In its first days in office, the Trump administration has rapidly asserted its executive authority over statutory agencies, funding, and personnel. Writing in National Review, Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies Director Yuval Levin brilliantly explains how to understand the legal and constitutional issues at stake. For more from Levin on this issue, read this interview.

The stated goal of much of this action is to save money and increase efficiency and productivity in the government. AEI scholar and former Social Security Administration (SSA) Deputy Commissioner Mark J. Warshawsky shows how Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could bring much-needed reforms—and significant savings—to the SSA.

In the face of Trump’s ambitious agenda, Democrats have struggled to articulate a consistent and effective response. AEI public opinion expert Ruy Teixeira argues that the party has yet to show signs that it has learned from its defeat: “[Democrats] give every indication of doubling down on their least popular policy agenda items and the resist-everything-all-the-time strategy that yielded disastrous results for them last time.”

Even with Democrats on the back foot, Republicans in the White House and Congress have struggled to coordinate their legislative agenda. In a new AEI report, AEI congressional expert Philip Wallach provides context on these difficulties by assessing the legislative performance of the just-concluded 118th Congress.

Any effective policymaking, by the president or Congress, depends on an accurate understanding of how our country is doing. AEI scholars Frederick M. Hess, Michael R. Strain, and Scott Winship contributed to a new State of the Nation Project that brought together bipartisan experts to empirically assess the United States’ performance across 37 key measures of the country’s well-being.