The Latest on the Trump Administration:
- Jenner & Block: A federal judge struck down an executive order that threatened penalties against the law firm, which once employed a top attorney who helped investigate the president alongside the team run by Robert Mueller, who was then the special counsel.
- Restricting Covid Shots: The Food and Drug Administration announced that it was likely to limit access to Covid vaccines among healthy children and adults this fall. Here’s what experts expect if the plan goes forward.
- Greenhouse Gas Limits on Power Plants: The Environmental Protection Agency has drafted a plan to eliminate all limits on greenhouse gases from coal and gas-fired power plants in the United States, according to internal agency documents reviewed by The Times.
- Trump’s Crypto Dinner: The Times reviewed a guest list and social media posts to identify who was invited to President Trump’s private event for customers of his cryptocurrency business and a White House tour. Here are some of them.
- Build-Out of Nuclear Power Plants: President Trump signed four executive orders aimed at accelerating the construction of the plants, including a new generation of small, advanced reactors that offer the promise of faster deployment but have yet to be proven.
- Ignoring Economic Warning Signs: The president’s economic policy approach is so far rattling markets, businesses and consumers.
- MAHA Report: The G.O.P. chairmen of the House and Senate agriculture committees said they were “troubled” by the Make America Healthy Again Commission’s findings and urged it to use sounder science.
- A Rare Check on Trump’s Actions: President Trump has suffered a string of court losses, as federal judges ruled that his administration broke the law on a number of matters. But judicial orders to unwind his actions can be easier said than done.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/05/27/us/trump-news
Live Updated
May 27, 2025
New York Times
Trump Administration Live Updates:
Live Updated
May 27, 2025
New York Times
Trump Administration Live Updates:
U.S. Ends Recommendation of Covid Shots for Healthy Children and Pregnant Women
The Covid-19 vaccines had been recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for those groups since they first became available. Credit: Lynne Sladky/Associated Press
The Covid-19 vaccines had been recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for those groups since they first became available. Credit: Lynne Sladky/Associated Press
Where Things Stand
Covid vaccinations: Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said healthy children and pregnant women no longer need to be vaccinated for Covid. The announcement by Mr. Kennedy, a longtime vaccine critic, upends the normal process for vaccine recommendations, which is handled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Pediatricians warn that the youngest infants face higher risks for hospitalization, similar to older adults. Read more ›
Harvard cuts: The Trump administration is set to cancel the government’s remaining federal contracts with Harvard University — worth an estimated $100 million, according to a letter that is being sent to federal agencies. The cuts, outlined in a draft of the letter obtained by The New York Times, would be the latest in a series of actions the White House has taken against the elite university.
NPR sues: NPR sued President Trump over his executive order that aims to end federal funding for the public radio network and PBS. The federal lawsuit says Mr. Trump’s order violates the Constitution and the First Amendment. The White House did not reply to a request for comment. Read more ›
May 27, 2025
Jason Karaian
Stocks rally on what analysts have started to call the ‘TACO trade.’
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Stock markets jumped on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 posting its biggest gain in weeks.
The index rose 1.8 percent in afternoon trading, which analysts attributed to President Trump’s delaying a proposed 50 percent tariff on the European Union that he had threatened only a few days earlier.
They also talked about tacos.
Or rather, the “TACO” trade, which is short for Trump Always Chickens Out. The tongue-in-cheek term, coined by a Financial Times columnist, has been adopted by some to describe the pattern in which markets tumble after Mr. Trump makes tariff threats, only to rebound just as sharply when he relents and gives countries more time to negotiate deals.
The market dropped on Friday, when Mr. Trump threatened to ratchet up tariffs to 50 percent on goods from the European Union, a move that could have done severe economic damage to Europe and the United States. But at the time, some analysts like Salomon Fiedler of Berenberg, a German bank, said it wouldn’t last.
“Wild threats by Trump are not unusual,” he wrote in a note that day. “Given the damage the U.S. would do to itself with this tariff, he will probably not follow through.”
Late Sunday, Mr. Trump said that the E.U. tariffs would be delayed to July, which led to a global market rally the next day. “These retreats are so frequent that investors should rationally expect them,” Paul Donovan of UBS Wealth Management wrote as stocks in Europe jumped Monday morning.
And as U.S. markets, which were closed on Monday for Memorial Day, joined the rally on Tuesday, Chris Beauchamp of IG Group summed it up with “TACO trade triumphs once again.”
Mr. Trump posted on social media on Tuesday that E.U. officials had been in touch with their American counterparts to “quickly establish meeting dates,” as the two sides tried to square their priorities.
Stocks have also veered up and down as Mr. Trump delayed his most severe tariffs on China as well as a sweeping round of levies that he had announced on goods from virtually every U.S. trading partner. Still, some blanket tariffs remain in place, and they are significantly higher and broader than anything the United States has tried in more than 90 years.
The S&P 500 is slightly higher than it was before Mr. Trump’s initial barrage of tariffs in early April sent markets into a tailspin, and about 4 percent below the index’s record high, set in February.
May 27, 2025
Apoorva Mandavilli and Christina Jewett
U.S. will no longer recommend Covid shots for children and pregnant women.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, flanked by Dr. Marty Makary, left, and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who lead the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health, announced the end of the recommendation in a video posted on X.Credit...via X
The Covid vaccine will no longer be recommended for healthy children or healthy pregnant women, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced on Tuesday.
The vaccines had been recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since they first became available for those groups several years ago.
“I couldn’t be more pleased to announce that as of today, the Covid vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been removed from the C.D.C. recommended immunization schedule,” Mr. Kennedy said in a video he posted on X.
Before becoming part of the Trump administration, Mr. Kennedy had long campaigned against vaccinating children to protect them from Covid. In making the announcement, Mr. Kennedy seems to have reneged on a promise he made to Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, not to alter the childhood immunization schedule.
Flanked by Dr. Marty Makary and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who lead the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health, Mr. Kennedy said in the video announcement that there was no clinical data to support additional shots for healthy children.
However, pediatricians point out that the youngest infants face among the highest risks for hospitalization, similar to older adults.
Mr. Kennedy’s decision upends the standard process for such recommendations, which are made by advisers to the C.D.C. and accepted — or overruled — by the agency’s director. The health secretary is typically not directly involved in these matters, but the C.D.C. does not currently have a permanent director.
The new policy does follow last week’s decision by the F.D.A. to require new data before approving the shots for children.
But Mr. Kennedy’s announcement would seem to contradict the F.D.A. policy’s inclusion of pregnancy in the list of conditions that put people at high risk from Covid.
He did not address whether the vaccines would still be offered to children who had never received them before. In the year ending in August, the C.D.C. reported 150 pediatric deaths, a number comparable to deaths among children in a typical flu season.
Overall, the absolute numbers of children who became seriously ill from Covid are low. But children under 4 remain at high risk from Covid, the officials said, and children with medical conditions would still qualify for the vaccine.
According to C.D.C. data, about 13 percent of children have received the updated Covid shot offered since last fall. Many may have received earlier vaccines in previous years.
Although the C.D.C. recommends vaccines for certain age groups and for people with medical conditions, the states have the authority to mandate certain shots for children who wish to attend schools or day care, for example. It’s unclear whether the new policy would prevent states from continuing to recommend Covid shots.
The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for clarification.
Pregnant women are at increased risk of becoming severely ill with Covid, being hospitalized, needing intensive care and dying, said Dr. Denise Jamieson, who serves on the immunization committee of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and is also an adviser to the C.D.C. on vaccines.
Covid infection during pregnancy is also “associated with a number of adverse pregnancy outcomes including pre-eclampsia, preterm birth and stillbirth,” especially among women with severe disease, according to the C.D.C.
“With Covid still circulating, pregnant women and their babies who are born too young to be vaccinated are going to be at risk for Covid and for the severe complications,” Dr. Jamieson said.
“I’m disappointed that this won’t remain an option for pregnant women who would like to protect themselves,” she added.
Pregnant women who are vaccinated are also viewed as offering protection to young infants, who through the age of 6 months face a risk of hospitalization on par with adults in their late 60s and early 70s, according to Dr. Sean O’Leary, a pediatric vaccine expert for the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The C.D.C. had also recommended a series of Covid shots beginning at 6 months for children who had never had Covid.
“The youngest infants, they haven’t seen Covid before,” he said. “The reason we think that risk has fallen in the last year or two for some of the older age groups is because we’ve all seen Covid so many times,” through vaccination and infection.
“But that’s not true for those youngest kids, they remain essentially naïve to Covid,” he added.
The officials did not offer an explanation for removing the vaccine from the list of shots recommended for pregnant women, focusing instead on children.
“It’s common sense and it’s good science,” Dr. Bhattacharya said of removing them.
Mr. Kennedy has been an ardent opponent of vaccines for decades, and filed a petition with the F.D.A. demanding that they revoke authorization of the Covid shots during a deadly phase of the pandemic. He also threatened to sue the F.D.A. if they authorized Covid vaccines for children.
The move throws insurance coverage of the vaccines for children or pregnant women into question. Commercial insurers rely on the advice of C.D.C. advisers for coverage decisions, which the health secretary can override.
“I would say it’s a legal gray area,” said Richard Hughes, a lawyer who has represented vaccines companies.
May 27, 2025,
Joe Rennison
Financial markets reporter
Stocks opened the day higher, with the S&P 500 rising more than 1 percent following Monday’s Memorial Day market holiday. Analysts attributed the rise to the delay of proposed 50 percent tariffs on the European Union that had dragged the S&P 500 lower on Friday, when the levies were announced. Government bond yields also eased — a welcome sign for the administration after last week’s rise in yields, which translates into higher borrowing costs for the government.
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May 27, 2025, 8:13 a.m. ET5 hours ago
Benjamin Mullin
NPR is suing Trump over his executive order to cut funding.
NPR headquarters in Washington. The group’s chief executive said that public media in the United States was “an irreplaceable foundation of American civic life.” Credit: Erin Schaff/The New York Times
NPR sued President Trump on Tuesday over his executive order that aims to end federal funding for NPR and PBS.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington by NPR and other public radio organizations, including Colorado Public Radio and Aspen Public Radio, said Mr. Trump’s order violated the Constitution and the First Amendment’s protections for freedom of speech.
“The president has no authority under the Constitution to take such actions,” the lawsuit said. “On the contrary, the power of the purse is reserved to Congress.”
The White House had no immediate comment.
This month, Mr. Trump signed an executive order ordering the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which backs NPR and PBS, to freeze all funding to those organizations. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting spends more than $500 million on public radio and TV stations annually.
Only a fraction of NPR’s budget — about 2 percent — comes directly from federal grants. Most of the funding goes to local public radio and TV stations across the U.S., helping fund their operations and create programming. About 15 percent of PBS’s budget comes from federal grants.
Mr. Trump said in his executive order that NPR and PBS were “biased” and that taxpayer support should go to “fair, accurate, unbiased and nonpartisan news coverage.” Public media leaders, including Katherine Maher, NPR’s chief executive, and Paula Kerger, the chief executive of PBS, condemned the executive order shortly after it was signed.
Mr. Trump’s executive order is one of several attempts by Republicans to weaken U.S. public media. The White House threatened to rescind public funding for TV and radio stations last month, and legislation is currently working its way through Congress to defund NPR and PBS. Last month, the White House tried to fire several members of the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which sued to block the attempt.
In its lawsuit, NPR asked the court to throw out Mr. Trump’s executive order on the grounds that it was unconstitutional and to prevent the president from enforcing it. The lawsuit also asked the court to declare that the National Endowment for the Arts could not withhold funding from public media organizations based on Mr. Trump’s executive order.
In a statement, Ms. Maher said that public media in the United States was “an irreplaceable foundation of American civic life.”
“At its best, it reflects our nation back to itself in all our complexity, contradictions and commonalities, and connects our communities across differences and divides,” she wrote.
May 27, 2025, 8:01 a.m. ET6 hours ago
Matthew Mpoke Bigg
Trump pardons a former Virginia sheriff who was convicted of bribery.
Image
Scott Jenkins, a former sheriff in Culpeper County, Va., was convicted last year of bribery and later sentenced to 10 years in prison.Credit...Alyssa Schukar for The New York Times
President Trump has issued a pardon to a former sheriff of Culpeper County, Va., who was convicted in federal court last year of bribery and sentenced to 10 years in prison. The president blamed the Biden administration for what he called a vindictive prosecution.
The pardon for Scott Jenkins, a prominent local supporter of the president who is also an advocate for gun rights, is the latest example of Mr. Trump’s use of clemency for his supporters who were convicted in federal court.
Mr. Jenkins and his family were “dragged through HELL by a Corrupt and Weaponized” Justice Department, Mr. Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Monday.
Mr. Jenkins accepted $75,000 in bribes in the form of campaign contributions from several businessmen in exchange for making them auxiliary deputy sheriffs in his department, the U.S. attorney’s office in the Western District of Virginia said.
He was convicted in 2024 of one count of conspiracy, four counts of honest services fraud and seven counts of bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds.
The men who paid the bribes received badges and credentials even though they were not vetted or trained as sheriffs, the attorney’s office said in a statement.
Mr. Jenkins, who presents himself on his personal website as a defender of Second Amendment rights, was first elected sheriff in 2011. He was voted out in 2023 amid the bribery case, convicted last December and sentenced in March.
“He will NOT be going to jail tomorrow, but instead will have a wonderful and productive life,” said Mr. Trump, who issued a full and unconditional pardon.
Carl Tobias, a professor of law at the University of Richmond, said that there was no justification for the pardon, given the quality of the evidence amassed by the prosecution and the jury’s verdict.
“It is a straightforward case of bribery by a public official with many witnesses testifying,” Mr. Tobias said in an interview, adding that the position held by Mr. Jenkins made the crime all the more serious. “Sheriffs can put everybody else in jail.”
Mr. Trump’s decision in the case, however, is consistent with his commitment to undo what he portrays as the politicized application of justice by his predecessor. To that end, the administration has set up a team of appointees focusing on clemency grants. In the largest such example, Mr. Trump in January granted clemency to all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol in 2021.
Critics of Mr. Trump argue that he has ignored the screening and guidelines of the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney in his clemency grants. Some critics say Mr. Biden also ignored the guidelines when he issued a sweeping pardon in December for his son Hunter and other family members, after repeatedly saying that he would not do so.
A correction was made on
May 27, 2025
:
An earlier version of this article misstated the day President Trump posted on Truth Social about pardoning former sheriff Scott Jenkins. It was on Monday, not Sunday.
When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more
May 27, 2025
Stephanie Saul
The Trump administration intends to cancel all federal funds directed at Harvard.
The Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Mass.Credit...Sophie Park for The New York Times
The Trump administration is set to cancel the federal government’s remaining federal contracts with Harvard University — worth an estimated $100 million, according to a letter sent to federal agencies on Tuesday. The letter also instructs agencies to “find alternative vendors” for future services.
The additional planned cuts, outlined in a draft of the letter obtained by The New York Times, represented what an administration official called a complete severance of the government’s longstanding business relationship with Harvard.
The letter is the latest example of the Trump administration’s determination to bring Harvard — arguably the country’s most elite and culturally dominant university — to its knees, by undermining its financial health and global influence. Since last month, the administration has frozen about $3.2 billion in grants and contracts with Harvard. And it has tried to halt the university’s ability to enroll international students.
The latest letter, dated May 27 from the U.S. General Services Administration, was delivered Tuesday morning to federal agencies, according to an administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the official had not been authorized to discuss internal communications.
Read the Trump Administration Letter About Harvard Contracts
Here is a draft of the letter expected to be sent today to federal agencies asking them to cancel any remaining contracts with the university.
Read Document 2 pages
The letter instructs agencies to respond by June 6 with a list of contract cancellations. Any contracts for services deemed critical would not be immediately canceled but would be transitioned to other vendors, according to the letter, signed by Josh Gruenbaum, commissioner of the G.S.A.’s federal acquisition service, which is responsible for procuring government goods and services.
Contracts with about nine agencies would be affected, according to the administration official.
Examples of contracts that would be affected, according to a federal database, include a $49,858 National Institutes of Health contract to investigate the effects of coffee drinking and a $25,800 Homeland Security Department contract for senior executive training. Some of the Harvard contracts under review may have already been subject to “stop work” orders.
“Going forward, we also encourage your agency to seek alternative vendors for future services where you had previously considered Harvard,” the letter said.
The administration has cast its actions against Harvard as a fight for civil rights. It has accused the university of liberal bias, of continuing to use racial considerations in its admissions policies despite a Supreme Court ban, and of allowing antisemitic behavior on campus.
The university in Cambridge, Mass., has cast the fight as one over its First Amendment rights and accuses the Trump administration of trying to control its personnel, curriculum and enrollment.
Faced with government demands that included a ban on students “hostile to the American values,” an audit of the political ideology of students and faculty to ensure “viewpoint diversity,” and quarterly status updates to the administration, Harvard has vigorously pushed back in federal court.
In one lawsuit, filed last month, Harvard seeks the restoration of more than $3 billion in federal funding. In another, filed last week, it has asked a federal court to reinstate its right to enroll international students.
Last week, Judge Allison D. Burroughs temporarily reinstated Harvard’s right to enroll international students, and a hearing on Thursday will determine whether that order should be extended.
During his campaign for a second term, President Trump attacked elite universities as controlled by “Marxist maniacs and lunatics,” and vowed to increase taxes on the investment returns of university endowments, a plan approved this month by the House of Representatives. The tax provision, which still needs Senate approval, would cost Harvard, which has an endowment of $53 billion, an estimated $850 million a year.
Harvard has borne the brunt of the White House’s assault on higher education, and administrators and faculty on campus have watched with growing fear as the federal government has handed down edict after edict, cutting away at the financial foundation of the school.
The university has about 6,800 international students, making up 27 percent of its total enrollment. Harvard’s president, Alan M. Garber, characterized the cancellation of its ability to enroll international students as a potentially devastating blow.
“We condemn this unlawful and unwarranted action,” Dr. Garber wrote in a statement last week, adding that it “imperils the futures of thousands of students and scholars across Harvard and serves as a warning to countless others at colleges and universities throughout the country who have come to America to pursue their education and fulfill their dreams.”
The Trump administration letter cited what it called a pattern in which Harvard had shown a “lack of commitment to nondiscrimination and our national values and priorities.”
As evidence, the letter said that The Harvard Law Review, an independent student-run publication, had recently given a fellowship to a law student who had been accused of assaulting a Jewish student during a 2023 pro-Palestinian campus protest.
The student avoided criminal prosecution on misdemeanor assault charges in that case and agreed to perform community service, but did not admit wrongdoing.
The letter also claimed that Harvard had not complied with the 2023 Supreme Court decision that banned the use of race as a deciding factor in admissions.
But the percentage of Black first-year students declined to 14 percent in fall 2024 after that decision, from 18 percent a year earlier. In the same period, Black enrollment in Harvard Law School’s first-year class dropped to 3.4 percent, the lowest it had been since the 1960s.
The letter did not provide statistical evidence for its claim about admissions, but cited the university’s addition of a remedial math course. It said the course was the result “of employing discriminatory factors, instead of merit, in admission decisions.”
May 27, 2025, 5:02 a.m. ETMay 27, 2025
Helene Cooper
Reporting from Washington
Trump’s military parade is set to include 6,700 soldiers, 50 helicopters and 2 mules.
The last big military parade held in the capital was to celebrate the conclusion of the Gulf War in 1991. Credit: Doug Mills/Associated Press
In President Trump’s first term, the Pentagon opposed his desire for a military parade in Washington, wanting to keep the armed forces out of politics.
But in Mr. Trump’s second term, that guardrail has vanished. There will be a parade this year, and on the president’s 79th birthday, no less.
The current plan involves a tremendous scene in the center of Washington: 28 M1A1 Abrams tanks (at 70 tons each for the heaviest in service); 28 Stryker armored personnel carriers; more than 100 other vehicles; a World War II-era B-25 bomber; 6,700 soldiers; 50 helicopters; 34 horses; two mules; and a dog.
Map shows the route of the Military Parade in Washington, D.C.
By The New York Times
But critics say it is another example of how Mr. Trump has politicized the military.
The Army estimates the cost at $25 million to $45 million. But it could be higher because the Army has promised to fix any city streets that the parade damages, plus the cost of cleanup and police are not yet part of the estimate. While $45 million is a tiny fraction of Mr. Trump’s proposed Pentagon budget of $1.01 trillion for fiscal year 2026, it comes as the administration seeks to slash funding for education, health and public assistance.
“It’s a lot of money,” the Army spokesman Steve Warren acknowledged. “But I think that amount of money is dwarfed by 250 years of service and sacrifice by America’s Army.”
The Army is not calling the event a birthday parade for Mr. Trump. It is the Army’s birthday parade. The Continental Army was officially formed on June 14, 1775, so June 14 will mark 250 years.
That also happens to be Mr. Trump’s birthday.
There was no big parade in Washington back when the Army turned 200 in 1975, when Vietnam War scars were still raw. While smaller commemorations were held at Army bases around the country, complete with dinner dances, barbershop quartets and cake cutting, few people were looking to glorify the military so soon after the Kent State shootings. Besides, the country was gearing up for big bicentennial celebrations the next year.
The Golden Knights parachute team descending in front of the White House to celebrate July 4, 2020. One plan calls for paratroopers to land amid next month’s festivities and hand Mr. Trump a flag. Credit: Pete Marovich for The New York Times
If things were going to be similarly low-key this time around, Fort Myer, across the Potomac in Arlington, Va., might be an ideal location, “where the Old Guard could march with some veterans,” said Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the leading Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, in a reference to the 3rd Infantry Regiment, the Army’s oldest active duty infantry unit.
“But this is Trump,” Mr. Reed added, speaking to reporters last week at the Defense Writers Group. “It’s consistent with so much of what he’s doing.”
Army officials say the parade will cross in front of Mr. Trump’s viewing stand on Constitution Avenue, near the White House, on the evening of Saturday, June 14, part of a big bash on the National Mall.
There will be marching troops who will be housed in two government buildings, officials say. They will sleep on military cots and bring their own sleeping bags, a topic of much merriment on late-night television.
There will be Paladins, the huge self-propelled howitzers, and nods to vintage style. Army officials want to outfit some troops in uniforms from the wars of long ago, like the one in 1812 or the Spanish-American War.
For more than two years, the Army has been planning national, global and even interstellar aspects of the celebration — an Army astronaut on the International Space Station will be phoning in, Mr. Warren said.
But those planned celebrations focused on festivals, a postal stamp, various fun runs, military bands and the like. At some point this year, Army officials said, a military parade in Washington appeared in the plans.
Still, officials say there are no plans at the moment to sing “Happy Birthday” to Mr. Trump, or to the Army, during the parade. One plan does, however, call for paratroopers from the Golden Knights, the Army parachute team, to land amid the festivities and hand Mr. Trump a flag.
In 2017 during his first term, Mr. Trump watched the Bastille Day parade in Paris with President Emmanuel Macron of France and returned home wanting his own. But the Trump 1.0 Pentagon shut him down. Jim Mattis, the defense secretary at the time, said he would “rather swallow acid,” according to “Holding the Line,” a book by Guy Snodgrass, Mr. Mattis’s former speechwriter.
U.S. Army Abrams tanks participating in a military parade in Warsaw in 2024. The celebration planned in Washington for the Army’s 250th birthday will feature 28 of the tanks. Credit: Wojtek Radwanski/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
“We’re all aware in this country of the president’s affection and respect for the military,” Mr. Mattis said tersely when reporters asked about Mr. Trump’s wishes. “We have been putting together some options. We will send them up to the White House for decision.”
Gen. Paul J. Selva, then the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Mr. Trump during a meeting at the Pentagon that military parades were “what dictators do,” according to “The Divider,” by Peter Baker, a New York Times reporter, and Susan Glasser.
When Mr. Mattis was gone, Mr. Trump brought up the idea again. Mr. Mattis’s successor, Mark T. Esper, responded with an “air parade” as part of July 4 celebrations in 2020, Pentagon officials said. An array of fighter jets and other warplanes flew down the East Coast over cities that played roles in the American Revolution, including Boston, New York and Philadelphia.
Officials in Mr. Trump’s first Defense Department resisted his parade suggestion — it was never a direct order — because they viewed it as putting the military in the middle of politics, something the Pentagon historically has been loath to do.
But now Mr. Trump has Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and military leaders who so far have been more willing to put his musings into action.
This “raises the question, ‘Is the U.S. military celebrating Trump?’” said Risa Brooks, an associate professor of political science at Marquette University.
“Having tanks rolling down streets of the capital doesn’t look like something consistent with the tradition of a professional, highly capable military,” Dr. Brooks said in an interview. “It looks instead like a military that is politicized and turning inwardly, focusing on domestic oriented adversaries instead of external ones.”
There have been big American military parades in the past, but the last one was almost 35 years ago, to commemorate the end of the first Gulf War. Military parades in the United States have traditionally followed the end of major conflicts, such as the Civil War and the two World Wars. There were also military parades during three presidential inaugurations during the Cold War. And small-town festivities also sometimes commemorate the military with a few armored vehicles and troops.
“I don’t actually see the problem with a military parade,” said Kori Schake, a former defense official in the George W. Bush administration who directs foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Dr. Schake said more Americans need to see the troops who serve the country.
“If seeing our fellow Americans in uniform encourages public knowledge and connection, or inspires volunteering, it would be beneficial,” she said.
At the end of the day, “the military won’t die on this hill even if they do not like it,” said Peter Feaver, a political science professor at Duke University who has studied the military for decades. “Trump’s 2.0 team is better at giving the president what he wants whether or not it is best in the long run.”
May 26, 2025,
Mattathias Schwartz
Mattathias Schwartz reports on the federal judiciary.
A judge criticizes government inaction in the case of migrants held in Djibouti.
Djibouti, where a group of deportees is being held as the Trump administration tries to send them to South Sudan.
Credit: Marcus Westburg for The New York Times
A federal judge expressed frustration on Monday night with the government’s failure to give due process to a group of deportees the administration is trying to send to South Sudan but is now holding in Djibouti, as he had mandated last week.
“It turns out that having immigration proceedings on another continent is harder and more logistically cumbersome than defendants anticipated,” the judge, Brian E. Murphy of Federal District Court in Massachusetts, wrote in his 17-page order. He added that if giving deportees remote proceedings proved too difficult, the government could still return the men to the United States.
Judge Murphy’s earlier order, issued on Wednesday, mandated that six of the eight men be given a “reasonable fear interview,” or a chance to express fear of persecution or torture if they were sent on to South Sudan. At a hearing that day, he found that the government had violated another order that the deportees be given notice in a language they could understand, and at least 15 days to challenge their removal. Instead, the judge found they were given “fewer than 16 hours’ notice.”
On Monday night, Trina Realmuto, a lawyer for the migrants in the case, confirmed that her team had not been given phone access to them. The Homeland Security Department’s public affairs office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The substance of Judge Murphy’s order was not surprising, as he rejected a motion from the government that he pause one of his earlier orders. But his criticism of the government’s delay in offering due process appeared to reflect his growing frustration in another contentious case in the back-and-forth between the Trump administration and federal courts.
The day after Judge Murphy ordered that the migrants remain in U.S. custody, the White House called them “monsters” and the judge “a far-left activist.” Then, on Friday night, Judge Murphy ordered the government to “facilitate” the return from Guatemala of a man known as O.C.G., one of the original plaintiffs in the case.
“The Judges are absolutely out of control,” President Trump wrote on Thursday in a social media post criticizing Judge Murphy. “This must change, IMMEDIATELY!”
The case before Judge Murphy is a class-action lawsuit that considers the due process rights of not only the men in Djibouti but also any migrants eligible for deportation whom the Homeland Security Department is trying to send to a so-called third country other than their country of origin.
The administration has already struck deals with Costa Rica, Panama, Guatemala, Mexico and El Salvador as part of its efforts to remove people who would be difficult to deport to their home countries. More recently, the administration has tried to send migrants to war-torn countries like South Sudan and Libya. Both of those countries have “do not travel” ratings from the State Department because of the possibility of armed conflict and other threats.
There were eight deportees aboard the flight to Djibouti. One is South Sudanese, and the government has said that another will be sent to his home country, Myanmar, leaving the six others in limbo. All eight have been convicted of violent crimes.
“The court recognizes that the class members at issue here have criminal histories,” Judge Murphy wrote. “But that does not change due process.”
May 26, 2025
Erica L. Green
Trump highlights military service, and his return to office, in Memorial Day remarks.
President Trump with Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday.Credit...Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times
President Trump memorialized the nation’s fallen soldiers in a speech at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday, recognizing the families of servicemen and servicewomen who died fighting for their country hours after airing grievances and attacking his political opponents on social media.
In remarks commemorating Memorial Day, Mr. Trump thanked those who had fought in some of the nation’s defining battles, and cited specific stories of sacrifice by soldiers and their families.
“We certainly know what we owe to them,” Mr. Trump said. “Their valor gave us the freest, greatest and most noble republic ever to exist on the face of the earth — a republic that I am fixing after a long and hard four years.”
He also used the occasion, traditionally a solemn day of tributes, to indirectly criticize his predecessor, former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., for his border policies while valorizing his own return to office.
“We’re doing so very well right now, considering the circumstances,” Mr. Trump said. “And we’ll do record-setting better with time. We will do better than we’ve ever done as a nation, better than ever before. I promise you that.”
Mr. Trump delivered the speech after taking part in the presidential tradition of laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns to honor America’s war dead. He was joined by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance, both of whom served in the military.
Mr. Trump, who has had a complex and sometimes hostile relationship with the military, has sought to recast himself as its biggest booster in his second term.
During his first presidential campaign, he attacked a Gold Star family who criticized him during the 2016 Democratic National Convention. During his first term he disparaged veterans and military service members — questioning what they got out of putting their lives on the line, and calling those who died in wars “suckers” and “losers.” He even suggested that Gold Star families had spread Covid-19 inside the White House.
In his speech on Monday, Mr. Trump praised fallen soldiers who “picked up the mantle of duty and service, knowing that to live for others meant always that they might die for others.”
He also detailed the service and deaths of soldiers, and spoke directly to some of their children.
“For the families of the fallen, you feel the absence of your heroes every day in the familiar laugh no longer heard, the empty space at Sunday dinner, or the want of a hug or a pat on the back that will never come again,” Mr. Trump said.
“Every Gold Star family fights a battle long after the victory is won,” he said, “and today, we lift you up and we hold you high.”
It was a starkly different tone than he used on social media before the remarks. On Truth Social, he posted a message that did not mention veterans but wished a “HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY TO ALL, INCLUDING THE SCUM THAT SPENT THE LAST FOUR YEARS TRYING TO DESTROY OUR COUNTRY THROUGH WARPED RADICAL LEFT MINDS.” Trump also railed against what he called “USA HATING JUDGES.”
In his remarks, he largely stuck to his efforts in recent weeks to connect his return to office to a restoration of the nation’s military might.
In a politically charged commencement speech at the United States Military Academy at West Point on Saturday, Mr. Trump told cadets that they were entering “the greatest and most powerful army the world has ever known.” He added: “And I know, because I rebuilt that army, and I rebuilt the military.”
Earlier this month, he announced that he would rename May 8, which is widely celebrated in Europe as “Victory in Europe” or “V-E Day,” as “Victory Day for World War II,” so that the United States could celebrate its achievements in that conflict.
He also said he would rename Veterans Day, celebrated on Nov. 11, as “Victory Day for World War I,” drawing pushback from veterans groups because it would champion conquest over sacrifice, and leave most living veterans without a holiday commemorating their service.
Next month, he is set to host a military parade in Washington, billed as the “Army’s birthday celebration,” to commemorate the Army’s 250th anniversary. The event, on June 14, also falls on Mr. Trump’s 79th birthday.
During his remarks on Monday, after musing about returning to office for a second term in time to host soccer’s World Cup and the Summer Olympics — a quirk of timing he attributed to divine intervention — Mr. Trump highlighted the upcoming anniversary celebration, which he said “blows everything away.”
Mr. Trump said that in some ways he was glad that he didn’t have a consecutive second term in the White House because he would have otherwise missed hosting all three events.
“Can you imagine?” he said. “I missed that four years, and now look what I have. I have everything. Amazing the way things work out.”
May 22, 2025, 5:02 a.m. ETMay 22, 2025
Michael C. Bender
Reporting from Washington
Here’s a look at the many actions the Trump administration has taken against Harvard.
The Trump administration’s intensely punitive actions have increasingly focused on Harvard. Credit: Sophie Park for The New York Times
Presidential threats. Onerous investigations. Extensive funding cuts.
The Trump administration has wielded all three against Harvard University in what began as the work of a task force the president commissioned to address antisemitism on campus — but has sprawled into a multifaceted pressure campaign that leverages the scope and power of the federal government.
The effort involves at least eight investigations spanning at least six agencies, including the Departments of Justice, Education and Health and Human Services. Some of those agencies, and others, including the Department of Veterans Affairs, have pulled or frozen grants from the school and its research partners, totaling nearly $4 billion. In a major escalation, the Department of Homeland Security said it would halt Harvard’s ability to enroll international students.
The administration targeted Harvard — and other elite schools, such as Columbia University — as part of a broader political and legal strategy to reshape academia’s race-based admissions policies and perceived liberal bias. While not being officially framed as a personal vendetta for President Trump, the government’s increasingly punitive actions have come after Harvard resisted many of the changes his administration demanded to admissions, curriculum and hiring practices.
So far, the moves have not convinced the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university to come back to the negotiating table, even if school officials have privately expressed concerns about the lasting damage that feuding with the administration could cause.
The university sued after the administration threatened to take away billions in federal funding and has pushed back strongly against the various investigations, denying allegations of wrongdoing and maintaining that it is committed to following the law.
“The administration’s prescription goes beyond the power of the federal government,” Harvard’s president, Dr. Alan Garber, wrote last month. “No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”
The origins of Mr. Trump’s strategy can be traced, at least in part, to his first administration, when the Justice Department joined a lawsuit against Harvard that argued that the use of race in admissions was discriminatory. Five years later, in 2023, as Mr. Trump was campaigning, the Supreme Court ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor, doing away with affirmative action. That decision has underpinned his second administration’s assault on diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
Here are all the major actions Mr. Trump’s second administration has taken against Harvard so far:
Demand Letter
Curriculum changes, hiring overhauls and adjustments to admission policies that align with the Trump administration’s political agenda
Date: April 11
What happened: The administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism sent Harvard a letter outlining a list of 10 demands that went far beyond concerns about antisemitism and diversity policies. They included a ban on admitting students “hostile to the American values” inscribed in the Constitution; an audit of the political ideology of the student body and faculty to determine “viewpoint diversity”; and quarterly status updates from the school for the remainder of Mr. Trump’s term. Trump officials later said the letter had been sent by mistake.
Status: Harvard announced on April 14 that it would not comply with the administration’s requests and sued the government on April 21 over its demands in federal court in Massachusetts.
Funding Cuts and Freezes
$2.2 billion in multiyear research grants, $60 million in contracts
Date: April 14
What happened: The task force announced the move to cancel this tranche of funding, mainly from the National Institutes of Health, the nation’s primary agency for biomedical and public health research, in retaliation for Harvard’s refusal to comply with its April 11 list of demands.
Status: Terminated
$1 billion in National Institutes of Health funding for Harvard’s research partners
Date: April 22
What happened: The administration froze roughly 500 grants for Harvard-affiliated institutions from N.I.H, according to two senior officials at the health department who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Recipients of these grants include Brigham and Women’s Hospital, an internationally recognized teaching hospital in Boston known for its work on heart and vascular cancer.
Status: Paused
Disqualified from all future federal grants
Date: May 5
What happened: The decision was relayed to Dr. Garber in a contentious letter signed by Linda McMahon, the education secretary, that made no mention of antisemitism or transgender issues. The missive overflowed with Mr. Trump’s familiar grievances and deployed some of his signature stylings, like the use of all-capital letters to emphasize words and social media to announce the move.
Status: Dr. Garber responded on May 12 with a letter that struck a more conciliatory tone, noting the school and the government’s “common ground” and “shared interest.” “We welcome the opportunity to share further information with you about the important work we are undertaking to combat prejudice and to pursue our mission of excellence in teaching, learning, and research,” he wrote.
$450 million in multiagency grants
Date: May 13
What happened: This broadside leveled no new accusations at Harvard. Instead, the task force combating antisemitism announced the termination of grants from eight federal agencies because, it charged, the school was a “breeding ground for virtue signaling and discrimination.” It did not identify the agencies involved.
Status: Terminated
$60 million in grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Date: May 19
What happened: The Department of Health and Human Services announced the cuts in a social media post, citing the college’s “continued failure to address antisemitic harassment and race discrimination.”
Status: Terminated
An estimated $100 million in “remaining” federal contracts
Date: May 27
What happened: Federal agencies were instructed to cancel the federal government’s remaining federal contracts with Harvard, which are worth an estimated $100 million, according to a letter the administration sent to the agencies.
Status: The letter instructs agencies to respond by June 6 with a list of contract cancellations.
Investigations
Health department investigation into Harvard Medical School graduation ceremonies
Date: Feb. 3
What happened: Ten days before Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed to run the health department, the agency’s Office of Civil Rights opened a compliance review into Harvard based on a report in The New York Post about some students at medical school graduations, including Harvard, wearing buttons or scarves in support of Palestine.
Status: The university provided the agency with video of the four-hour ceremony showing that some details in the story, based on an article in an Israel-based medical journal, were incorrect. The department responded on April 19 that it had expanded the scope of its investigation to include all activities at Harvard since Oct. 7, 2023, the date of the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in Israel. Israel’s response to those attacks prompted on-campus protests across the country, including at Harvard.
Education Department inquiry into allegations of harassment of Jewish students
Date: March 10
What happened: Harvard was among 60 universities warned by the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights about potential enforcement actions connected to allegations of antisemitism and harassment toward Jewish students during on-campus protests of Israel’s military campaign.
Status: The department did not cite any specific complaints, but its concerns about protests have since been included in other government investigations of Harvard.
Antisemitism Task Force review of all contracts for Harvard and its affiliates.
Date: March 31
What happened: Suggesting that the university had not done enough to curb antisemitism, the task force said it was reviewing roughly $9 billion in federal grants and contracts.
Status: Broad threats to defund Harvard underpin the university’s lawsuit, which argues that the government was trying to use those dollars “to gain control of academic decision-making at Harvard” in violation of the First Amendment.
Homeland security investigation into international student enrollment
Date: April 16
What happened: Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, told Harvard in a letter that the university had “created a hostile learning environment for Jewish students” and threatened to disqualify the school from the Student and Exchange Visitor Program.
Status: Ms. Noem requested a trove of detailed records about the student body. After a back-and-forth with the school over the legality of that request, the administration said on May 22 that it would halt Harvard’s ability to enroll international students. The university quickly sued, and a judge has temporarily blocked Trump officials from following through with such a potentially destabilizing move.
Education Department investigation into disclosures of foreign gifts
Date: April 17
What happened: The Education Department said the college had submitted “incomplete and inaccurate disclosures” of large foreign donations. Elite universities like Harvard have been attacked for more than a decade, mostly by Republicans, about the potential influence of foreign money, but Congress has not banned colleges from taking money from any foreign actors nor required universities to provide more detailed reports.
Status: The department asked Harvard to provide an extensive list of documents and data.
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission inquiry into accusations of discrimination against white, Asian, male and heterosexual applicants
Date: April 25
What happened: Noting the increase among faculty of people of color, women and those identifying as nonbinary, as well as the decrease of white men in tenure-track jobs, the commission opened an investigation into the university’s hiring practices.
Status: The ongoing investigation was opened at the urging of Andrea Lucas, the acting chairwoman of the E.E.O.C., an independent federal agency that enforces civil rights laws involving workplace discrimination. The agency has subpoena power, can seek to resolve disputes through mediation and can also reach settlements, as it has with several law firms the administration has targeted.
Joint agency investigation into accusations of racial preferences at the Harvard Law Review
Date: April 28
What happened: The Education Department and H.H.S. are reviewing the use of racial preferences at the student-run journal.
Status: Ongoing
Education Department review of admissions policies
Date: May 2
What happened: In a letter to Dr. Garber, Craig Trainor, the department’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said that the agency was investigating whether the university was racially discriminating against undergraduate applicants. The letter did not refer to any specific complaint, report or other information that raised concern about the school’s admissions process.
Status: The department is seeking a significant amount of data from Harvard.
Justice Department investigation into whether the school’s admission policies defrauded the government
Date: May 12
What happened: The Justice Department opened the civil investigation under the False Claims Act, a law designed to punish those who swindle the government. The government did not include a specific accusation of wrongdoing beyond a suggestion that the school was not complying with the 2023 Supreme Court decision striking down race-conscious admissions practices. Harvard said that the university had complied with the ruling and was continuing to do so.
Status: The university has 20 days to produce documents and 30 days to testify.
Threats From Trump
“What if we never pay them?”
Date: April 1
What happened: Mr. Trump privately floated the astounding proposal to withhold all federal funding from Harvard in a meeting with his advisers.
Status: About one-third of Harvard’s total funding has been halted, and Ms. McMahon, the education secretary, said in an interview on May 16 that canceling the remainder remained an option to continue applying pressure on Harvard.
“We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status.”
Date: May 2
What happened: Mr. Trump posted on social media that his administration would revoke the university’s tax-exempt status, an idea he had floated before. “It’s what they deserve!” he added. Harvard signaled it would challenge this, too, saying such a move would have no legal basis.
Status: It is unclear whether the I.R.S. is in fact moving forward with revoking Harvard’s tax-exempt status, a change that could typically occur only after a lengthy process. Federal law prohibits the president from directing the I.R.S. to conduct tax investigations, and I.R.S. employees who receive such a command are required to report it to an internal government watchdog.
See more on: Donald Trump
The Latest on the Trump Administration:
- Jenner & Block: A federal judge struck down an executive order that threatened penalties against the law firm, which once employed a top attorney who helped investigate the president alongside the team run by Robert Mueller, who was then the special counsel.
- Restricting Covid Shots: The Food and Drug Administration announced that it was likely to limit access to Covid vaccines among healthy children and adults this fall. Here’s what experts expect if the plan goes forward.
- Greenhouse Gas Limits on Power Plants: The Environmental Protection Agency has drafted a plan to eliminate all limits on greenhouse gases from coal and gas-fired power plants in the United States, according to internal agency documents reviewed by The Times.
- Trump’s Crypto Dinner: The Times reviewed a guest list and social media posts to identify who was invited to President Trump’s private event for customers of his cryptocurrency business and a White House tour. Here are some of them.
- Build-Out of Nuclear Power Plants: President Trump signed four executive orders aimed at accelerating the construction of the plants, including a new generation of small, advanced reactors that offer the promise of faster deployment but have yet to be proven.
- Ignoring Economic Warning Signs: The president’s economic policy approach is so far rattling markets, businesses and consumers.
- MAHA Report: The G.O.P. chairmen of the House and Senate agriculture committees said they were “troubled” by the Make America Healthy Again Commission’s findings and urged it to use sounder science.
- A Rare Check on Trump’s Actions: President Trump has suffered a string of court losses, as federal judges ruled that his administration broke the law on a number of matters. But judicial orders to unwind his actions can be easier said than done.
