A Lame-Duck Trump Can Still Break the Country

The Epstein files, failed raids, and a gutted Department of Education prove it.

A lot shifted this week. Trump looked weaker than he has in months, his coalition fracturing, his grip on Congress slipping, and his effort to hide the Epstein files finally collapsing. For the first time, a sense of lame-duck energy is beginning to set in.

But that perception can be dangerously misleading. Because even as Trump stumbles politically, his agenda continues to advance.

These three stories from the last week help us understand the moment we’re living through: A weakened Trump is not a harmless Trump. His agenda is still alive, and the damage is still very real.

Epstein Files

Politics moves fast. Yesterday, the House voted 427–1 to force the release of the Epstein files—potentially ending months of government inaction that have shielded a child-sex trafficker and his powerful associates.

This is a stunning reversal.

For months, Trump and House Republicans stalled the release of the Epstein files to protect Donald Trump’s long-documented ties to Jeffrey Epstein. They kept the House out of session, refused to seat an elected Democrat, dismissed the issue as a “Democratic hoax,” and ignored the repeated, public pleas from Epstein’s survivors. On the eve of the vote, Speaker Mike Johnson falsely claimed the bill would harm victims.

But ultimately, the political pressure became too great. Trump caved. And almost every House Republican followed. Both the House and Senate passed the measure with veto-proof majorities, meaning Trump cannot quietly kill it.

But don’t get too excited. They may still try to carve out an escape hatch.

Trump’s own Truth Social post hinted at that wiggle room, saying the House Oversight Committee can have only “whatever they are legally entitled to.” And the actual text of the Epstein File Transparency Act requires the release of “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials.”

That legal language matters because Trump and his attorney general control what the administration classifies or withholds.

The release of these files is not the end. It’s the beginning of a fight over what the public actually gets to see.

Trump’s Deportations Are Failing

In the last few days, Greg Bovino and his rogue Border Patrol unit have withdrawn from Chicago. For weeks, his militarized raids traumatized communities, tore families apart, and violated basic constitutional protections.

But make no mistake, they are retreating from Chicago in defeat, not victory.

The pattern is the same wherever Bovino goes. In Los Angeles, Portland, and Chicago, his operations ended with court orders finding his tactics unlawful, excessive, or unnecessary. Residents resisted. Local governments fought back. Community organizers documented abuses. And once again, facing public pressure and legal scrutiny, Bovino pulled out, this time moving on to Charlotte, where the same cycle will play out.

Chicago, like every city before it, exposed how weak Trump’s immigration strategy really is.

Here’s the data:

• Operation Midway Blitz (Chicago): Approximately 3,300 arrests—a shockingly small number for a weeks-long, resource-intensive operation involving hundreds of federal agents.

• Violent-criminal arrests: Roughly 2%.

• Non-criminal arrests: The overwhelming majority.

And this failure isn’t isolated to Chicago.

As of June 14th, the most complete national data available:

• 204,297 people detained by ICE and CBP

• 65% had no criminal record

• Only 2.5% had violent convictions

• Cost of detaining people with no criminal convictions: $892 million.¹

Yes, you read that right: Nearly $1 billion spent in the first six months of 2025 detaining people who have committed no crimes.

And the trend is getting worse. In September, 71% of new arrests were people with no criminal convictions.

Trump justifies these raids by claiming he’s targeting the “worst of the worst” and making cities safer. The evidence shows the opposite.

They are not arresting violent criminals.
They are wasting staggering amounts of taxpayer money.
They are diverting resources from fighting actual crime.
And they are terrorizing communities for political theater.

Department of Education

In recent days, the Trump administration has moved ahead with Project 2025 by dismantling the Department of Education, breaking apart responsibilities that have existed for decades, and scattering them across agencies that lack the staff, mandate, or expertise to administer them.

This is a familiar strategy: Break an agency, claim it doesn’t work, then defund or eliminate it.

They did it to USAID. They did it to the Office of Pandemic Preparedness. And now they’re doing it to the department responsible for protecting educational equity and opportunity.

Here’s what’s already happening:

• Title I funding for low-income students—$17.8 billion—is no longer directly managed by the Department of Education.

• Civil rights complaints will be routed through HHS and Interior, which have no meaningful civil-rights enforcement infrastructure.

• Student loan oversight and Pell Grant protections are being moved to the Department of Labor.

• The federal education research budget has been cut by 27%.

Trump claims this is about reducing “federal overreach.” It’s not.

It’s about fulfilling the goals of Project 2025:
• dismantling public education,
• stripping civil-rights protections,
• steering public money toward private and religious schools,
• and treating education as a private commodity rather than a public responsibility.

This is not reform. It is sabotage.

1. Conservatively, it costs about $152/per person per day to detain them. The average person spends about 44 days in detention. 133,687 people with no criminal conviction were detained by ICE and CBP through June of this year. 133,687 x 44 days x $153/day = $892,242,000; noted this is a very conservative estimation. This cost includes only the facility cost; it does not include the cost of arresting and processing.