Executive Order 14290, “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media,” issued in May 2025, directed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which oversees the federal financing of public media, to “cease Federal funding for NPR [National Public Radio] and PBS [Public Broadcasting Service]” on the ground that “neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.” NPR offers a broad range of high-quality news and cultural programming to hundreds of local public radio stations, while PBS provides its member stations with programming in cultural, educational, and scientific areas, in children’s fare, and in news and public affairs (the programs themselves are produced by member stations, independent producers, and other program producers worldwide). Reflecting a longstanding conservative view of public media as liberally biased, Trump’s order, in the absence of a successful challenge, would effectively terminate public broadcasting in the United States.
Executive Order 14297, “Delivering Most-Favored-Nation Prescription Drug Pricing to American Patients,” issued in May 2025, was aimed at reducing prescription drug prices in the United States to the same prices paid in developed countries that are entitled to preferential treatment under international trade agreements that include the United States. Noting that “drug manufacturers deeply discount their products to access foreign markets, and subsidize that decrease through enormously high prices in the United States,” the order required the secretary of health and human services to inform U.S. drug manufacturers of the lower prices they would be expected to charge. If “significant progress towards most-favored-nation pricing” is not achieved, then the secretary would work with the commissioner of food and drugs to permit the import of prescription drugs “on a case-by-case basis from developed nations” with lower drug prices. In addition, the attorney general of the United States and the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) would “undertake enforcement action against any anti-competitive practices” of U.S. drug manufacturers, including those in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890).
Executive Order 14333, “Declaring a Crime Emergency in the District of Columbia,” issued in August 2025, placed the police department of Washington, D.C. (the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia) under direct federal control on the basis of Trump’s claims that crime in the city is “out of control” and that the police department had failed to maintain “public order and safety.” The order required that the police department to serve the federal government by “maintaining law and order” and “protecting Federal buildings, national monuments, and other Federal property” to ensure “the orderly functioning of the Federal Government.” The order also required the city’s mayor to “provide such services of the Metropolitan Police force as the [U.S.] Attorney General may deem necessary and appropriate.”
Executive Order 14341, “Prosecuting Burning of the American Flag,” issued in August 2025, was aimed at expanding the criminal and civil prosecution of flag burning to the fullest extent possible, in order “to restore respect and sanctity to the American Flag.” While acknowledging the Supreme Court’s ruling in Texas v. Johnson (1989), which held that the burning of the U.S. flag in relevant circumstances is a protected form of speech under the First Amendment, the order acted to prevent the burning (or other “desecration”) of U.S. flags resulting in the violation of “content-neutral” laws, including those against violence, hate crimes, property damage, and discrimination. The order also required that relevant authorities “deny, prohibit, terminate, or revoke visas, residence permits, naturalization proceedings, and other immigration benefits” for foreign nationals who commit such crimes.
Executive Order 14342, “Taking Steps to End Cashless Bail to Protect Americans,” issued in August 2025, was aimed at penalizing state and local governments for releasing without bail individuals who have been charged with crimes that “pose a threat to Americans’ safety and well-being”—including “offenses involving violent, sexual, or indecent acts, or burglary, looting, or vandalism.” Under the order, the U.S. attorney general will identify jurisdictions that do not require or have substantially eliminated bail in connection with such crimes, and the heads of executive departments and agencies will identify corresponding “Federal funds…that may be suspended or terminated” as a means of preventing or at least discouraging cashless bail.
Executive Order 14347, “Restoring the United States Department of War,” issued in September 2025, authorized the official use of “Department of War” and “Secretary of War” as secondary names for the Department of Defense and the secretary of defense, respectively. While effectively reinstating the original names of the department and its secretary—established in a bill signed by Pres. George Washington in 1789—the order also called upon the current secretary of war to submit “a recommendation on the actions required to permanently change” the primary names of the department and its secretary under legislation passed by Congress. Such a change is justified, according to the order, because the original names, more than the current ones, ensure “peace through strength” by demonstrating “our ability and willingness to fight and win wars on behalf of our Nation at a moment’s notice, not just to defend.”
Executive Order 14386, “Strengthening United States National Defense With America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Power Generation Fleet,” issued in February 2026, declared that the country’s electricity production must remain “resilient and reliable” in order to preserve “the operational readiness of our Armed Forces and the safety of the American people.” Noting that the “vast coal resources” of the United States have long been a dependable source of energy, the order insisted that the Department of War should “prioritize the preservation and strategic utilization of coal-based energy assets.” In keeping with that directive, the secretary of war and the secretary of energy should pursue “long-term Power Purchase Agreements…with coal-fired energy production facilities.”
Executive Order 14399, “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections,” effectively required persons registering to vote in federal elections to present documentary proof of their U.S. citizenship, as in passports; Social Security numbers; and so-called REAL IDs, or state-issued driver’s licenses or identification cards belonging to persons who have proven their U.S. citizenship to state motor vehicle departments. The order also called upon the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to send to each state, at least 60 days before a federal election, a list of persons who are or will be qualified to vote. The order specified that the list “shall be derived from Federal citizenship and naturalization records,” including data compiled by the Social Security Administration (SSA), the DHS’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlement (SAVE) program, and “other relevant Federal databases.” On that basis the government expanded accessible SAVE data to include various records of U.S.-born citizens, including individual Social Security numbers. Other elements of the order required the United States Postal Service (USPS) to develop a “rule” that would (1) establish a specific design for ballot envelopes, (2) allow states to provide the USPS with a list of people who will receive mail-in ballots, (3) send to each state a list of individuals who are “enrolled” with the USPS for mail-in or absentee ballots, and (4) disallow the postal delivery of mail-in ballots from voters who are not on the USPS enrollment list for the relevant state.
Trump’s order was soon criticized on a number of grounds, including its apparent consequence that married persons who adopt the last names of their partners would not be able to prove their citizenship with birth certificates, which list only their original last names, and that other persons might have difficulty proving their citizenship simply because they lack ready access to required documents. Another legal challenge also cited the expansion of accessible SAVE data as a violation of the Social Security Act, which generally prohibits the disclosure of Social Security numbers, and federal privacy laws. Many Trump opponents also argued that the order was unconstitutional given that states are empowered to set the “Times, Places and Manner” of elections under Article 4, Section I of the U.S. Constitution.
In a shadow docket ruling issued on August 24, 2026, the Supreme Court stayed one of two injunctions issued by the district court of Massachusetts that had prohibited enforcement of Trump’s order prior to the midterm elections in November. In its shadow docket decision, the Supreme Court found that the suit filed in the district court by 23 states (and the District of Columbia) was “not justiciable,” because the challenged provisions of Trump’s order were either harmless to the states or had not yet harmed them, given that the USPS had not yet developed a final rule for performing its required actions. The district court then lifted both of its injunctions. Interestingly, the USPS issued its final rule three days before the Supreme Court issued its shadow docket ruling. On that basis the district court issued a two-week stay of relevant provisions of Trump’s order on the ground that the final rule cited in the Supreme Court’s decision now exists and the rule’s enforcement would greatly damage the upcoming midterm elections. One week later, Trump asked the Supreme Court to freeze the district court’s stay; on the following day, the district court issued an injunction indefinitely blocking enforcement of Trump’s order; and two days later Trump asked the Court to block the district court’s latest order. On September 14, 2026, the Court denied Trump’s request in its own unsigned order, noting that “the Government is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to the District Court’s preliminary injunction.” And in a shadow docket ruling on September 25, 2026, the Court stayed a summary judgment by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that had prevented the government from using the expanded SAVE data, holding that doing so would violate the Social Security Act and federal privacy laws.
Executive Order 14407, “Realigning United States Core Childhood Vaccine Recommendations With Best Practices From Peer, Developed Countries,” issued in June 2026, directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to align its recommended number and schedule of childhood and adolescent vaccines with a report issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in early January. That report cited the practices of “peer, developed nations” and “the scientific evidence underlying those practices” to conclude that the number of vaccines and vaccine doses commonly administered to most American children should be reduced and the schedule of their administration altered. The CDC then issued its own revised recommendations in keeping with the HHS report, including reducing the number of commonly administered vaccines from 17 to 11. Trump’s order also required that the vaccine policies of the CDC and associated departments should accommodate the “religious liberty” of parents and their legal authority over children.
At the end of its 2025–26 term, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Trump’s Executive Order 14160, “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” which prohibited the federal government from recognizing as an American citizen any person born in the United States whose biological parents are not themselves American citizens or legally permanent residents, was in violation of both citizenship clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. About five weeks later, early in August, Trump signed two new executive orders in a second attempt to restrict birthright citizenship. One order, “Continuing to Protect the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” denied birthright citizenship to children born to foreign adults working in the United States for foreign governments or officially regarded as terrorists or “alien enemies.” The other order, “Ending Birth Tourism,” prevented entry into the United States of foreign women attempting to give birth on American soil; the order also denied U.S. citizenship to children born in the United States whose foreign mothers had entered the country for just that purpose. In early September 2026, the district court of Maryland issued a preliminary injunction of Trump’s order “Continuing to Protect the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship” on the ground that it is inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s earlier rejection of Trump’s original birthright citizenship order and therefore likely to be found unconstitutional.
Trump’s new citizenship orders were soon followed by another executive order concerning childhood vaccines, this one “reaffirm[ing] that it is the policy of the United States that the core childhood vaccine recommendations should be aligned with scientific evidence and best practices from peer, developed countries.” While restating his earlier requirement that the federally recommended number of commonly administered vaccines should be reduced (from 17 to 11), Trump also required federal agencies to advance his own judgment that the commonly combined vaccines for measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) should no longer be administered in a single shot but in “three separate single-disease shots.” Indeed, “all childhood immunizations should be administered at separate medical visits.”
Executive Order 14434, “Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence,” issued in September 2026, required all executive departments and agencies to use the terms “Super Intelligence” and “SI” instead of “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI.” The order specified that the new terms must appear in “official correspondence, public communications, websites, reports, policy documents, and other non-statutory documents within the executive branch.” In justification of the renaming, the order noted that American companies and institutions have developed new AI technologies that “amplify human ingenuity and unlock new forms of creativity,” enabling previously impossible achievements in “science, medicine, and nearly every other domain of human endeavor.”