This piece first appeared in our weekly newsletter, Executive Dysfunction. Subscribe here.

We’ve passed President Donald Trump’s second-first 100 days in office, and honestly, I have nothing pithy to say about it. I’m realizing the categories I use to try to make sense of the headlines every week are sort of blurring together—really, most of these could be categorized as anti-democratic actions, because they are.

Today, the White House sent a budget proposal to the Senate Appropriations Committee, proposing cuts to public health programs like the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—from which Trump wants to reduce their budgets by $18 billion and $3.6 billion, respectively, compared to fiscal year 2025 funding—along with funding cuts for scientific research, global aid, clean energy, and education. Trump’s budget proposal also advocates for increasing funding for the Defense and Homeland Security in an effort to bolster the military and promote border security. It would also allocate money to the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda spearheaded by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has a history of relying on and promoting junk science and conspiracy theories.

On top of that, more than one month after Signalgate, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz is being removed from his post, and Trump is nominating him to serve as United Nations Ambassador. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will temporarily replace him as national security adviser. And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth continues to retain his job, despite also sharing sensitive military information via Signal. The administration is continuing its assault on Harvard University as the school largely stands firm against an attempted takeover. And after nearly a decade of attacking the free press, Trump has taken executive actions towards defunding National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

But, there are a few bright spots: namely, institutions and individuals who are willing to bite back. I reported last week that nearly 500 academic leaders had signed a letter condemning the White House’s threats to academic freedom last week—that number has increased to nearly 600, as of publication. Reuters reported that labor unions, local governments, and nonprofit organizations are suing to block mass federal layoffs and workforce reductions. And Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson denounced Trump’s attacks on judges who don’t allow his policies to take effect.

“The attacks are not random. They seem designed to intimidate those of us who serve in this critical capacity,” Jackson said, according to POLITICO. “The threats and harassment are attacks on our democracy, on our system of government. And they ultimately risk undermining our Constitution and the rule of law.”

Plus, one more win: No major DOGE news this week!

Anti-democratic actions

• After Punchbowl News first reported that Amazon planned to show how much products’ costs would change after Trump’s tariffs, Trump called up Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to complain. Amazon then refuted claims of the new policy change, CNN reported.
• Mother Jones reported that state organizations in New Jersey and Arkansas that advocate for disabled residents haven’t received their full federal funding, forcing them to limit their work.
• Trump signed an executive order creating a “religious liberty commission,” citing a need to address policies that prevent parents from sending kids to nonsecular schools, jeopardize faith-based institutions’ funding or non-profit statuses, and exclude faith-based groups from federal programs.
• Trump signed another executive order revoking federal funding for NPR and PBS, each of which respectively receives about 1 percent and 15 percent of their total funding from the government.
• Trump said the White House will revoke Harvard University’s tax-exempt status.

Immigration

• A judge released Mohsen Madawi, a Columbia student and campus pro-Palestine organizer, on bail after Madawi was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at a citizenship interview in April. The federal judge who released him compared the country’s current climate to McCarthyism, the New York Times reported.
• A judge ruled that Mahmoud Khalil, another Columbia student and pro-Palestine organizer, can argue that he was detained by ICE over his political views, NBC News reported.
• A Trump-appointed federal court judge ruled that the administration cannot use the 1700s-era Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan immigrants it accuses of being in a gang, the Guardian reported.
• On the same day, the White House filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, asking it to remove temporary legal protections that allow more than 300,000 Venezuelan immigrants to work and live legally in the U.S., according to the Associated Press.
• NBC News obtained an ICE memo that indicated the agency plans to terminate students’ legal statuses based on revoked visas.
• In further defiance of the judiciary, including the Supreme Court, Trump told ABC News that he could bring wrongfully-deported Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. from El Salvador—but he indicated he won’t.
• Last week, ICE deported three U.S. citizen children along with their immigrant mothers, Mother Jones reported. One of those children was receiving treatment for a rare form of cancer.
• Trump issued two executive orders aimed at immigration reform this week. The first directs Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to create a list of sanctuary cities that are in “defiance of federal immigration law enforcement.” The second expands law enforcements’ ability to go after undocumented people.

Reproductive rights

• News From the States reported that federal cuts to the CDC’s Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System will harm pregnant people and babies, according to researchers.

LGBTQ+ rights

• NPR reported that the White House is considering eliminating funding for the national suicide hotline dedicated to LGBTQ+ youth.
• The White House accused the University of Pennsylvania of violating Title IX by allowing a transgender swimmer to participate on the women’s team in 2022, when Joe Biden was president, NBC News reported.
• The White House announced that it will explore “every avenue to increase access to detransition care.” The administration is also expected to use pseudoscience to misstate that gender-affirming care is not evidence-backed, Erin Reed reported.
• Days after the White House announcement, the HHS released a report on “treatment for pediatric gender dysphoria,” which Reed reported was not peer-reviewed, displayed no authors, and recommended conversion therapy for transgender youth. The American Academy of Pediatrics has already condemned the HHS report.

Health and science

• According to NBC News, the Food and Drug Administration appears to be slowing down the vaccine approval process by adding more steps to the regulatory process.
• All of the nearly 400 authors of the Congressionally-mandated National Climate Assessment, the country’s premier climate report, were dismissed by the White House, NPR reported.
• Health Secretary and vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. advised parents to do their own research before allowing their children to be vaccinated, according to the New York Times.

DEI and civil rights

• The Department of Justice ended a Civil Rights Movement-era desegregation order in Louisiana, paving the way for others to end, the Associated Press reported.
• More than 100 lawyers are expected to leave the civil rights division of the DOJ, which is likely to target universities and liberal cities under Trump—rather than its usual work of protecting minorities’ constitutional rights, the New York Times reported.
• After the Department of Education threatened further funding cuts, Harvard University told campus groups that the school would no longer hold affinity group celebrations during graduation, the Harvard Crimson reported.
• Hegseth said he plans to end a program that helps create opportunities for women in his agency, falsely stating that it was a Biden-era program. In fact, the program was created during the first Trump administration, and was written by Noem and co-sponsored by Rubio when they served in Congress, according to NBC News.

Recommended reading

• Medicaid is being threatened on multiple fronts. My colleagues and I have reported on Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, a Supreme Court case that could upend Medicaid patients’ right to choose their own provider. Congress could also cut funding to the program itself, and this USA Today op-ed from a nurse explains exactly why this would devastate health care for the vast majority of patients at her hospital: “My patients will be forced to forgo lifesaving care, and they will die. My hospital could face closure entirely or the shuttering of units or services … Every second counts for our trauma patients who won’t survive transfer.”
• TIME magazine took a look at how the first 100 days of Trump’s second term have reshaped reproductive rights and health so far.

Unwind

• Y’all know I am a cozy girl, and I have found the coziest show for you: Ransom Canyon. It’s a new soapy Netflix drama that premiered earlier this month. And I did, in fact, get through all ten hour-long episodes in about two days. The show follows the folks in a Texas town called—you guessed it—Ransom Canyon, as its major ranchers deal with personal losses and the threat of a pipeline project that could destroy the town’s water sources and status quo. Ransom Canyon pokes fun at the cheesy lines and story plots traditionally found in soapy dramas, and it has all the makings of a classic (at least, a classic in my home): a love triangle, mystery, and line dancing.