What are the biggest threats to the health security of the American people? There are some strong candidates. Avian influenza is spreading in birds, cattle, and 50 mammalian species. Measles cases are surging at home and abroad. COVID-19 is still spreading and could mutate into a more deadly strain. Farther afield, Uganda continues to respond to an Ebola outbreak and Mpox has been seen in 127 countries. But perhaps the biggest threat to America’s health could be self-inflicted. According to a report published yesterday in the New York Times, our leaders intend to end funding for international immunization programs—including the Gavi Alliance I led from 2011 to 2023—that for decades have protected Americans from health threats abroad. These cuts would represent a grave threat to the health, well-being, and livelihoods of every American. Advertisement Secretary of State Marco Rubio has made it clear that U.S. national interest would be the guiding mission of American foreign policy. “Every dollar we spend, every program we fund, and every policy we pursue must be justified with the answer to three simple questions,” he said. “Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Does it make America more prosperous?” For decades, U.S. support for immunization abroad has answered every one of these questions with a resounding “yes,” and U.S. philanthropies and the U.S. government have played a key role in funding vaccines for many of the world’s poorest children. Vaccines are our first line of defense when it comes to prevention of infectious disease, and the last word when the time comes to respond to an escalating outbreak or pandemic. In a world that changes fast, we know the next pandemic is a question of when, not if. Consider the case of Gavi, an international alliance of public- and private-sector partners that has been at the forefront of this global vaccination effort. Gavi, which received $300 million from the U.S. in 2024, uses an innovative financing model to dramatically reduce the cost of these vaccines and then gradually transfer the costs of immunization programs to their respective national governments as they transition from low-income to middle-income economies. The alliance provides vaccines for half of the world’s children and has immunized more than 1.1 billion additional children and counting in the past 25 years. In the process, it has achieved a return on investment that would be the envy of Wall Street: $54 for every dollar spent. Of course, as a former CEO of Gavi, I’m biased. But by any objective measure, Gavi’s results have been extraordinary not only in terms of the projection of soft U.S. power, but also in terms of the preservation of the vital security interests of America and our allies. The front line of the fight against many infectious diseases might be far from U.S. borders, but every case of measles and avian influenza on U.S. soil tells us the same simple story: viruses don’t care about borders. Because we live in a connected world, immunization in poorer countries is a big part of how we stop outbreaks of preventable but devastating diseases abroad, but also on U.S. soil–diseases that can cost lives and could end up costing us billions to contain. In other words, stronger immunization coverage in Khartoum and Kinshasa saves lives there, but also in Kansas City. Think back to just over 10 years ago. In 2014, three West African countries were devastated by an Ebola outbreak that claimed more than 11,000 lives. We saw cases in the U.S. and six additional countries, and we saw fear and panic amplified by the fact that there was no vaccine to control the disease. Gavi not only helped get an experimental vaccine across the finish line, it established a global vaccine stockpile that has played a key role in the rapid containment of outbreaks since. So far not a single additional case has made its way to the U.S.

Americans are worried about the chemicals in their food, and some politicians are expressing the same concerns. In January, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. asserted that the food supply is “poisoning” people, while Dr. Marty Makary, the new Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), said during his Senate hearing in early March that chemical additives in food are “drugging our nation’s children at scale.” He promised to “look at” chemicals as causes for inflammation and disease. Advertisement Just 150 years ago, most food came from local farms and markets down the road from people’s homes. Today, it materializes from thousands of miles away, filled with cryptic, unpronounceable ingredients, many of them chemicals. Research points to potential consequences. “There is extensive evidence that synthetic chemicals, unintentionally and intentionally added to food, contribute to chronic disease across the lifespan,” says Dr. Leonardo Trasande, professor of pediatrics at NYU School of Medicine. He and other experts want people to know the risks of chemicals in food and what to do about them. Why are there so many chemicals in our food supply? Companies can add risky chemicals to food without independent tests to find out if they’re safe for consumption. It’s done without FDA approval through a loophole in federal regulations called the Generally Recognized As Safe exemption, or GRAS.

The University of Michigan will eliminate its central diversity, equity and inclusion program, the school announced on Thursday, seeking to overhaul an ambitious and expensive initiative that it had long cast as a model for American higher education. Michigan — one of the most prestigious public universities in the country — had for years steadily expanded its D.E.I. efforts even as conservative lawmakers and activists in other states successfully campaigned to defund or ban such programs. But on Thursday, amid intensifying pressure on colleges from the Trump administration, Michigan said it would discontinue its diversity “strategic plan,” known as D.E.I. 2.0, and effectively dismantle the large administrative bureaucracy constructed to drive it through the university’s colleges and professional schools. In a campuswide email, officials said Michigan would expand its existing prohibition on so-called diversity statements in faculty hiring, banning their use more broadly in admissions, promotions, awards and annual reviews. Michigan’s academic units will also be asked to “evaluate their web presence” to reflect school and federal guidance. At the same time, the officials said, they planned to redirect funds toward expanded financial aid and student counseling, shifting resources into mental health, pre-professional guidance “and other efforts that strengthen community, promote a sense of belonging and expand accessibility.” Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “These decisions have not been made lightly,” the university’s president, Santa J. Ono, and other top officials wrote in their letter. “We recognize the changes are significant and will be challenging for many of us, especially those whose lives and careers have been enriched by and dedicated to programs that are now pivoting.” School leaders have been debating whether and how to overhaul Michigan’s D.E.I. program since last spring. The Board of Regents signaled in December that changes were likely, arguing that the school’s expansive D.E.I. effort had failed to make it meaningfully more diverse or inclusive.But Thursday’s announcement comes at a more charged moment, as the Trump administration mounts an all-out war on what it considers D.E.I. in both the public and private sectors. Through executive orders and administrative actions — and often operating under a vague and expansive definition of D.E.I. — President Trump has taken aim at an array of policies and programs in higher education, framing them as part of a pernicious and illegal spoils system for racial minorities. Last month, the Education Department warned universities that it viewed any consideration of race in hiring or services to students — such as scholarships, housing and even graduation ceremonies — as a violation of federal law. At the same time, the Trump administration has cited high-profile anti-Israel protests, including at Columbia University, to threaten the loss of federal grants under laws requiring that schools receiving federal money work to prevent racial, ethnic and religious discrimination. Michigan faced similar controversies before Mr. Trump was elected: Campus protests in Ann Arbor exploded after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, as did complaints from both Jewish and Muslim students that they had faced harassment or discrimination. Editors’ Picks Is There a Least Bad Alcohol? His Life Savings Were Mailed to Him by Paper Check. Now, It’s Gone. How to Manage Your Blood Sugar With Exercise Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Universities have sought to navigate intense pressure from Washington with rising discontent among students and faculty, many of whom have urged school leaders to fight back harder against the Trump policies and resist the administration’s efforts to dismantle D.E.I. entirely. Across the country, some schools have closed down D.E.I. programs and scrubbed websites; others have rebranded them, hoping to avoid closer scrutiny.Thursday’s announcement alluded to that pressure, citing some of Mr. Trump’s executive orders and a recent court decision supporting them. But school officials also pointed to dissatisfaction from some students and faculty, who had argued that they did not feel included in D.E.I. initiatives and that the programming “fell short in fostering connections among diverse groups.” In December, Michigan fired a senior D.E.I. administrator over accusations that she had made antisemitic comments. Even before Mr. Trump took office, other Michigan students and faculty members began lobbying to preserve the existing D.E.I. program. Thousands signed a petition this winter attesting to what they saw as the positive impact of Michigan’s D.E.I. efforts. Many said they agreed with the broad goals of the D.E.I. program; some Black students have argued that it should be strengthened, with a greater focus on the experience of racial minorities on campus.As Mr. Trump’s inauguration approached, however, Michigan’s largest academic unit, the College of Literature, Science and Arts, quietly paused its D.E.I. planning process, according to an email shared with The New York Times, to avoid drawing more attention from the incoming administration. In February, D.E.I. officials at Michigan circulated talking points that reframed the program as an engine of economic growth for the state and emphasizing that it consumed a tiny portion of the university’s overall budget.Jordan Acker, a Michigan regent, said in a statement that Thursday’s announcement was about making the school’s D.E.I. program work more effectively, not dismantling it in the face of outside criticism. “The focus of our diversity efforts needs to be meaningful change, not bureaucracy,” Mr. Acker said. School officials are likely to face intense pushback from some students and faculty members. As word of the decision began to spread across campus on Thursday, the head of the Faculty Senate, Rebekah Modrak, called an “emergency meeting” for faculty, students and staff on Friday. In an email to her colleagues, Ms. Modrak said university leaders “seem determined to comply and to collaborate in our own destruction.” Michigan’s current D.E.I. program — one of the largest among major public universities in the United States — was started in 2016 amid concerns that the school had failed to attract and retain enough Black students and faculty. Since then, according to an investigation published by The Times Magazine in October, Michigan has spent roughly a quarter of a billion dollars on a wide range of D.E.I. initiatives aimed at improving both economic and racial diversity. The majority of that money went to salaries and benefits for D.E.I. staff across the university’s three campuses, according to an internal accounting prepared by Michigan’s D.E.I. office last year. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT During roughly the same period, however, the proportion of Black students on campus did not substantially change. And in surveys, students reported a less positive campus climate than at the program’s start and less of a sense of belonging. Some students and faculty complained that the school’s heavy emphasis on D.E.I. had chilled the intellectual climate on campus and led academic work to focus too much on questions of identity and oppression. According to one report produced by Michigan’s D.E.I. office in 2023, nearly half of all the school’s undergraduate courses included what the office considered “D.E.I. content,” such as explorations of racial, ethnic or religious identity.

The American Psychological Association, which sets standards for professional training in mental health, has voted to suspend its requirement that postgraduate programs show a commitment to diversity in recruitment and hiring. The decision, by the organization’s commission on accreditation, comes as accrediting bodies throughout higher education scramble to respond to the executive order signed by President Trump attacking diversity, equity and inclusion policies. It pauses a drive to broaden the profession of psychology, which is disproportionately white and female, at a time of rising distress among young Americans. The A.P.A. is the chief accrediting body for professional training in psychology, and the only one recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. It provides accreditation to around 1,300 training programs, including doctoral internships and postdoctoral residencies. Mr. Trump has made accrediting bodies a particular target in his crusade against D.E.I. programs, threatening in one campaign video to “fire the radical Left accreditors that have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxist maniacs and lunatics” and “accept applications for new accreditors.” Department of Justice officials have pressured accrediting bodies in recent weeks, warning the American Bar Association in a letter that it might lose its status unless it repealed diversity mandates. The A.B.A. voted in late February to suspend its diversity and inclusion standard for law schools. The concession by the A.P.A., a bastion of support for diversity programming, is a particular landmark. The association has made combating racism a central focus of its work in recent years, and in 2021 adopted a resolution apologizing for its role in perpetuating racism by, among other things, promulgating eugenic theories. Aaron Joyce, the A.P.A.’s senior director of accreditation, said the decision to suspend the diversity requirement was driven by “a large influx of concerns and inquiries” from programs concerned about running afoul of the president’s order.

The Department of Justice said on Thursday that it would investigate whether several California universities were complying with the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision banning the consideration of race in admissions. The checks, which the Justice Department described as “compliance review investigations,” would target Stanford University and three schools in the University of California system — Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Irvine — according to an announcement released by Attorney General Pam Bondi. “President Trump and I are dedicated to ending illegal discrimination and restoring merit-based opportunity across the country,” Ms. Bondi said in a statement. It was not clear whether similar compliance reviews would be conducted at other colleges or universities across the nation.The lawsuits that were the basis for the Supreme Court decision, in the case known as Students for Fair Admissions, were filed against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Plaintiffs in that case used statistical evidence, including standardized test scores, to support the contention that some racial groups, including Black and Hispanic students, had been given preferences in admissions. The plaintiffs argued the practice violated the 14th Amendment. Unlike schools in most states, however, California public colleges and universities have been prohibited from using affirmative action in college admissions since Proposition 209 was adopted in 1996. Enrollment of Black and Hispanic students and other minority groups dropped precipitously in the more selective public schools in California after the proposition was enacted. Since then it has rebounded at least somewhat. For example, Black enrollment at U.C.L.A. fell to 3.43 percent in 1998 from 7 percent before Proposition 209 was adopted. By 2019, it had increased to 5.98 percent. (California’s population is 6.5 percent Black.) As a private school, Stanford did not fall under the Proposition 209 requirements. Stanford said in a statement that it had taken steps to comply with the Supreme Court decision and that it was “committed to fulfilling our obligations under the law.” The statement added that the school had not received any details about the investigation from the Justice Department.The University of California system was not immediately available to comment on the Justice Department announcement. The review follows a lawsuit filed in February accusing the University of California system of violating protections against racial discrimination in admissions. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Students Against Racial Discrimination, which was organized by a persistent critic of affirmative action, asked for a court order requiring that the system select students “in a colorblind manner,” to “eliminate the corrupt and unlawful race and sex preferences that subordinate academic merit to so-called diversity considerations.” Separately on Thursday, the Department of Health and Human Services said it was launching an investigation into accusations that a “major medical school” in California had used discriminatory admissions practices. It did not specify which school.

The Trump administration has increased the number of students and academics it is seeking to deport in recent days, a new front in its efforts to restrict immigration. About 800 international students have been stripped of their visas, according to universities and media reports. In late March, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that the administration was revoking visas daily. The White House has asserted that some of these immigrants threaten national security, though some legal experts have said the administration is trampling free speech rights. In the vast majority of cases, however, immigration officials have not provided reasons. The identities of most of the students have not been publicized. Some immigration lawyers said it appeared that many were pursued because they had broken laws, such as by driving under the influence.Here is what we know about the students the Trump administration is seeking to deport. Who is being targeted? The affected students are, for the most part, in the United States with visas that allow foreign nationals to enter for full-time study. A handful have green cards, making them lawful permanent residents. These students attend schools across the country, both private and public, including Arizona State University, the University of California and New York University. While some students have been involved in pro-Palestinian activism, it appears a majority are not. Some of the visa revocations seem to be related to legal infractions in the students’ past. “This is totally unprecedented,” said Fuji Whittenburg, an immigration lawyer in Calabasas, Calif., who is representing some of the students. She added, “A brush with law enforcement that didn’t necessarily result in an arrest or a conviction is all it took.” Ms. Whittenburg said that one of her clients got a D.U.I. while studying in the United States more than a decade ago. When he applied for a second visa more recently, he disclosed the charge to U.S. consular authorities and was ultimately approved to pursue further studies. Editors’ Picks What a New American Citizen Learned on Route 66 Simple Sandals Are Always a Good Investment Is ‘Reef Safe’ Sunscreen Really Better? This month, that visa was suddenly revoked.

The ongoing trade war between the U.S. and its neighboring allies has escalated further after President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he would be imposing a 25% tariff on auto imports. The act, which the President issued in an attempt to bolster domestic automobile production, adds to increasing tensions between the U.S. and Canada. The Administration has threatened Canada’s sovereignty by suggesting that Canada becomes the 51st state and referring to the former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a “governor.” Trump Announces 25% Auto Tariffs On All Cars Not Made In US President Donald Trump displays a signed Executive Order related to tariffs in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, March 26, 2025.Francis Chung—Getty Images The ongoing trade war between the U.S. and its neighboring allies has escalated further after President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he would be imposing a 25% tariff on auto imports. The act, which the President issued in an attempt to bolster domestic automobile production, adds to increasing tensions between the U.S. and Canada. The Administration has threatened Canada’s sovereignty by suggesting that Canada becomes the 51st state and referring to the former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a “governor.” Officials of the U.S.’ northern neighbor have continuously called on the President to pause tariffs between the two allied nations. “This is a very direct attack,” said Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Wednesday. “We will defend our workers. We will defend our companies. We will defend our country.” Autos are Canada’s second-largest export. Previously announced 25% steel tariffs also pose a risk to Canada, as it is one of the biggest steel import sources for the U.S., per the International Trade Administration. Trump, as part of his “America First” policy, has signaled that he wants to stop relying on other countries to produce local goods. “We don't need their lumber, we don’t need their energy. We have more than they do. We don’t need anything. We don’t need their cars. I’d much rather make the cars here,” Trump said earlier in March. “Now, there’ll be a little disruption, but it won’t be very long. But they need us. We really don’t need them.” The White House said on Wednesday that existing trade agreements between the U.S. and its neighbors have not “sufficiently mitigated the threat to national security posed by imports of automobiles and certain automobile parts. These new tariffs aim to ensure the U.S. can sustain its domestic industrial base and meet national security needs.” But U.S. dependency on Canadian exports is significant, standing at about 18%, according to a newly-published report by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, titled “Which American Cities Are the Most Export-Dependent on Canada?” That statistic is much smaller than Canada's export reliance on the U.S., which lies at 75%, but the Chamber’s research suggests that many U.S. cities stand to be affected by tariffs between the two countries. With Trump’s tariffs set to be implemented in April, here are the U.S. cities that would be most vulnerable to the impact of Canadian tariffs, per the Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s report. San Antonio San Antonio, Texas, topped the list as the city that is most export-dependent on Canada, and thus would be most impacted from reduced Canadian demand. The metro is home to the automotive, aerospace, and oil refining industries. Per the Office of the United States Trade Representative, in 2024, Texas exported $36.6 billion in goods to Canada, which came second only to Mexico.
Overall, in 2023, San Antonio-New Braunfels recorded $12.8 billion in goods exports. Detroit Despite the historic decline of the Rust Belt, once the heartland of the steel and manufacturing industry, Detroit, Mich.,—also known as “Motor City”—earned the second spot on the list. Detroit (and its suburbs) is home to the major three automakers: General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and Stellantis. The White House clarified in a Wednesday fact sheet that companies that import vehicles through the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) would remain tariff-free until Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick worked to build a process to “apply tariffs to their non-U.S. content.” Automakers are still seeking clarity on how they will be affected by tariffs. The city also has the Ambassador Bridge, which facilitates the transit of an estimated $323 million in goods across the Windsor, Canada-Detroit border on a day-to-day basis. Read More: What Are Tariffs and Why Is Trump In Favor of Them? Kansas City Kansas City, Mo., which also harbors a car assembly plant, exports nearly 40% of their product to Canada. In total, their exports to Canada amount to nearly $4 billion of goods, per the report. Estimates from the state as a whole amount to $6.3 billion in goods to Canada in 2024, according to the Office of the United States Trade Representative. Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas met with Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham in February for a meeting that centered on trade relations. “Canada is a key part of Kansas City’s success in trade and economic development. I was honored to break bread recently with Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham,” Lucas said in an Instagram post. “I look forward to visiting Winnipeg and supporting the strong relationship of our cities and countries.” Canada is Missouri’s largest market. As a state, Missouri imports goods such as transportation equipment and primary manufactures from Canada, per a Missouri Partnership fact sheet. There are nearly 100 Canadian companies in Missouri and 31 Missouri companies in Canada. Louisville Similar to the other metros, Louisville, Ky., is also involved in the automotive supply chain. The region exports nearly $4 billion in goods to Canada, according to the Canadian Commerce report. Per the Office of the United States Trade Representative, Kentucky exported $9.3 billion in goods to Canada in 2024, representing 20% of the state’s total goods exports. Nashville Nashville, Tenn., is the fifth metro on the list. Tennessee exported $7.8 billion in goods to Canada in 2024, according to the Office of the United States Trade Representative. Prior to the auto tariffs, Flair Airlines Ltd. announced it would be cancelling its summer flights to Nashville, according to the Financial Post. The Tennessee Department of Tourist Development cited Canadian reaction to political news. “We know how important the dollars are to spend, to keep talking to folks through the noise and, right now, it’s loud for Canada and we are seeing a lot of cancellations, but it’s one we think we can overcome because we think Tennessee’s got so many great assets and Canada is our No. 1 traveller market,” Mark Ezell, commissioner for the state’s tourism development office, is quoted as telling the Post.

The U.S. intelligence community published its 2025 annual threat assessment on March 25. Missing from the document was any mention of climate change—marking the first time in over a decade that the topic has not appeared on the list. "What I focused this annual threat assessment on, and the [Intelligence Committee] focused this threat assessment on, are the most extreme and critical direct threats to our national security," Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said in response to questioning on the removal during a Senate Intelligence Committee. Gabbard said she “didn’t recall” instructing the intelligence community to avoid mentioning climate change in the report. But the change comes amid the Trump Administration’s continued push for a deprioritization of climate change in the federal agenda. The U.S. government has considered climate change a global security threat for at least three decades. Academic reports at the Naval War College included environmental stressors and climate change in the 1980s, says Mark Nevitt, associate professor of law at Emory University. On the federal level, climate change was first acknowledged as a national security threat by President George W. Bush in August 1991, and the U.S. national security community first listed the issue as a threat in 2008. The issue has typically been included on the annual threat assessment list because of its destabilizing impact—both domestically and abroad. “The annual threat assessment is projecting forward about where the areas of concern and the areas of competition [are], and where the U.S. national security sector should be focusing its attention,” says Nevitt. “Because climate change is just destabilizing different parts of the world, through extreme weather, through droughts, through sea level rise…the intelligence community wants to be ready for future conflicts and future areas of competition.” Climate change is often referred to as a “threat multiplier” by the intelligence community, because it aggravates already existing problems, while also creating new ones. “It takes things that we were already worried about, like extremism or terrorism, and exacerbates the scale or nature of those threats,” says Scott Moore, practice professor of political science, with a focus on climate and security, at the University of Pennsylvania. “If you have these intensified climate change impacts, they place stress on things like food systems, and worsen already existing tensions within countries.” Climate migration, for example, is on the rise around the world—more than half of new internal displacements within countries registered in 2023 were caused by weather related disasters, according to the Migration Data Portal. “Mass migration leads to a lot of political and social tensions as well as border issues,” says Karen Seto, professor of geography and urbanization science at the Yale School of the Environment. “That … could affect national security, because it could destabilize an entire region.” One study from the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that extreme weather is contributing to migration into the United States through the southern border—with more migrants from agricultural regions in Mexico settling in the United States following extreme drought. Such displacement can have major impacts on people's lives and livelihoods, experts say—especially in already fragile regions. “If you have, for example, a really extreme and intensified drought in a country in which extremist ideologies are percolating, these climate change impacts may make it more likely that people are going to stop farming, or might migrate to cities where they may face difficult employment prospects, be socially dislocated and may be more vulnerable to extremism or engaging in some type of violence,” says Moore. On a domestic level, considering climate change helps the U.S. military ensure that infrastructure is built to withstand extreme weather events—and respond to national disasters both domestically and abroad. “You need the National Guard, the Coast Guard, the U.S. military, to basically help out their community when there's an extreme weather event,” says Nevitt. As extreme weather events intensify with climate change this could strain military resources and put more lives at risk if the military does not prepare to address the threat. Infrastructure within the U.S., like energy and internet grids, also need to be fortified. If regions were to lose power in the case of an extreme weather event, the networks could be vulnerable to attack. “Our energy grid is highly at risk, and we've seen wildfires happening across the country, and so these could again be threat multipliers," says Seto. “I think the national security risk is that we are not ready to respond to any threats from foreign agents that may take advantage of the weaknesses that we might have.” Showing that the climate crisis is a priority is also necessary to maintain the United States’s diplomatic strength—especially in regions that see climate change as a top concern. “Other countries, in particular countries that are very significant for the U.S. defense posture, like the Pacific Island countries, really care about climate change a lot. They want to hear what the United States is willing to do to help them deal with climate change,” says Moore. “And so when you have the instructions to essentially ignore climate change, or in an extreme version almost censor mention of climate change, that's going to have a harmful effect on diplomatic engagement with some pretty important countries.” And experts say that removing climate change from the list—and deprioritizing the issue writ large—is only going to leave the U.S. more vulnerable. “This is going to make the administration and national security sector less nimble, because they might not have the people, the plans, the policy, [and] capacity in place when disaster inevitably strikes,” warns Nevitt. “You can't just wish climate change away.”

Republican Rep. Byron Donalds had just strode into a waterfront yacht club in Naples, Florida, last month when his phone wouldn’t stop vibrating. As the host of a fundraiser for Rep. Andy Barr, he tried to ignore the relentless stream of calls and texts as he mingled with donors and noshed on hors d’oeuvres. But then he heard a special ring reserved for one person: Donald Trump. When Donalds slinked into a backroom to answer, the President told him the news. Trump had just endorsed him to be Florida’s next governor. This was a game-changer for Donalds. There was only one complication. He hadn’t announced he was running yet His political team moved quickly, filling out paperwork and booking him on Fox News a few nights later to formally declare his candidacy. “It's the biggest endorsement in politics,” he tells TIME, knowing he had to capitalize on the momentum. He also had to keep up with Trump. The President is only a few months into his second term but is not wasting any time shaping the future composition of the Republican Party. Sources familiar with Trump’s thinking say he’s strategically intervening in 2026 primaries early, with an eye toward bolstering young upstarts who will keep the GOP molded in his image when he exits the scene. Donalds, 46, isn’t alone. Last month, Trump also endorsed the biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, 39, to become Ohio’s next governor, making him the odds-on favorite to replace Gov. Mike DeWine. At the same time, some of Trump’s closest allies are laying the groundwork for other MAGA up-and-comers. Vice President J.D. Vance has encouraged the 44-year-old software executive Nate Morris to run for the U.S. Senate in Kentucky, sources familiar with the matter tell TIME. Since then, Morris has gotten a boost from Trump’s eldest son, Don, Jr., who hosted him on his podcast earlier this month. While Trump Jr. refrains from endorsing candidates before his father, his embrace has often been a prelude to GOP hopefuls securing Trump’s backing. In past cycles, he was highly influential in encouraging Trump to support young MAGA insurgents such as Sen. Jim Banks of Indiana, Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio, and Vance. For Trump and his inner circle, it’s a matter of establishing the kind of permanent imprint on his party that has eluded his predecessors. “President Trump is going to do what Obama and Bush failed to do, and that is cementing a lasting legacy through building up the next generation of leaders who share his vision for our country,” says Alex Bruesewitz, the CEO of X Strategies and a Trump adviser and family friend. Of course, Trump has long intervened in primaries. By building a social and political movement that gave him coercive power over the GOP, he’s been able to punish heretics and elevate loyalists committed to advancing his agenda and interests. The strategy hasn’t always worked. A handful of his picks lost critical races across the country in the 2022 midterms. But Trump’s grip over the Republican base is as strong as it's ever been. The upshot is that he’s now cultivating the class of Republicans he hopes will sustain MAGA as a political force in the post-Trump era. Donalds has been on Trump’s radar for years. After winning a U.S. House seat in 2020, he was among the lawmakers who voted against certifying Joe Biden’s election win in January 2021. Donalds then became one of Trump’s most vociferous defenders in Congress and endorsed him for President in April 2023, shortly after his first indictment. Over time, the two became close. On the campaign trail, Trump often invited Donalds to travel with him on his private plane, dubbed Trump Force One. They strategized over how to win young Black voters, a group Donalds targeted as a Trump campaign surrogate. (Trump doubled the share of votes he won with Black men under 45 compared to 2020.) In November, after the election, Donalds visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago to tell him he planned to run for governor and asked for his endorsement. Trump made no promises. “Obviously, he was busy with transition and inauguration,” Donalds tells me. But then, something made Trump speed up his decision: Ron DeSantis. The President still begrudges his former protégé for challenging him in the 2024 election. When he learned that the governor’s wife, Casey DeSantis, was preparing to run as his replacement, Trump chose a moment of maximal humiliation to undercut the duo, according to multiple Trump aides. He was planning on supporting Donalds anyway, but posted his endorsement of Donalds on Truth Social when DeSantis and his wife were flying to Washington D.C. for a Republican Governors Association meeting, where they would see Trump in a few hours. Trump has moved just as swiftly with other MAGA darlings like Ramaswamy, who often defended and praised Trump during a longshot presidential bid that raised his national profile. Last month, Trump endorsed Ramaswamy on the same night he launched his campaign for Ohio governor. It echoed an evening in January 2024 when Ramaswamy ended his presidential bid and endorsed Trump. It was around that time that they formed a bond. Together, Trump and Ramaswamy brainstormed future options for the millennial firebrand. “We had a lot of different possibilities that were floated,” Ramaswamy tells TIME. Initially, he was going to co-chair the Department of Government Efficiency with billionaire Elon Musk. But Ramaswamy left after Trump decided to fold the cost-cutting commission into the executive branch, replacing the United States Digital Service; he would have been legally prohibited from running for office while serving in the federal government. Early polls had Ramaswamy leading any of his potential competitors by far, with 61% of Republican respondents ranking him as their first choice, according to a Bowling Green State University survey. Trump’s stamp of approval further solidifies his glidepath toward clinching the GOP nomination. With Trump and Musk taking a chainsaw to the U.S. government, Ramaswamy argues that governors will be emboldened in the years to come. “It is the idea of devolving federal power to the states,” he says. “The center of gravity of changing the country starts now in Washington, D.C., but if you skate to where the puck is going to be in a couple of years, it's going to be the states that, from education to health care, are going to have to set policy and lead.” Trump’s allies are still setting their sights on Congress. Vance and Trump Jr. have spearheaded efforts to identify and promote young Trump-aligned national populists. Thus far, for 2026, they are mainly focused on Morris, a Louisville businessman and prolific Republican donor. When he was 23, Morris raised $50,000 for George W. Bush’s reelection campaign. He’s a friend and supporter of Sen. Rand Paul, a libertarian who has clashed with Trump on his tariffs. But he also counts Vance as a confidant and was a major donor to Trump’s 2024 campaign. Sources tell TIME he’s preparing to run for outgoing Senator Mitch McConnell’s seat, as Vance has urged him to do. Morris has made other powerful allies. He caught Trump Jr.’s attention after recently castigating McConnell, a former Senate Minority Leader and Trump World villain, for voting against the nominations of Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard. Shortly thereafter, Trump Jr. amplified Morris on social media and hosted him on his popular right-wing podcast. Morris’ moves come as Trump is looking for a candidate to replace McConnell. Trump has told his inner circle that he doesn’t want to support former Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who has already entered the race. Trump endorsed Cameron for governor in 2024, but Gov. Andy Beshear defeated him handily. “He lost by five points in a state Trump carried by 30,” one of the President’s aides tells TIME. “He knows he’s not the guy.” For Trump, that’s the other part of the equation—finding candidates he thinks can win. Part of his path back to power, after all, was engineering the ousting of GOP critics on Capitol Hill like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger and supplanting them with disciples. “You have to understand where the President's mind is and what he’s trying to accomplish,” Donalds says. “And you support that.” Trump’s lieutenants are also committed to the project. Donalds’ campaign includes several close Trump aides: pollster Tony Fabrizio, communications consultant Danielle Alvarez, and political operative Ryan Smith. On Friday, Donalds plans to officially launch his campaign in Bonita Springs, a seaside community in Trump’s home state, where he has taken a particular interest in leaving an enduring influence. “He’s very deliberate here about lasting legacy,” a source close to Trump says. “He uses the word ‘young’ a lot when talking about the moves he’s making.”

New revelations regarding the disclosure of sensitive military information in an unsecured messaging app by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth amplified calls for his resignation on Wednesday, as fallout over the scandal continued for a third day. "Hegseth is doing a great job, he had nothing to do with this,” Trump told reporters late Wednesday, hours after The Atlantic published more of the transcripts from a Signal group chat that included Hegseth, other top Trump officials, and journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, who was mistakenly invited to join. The messages revealed that Hegseth provided real-time details of a March 15 U.S. air assault on Yemen’s Houthi militant, including the launch times of F-18 fighter jets, MQ-9 Reaper drones, and Tomahawk missiles—information national security experts say is inherently classified. In one message to the group, according to The Atlantic’s transcript, Hegseth revealed the exact time “THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP.” “Everyone on that text chain should have been fired, but certainly Pete Hegseth needs to resign,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told TIME in an interview on Wednesday in response to the revelation that Hegseth shared details of a military operation on Signal. The other Administration officials on the chat included Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, who convened the group chat and mistakenly added Goldberg to it. After Hegseth, Waltz’s role in the scandal has drawn the most outrage, and he said late Tuesday that he takes full responsibility for the “embarrassing” leak. Trump defended his embattled Defense Secretary, who was narrowly confirmed to lead the Pentagon two months earlier despite having less experience in the military than his predecessors and facing allegations of heavy drinking. “Hegseth, how do you bring Hegseth into it?” Trump said to reporters Wednesday. “He had nothing to do. Look, look, it's all a witch hunt.” Sen. Jon Ossoff, Democrat of Georgia and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told TIME on Wednesday that “no military officer would survive this” and called the Administration’s handling of the matter “an egregious breach of operational security.” “Any military officer who inadvertently disclosed or recklessly handled such sensitive information would lose their security clearance and likely face court-martial,” he says. “Secretary Hegseth should resign by noon today.” Asked whether Waltz should also resign, Ossoff responded, “He’s also clearly incompetent and should be gone.” Even some Republicans are now pushing for a review. Sen. Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi and chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, announced on Wednesday he would request an inspector general investigation into the use of Signal for discussing military operations. Signal is often recommended for use by privacy advocates because of its encrypted messaging, but it is generally not considered secure enough for national security issues. Wicker, one of the few Republicans who has been skeptical of Hegseth’s leadership, questioned the Administration’s refusal to acknowledge the breach’s severity. “The information as published recently appears to me to be of such a sensitive nature that, based on my knowledge, I would have wanted it classified,” he told reporters. The Trump Administration has insisted that the messages did not contain classified information. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt would not explain the basis for the Administration’s conclusion, instead claiming the controversy was overblown and accusing The Atlantic of spreading misinformation. “Do you trust the Secretary of Defense who was nominated for this role, voted by the United States Senate into this role, who has served in combat, honorably served our nation in uniform,” she said Wednesday, “or do you trust Jeffrey Goldberg, who is a registered Democrat and an anti-Trump sensationalist reporter?” However, leading Democrats have fiercely rejected the Administration’s dismissals. “It’s baloney. I mean, what world do these people live in?” Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, tells TIME of the Administration’s claims that the disclosed information was not classified. “When you describe the time, place, type of armaments used—do they think the American public’s stupid?” Warner argued that the leak not only endangered American troops but also undermined trust with key allies. “‘America First’ shouldn’t be America alone, and that’s where we’re headed.” Asked late Wednesday if he still believes the messages were not classified, Trump said: “You’ll have to ask the people involved...I really don’t know.” Duckworth, herself a combat veteran, told TIME that the information shared in the chat was, by definition, classified. “Sequencing of the attack and makeup of what platforms we’re using, that is automatically classified information,” she said. “This information was uploaded into an unclassified environment before those pilots were over the target area. If that Signal chain had been hacked, those pilots would have gotten killed.” In addition to the immediate risk to U.S. troops, Duckworth also raised concerns about long-term diplomatic fallout. “I’m absolutely sure our allies are thinking twice about sharing classified information with us,” she told TIME. “We’ve shown that our Secretary of Defense, Director of National Intelligence, NSA are not capable of maintaining security over classified information.” At a heated House Intelligence Committee hearing on Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe defended their participation in the chat, arguing that similar information had been shared with U.S. allies. But their explanations failed to sway Democrats, who accused the Administration of failing to safeguard critical military plans. Rep. Jason Crow noted that the Houthis had successfully shot down drones used in the attack and blamed the Administration for creating a security vulnerability. “It is a leadership failure, and that’s why Secretary Hegseth, who undoubtedly transmitted classified, sensitive, operational information via this chain, must resign immediately,” Crow said. Republican leadership, however, remained noticeably muted. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the former longtime Senate Majority Leader who broke with his party in voting against Hegseth’s confirmation, declined to comment when asked by TIME if he believed Hegseth should remain in office. Sen. Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas and chair of the Senate Intelligence panel, also refused to comment when asked if Hegseth and Waltz should be fired. Democrats argue that the Signal scandal follows a troubling pattern of careless handling of national security information under President Trump. From his early days in office, Trump repeatedly showed little regard for maintaining the nation’s secrets, to the point that it shifted relationships between the U.S. intel community and those of our strongest allies. In 2017, he shared classified Israeli-passed intelligence with Russia’s foreign minister in a meeting at the White House. “We're seeing a level of incompetence,” Warner told TIME. “If this was a one off…but this is a pattern.” Asked about the historical implications of the unfolding scandal, Sen. Ed Markey, a Democrat of Massachusetts, told TIME: “It’s such a serious breach of national security, it’s hard to imagine someone surviving. But we’re in the Trump era, and anything goes.” Despite the mounting pressure, the White House has continued to stand by Hegseth and Waltz. Leavitt, the press secretary, confirmed on Wednesday that the Administration had launched an internal probe into how Goldberg was added to the Signal chat, enlisting the help of Elon Musk and his security team. However, she declined to say whether any officials would be fired. “What I can say definitively is what I just spoke to the president about, and he continues to have confidence in his national security team.” For many Democrats in Congress, the failure to hold Trump’s national security team accountable signals a broader disregard for truth and accountability. “Their first recourse is always to lie, to cover up, to add a bigger lie on top of a big lie,” Sen. Adam Schiff of California told TIME on Tuesday night. “Whether they can get away with it depends on the American people, and whether they demand more from their representatives in this firehouse of falsehood,” Schiff adds.