The GOP has tried to match President Donald Trump’s populism with tentative steps toward union-friendly rhetoric. Though its policies have not always kept pace, that may be changing in a small way.

The House of Representatives last week passed a Democratic-sponsored labor bill with the help of 20 Republicans who “broke party lines to support the measure,” said Time. The Faster Labor Contracts Act would amend federal law to “accelerate contract negotiations between newly unionized workplaces and their employees.” It was the latest example of union-friendly Congressional Republicans, including Pete Stauber of Minnesota (pictured above), “flexing their muscles” in the face of “furious” opposition from the GOP’s traditional free-market conservatives, said The Hill. 

What did the commentators say?
Congressional politics are “shifting in labor’s favor,” said Timothy Noah at The New Republic. The House recently passed two other bills to restore collective bargaining rights to federal workers, thanks to a “breakaway Republican faction” that joined Democrats to provide a majority vote in support of labor rights. The union-friendly bills still face “dismal odds” in the GOP-controlled Senate. 

The latest pro-union bill is a “gift to the cultural left,” said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. Republicans who joined Democrats to pass the measure may “think they are burnishing their populist credentials,” but they are actually “selling out their constituents to the progressive left.”

What next?
Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) are sponsoring the Senate version of the act, said The Washington Examiner. Hawley is a union-friendly Republican and a social conservative, but the bill is running into opposition from other religious conservatives who say it will “require employers to cover abortion and transgender medical procedures.” 

The debates arrive at a time when “many union voters have turned” on Trump over rising prices and the war in Iran, said The Washington Post. In 2024, Trump won 45% of union voters on the strength of his “promise to restore U.S. manufacturing jobs.” The discontent now could be meaningful in November, as the AFL-CIO is vowing to turn out 16 million union voters for the midterm elections.

While Republicans have generally been associated with deregulation since the 1970s and 1980s, President Donald Trump has overseen a stratospheric rise in deregulatory policies during his second term. The White House argues these deregulations are about eliminating the red tape of Washington, but critics are worried about Trump’s rolling back of protections.

‘Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation’ executive order
Executive Order 14192, titled “Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation,” established a 10-to-1 rule for federal agencies. It ordered that anytime an agency enacted a “new regulation, it shall identify at least 10 existing regulations to be repealed,” according to the order. The goal of the rule is to “alleviate unnecessary regulatory burdens placed on the American people.”

The order led to a slew of actions being taken by federal agencies and also stated that all new regulations should have no cost. This is “effectively impossible to accomplish when issuing any regulation at all, as nearly every regulatory change represents some level of cost to come into compliance,” said the Economic Policy Institute.

Global warming 
The most notable climate change-related deregulation is the repeal of a 2009 finding that “focused on emissions from motor vehicles, but later regulations of carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and methane emissions from oil and natural gas operations are based on it as well,” said the Brookings Institution. The deregulation is “going to force Americans to spend more money, around $1.4 trillion in additional fuel costs, to power these less efficient and higher polluting vehicles,” said Peter Zalzal, of the Environmental Defense Fund, to BBC News. At least 24 states are suing the Trump administration over this repeal.
 
Financial services
With Trump’s authority, financial services regulators are “undertaking the biggest overhaul of bank supervision since the 2008 financial crisis,“ said Reuters. These regulators argue that banks have become “too preoccupied with processes and pursuing minor issues and should focus on core financial risks.” Financial experts say rolling back these regulations has weakened the banking industry’s power to “police problems that do not inherently amount to material financial risks but which may eventually ⁠lead to problems, such as control lapses, governance or other process issues.”

New York Knicks captain Jalen Brunson hoists the Larry O’Brien trophy, alongside teammate Karl-Anthony Towns (right) and Brunson’s daughter, Jordyn, and father, Rick, a Knicks assistant coach (left), at the close of the New York Knicks Championship parade and ceremony today. Their 2026 NBA Finals win is the team’s first in 53 years. 
Angelina Katsanis / Getty Images

It’s probably going to be hot where you are, and with rising temperatures come slipping appetites. These restaurants across the country specialize, in part, in warm-weather-ready dishes. 

Honest, Houston
Honest was born in Ahmedabad, a city in the northern Indian state of Gujarat. Its food has since exploded and landed in oodles of U.S. states. And this time of year, you likely want chaat, those deliriously snackable nibbles born in Bombay. Whether you choose bhel puri with its puffed rice base or dahi puri and its thin, crackling edible cups, the chaat will be a riot of textures, chile heat and sweet chutney lift.

Kokkari Estiatorio, San Francisco
At this nearly 30-year-old restaurant, the mezethes (small plates) section is stacked. More than 15 wee dishes cover every craving you might have. Some, like the gigantes (monster-sized white beans with tomato sauce, feta and rivers of olive oil) are evergreen staples. Others are hyperseasonal, such as kalamboki (roasted corn with feta butter) and aginares souvlaki (artichoke skewers with bell pepper, red onion and a yogurt side).

SRV, Boston
“Cicchetti” are the Venetian notion of what we often know as tapas in the States: diminutive bites crafted to be eaten alongside a drink or cocktail. SRV serves delightful pasta, salads and mains, but begin with the cicchetti. During the summer season, you might encounter crostini with duck prosciutto, stracciatella and cherry, fried rice balls with pickled green garlic, and a lofty puree of whipped salt cod with black bread.