Heritage Explains

Attacks on ICE agents are escalating nationwide, now up nearly 700% over the same time last year. Organized riots followed recent ICE enforcement actions. Investigations reveal coordination by known radical groups that also organized the 2020 BLM/Antifa riots and 2023 pro-terrorism demonstrations. These are not spontaneous uprisings—they are well-funded, highly-organized anti-American efforts. Her...

Rescissions  It’s a word that we’re hearing a lot in the news today. A member of a family of words and phrases that come trotting out whenever folks in Washington start talking about money.  Appropriations. Sequestration. Omnibus. Continuing Resolutions. Budget caps. Debt Ceiling. Earmarks. Baseline Budgeting.  But it isn’t that complicated. Basically, the President can request that Congress retur...

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal... How many times have we heard these words?  Back in 2007, the Washington Post ran an article by Gene Weingarten called “Pearls Before Breakfast”. In it, he chronicles an experiment by the newspaper, in which world-renowned violinist Joshua Bell put on a baseball cap and a t-shirt, and entered the L’Enfant Plaza metro station...

While there are still several high-profile cases awaiting rulings, the Supreme Court has delivered several wins for the Trump administration, common sense, and all Americans. So far this term, the Supreme Court issued stays of lower court orders attempting to block the Trump administration from pursuing its agenda, upheld religious freedom and parental rights, and upheld laws protecting kids from...

On Friday, Israel initiated "Operation Rising Lion," conducting airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities and military command centers. The strikes led to at least 75 Iranian deaths and significant infrastructure damage, including oil refineries and missile launchers. Iran responded with a large-scale missile and drone assault on Israel, targeting over 150 military and intelligence sites. The strik...

In Los Angeles, protests against immigration enforcement have turned into assaults on federal officers and buildings, fires, and similar mayhem to the Summer of 2020. And it turns out, that’s not all that is similar. The same people, using the same methods, are behind both this year’s LA riots and the BLM protests of five years ago.  I sat down with Mike Gonzalez, a Senior Fellow here at the Herit...

Nuclear energy is a clean, safe method of energy production, in which America leads the world. But making sure that Nuclear power has a bright future in America is a full-time job. And that full-time job belongs to Jack Spencer, Senior Research Fellow in Energy and Environment, here at the Heritage Foundation. — Find Jack’s Book: https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/088890357X/ref=cm_cr_unknown?...

Many Americans sense that the social cohesion of our nation is weakening. The data seems to back this up. A poll conducted by the Associated Press and the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago found that Seventy-one percent say the United States is “losing its national identity—that is the beliefs and values the country represents.” American trust in its traditional institu...

The Center for Disease Control reports that over 48,000 Americans died from synthetic opioid (or fentanyl) overdoses in 2024. That number dwarfed the number of people who died from psychostimulants like methamphetamine at 29,000. As well as cocaine at 22,000, and other naturally occuring drugs at 8,000.  Fentanyl and similar substances have changed the game in drug policy, driving greater lethalit...

Over the last few months, users of Facebook and Instagram may have noticed a new avenue to interact with the platform: Meta AI. The AI tool, similar to language learning models like ChatGPT, X’s Grok, and Microsoft’s Co-Pilot, is able to carry forward advanced conversations with users and synthesize complex answers based on prompts.  Meta has leveraged its AI model to create a wide array of chatbo...

In honor of Small Business Week, we are pleased to bring you a conversation with Sue Malone a true titan in the world of small business. As the founder of Strategies for Small Business , Sue has been instrumental in helping over 30,000 entrepreneurs secure capital to start or expand their businesses.   Paul Mullen guest hosts Heritage Explains this week in this conversation on entrepreneurship, wh...

Since RFK Jr., now the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, showed the nation the color difference between Canadian Froot Loops and U.S. Froot Loops, Americans are becoming more aware of what’s in the food we eat. And one of the major offenders? Food dyes. Some of the food dyes in everyday products like breakfast cereals and candy actually come from coal tar, petroleum, and other concernin...

With the push for green energy, governments around the world have pushed for (and passed) subsidies for so-called “renewable” energy like wind and solar. The US passed large subsidies of this kind under the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, passed in 2022. But these policies do not have the effect of creating long-term stability in the American energy grid. Here to explain why is Mar...

In addition to Russia and North Korea, nuclear bad actors can also be found in Iran, where the regime has been plotting a nuclear buildup for decades. Now, the Trump Administration has initiated talks with the Iranians. Here to explain what we may expect from these negotiations is Rob Greenway, Director of the Allison Center for National Security, here at the Heritage Foundation. — Follow Rob Gree...

The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. This is the beginning of Article III, section 1 of the US constitution, establishing the federal judiciary. Nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, and usually serving for life, federal judges serve a key role in the...

It’s clear that the Trump administration’s commitment to securing the southern border is working. But the question now is, how do we keep it working? What changes need to be made to the immigration system to keep us from heading back to the uncontrolled illegal migration of the Biden years? One critical component, argues Heritage Immigration expert Lora Ries, is the reform of the asylum system, en...

In the summer of 2020, with the George Floyd Riots in full swing, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser decided that 16th Avenue would gain a new status in American history. She designated the two block section of the Avenue closest to the white house as Black Lives Matter Plaza. The slogan was painted in 35-foot yellow letters on the street. Whether they wanted to or not, DC residents and visitors were forced t...

From the earliest times of the pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Dr. Francis Collins, and apparently the entire scientific community insisted that the virus emerged from nature, jumping from an animal species to humans.  Many pointed out the flaws in this reasoning, finding the possibility of COVID leaking from a laboratory much more likely. Scientific organizations, leftist politicians, and corporate...

At the direction of President Trump, Education Secretary Linda McMahon is now preparing the Department of Education for what she refers to as its “final mission”: winding down the department itself. This will be a complicated process, but here to explain what it may look like is Lindsey Burke, Director of the Center for Education Policy here at the Heritage Foundation.   — Follow Lindsey Burke on...

This week, President Trump addressed a joint session of Congress. Clocking in at over an hour and forty minutes, the speech was the longest address a president has delivered to America’s legislature in recent history. It covered the president’s accomplishments so far in his administration, from DOGE to border enforcement to economic policy, as well as shedding some light on the president’s plans f...

President Trump’s posture toward the war in Ukraine is very different from his predecessor. To understand what we might expect to see in Ukraine over the next few weeks, months, and years, I sat down with Rob Greenway, Director of the Allison Center for National Security, here at the Heritage Foundation — Follow Rob Greenway on X: https://x.com/rc_greenway?lang=en Learn more about The Heritage Fou...

American taxpayer money can be used to great effect, and we like to think that our civil institutions would always be dedicated to delivering such good return on investment. But that is not always so. The Trump Administration’s DOGE effort has shed much light in recent weeks on waste, fraud, and abuse throughout the federal government. Now the spotlight has been turned on NIH.  Heritage Foundation...

On January 28th, President Trump signed an executive order on banning the use of federal funds for so-called “gender transitions”. But some states Attorneys general have taken exception to this, and filed suit. Here to explain their position, and its likelihood for success, is Heritage Senior Legal Fellow, Sarah Parshall Perry.  — Follow Sarah Perry on X: https://x.com/SarahPPerry Follow Chloe Col...

$32,000 for a “transgender comic book” in Peru. $2 million for sex changes and “LGBT activism” in Guatemala. Hundreds of millions of dollars to fund “irrigation canals, farming equipment, and even fertilizer used to support the unprecedented poppy cultivation and heroin production in Afghanistan,” benefiting the Taliban This sounds like the wishlist of a crazy progressive NGO. But it’s not. These...

Over just the last week, the number of daily border crossings has crashed compared to the Biden administration. Border enforcement in the interior has been seriously undertaken. The US military has been deployed to assist Customs and Border Protection.  Here to walk us through the details of this Sea Change is Lora Ries, Director of the Border Security and Immigration Center, here at the Heritage...