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In Trump’s second term, Michael Dell attended the president’s Invest America Roundtable event in June 2025. In December, Trump introduced the computer executive and his wife, Susan Dell, as they announced a $6.25 billion gift for 25 million U.S. children’s Trump Accounts. This month, Trump advised Americans to “go out and buy a Dell.”

On Wednesday, the company was awarded a $9.7 billion contract by the Pentagon to provide a suite of software to the U.S. military. The award came after what the Pentagon said was a competitive process, though the deal is being questioned by some experts in government.

The Pentagon contract, given to Dell Federal Systems, a part of the company that focuses on government, has raised eyebrows as a potential payback for the Trump Accounts donation.

“It looks terrible is the short answer,” said Greg Williams, director of the Center for Defense Information, part of the Project on Government Oversight. “Very publicly courting contributions to all sorts of projects of the president’s has created the very strong interest that they are in the business of soliciting contributions of various kinds in exchange either for access to the president or for outcomes that he may be able to influence.”

In 2024, the Republicans narrowly retained control of the House with 220 seats to the Democrats' 215, the slimmest majority since 1930. That razor-thin margin is why the redistricting battle matters so much.

Every 10 years after the US census, the country’s 435 House seats are reapportioned based on population shifts, triggering a nationwide redrawing of congressional districts. The number of seats in the House has been 435 since 1912, and the only exception was made in 1929 to allow the admission of Alaska and Hawaii into the US.

The most recent census was in 2020, and states completed their redistricting by 2022. Since 2024, however, several states have redrawn their congressional maps again - some successfully, some blocked by the courts - with accusations of gerrymandering.

Gerrymandering is the practice of drawing electoral district boundaries to favour one political party over another. The tactic exists in many countries with district-based voting systems but is most closely associated with the US.

Florida’s new congressional map is expected to strengthen Republican control of the state’s 28 House seats and could help the party gain up to four additional Republican-leaning districts before the midterms.

Texas Republicans redrew congressional districts before the midterms as Democrats fled the state, leaving lawmakers missing during key votes. The new map added five more seats for the Texas Republicans.

Missouri Republicans redrew congressional maps before 2026, aiming to gain one extra House seat for their party.

In October, the North Carolina Senate approved a new congressional map that is expected to make one more US House seat Republican-leaning by reshaping several previously competitive or Democratic-leaning districts.

California voters approved a new Democratic-backed map under Proposition 50, known as the Election Rigging Response Act, in a 2025 special election.

The new boundaries are designed to help Democrats protect and potentially expand their existing 43-seat majority in the state.

Ohio was once considered a major presidential swing state, but Republicans now hold 10 of its 15 House seats, and the redraw is expected to further strengthen the party’s advantage.

The lawsuit also accused the Trump administration of trying to intimidate those who speak out against Israeli rights abuses.

Albanese is not alone in facing economic penalties for her work. Since taking office for a second term, Trump is estimated to have issued sanctions against nine ICC judges, as well as prosecutors for the court.

The judges and prosecutors were reportedly involved in probes into abuses by US and Israeli forces.

On May 13, US District Judge Richard Leon, an appointee of former President George W Bush, ruled in favour of the Albanese family’s lawsuit, granting a temporary injunction against the sanctions.

Leon found that the Trump administration had used the penalties to curtail Albanese’s constitutionally protected speech. He also stated that Albanese could not be blamed for the ICC’s actions.

“It is undisputed that her recommendations have no binding effect on the ICC’s actions,” Leon wrote. “They are nothing more than her opinion.”

As a result of the ruling, Albanese was removed from the sanctions list this month.

But the Trump administration appealed Leon’s order. It also said it would restore her to the sanctions list as soon as it was able, though it is unclear what prompted Wednesday’s change.

The Department of Justice is acknowledging it has removed from its website news releases about criminal cases related to the 6 January 2021 Capitol attack, calling the information about the prosecutions “partisan propaganda”.

The purge of news releases documenting criminal charges, convictions and sentencings is the latest step by the Trump administration to dramatically rewrite the history of the assault on the US Capitol, when hundreds of supporters of Donald Trump stormed the building in an effort to halt the congressional certification of his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump, on his first day back in office in January 2025 , pardoned, commuted the prison sentences or vowed to dismiss the cases of all of the 1,500-plus people charged with crimes during the Capitol assault, including those convicted of attacking officers with makeshift weapons such as flagpoles, a hockey stick and a crutch.

Trump dismisses $10bn suit against IRS and creates $1.7bn ‘anti-weaponization’ fund Read more On Monday, the justice department announced the creation of a $1.776bn fund meant to compensate Trump allies who feel they were unjustly investigated and prosecuted. The acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, has not ruled out that rioters convicted of violence will be eligible for payouts, prompting bipartisan anger in Congress.

After a journalist on Friday observed on the social media platform X that the justice department was “quietly” removing news releases on its website that were related to the January 6 attack, including about a Texas man who pleaded guilty to assault and also faced separate state charges of soliciting a minor, the department responded through its “rapid response” account that there was “nothing ‘quiet’ about it”.

Among the releases removed from the site were those concerning seditious conspiracy cases against members of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, far-right extremist groups. The justice department, in an unopposed motion last month, asked a federal appeals court to vacate those seditious conspiracy convictions, a request that was granted on Thursday. The department on Friday moved to dismiss the cases against the group members.

Trump's second presidency was described by political commentators as having fewer prohibitions on business activity and guardrails against potential conflicts of interest than his first, and for having more opportunities to directly influence Trump.[567][568] Trump repealed and rolled back anti-corruption measures and ethical standards for himself and his allies, dropped corruption charges against political figures with ties to him, and fired inspectors generals investigating fraud and abuse.

His second presidency was described as breaking with decades of ethical norms,[570] and raising substantial corruption concerns.[571][572] Congressional Republicans largely downplayed or ignored the concerns.[573][570]

Federal judges found many of the administration's actions to be illegal and unconstitutional,[13][14][15] and by mid-July, a Washington Post analysis found he defied judges and the courts in roughly one third of all cases against him, actions which were described by legal experts as unprecedented for any presidential administration.[16] His defiance of court orders and a claimed right to disobey the courts raised fears among legal experts of a constitutional crisis.[574] By August 2025, several grant terminations and spending freezes were found by judges and the Government Accountability Office as being illegal and unconstitutional.[575][576]

The Department of Justice formally announced the fund in a filing on May 18, 2026.[30] The fund, known as the Anti-Weaponization Fund, would compensate individuals who claim that the Department of Justice had been weaponized against them, and is set to end in December 2028. As part of the settlement, Trump dismissed complaints filed against the government over the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago and the Mueller special counsel investigation. According to the Justice Department, Trump and his sons would receive a formal apology, but not monetary payment or damages[31], though the publicly available terms of the fund do not prohibit Trump or his family from receiving payments from it, according to some legal observers.

The following day, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche gave Trump and his family permanent immunity from inquiries into their taxes.[33] According to The New York Times, the settlement likely eliminated a dispute over a US$72.9 million tax refund Trump claimed as the host of The Apprentice (2004–2017).

In response to the settlement, Brian Morrissey, the general counsel for the Department of the Treasury, resigned.[40] The settlement fund was met with skepticism from Maine senator Susan Collins and Kansas senator Jerry Moran, who oversee the Senate Committee on Appropriations.[41] Senate Majority Leader John Thune cast doubt on the fund.

The justice department announced on Monday it was creating a loosely controlled and secretive $1.776bn fund to compensate Donald Trump allies as part of an agreement in which Trump and his sons dropped a $10bn longshot lawsuit against the IRS.

The money, which critics said was essentially a slush fund, will be overseen by five commissioners – four of whom would be appointed by the attorney general and removable by Trump – who would oversee the body’s work. A fifth commissioner will be appointed “in consultation” with congressional leadership. The fund also has the power to issue “formal apologies” and will send a quarterly confidential report to the US attorney general outlining who has been paid from the fund. There is no requirement that the fund’s work be made public.

There did not appear to be any restrictions on who can seek compensation from the fund. A copy of the agreement released on Monday evening says that claims will be evaluated based on a number of factors, including “the strength of the claim and supporting evidence, the claimant’s actions, any time the person making the claim spent in prison, attorney’s fees, and “other factors the Anti-Weaponization Fund deems just and appropriate”.

Any money left in the fund at the end of Trump’s term would be returned to the federal government.

The agreement was signed by Stanley Woodward, the associate attorney general, and number three official at the justice department. Woodward represented January 6 defendants as well as many Trump allies who came under scrutiny for their efforts to overturn the 2020 election and in the classified documents case.

“I don’t actually see any legal precedent for that. We are a nation of laws, you can’t just make up things whole-piece,” Cassidy told reporters when asked about the legal compensation fund for Trump allies who were prosecuted or investigated by the Biden Justice Department. The administration announced the creation of the compensation fund after Trump withdrew his lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service demanding $10 billion in damages for an IRS contractor leaking his tax returns to media outlets. “Somebody explained it to me this way, an attorney. … It is as if somebody sued themselves and agreed upon a settlement with themselves that’s going to be funded by the rest of us. If that’s the case: What?!” he said. “Wait a second, I just came off the campaign trail. People are concerned about making their own ends meet, not about putting a slush fund together without a legal precedent. We’re a nation of laws,” he added. “If there needs to be a settlement, let’s consider it and Congress should come together and decide on that.”

“I voted to uphold the Constitution. When I die, if that’s put in my obituary: He voted to uphold the Constitution, it’s going to be better obituary,” he said.

One week after Trump’s Feb. 10 purchase of between $1 million and $5 million of Nvidia stock, for instance, that company announced a major chip deal with Meta.

The president also bought between $500,000 and $1 million worth of Nvidia stock one week before the Commerce Department officially approved the sale of some Nvidia chips to China, NOTUS reported.

According to US media reports, Washington sent Iran a 14-point document earlier this week. Under its proposals, Iran would be required to agree not to develop a nuclear weapon and halt all enrichment of uranium for at least 12 years. It would also be required to hand over an estimated 440kg (970lb) stock of uranium, which it has enriched to 60 percent.

In return, the US would gradually lift sanctions and release billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets and withdraw its naval blockade of Iranian ports.

Both sides, which are currently engaged in a naval standoff in the Strait of Hormuz, would reopen the critical waterway within 30 days of signing.

Iran has been subject to crippling US sanctions for decades. The lifting of some of these under a 2015 nuclear agreement drawn up with the former Obama administration, five other countries and the European Union, was reversed when Trump unilaterally walked out of the deal in 2018, during his first term as US president.

Iran is believed to have about 440kg (970lb) of uranium enriched to 60 percent. A 90-percent threshold of enriched uranium is needed to produce a nuclear weapon. Under the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed with several other states, Iran had been permitted to enrich uranium to 3.67 percent – enough to develop a nuclear power programme. Now, the US is demanding that it be reduced to 0 percent.

“From the US positions, it appears that Iran would need to compromise significantly, but they have not demonstrated any appetite to make big concessions, likely because they don’t trust the Trump administration to keep to their commitments,” he added.

“The CDC is not even a player,” said Lawrence Gostin, an international public health expert at Georgetown University. “I’ve never seen that before.”

Not until late Friday did CDC actions accelerate.

The CDC’s diminished role in this outbreak is an indicator the agency is no longer the force in international health or the protector of domestic health that it once was, some experts said.

The hantavirus outbreak is “a sentinel event” that speaks to “how well the country is prepared for a disease threat. And right now, I’m very sorry to say that we are not prepared,” said Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, chief executive officer of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

For decades, the CDC partnered with the WHO in such situations. The CDC acted as a mainstay of any international investigation, providing staff and expertise to help unravel any outbreak mystery, develop ways to control it and communicate to the public what they should know and how they should worry.

Such actions were a large reason why the CDC developed a reputation as the world’s premier public health agency.

But this time, the WHO has been center stage. It made the risk assessment that has told people the outbreak is not a pandemic threat.

“I don’t think this is a giant threat to the United States,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of Brown University’s Pandemic Center. But how this situation has played out “just shows how empty and vapid the CDC is right now,” she said.

The U.S. Dollar Index, which measures the greenback against other major currencies, logged its steepest six-month drop in more than 50 years in the first half of 2025. Though the decline hasn’t deepened, the dollar index is still about 10% lower than the start of Trump’s term.

A strong dollar makes imports cheaper and can help keep inflation in check. A weak one can increase prices on foreign goods but boost American exports.

Trump has suggested a strong dollar puts the U.S. at a disadvantage and that a weak dollar helps American industry. And as with most things with Trump, he’s been blunter in his messaging.

“You make a hell of a lot more money with a weaker dollar,” he said last year, one of a number of public statements showing his preference for seeing the dollar decline.

Trump isn’t alone in seeing benefits of a weaker buck.

In recent months, corporate earnings calls have been peppered with talk of how a weaker dollar has helped companies from Philip Morris to Coca-Cola, with executives pulling out C-suite phrases like “favorable currency impact” to note how the dip brought tailwinds outside the U.S. that added to bottom lines.

Currency values are constantly moving and, while the dollar’s recent fall is notable, it has reached lower levels at points in the presidencies of each of Trump’s predecessors, back through the creation of the Dollar Index in 1973, when Richard Nixon was at the helm.

Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard University economist and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, says while “a lot of policies that Trump is doing are something of a cancer for the dollar,” he believes that it was destined to fall no matter who was in charge.

“The dollar had been on a 15-year bull run,” he said. “I would argue the dollar is still wildly overvalued, and over the next maybe five or six years, it might fall 15%.”

What does that mean for American consumers? Rogoff says commodity prices are likely to rise, particularly with the impact of the Iran war on fuel prices.

“They’re just going to go up,” he says, “no matter what the dollar’s at.”

The Saver's Credit can be used by low- and moderate-income individuals and families to reduce their tax bills.

The Saver's Credit is applied directly to your tax bill to reduce the amount of federal income tax you owe. For instance, if your tax bill is $1,000 and your credit is $400, you'd only owe $600. If your tax bill is $1,000 and your credit is $1,000, it's a wash. You'd owe nothing.

To qualify, you must be 18 or older, not a full-time student, and not claimed as a dependent on someone else's tax return. Then you have to meet the AGI requirements. AGI is your gross income minus adjustments such as deductible retirement contributions, self-employment taxes, educator expenses, and student loan interest.

Of course, the final qualification is that you make a contribution to a retirement account. It's important to note that rollover contributions do not qualify for the credit, and eligible contributions may be reduced by recent retirement account distributions. Contributions to a wide range of retirement accounts qualify for this credit, including:

Traditional IRA
Roth IRA
Traditional 401(k)
Roth 401(k)
403(b)
457 plan
SARSEP
SEP IRA
SIMPLE IRA
Thrift Savings Plan
ABLE account

What is the Saver's Match, and how is it different from the Saver's Credit?

Beginning in tax year 2027, the Saver's Credit for retirement contributions will be replaced by the Saver's Match. While both incentives are designed to encourage lower‑ and moderate‑income workers to save for retirement, they work in different ways.

The Saver's Credit is a nonrefundable tax credit that reduces the amount of federal income tax you owe. By contrast, the Saver's Match provides a government matching contribution—worth up to 50% of the first $2,000 ($4,000 per person for joint filers) you contribute each year—that is deposited directly into an eligible retirement account.

If it wasn't for the tariffs, would Colossus be solar-powered? It would be much easier to make it solar powered, yeah. The tariffs are nuts, several hundred percent. Don't you know some people? The president has... we don't agree on everything and this administration is not the biggest fan of solar. We also need the land, the permits, and everything. So if you try to move very fast, I do think scaling solar on Earth is a good way to go, but you do need some amount of time to find the land, get the permits, get the solar, pair that with the batteries.

I just repeatedly tackle the limiting factor. Whatever the limiting factor is on speed, I'm going to tackle that. If capital is the limiting factor,
20:52 20 minutes, 52 seconds then I'll solve for capital. If it's not the limiting factor, I'll solve for something else.

If it wasn't for the tariffs, would Colossus be solar-powered? It would be much easier to make it solar powered, yeah. The tariffs are nuts, several hundred percent. Don't you know some people? The president has... we don't agree on everything and this administration is not the biggest fan of solar.

The Trump administration announced two more payouts Monday for energy companies to walk away from U.S. offshore wind projects under development.

Bluepoint Wind and Golden State Wind have agreed to end their offshore wind leases in exchange for reimbursements totaling nearly $900 million.

Interior said it’s following the model of its recent deal with the French energy company TotalEnergies, which is getting a $1 billion payout to walk away from projects off the coasts of North Carolina and New York. TotalEnergies agreed in March to what’s essentially a refund of its leases, and will invest the money in fossil fuel projects instead.

Bluepoint Wind and Golden State Wind were slated to be major offshore wind projects, each capable of powering more than 1 million homes when complete and helping the states of New Jersey, New York and California meet their clean energy goals. If the projects were to ever move forward, a developer would have to buy new leases. But under the Trump administration, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has rescinded all designated wind energy areas in federal waters.

Bluepoint Wind is a partnership between Ocean Winds and Global Infrastructure Partners. Global Infrastructure Partners, a part of investment giant BlackRock, has committed to invest up to $765 million into a U.S.-based liquefied natural gas facility. Interior said it would cancel the offshore wind lease and reimburse the company for the amount invested in the LNG project.

Golden State Wind is a joint venture by Ocean Winds and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. Under its agreement, Golden State Wind can recover about $120 million in lease fees after the same amount is invested in oil and gas assets, infrastructure or projects along the Gulf Coast, Interior said.

In his second term, Trump has gone all in on fossil fuels, which he says will lower costs for families, increase reliability and help the U.S. maintain global leadership in artificial intelligence.

Trump also claimed to have rejected an offer from Iran to reopen the strait three days ago, saying that "it will open when we make a deal".

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian placed the blame on Trump for upending talks — saying the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, the president’s threats of violence against the country and his “breach of commitments” made negotiations untenable.  “World sees your endless hypocritical rhetoric and contradiction between claims and actions,” Pezeshkian wrote on the social platform X.

Vatanka pointed out that the nuclear deal negotiated under the Obama administration took well more than a year to be ironed out. “It’s going to take many months this time, too, but you need to have the ceasefire in place,” he said. “You need to have the Strait of Hormuz open, you need to build trust.” Morgan Viña, who served at the United Nations in Trump’s first term, said the Iranians have a greater ability to withstand pressure than Trump, given his promises to avoid forever wars and his party facing the midterm elections amid high gas prices.  “It is to their advantage to make this as long and as painful,” she said on the “Fault Lines” podcast on Wednesday. “But President Trump being too willing, too eager, to find an agreement here, I think that is to our detriment when it comes to finding a long-term solution.”

And Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the administration was pressured into issuing another 30-day sanctions waiver to allow Russian oil on the market at the request of “more than 10 of the most vulnerable and poorest countries in terms of energy,” during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing.  Bessent was criticized by Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) for padding Russian President Vladimir Putin’s pocket with another $4.5 billion to fund his war in Ukraine.

President Donald Trump said Congress must extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) even if it means giving up “rights and privileges.” Section 702 allows for the collection of Americans’ data without a warrant.

Republican Congressman Thomas Massie attempted to introduce three amendments to the legislation that would have required law enforcement to obtain a warrant before collecting Americans’ data. His amendments were rejected.  Trump argued that he and Americans should be willing to sacrifice their 4th Amendment right to privacy in exchange for security.

From taxes to the environment to public broadcasting like PBS and NPR, the Senate has recently passed record levels of legislation and confirmed record numbers of nominations with senators representing less than half the people.

Using historical data, GovTrack found 56 examples of Senate votes on legislation that passed with senators representing a “population minority.” 26 of those 56 examples, nearly half, have occurred since President Donald Trump’s current term began.

Several of the second Trump administration’s most prominent members were confirmed by Senate “population minority” votes – including RFK Jr. (Secretary of Health and Human Services), Pete Hegseth, Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, and Tulsi Gabbard.

The oldest example GovTrack found of a “population minority” Senate vote is actually  famous: Clarence Thomas’s 1991 Supreme Court nomination by President George H. W. Bush. The Senate approved Thomas with 52% support, but 49% of the population.

He still serves on the Court today.

GovTrack found three other “population minority” Senate confirmations for Supreme Court justices, totalling four: Thomas plus Trump’s three first-term nominees. All four still serve on the Court.

Currently, Republicans hold a Senate majority: 53 to 47. However, based on the Census Bureau’s current estimates, it’s actually the other way around by population: Democratic senators represent a 53% majority of the states’ population, versus Republicans with 47%.

How is this possible? Because while the U.S. House is apportioned based on population, with larger states receiving more representatives, the U.S. Senate guarantees each state two senators regardless of size.

This was baked into the American system from the beginning, creating what political scientists call a “counter-majoritarian” institution.

In 2025, according to Census Bureau estimates, the most populous state (California) had about 67x the population as the least populous: Wyoming. Today, a Senate voting majority could be cobbled together from senators representing just 17% of the population.

But that’s actually been the same for a while. Going back to 1900, a Senate voting majority could be cobbled together with senators representing 16% to 20% of the population.

Instead, small states may be more politically aligned than they used to be and are voting together more often as a bloc.

Senators have recently taken advantage of old rules, and also changed some rules, to use lower vote thresholds. This means votes are more often succeeding with less support.

Both parties contributed to this.

In 2013, under President Obama, Senate Democrats changed the threshold for most nominations from three-fifths to a simple majority. They left it at three-fifths for the Supreme Court, though.

Then in 2017 during Trump’s first term, Senate Republicans changed the threshold for the Supreme Court, too, to confirm Justice Gorsuch by a simple majority. (This rule applied to all subsequent justices, too.)

As for legislation, many of the recent “population minority” Senate votes used the Congressional Review Act of 1996, which lowered the usual Senate vote threshold from three-fifths to a simple majority for certain deregulation bills. The One Big Beautiful Act and the Rescissions Act were both voted on under other rules, which lower the vote threshold for certain spending-related bills.

So the three-fifths threshold is now gone for nominations and some types of legislation.

It might not stop there. Trump has called for the Senate to end the three-fifths threshold for all legislation, in order to enact certain Republican policies – particularly regarding election rules. If that happens, “population minority” Senate votes could become even more frequent.

Why does this usually benefit Republicans?

This discrepancy usually benefits the GOP, since they tend to represent smaller states.

This small-state Republican benefit also holds true at the presidential level. Indeed, two presidents in living memory won election despite losing the national popular vote, both Republicans: George W. Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016.

The Congressional Review Act, which makes it easier for Congress to deregulate – and the rules for rescissions bills, which makes it easier to cut funding – also are more aligned with Republican goals than Democratic goals.

But for better or for worse, it’s clear that the Senate is diverging from popular opinion far more than ever before, at least in recent memory. Even if one believes the Senate is, in fact, “right” while popular opinion is “wrong.”