On July 24, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services to make it easier to impose psychiatric care on homeless individuals with mental illness. AEI scholar and practicing psychiatrist Sally Satel explains why the United States’ aversion to “coerced care” is failing vulnerable Americans and what the administration needs to do accomplish its objective.

The administration has achieved swift successes in imposing its political agenda on elite colleges—claiming hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties, forcing out or cowing uncooperative leadership, and dismantling diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. While higher education’s out-of-control politicization and bureaucratization demanded a response, AEI Education Policy Studies Director Frederick M. Hess highlights the severe risks of expanding the federal government’s entanglement with universities even further.

The president’s decision to fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics over an unflattering jobs report raises the risk that the independence and integrity of the federal government’s data will be subordinated to political agendas. Derek Scissors, whose work on the Chinese economy makes him no stranger to manipulated data, provides guidance on what falsified economic statistics would look like and why it would be easy to spot.

The more the Trump administration ignores economic realities and pursues policies, like tariffs, that increase the cost of living, the more it risks a rebuke in the midterm elections. Writing in Commentary, AEI Domestic Policy Studies Director Matthew Continetti previews the political landscape as both parties gear up for 2026.

For the past few years, China has increased its participation in international technology standards organizations to embed its authoritarian values in the world’s increasingly connected digital infrastructure. In a new Wall Street Journal op-ed, AEI technology expert Shane Tews and Luke Hogg lay out what the US must do to successfully preserve a free, open, and democratic digital world against this challenge.