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Donald Trump and his closest allies are preparing a radical reshaping of American government if he regains the White House. Here are some of his plans for cracking down on immigration, directing the Justice Department to prosecute his adversaries, increasing presidential power, upending Americas economic policies, retreating militarily from Europe and unilaterally deploying troops to Democratic-run cities.

Mr. Trump is planning a massive expansion of his first-term crackdown on immigration if he returns to power in 2025. Among other things, he would:

Mr. Trumps top immigration adviser, Stephen Miller, said that a second Trump administration would seek a tenfold increase in the volume of deportations to more than a million per year.

He plans to reassign federal agents and the National Guard to immigration control. He would also enable the use of federal troops to apprehend migrants.

The Trump team plans to use military funds to build vast holding facilities to detain immigrants while their deportation cases progress.

He plans to revive safe third country agreements with Central American countries and expand them to Africa and elsewhere. The aim is to send people seeking asylum to other countries.

He plans to suspend the nations refugee program and once again bar visitors from mostly Muslim countries, reinstating a version of the travel ban that President Biden revoked in 2021.

His administration would declare that children born to undocumented parents were not entitled to citizenship and would cease issuing documents like Social Security cards and passports to them.

Mr. Trump has declared that he would use the powers of the presidency to seek vengeance on his perceived foes. His allies have developed a legal rationale to erase the Justice Departments independence from the president. Mr. Trump has suggested that he would:

As president, Mr. Trump pressed the Justice Department to investigate his foes. If re-elected, he has vowed to appoint a special prosecutor to go after Mr. Biden and his family.

He has cited the precedent of his own indictments to declare that if he became president again and someone challenged him politically, he could say, Go down and indict them.

Kash Patel, a Trump confidant, has threatened to target journalists for prosecution if Mr. Trump returns to power. The campaign later distanced Mr. Trump from the remarks.

Mr. Trump and his associates have a broad goal to alter the balance of power by increasing the presidents authority over every part of the federal government that currently operates independently of the White House. Mr. Trump has said that he will:

Congress has set up various regulatory agencies to operate independently from the White House. Mr. Trump has vowed to bring them under presidential control, setting up a potential court fight.

He has vowed to return to a system under which the president has the power to refuse to spend money that Congress has appropriated for programs the president doesnt like.

During Mr. Trumps presidency, he issued an executive order making it easier to fire career officials and replace them with loyalists. Mr. Biden rescinded it, but Mr. Trump has said that he would reissue it in a second term.

Mr. Trump has disparaged the career work force at agencies involved in national security and foreign policy as an evil deep state he intends to destroy.

Politically appointed lawyers in the first Trump administration sometimes raised objections to White House proposals. Several of his closest advisers are now vetting lawyers seen as more likely to embrace aggressive legal theories about the scope of his power.

At the risk of disrupting the economy in hopes of transforming it, Mr. Trump plans to impose new tariffs on most goods manufactured abroad. Economists say his broader agenda including on trade, deportations and taxes could cause prices to rise. He has said that he will:

Mr. Trump has said that he plans to impose a tariff on most goods made overseas, floating a figure of 10 percent for a new import tax. On top of raising prices for consumers, such a policy would risk a global trade war that hurts American exporters.

He has said that he will phase out all Chinese imports of electronics and other essential goods, and impose new rules to stop U.S. companies from making investments in China. The two countries are the largest economies in the world and exchange hundreds of billions of dollars of goods each year.

He has vowed to revive his deregulatory agenda and go further in curbing the so-called administrative state agencies that issue rules for corporations such as limits aimed at keeping the air and water clean and ensuring that food, drugs, cars and consumer products safe, but that can cut into business profits.

Mr. Trump has said he would extend the tax cuts from his 2017 tax law that are set to expire, including for all levels of personal income and for large estates. He also privately told business leaders he wants to further lower the corporate tax rate.

Mr. Trump has long made clear that he sees NATO, the countrys most important military alliance, not as a force multiplier with allies but as a drain on American resources by freeloaders. He has said he will:

While in office, he threatened to withdraw from NATO. On his campaign website, he says he plans to fundamentally re-evaluate NATOs purpose, fueling anxiety that he could gut or end the alliance.

He has claimed that he would end the war in Ukraine in a day. He has not said how, but he has suggested that he would have made a deal to prevent the war by letting Russia simply take Ukrainian lands.

Mr. Trump has been more clear about his plans for using U.S. military force closer to home. He has said that he would:

He has released a plan to fight Mexican drug cartels with military force. It would violate international law if the United States used armed forces on Mexicos soil without its consent.

While its generally illegal to use the military for domestic law enforcement, the Insurrection Act creates an exception. The Trump team would invoke it to use soldiers as immigration agents.

He came close to unleashing the active-duty military on racial justice protests that sometimes descended into riots in 2020 and remains attracted to the idea. Next time, he has said, he will unilaterally send federal forces to bring order to Democratic-run cities.

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If Trump Wins - The New York Times

People arrive before Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at the "People's Convention" of Turning Point Action Saturday in Detroit. Carlos Osorio/AP hide caption

Sporting a "Pretty Girls Vote Republican" baseball cap and several buttons, including one reading "Gun Rights are Women's Rights," Lauren Kerby was surprised to be asked who she plans to vote for in the fall.

"Obviously Trump," the 21-year-old from Berkeley, Mich., said with a laugh. "I came here for a reason."

Here is the 'Peoples Convention,' run by Turning Point Action, the advocacy wing of Turning Point USA, one of the largest national organizations focused on engaging students on conservative issues.

Turning Point - which rose out of concerns about free speech on college campuses, has grown into an unapologetically pro-Trump machine, focused on organizing for the former president ahead of the 2024 election.

It hosts events like these, attracting voters like Kerby and hundreds of others like her who want to party, young conservative style.

And this is certainly a Trump show. At the Huntington Place Convention Center in downtown Detroit, a bejeweled presidential seal with Trumps face in the center rests on the hood of a gold-painted Mercedes-Benz. At a nearby booth among dozens, vendors are selling "America First" cowboy hats and shirts reading, "Voting Convicted Felon, 2024."

The festivities this year come as Turning Point Action works to significantly expand its organizing presence in key swing states ahead of the general election, including Michigan, home to this years conference.

Just five months out, enthusiasm for Trump is high among younger attendees. NPR spoke with more than a dozen voters under 30 who remain committed to Trump, motivated to vote for him largely because of his isolationist ideas and focus on the economy and immigration.

Supporters cheer as Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at the People's Convention of Turning Point Action Saturday, June 15, 2024 in Detroit. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio) Carlos Osorio/AP hide caption

Their unwavering support stands in contrast to the sentiment of many younger Democratic voters, who remain unsure or unenthused about backing President Biden again.

Trump took the stage Saturday night as the event headliner. He ticked through his proposed second-term agenda and criticized Bidens record, making little mention of the youth-focused nature of the event, outside of publicly thanking Turning Point founder and longtime supporter, Charlie Kirk, who is a millennial.

[Kirks] got his army of young people, Trump said to a crowd of over 8,000, according to Kirk. Though Turning Point staff told NPR that around 3,000 of the attendees were students.

These are young patriots. They dont want to see what's been happening in our country," Trump added.

The former presidents remarks came after two days of speeches from conservative firebrands and high-profile Trump allies, including Republican National Committee co-chair and Trumps daughter-in-law Lara Trump, former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)

This years conference also comes just over two weeks after a New York jury found Trump guilty of criminal charges, a decision that could negatively impact his chances with younger voters. The latest Harvard youth poll, published in March, found a potential guilty verdict increased Bidens lead by 10 percentage points among young Americans overall.

Much like their unwavering support in the election, though, voters at the event are unphased by his conviction. His mugshot is displayed on the posters and t-shirts of attendees.

To 20-year-old activist James Hart of Tallahassee, Fla., the verdict has little effect.

I dont really think, at this point, anyones feelings changed. I think everyone knows who theyre going to vote for. We know Trump. Trust me we know Joe Biden, said Hart. We know their policy. We know how they're going to act. And I trust Trump.

I think most young people are going after Trump-like candidates. We want the fire. We want the passion. We're tired of the same old, same old. We want bold policy that actually is going to lead with results.

James Hart, Florida Voter

June 15, 2024

For Kerby from Berkeley, Mich., supporting Trump partially stems from his push for isolationism, including limiting U.S. aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia.

Hes focused on whats happening here, she said, pointing instead to Trumps focus on reducing illegal immigration.

Not saying that other places don't matter, but we should matter first, Kerbys friend, Elaina Luca, 21, added. When you're in a family, you make sure that your family is okay first.

Luca is also backing Trump. As a mom with two young kids, shes most concerned about rising prices.

When I drive around and see a nice house, I like to look up how much it's sold for, she explained. In today's economy, it's like, Oh, wow, how did these people even afford that? And it's like, Oh no, they bought it in 2012 for like $150,000 and now it's worth like $1 million.

How am I supposed to get a house to raise my children to live in? she wondered aloud, I don't want to pay for a house for the rest of my life.

Former President Donald Trump walks on to the stage to give the keynote address at Turning Point Action's "The People's Convention" on Saturday in Detroit, Michigan. Bill Pugliano/Getty Images hide caption

While Turning Points non-profit side has held student conferences for nearly a decade, also sprinkled with appearances from Republican politicians and conservative media figures, this conference marks just the second for Turning Point Action.

The activist network has morphed into a more pronounced political force, planning to ramp up its organizing ground game ahead of the election.

It's night and day, said Turning Point Action spokesman Andrew Kolvet. Any activities we did, in 2022 for example, in the midterms, was like the Stone Age compared to the level of sophistication and just the resources that weve poured into this project to develop it.

Kolvet is talking about the groups Chase the Vote initiative, a get-out-to-vote campaign focused on reaching low-propensity voters in swing states that launched earlier this spring. Trump recently endorsed the program during a separate Turning Point event in Arizona, another pivotal state in 2024.

Turning Point hopes to raise $100 million to build up on the ground organizing staff and plans to work with the Trump campaign on canvassing a notable change from past election cycles following new guidance from the Federal Election Commission.

Despite the roots of Turning Point, the program is not solely focused on young voters, though Kolvet said that will always be tied to Turning Points work.

Despite enthusiasm for Trump at Turning Point, Republicans face a steep challenge to bringing in more young voters. Voters under 30 have traditionally voted for Democrats, and in 2020, Biden won the age group by a 24-point margin.

Plus young voters tend to be aligned with Democrats on their key issues notably on abortion access, addressing climate and curbing gun violence. And despite struggling in polling, Biden still maintains a lead with young voters overall in multiple youth polls.

But among some young conservatives, albeit a proportionally smaller group, Trumps style of Republican politics once fringe and now mainstream is overwhelmingly what they want for their political future.

An attendee wears a "Team Trump" cowboy hat as people watch speakers during Turning Point's "Peoples Convention" on Saturday in Detroit. Jeff Kowalsky/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

The pro-Trump, MAGA element definitely appeals more towards young conservatives and young Americans in general, said 19-year-old Ohio student, Gabe Guidarini, a member of the College Republicans of America. It actually addresses the problems that they face.

He argued young people have trouble connecting to old school Republican rhetoric focused on cutting taxes and government spending, because they are not able to progress financially. And given the time period Gen Z has grown up during, Trumps deviation from political norms is appealing, he explained.

James Hart agrees. Though the 20-year-old now lives in Tallahassee, he grew up in Detroit. I was raised Democrat, he said.

That is, until 2016, when his family flipped for Trump.

His personality is what got my family to say. Hey, you know, maybe the Democrats aren't the greatest, he said. Honesty is the best policy. And up here in the Midwest, we're honest. We say it like it is. And Trump did that.

Now, as Hart gets ready to vote for the first time, his mind is made up.

I think most young people are going after Trump-like candidates, he said. We want the fire. We want the passion. We're tired of the same old, same old. We want bold policy that actually is going to lead with results.

Read more:
Young conservatives think enthusiasm is on their side in 2024 election - NPR

In the center of the country, theres a place thats home to what is likely the worlds only President Donald J. Trump Highway. But dont go looking for Trump flags there, because youll have a hard time finding any.

Between now and November, the future of our nation will probably be determined by a thin sliver of undecided voters. But this is a big country, where there is considerable nuance to how voters choose which candidates to support. As a historian who believes that this summer will be a pivotal one in the future of American life, Im interested in how communities that are rarely in the media spotlight are thinking about that future. Two weeks ago, I traveled to one such place.

By almost any measure, Cimarron County is out there. Situated at the very tip of the Oklahoma Panhandle, and sharing borders with Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas, it is both rural and remote. Here, fields of winter wheat and milo ripen beneath an impossibly vast, Dutch blue sky. Outside of Boise City, the county seat, the only substantial trees are those that surround isolated farmhouses, dark green islands floating on a golden ocean. Wind and sun are near constant.

So is religion. Are you a Christian? I was asked at the start of one interview. In Boise City, pop. 1,166, there are nine churches and one bar, while a hand-colored poster of a cross, labeled You said give you a sign, so I gave you a sign God, adorns the hallway of the high school. Cimarron County does not live in some 1950s time warp. The local Girl Scout troop just built a pickleball court, I saw Thai spices at Moores Food Pride, The Boise City News is on Facebook and fentanyl has made an unwelcome appearance.

Still, Cimarron County is singular for other reasons. Oklahoma is the reddest of the red states. It is the only state where Barack Obama did not carry a single county in either of his presidential races, while Donald Trump carried every county in both of his. In 2020, Mr. Trump won Oklahoma by a whopping 33 points. That accomplishment paled, however, compared to his electoral prowess in Cimarron County, where he won 92 percent of the vote. Out of 1,054 votes cast in the last presidential election, Joe Biden won 70.

I dont watch Fox News I thought they went way too liberal during the last election. The speaker was Clint Twombly, a former Border Patrol agent who is running for sheriff. Standing inside the cinder-block building where the Boise City Rotary Club meets every Wednesday at noon, Mr. Twombly delivered his first ever campaign speech.

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Opinion | Why Trump Will Win This Oklahoma County - The New York Times

No person with a loved one who has suffered through addiction could feel anything but empathy for Hunter Biden and his family. There are a lot of Hunter Bidens in this world, people who fell in way over their heads, who long for someone to believe they can recover and construct their lives differently, Patti Davis, a recovered addict and the daughter of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, wrote last week in the New York Times. You just dont hear about them on the evening news.

The tragedy, pain and trauma of drug addiction is not lost on millions of Americans. And as Davis noted, Some observers argue that if Hunter Biden were not the presidents son, he wouldnt be on trial for buying a gun while being addicted to drugs, since he had the gun for only 11 days and it wasnt used in any crime.

That a prosecutor appointed by felon and former president Donald Trump should bring a case of the type so rarely charged only heightened the queasy feeling that Hunter Biden was forced to bear the burden of being a presidents son. As former president Donald Trump complains that he is a victim of selective prosecution for his brazen attempts to defy a federal subpoena, Hunter Biden may actually be experiencing it, David Graham wrote for the Atlantic. Even a juror said the prosecution was a waste of tax dollars.

The reaction of many MAGA types and their captive right-wing media seemingly disappointed that the allegedly rigged judicial system apparently wasnt so rigged after all was one sign of the moral chasm and twisted logic that has come to define MAGA-era politics.

On every score, the Biden family throughout the public ordeal exemplified dignity, decency and the sort of unconditional love that many endlessly needy narcissists and other damaged adults were denied as children. (One is reminded of Henry Kissingers dig at Richard M. Nixon: Can you imagine what this man would have been like if somebody had loved him?)

First lady Jill Biden regularly attended her sons trial; President Biden never impugned the judicial system. Biden promised not to pardon his son or commute his sentence, and embraced him after the trial. In a written statement, the president said: Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today. So many families who have had loved ones battle addiction understand the feeling of pride seeing someone you love come out the other side and be so strong and resilient in recovery. He added, I will accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process as Hunter considers an appeal.

Trump, convicted of falsifying documents to cover up hush money paid to an adult-film actress in an effort to block the story from appearing before the 2016 election, alternately fumed and slept his way through his trial. His wife Melania, daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner never showed up to demonstrate support. Only his son Eric was in the courtroom when the verdict was read.

During and after Trumps trial, he and his MAGA minions attacked the judicial system, smeared the judge and jury, and then refused to accept the legitimacy of the verdict. Trumps bizarre call to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) demanding that we have to overturn this epitomized not just his constitutional ignorance but the MAGA movements determination to burn down a judicial system that could not be corrupted to do his bidding.

At its worst, cynical political coverage and punditry about the two criminal trials often regurgitated MAGA spin that Trumps conviction could help him. Hunter Bidens case was frequently portrayed as a potential election-year problem or trouble for the president. (While some polls show Biden has improved by a couple of points, Trump has not benefited from either trial.) The New York Times even appeared to question President Bidens judgment for inviting Hunter to the White House.

The Biden family in these past few weeks have demonstrated qualities such as respect, empathy and decency that have long defined public virtue. (Even the term seems quaint these days.) For a time, Republicans insisted that presidents needed to embody those characteristics. No more. Now the MAGA Republicans and their warped cult leader celebrate cruelty, vindictiveness and lust for power.

This gaping moral divide has been nowhere more evident than in the candidates (and their followers) conduct and rhetoric during these two trials. Now the question has been sharpened: Which candidate should we emulate and what sort of country do we want to live in?

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Opinion | The Hunter Biden and Trump trials were a litmus test. Only the Bidens passed. - The Washington Post

My nephew Scott was recently made a judge in Virginia, which isnt exactly headline news for the rest of you, but pretty cool for me, even though it makes me think you have to be pretty old for someone to call you a judges uncle.

I went to the ceremony, which is called an investiture, which is sort of like a judicial version of a bar mitzvah. You get judge-like gifts (mostly with a gavel motif), people say nice things about you, and you give a speech. Fortunately for my nephew, no Hebrew school was required this time just three years of law school and many more as an attorney.

The courtroom was packed with friends, colleagues and family, but not only friends, colleagues and family. Local politicians, too. And the Virginia speaker of the House, who showed up because circuit judges are appointed by a majority vote of the legislature.

Which brings us to the reason Im writing this today, I mean besides being a proud uncle.

This was a political appointment most judges are, of course, either appointed by elected officials or otherwise elected themselves in a hyperpolitical time when it can often be hard to distinguish a smoke-free courtroom from a smoke-filled backroom.

I went to see my nephew in action and left his court thinking that maybe, just maybe, not all is lost.

Or maybe not.

I mean, Scott did become judge in a political appointment at the same time when Donald Trump the former president who may be president again routinely trashes judges, calls them dishonest and worse, suggests that a jurys verdict is somehow corrupted by politics, implicitly makes the case that trust in the judicial system is just one more dispensable commodity, sort of like election law.

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And Scott got his political appointment in a time when a U.S. Supreme Court justice or two take expensive gifts and trips as a matter of course, when Supreme Court justices are the lone decider of their own ethical standing, when a justice, or maybe his wife, hangs a flag upside down to protest government policy and agrees, in a surreptitiously taped interview by a liberal filmmaker, that the nation needs to be godly.

And when the idea of justices calling balls and strikes as Chief Justice Roberts claimed in his confirmation hearing is held up for ridicule.

The Supreme Court rulings come fast and furious this time of year and after each one, we seem to wonder, often furiously, whether the ruling is based on good jurisprudence or is a sophisticated version of jury rigging. I mean, the 6-3 conservative majority never would have happened without Mitch McConnells devious machinations.

For instance, the court rules unanimously that the complainants in a case involving the fate of a widely used abortion pill dont have standing. Its a ruling that ducked the real issue in which justices could have sensibly decided that mifepristone is an FDA-approved drug that no one argues isnt safe but instead delayed it until presumably better complainants come along.

Meanwhile, maybe not coincidentally, Trump is presently trying to persuade Republican politicians to moderate their abortion stances to speak correctly about abortion, at least until after the election. Did the six conservative justices get that message? Well see. Theres another abortion ruling coming.

Its hard not to be cynical, especially when we have to keep waiting for the court to rule on the absurd notion that a president enjoys unlimited lifetime immunity from the law. By delaying the ruling, whatever the ruling happens to be, the justices already made it nearly impossible for this case to happen before Election Day. That, Im sure, is a crime.

And the hits keep coming. On Friday, the six conservative justices overturned a Trump-era ban on bump stocks. Yes, after the horror of the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, in which the killer fired 1,000 rounds in 11 minutes, even Trump knew something had to be done. A bump stock, which the killer employed, allows a semiautomatic gun to fire at the rate similar to a machine gun.

But the court ruled that bump stocks dont strictly make a weapon qualify as a machine gun the three liberal justices had a different view and so back out on the streets the bump stocks go.

Unsurprisingly, Clarence Thomas wrote the opinion. The conservative justices said Congress could change the law. You should try not to laugh when you read that. I doubt the families of those killed in the deadliest shooting in the modern era are laughing.

But still, theres another way to tell this story.

Just because my nephew was appointed by a legislature doesnt mean hes politically corrupt. I knew that, of course, but it was all reinforced when I went to see him do his judging thing. It was a Friday, meaning it was a day in his court to hear civil proceedings. He also hears criminal cases, though none, to this point, involving a former president paying off a porn star and then fixing the books.

There were no fireworks that morning. There was no showboating. There was a judge listening carefully to both sides of an argument. Scott helped a woman, who didnt have an attorney, walk through a complicated part of her divorce suit. He tried to convince another divorced couple that not every move the other made was done with malice.

In a more complicated case, this new judge, still learning the ropes, had to decide what to do with an attorney who desperately wanted to walk away from a client who had basically disappeared. The opposing attorneys argued that the first attorney was the only link their clients still had in their efforts to collect a judgment.

My nephew the judge said hed take it under advisement and would have to research the issue. He didnt pretend to know more than he did. He didnt dismiss the notion that both sides had legitimate points to make. He looked, well, judge-like.

The thing about the case, and all the cases that day, is that they had nothing to do with politics. They were just ordinary, run-of-the-mill cases, unless, that is, they were your cases.

As Scott said in his investiture speech, people often come to court as the place of last resort. It may not be where they want to be, but its a place where they believe, or hope anyway, they can be heard fairly and honestly.

It was strange being in a courtroom where all were required to rise upon the entrance of someone Ive known since birth and at every other stage of his life as father, son, husband, lawyer, now judge.

When he was 13, I took him with me to spring training as a bar mitzvah gift. Hes now nearly 50, and when I saw him in the courtroom that day and watched him at work, I knew just seeing him in his robes was his investiture gift to me. It was nearly enough to restore faith in, you know, truth, justice and the American way.

That feeling lasted all of a week, all the way until yet another hyperpartisan Supreme Court ruling would be handed down.

Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too many years to count. He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow. Sign up for Mikes newsletter.

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Littwin: Spend some time in a courtroom without Trump, and it just might restore your faith in truth and justice - The Colorado Sun