President Trump’s administration unleashed a flurry of consequential moves in the closing days of August 2025, sparking fierce debate across Washington and beyond. From stripping former Vice President Kamala Harris of her extended Secret Service protection, to mass layoffs at Voice of America, to a federal court’s rebuke of his sweeping tariff powers, these actions have set off a cascade of political, legal, and diplomatic repercussions. Each development, significant on its own, together paints a picture of a White House intent on asserting executive power—sometimes in defiance of courts and longstanding norms.
On August 29, Trump revoked the Secret Service protection extension for Kamala Harris, according to Harris’s spokesperson Kirsten Allen and a letter obtained by The New York Times. Traditionally, former vice presidents receive six months of protection after leaving office, which would have ended for Harris in July. However, President Biden had extended her protection for an additional year, citing security concerns that had only intensified after Harris became the Democratic presidential nominee last summer. “The vice president is grateful to the United States Secret Service for their professionalism, dedication, and unwavering commitment to safety,” Allen said in a statement to NPR.
The timing of Trump’s revocation is striking. Harris is about to embark on a 15-city nationwide tour to promote her new book, 107 Days, which recounts her brief and historic presidential campaign. Her first stop is scheduled for New York City on September 24, just one day after the book’s release. Since leaving Washington in January, Harris has been living in Los Angeles, but her upcoming public appearances will now proceed without the extra layer of federal protection she’d expected. Trump also terminated Secret Service details for the adult children of former President Joe Biden—another move that breaks with the norm of extending such security to families of recent presidents.
Trump’s legal authority to revoke Harris’s protection is clear: the law mandates only six months of coverage for former vice presidents. Yet, the abruptness and the context—coming just before a high-profile tour—have fueled speculation about the motivations behind the decision. The White House did not offer a public explanation for rescinding the extension, and the Secret Service declined to comment. Harris’s heightened threat profile, as the first woman and first Black person to serve as vice president, had been well documented, especially after she became the Democratic nominee in a particularly contentious election cycle.
Meanwhile, the administration’s aggressive posture extended to the federally funded Voice of America (VOA). On Friday, acting chief executive Kari Lake, a staunch Trump ally, announced on social media that layoff notices had been sent to 532 VOA employees, leaving only about 100 journalists and staff. This move, reported by The New York Times, came despite a federal court order from Judge Royce C. Lamberth in April, which required the network’s restoration after previous restructuring attempts. Lake’s rationale for the layoffs was to refocus VOA’s mission on broadcasting to audiences under authoritarian regimes, but critics saw it as a hollowing out of America’s international media presence.
Before the latest round of layoffs, VOA had already seen its broadcasts slashed from 49 languages—reaching 360 million people weekly—to just four: Persian, Mandarin, Dari, and Pashto. Most of the 1,300 journalists had either been fired or placed on paid leave prior to Friday’s notices. The agency’s earlier attempt in June to lay off around 600 staff was rescinded due to administrative errors, but this time the cuts appear to be moving forward despite ongoing legal battles. Judge Lamberth has threatened to hold Lake in contempt, questioning whether the administration is complying with his order. The legal wrangling centers on whether the executive branch can unilaterally determine the scope of VOA’s operations, or whether the law requires a broader, more inclusive media mission.
In the immigration arena, a federal appeals court delivered a blow to Trump’s efforts to roll back protections for Venezuelan migrants. On August 28, the court reaffirmed that the administration could not end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for roughly 600,000 Venezuelans—a program enacted by Congress and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush to shelter migrants from countries in crisis. The Biden administration had extended TPS for Venezuelans through October 2026, but Trump has sought to revoke those extensions, characterizing many Venezuelan migrants as criminal threats and invoking rarely used wartime laws to justify their removal.
Despite the appellate victory for immigrant rights groups, the Supreme Court had already ruled in May that the administration could proceed with deportations while litigation continues. This legal tug-of-war has left hundreds of thousands of migrants in limbo, with the ultimate fate of the TPS program likely to be decided by the Supreme Court. The administration’s stance has drawn sharp criticism from legal experts, who argue that the president’s expansive use of emergency powers threatens to undermine the predictability and humanitarian intent of the TPS system.
Trump’s use of executive power faced another significant challenge in the economic sphere. On August 29, a federal appeals court ruled that many of the tariffs imposed by Trump under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) were illegal. The court upheld a lower court’s finding from May that the president lacked the authority to levy sweeping duties on imports using IEEPA—a law traditionally reserved for sanctions and embargoes, not tariffs. The ruling, which delayed enforcement until mid-October to allow for a Supreme Court appeal, casts doubt on the legal foundation of Trump’s signature trade strategy. These tariffs had been central to brokering deals with Britain, Japan, Indonesia, and the European Union, and were touted by Trump as tools to make America “rich again.”
Trump’s economic advisers warned of potential chaos if his tariff powers were curtailed, and the president himself lashed out at the judiciary, claiming that removing the tariffs would “literally destroy the United States of America.” Still, the court’s majority was clear: “It seems unlikely that Congress intended, in enacting IEEPA, to depart from its past practice and grant the president unlimited authority to impose tariffs.” Small businesses and states harmed by the tariffs had challenged their legality, and the court’s decision was hailed by trade law experts as a reminder that the Constitution grants Congress—not the president—the power to regulate tariffs.
As the administration signals plans to appeal to the Supreme Court, the future of these tariffs—and the broader question of executive authority in trade—remains uncertain. Trump retains other tools, such as Section 232 tariffs on national security grounds, but the ruling marks a significant constraint on the president’s ability to wield economic power unilaterally.
In a week marked by bold, controversial moves, President Trump has demonstrated a willingness to test the boundaries of executive power across multiple fronts. The coming weeks will reveal whether the courts, Congress, and the American public are prepared to accept—or push back against—this new era of presidential assertiveness.
