Author: Matt

President Trump’s blizzard of executive orders has run into a snowplow of legal challenges. There are dozens of cases challenging the White House’s actions. Judges all over the country have found that the White House acted illegally.

The challenges, and the rulings, continue to pour in.

But Trump’s team is punching back. After a judge blocked Elon Musk’s DOGE team from accessing personal data and other Treasury department systems, Musk referred to him as “a corrupt judge protecting corruption” and called for his impeachment.

Vice President JD Vance made the controversial claim on Sunday that quote, “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”

Comments like these suggest Trump’s circle may be willing to ignore court orders and defy judicial authority.

So what happens if the executive branch ignores the judicial branch? Is that a constitutional crisis? Is the United States already in one?

For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org

Email us at [email protected]

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is quickly expanding its reach through the federal government.

It recently accessed systems at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Musk and his team now are looking at key payment and contracting systems for Medicare and Medicaid.

That was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

On X, Musk said he believes quote “big money fraud is happening.”

Medicare insures older people. Medicaid offers insurance to low income people and those with disabilities.

These two health insurance programs serve tens of millions of people, and they consume a huge part of federal and state budgets. So how could DOGE impact these services?

For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org

Email us at [email protected]

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Project 2025, is a 900-plus page blueprint for a conservative President. It was unveiled in the spring of 2023, well before Donald Trump had won the republican presidential nomination.

It outlined a suite of very conservative policies that would, for example, outlaw the mailing of abortion pills and abolish the department of education. It even suggests a return to the gold standard.

It became a democratic talking point, so much so that Trump repeatedly distanced himself from the plan and the authors.

But now that Trump is in office, releasing his own detailed plans. A lot of them are strikingly similar to the ones laid out in Project 2025. And one of its chief architects is now the head of the critical Office of Management and Budget.

Trump disavowed Project 2025 during the campaign. Now, as President, is he using it as a playbook?

For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org

Email us at [email protected]

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

For centuries, scholars only had one version of the life of Margery Kempe, an English mystic who lived in the 14th and 15th centuries — until a ping pong match revealed her story in her own words.

For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org

Email us at [email protected]

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

A lot of labels have been applied to Trump’s foreign policy approach. America First, Isolationist, transactional, imperialist, protectionist. “I’m a nationalist and a globalist” he told the Wall Street Journal during his first term.

In his inaugural address last month, Trump made comments suggesting his foreign policy will be characterized by restraint, saying, in part, success should be defined by the “wars we never get into.”

Yet in the same address, he also said, the United States will take back the Panama Canal.

In his first campaign, Trump ran on the idea that the cycle of the United States intervening in the Middle East should come to an end.

And on Tuesday of this week, he said that the U.S. will “take over” the Gaza Strip, after relocating the Palestinians, who live there.

Trump has promised a new approach to American foreign policy. Is there a Trump Doctrine? And what is it?

For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org

Email us at [email protected]

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

As President Trump dismantles Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) practices at the federal level, organizations across the country are also shifting their approach to diversity. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at [email protected].

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

President Trump floated two stunning ideas about Gaza on Tuesday. The first is he said the U.S. would take over the territory, which has been devastated by the recent war.

And, he said the entire population of Gaza would be relocated to other countries. Trump offered no specifics for his plans sending Palestinians and Israelis scrambling to understand what he means.

President Trump’s vague plan to “Make Gaza Beautiful Again” could signal the largest shift in US-Middle East policy in decades and could upend widespread hope for a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org

Email us at [email protected]

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

In Washington these days, Elon Musk seems to be everywhere.

In the 15 days Donald Trump has been back in the White House, Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency have been moving to change every corner of the federal government.

The billionaire entrepreneur and his team have gained access to a sensitive government payment system in the Treasury Department.

They’re pushing to drastically reduce the number of federal employees. How did the world’s richest man come to have such a big role in the federal government?

And why does he want it?

For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org

Email us at [email protected]

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

The Panama Canal has sat at the center of global trade for more than a century, connecting two oceans. The things Americans use every day pass through here, from gas to food. And now, this spot is also at the center of President Trump’s global expansionist agenda.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has just wrapped up a trip to Panama where he told the President that if China’s influence over the canal isn’t curbed the United States will take measures to protect its rights.

Trump’s threat to take back the Panama Canal has the potential to reshuffle global politics. We’re meet the people and the 51-mile waterway in the middle of it all.

For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org

Email us at [email protected]

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Most presidents want as much power as they can get. And it’s not unusual to see them claim authority that they don’t, in the end, actually have.

We saw it just last term, when former President Biden tried to unilaterally forgive hundreds of billions of dollars in federal student loans.

Or when he announced, days before leaving office that the 28th Amendment, on gender equality, was now the law of the land.

So are the opening moves of Trump’s presidency just a spicier version of the standard playbook or an imminent threat to constitutional government as we know it?

For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org

Email us at [email protected]

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy