President Donald Trump’s “iron-fisted grip” on the Republican party he has remade in his own image may be slipping “in ways unseen since the immediate aftermath” of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, said Politico. The “extraordinary rebukes and headwinds” facing Trump now suggest the GOP is beginning to “reckon with a post-Trump future.” The recent “fracas” between Trump and arch-MAGA Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) merits “close attention” for showing how a top-tier ally of the president can “vehemently disagree with the president and apparently emerge unscathed,” said The Washington Post. If she succeeds, it’s a “road sign saying, ‘Lame Duck-ville, next three exits.’”

Although Trump has “weathered controversies that would have sunk many politicians,” the ongoing Jeffrey Epstein scandal has “proven to be a persistent liability,” said Reuters. But while the Epstein saga is perhaps the most visible of the president’s recent troubles, it’s far from alone. It should “unnerve” the GOP that Trump’s second-term agenda is “already firmly in place” with tariffs, mass immigration actions, and the reshaping of entire federal departments underway, yet the “public is unimpressed,” said Washington Monthly. Republicans are now “openly criticizing” Trump for his comments on foreign work visas and stance on Chinese students at American schools, said the National Review. 

With a year to go before the 2026 midterms, plenty can happen to change the GOP’s fortunes. But after this month’s special election wins for Democrats, said Politico, signs suggest that Trump “can’t defy political gravity forever.”

The White House is accelerating its plans to shutter the Department of Education entirely this week, “handing off” some of its “biggest grant programs” to other federal agencies in a “major step forward for the administration’s dismantling of the department,” said The Associated Press. As part of the hand-off, the department’s elementary and secondary education offices, as well as its post-secondary offices, will relocate to the Department of Labor, while other programs are transferred to the Departments of the Interior and Health and Human Services. 

It’s an “expansive and unprecedented” move that will “not yet” place special education services under HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s department, said Politico. There has been “considerable speculation” over the fate of special education, said The Washington Post. 

The accelerated deconstruction of the Department of Education comes months after Trump signed an executive order to that effect, after which he asked Secretary Linda McMahon to “work with Congress to do so,” said the Post. Lawmakers have “not acted or seriously considered Trump’s request.” 

Critics of the White House plan argue that, as a creation of Congress, the White House “cannot legally move” Education Department programs “without Congress’ approval,” said NPR. It’s possible that “retaining a modicum of department staff,” spread across multiple agencies, will “convince the courts the administration is following federal law.” Critics also argue that the move “fractures and weakens oversight” of tax dollars, said Amy Laitinen, the senior director of the higher education program at liberal think tank New America, to Inside Higher Ed. “It’s duplicative, and it’s wasteful.”

The MAGA firebrand made a name for herself in Congress as one of Trump’s most unapologetic supporters. One year into Trump’s second term, a shift is afoot.