the record for the longest ever. The administration has formally requested $5.7 billion for a "steel barrier" along the Mexican border, and Democrats in Congress have to this point signaled an unwillingness to spend anything on what the president would describe as a wall.

The consensus view of constitutional and legal scholars is that citing a "national security crisis" along the border as justification for circumventing Congress – and its bedrock power of the purse – to start wall construction would be a dramatic testing of the limits of presidential power that would be ripe for a legal challenge. Whether lawmakers themselves would have the legal standing to sue, or would have to be content to provide support to others more tangibly affected by the move, seems an open question.

But the moment would still create an unusually ripe one for Congress to assert itself. And an inability to seize the moment could have lasting consequences for a legislative branch that has yielded all manner of power and prestige to the "imperial presidency" under the stewardships of Republicans and Democrats alike in the decades since Watergate.

For example, both George W. Bush, during the Iraq War, and Barack Obama, after Russia annexed Crimea, declared that national security emergencies gave them unilateral power to order construction of facilities that Congress had not agreed to fund. The money in those cases was siphoned from accounts for other Pentagon programs. Congress did not object.

"If he goes through with it, the House of Representatives will have oversight hearings and they'll complain, but it takes action in the House and the Senate to override what he is doing. The power of the purse is with Congress," said James Thurber, an expert on the balance of legislative and executive power at American University.

The president has the power to declare national emergencies, and doing so gives him enhanced executive powers to work around limits on his customary authority. A law enacted after Watergate requires the president to tell Congress which statutes he's citing to declare emergencies. But his ability to make such declarations has been challenged successfully in the courts. The question would be whether members of Congress could persuade the courts that the president was acting under what amounted to false pretenses.

Read More

Microchip labeled "AI"
Preparing for an inevitable AI emergency
Eugene Mymrin/Getty Images

Nvidia and AMD’s China Chip Deal Sets Dangerous Precedent in U.S. Industrial Policy

This morning’s announcement that Nvidia and AMD will resume selling AI chips to China on the condition that they surrender 15% of their revenue from those sales to the U.S. government marks a jarring inflection point in American industrial policy.

This is not just a transaction workaround for a particular situation. This is a major philosophical government policy shift.

Keep ReadingShow less
Once Again, Politicians Are Choosing Their Voters. It’s Time for Voters To Choose Back.
A pile of political buttons sitting on top of a table

Once Again, Politicians Are Choosing Their Voters. It’s Time for Voters To Choose Back.

Once again, politicians are trying to choose their voters to guarantee their own victories before the first ballot is cast.

In the latest round of redistricting wars, Texas Republicans are attempting a rare mid-decade redistricting to boost their advantage ahead of the 2026 midterms, and Democratic governors in California and New York are signaling they’re ready to “fight fire with fire” with their own partisan gerrymanders.

Keep ReadingShow less
Arrests of Immigrants With No Criminal Record up More Than 1,000%, While Criminal Arrests Rise 55%: The Change at ICE Under Trump Administration

Since President Donald Trump took office for his second presidential term in January 2025, detentions of immigrants without criminal records increased more than 10-fold

Getty Images, fudfoto

Arrests of Immigrants With No Criminal Record up More Than 1,000%, While Criminal Arrests Rise 55%: The Change at ICE Under Trump Administration

Since President Donald Trump took office for his second presidential term in January 2025, detentions of immigrants without criminal records increased more than 10-fold: from 1,048 detainees to 11,972 (an increase of 1,042%), according to public data from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency in charge of immigration enforcement within the United States

In the same period (January 1 to June 28, 2025), the number of detainees with criminal records rose by 55%, from 9,741 to 15,141.

Keep ReadingShow less
Doctor using AI technology
Akarapong Chairean/Getty Images

Generative AI Can Save Lives: Two Diverging Paths In Medicine

Generative AI is advancing at breakneck speed. Already, it’s outperforming doctors on national medical exams and in making difficult diagnoses. Microsoft recently reported that its latest AI system correctly diagnosed complex medical cases 85.5% of the time, compared to just 20% for physicians. OpenAI’s newly released GPT-5 model goes further still, delivering its most accurate and responsive performance yet on health-related queries.

As GenAI tools double in power annually, two distinct approaches are emerging for how they might help patients.

Keep ReadingShow less