America’s nuclear renaissance will not be built in Washington alone. Just as the states that had the foresight to build today’s nuclear fleet enjoy its benefits, the states that rebuild our nuclear industrial base will reap the rewards of its resurgence. President Donald Trump understands this truth, which is why he took executive action last May to give states the lead in reinvigorating our nuclear industrial base.

Since then, the Department of Energy has developed a clear framework focused on driving state-led efforts to reestablish the full nuclear fuel cycle at home and revitalize the American nuclear industry.

The Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus concept proposes state hubs that align local and federal resources to expand regional industrial capacity, drive economic growth and restore technological leadership in this critically important field.

This state-led model builds upon America’s past success, when the nation once built a thriving, fully integrated national nuclear enterprise. At the height of America’s nuclear buildout in the 1960s and 1970s, reactors were rising from North Carolina to Arkansas while domestic enrichment in Kentucky and Ohio, fuel fabrication in Washington and South Carolina, and commercial reprocessing in New York supported a closed fuel cycle.

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In these and other host states, nuclear development built enduring infrastructure, highly specialized workforces, and technical expertise that sustained the industry for decades. From heavy reactor vessels forged in Pennsylvania to advanced control systems and specialty materials manufactured across the Midwest, the nuclear enterprise anchored regional industry and strengthened local economies.

In the decades that followed, this integrated enterprise withered, its decline driven by an increasingly burdensome and unpredictable regulatory environment and unfavorable public opinion that made nuclear uncompetitive in a world of cheap natural gas and deregulated electricity markets.

In 1977, the Carter administration further worsened the environment by deferring commercial reprocessing amid proliferation concerns. That decision contributed to growing waste inventories across our country, even as our allies have demonstrated safe and secure fuel recycling for decades.

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Over time, domestic enrichment capacity declined, fuel fabrication and conversion capabilities consolidated, and specialized manufacturing migrated or disappeared, eroding the industrial base that had once sustained a full nuclear lifecycle.

As the U.S. stepped back from fuel-cycle integration, competitors built vertically integrated nuclear industries that combined fuel services, reactor construction and long-term support, usurping our leadership in the global nuclear market.

Advanced technical capability cannot be rebuilt one component at a time across a fragmented industrial base. The United States has seen this dynamic in other sectors, from semiconductors to aerospace and biotechnology, where co-location of research, production and skilled labor accelerates innovation and builds durable expertise. Rebuilding that capability in the United States will require regional clusters where these functions co-locate, talent pipelines mature and supply chains regain scale.

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The Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus model provides a practical path forward. State-led hubs would bring together fuel fabrication and recycling technologies, advanced reactor demonstration, materials testing, waste management solutions and workforce training within a regional ecosystem.

Private sector funding would accelerate commercialization across the supply chain, rebuilding domestic fuel-cycle capabilities right on campus. States that step forward stand to attract high-skill jobs, anchor advanced manufacturing, and position their communities at the center of a secure and resilient nuclear enterprise.

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Rebuilding the nuclear fuel cycle is not merely a domestic industrial objective. It is a matter of national sovereignty. Today, Russia controls roughly 40% of global enrichment capacity and remains a significant supplier of reactor fuel to utilities in both the U.S. and Europe. As the U.S. and its allies work to reduce reliance on Russian fuel services over the coming years, a strong domestic fuel supply will be needed.

Under Secretary Chris Wright’s leadership, the Department of Energy has taken significant action to that point, expanding domestic enrichment capacity, strengthening allied supply chains and supporting the production of high-assay low-enriched uranium.

Many advanced reactor designs can utilize recycled fuels and alternative fuel forms, creating pathways to reduce waste and recover usable materials. Restoring domestic fuel-cycle capability through Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses would strengthen energy security, support defense requirements, and ensure the U.S. retains control over a critical technology.

America’s nuclear renaissance will be led by the states that choose to build it. Early leaders will attract investment, talent and supply chains essential to national security, demonstrating what is possible for others to follow. Competitive federalism has long driven American innovation. Applied to nuclear energy, it can restore industrial power, secure the fuel cycle, and strengthen the nation.

Americans are furious, and rightly so.

Squabbling between Democrats and Republicans in Congress has led to a partial shutdown of our government and a whole lot of aggravation for millions of Americans traveling for spring break. It is an outrage.

Democrats refuse to fund the Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE, to show their anger over deportation activities in Minnesota that left two protesters dead. But ICE has been funded through 2029; Democrats’ stubbornness is pointless, but painful. Cutting off monies flowing to the Transportation Security Administration and other parts of the DHS that have nothing to do with border control, has crippled airport security.

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Republicans refuse to cater to Democrat showboating; they are blocking attempts to fund only those parts of the DHS that Hakeem Jeffries and his colleagues will agree to, which includes the TSA.

I say — fix this. As wait times in airports extend to multiple hours, with security lines snaking around terminals, Congress needs to do its job.

There’s a reason that Congress’ popularity is in the gutter. Gallup’s last read on how Americans view Congress shows only 16% approving of the job our House and Senate members are doing. 16%! That’s one of the worst ratings on record, surpassed only by the 14% approval Congress earned when it was shut down last November. The lowest approval rating on record — a ghastly 9% — was posted in November 2013, during yet another federal budget impasse. There’s a message there: get to work. 

Surveys show NFL replacement referees, colonoscopies and toenail fungus among the many items that are more popular than Congress. But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer might be less amused to hear that ICE — the agency Democrats love to hate — also has higher approval ratings than Congress.

Americans are split on whom to blame for the TSA nightmare. Republicans blame Democrats, who have now shut down our government four times in the past 18 months. Schumer seems convinced that opposing President Trump is his number one mission — the country be damned. Polling over the past year has shown Democrats angry that their legislators are not doing more to block Trump’s agenda. Schumer, along with his House counterpart Hakeem Jeffries, is responding to those polls by refusing to pay TSA, FEMA and some Coast Guard personnel. It is a lousy way to treat hundreds of thousands of hard-working government employees.

Republicans have balked at Democrats’ offer to fund only parts of DHS, including the TSA, confident that Schumer et al will let the lapse in ICE and Border Patrol funding continue indefinitely. Democrats have so demonized the agencies responsible for protecting our border that not paying the folks who track down child traffickers and people on the terror watch list seems a winning strategy.

This, despite our country suffering no less than four terror attacks in recent weeks and continuing to be at risk thanks to the war with Iran and four years of President Joe Biden allowing millions to cross our border unchecked. It is unconscionable that Democrats are denying their fellow countrymen the protections afforded by the Department of Homeland Security, which was forged in the ashes of the Islamic terror attacks on September 11, 2001, to keep us safe. Yes, long TSA lines are aggravating, but failing to protect our country is a much graver offense.

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The White House and Republicans have made numerous concessions to Democrats, including requiring that ICE agents wear body cameras and also not permitting enforcement activities in sensitive locations like schools and churches. In addition, Senator Markwayne Mullin, who is President Trump’s nominee for incoming Homeland Security chief to replace Kristi Noem, has indicated he will agree to further Democrat demands, such as requiring judicial warrants as opposed to administrative warrants, thus slowing enforcement activities.

But President Trump and those in charge of ICE will not ban agents from wearing masks. They are required to carry identification, and to provide that upon request, but wearing masks helps protect them and their families from being doxxed by activists who have decided that these federal law enforcement officials are the enemy. ICE agents have come under increasing attack in recent months; there have been instances of pro-immigrant groups publishing their names and home addresses, and also assaulting officers. Apparently, Democrats want to encourage more of the same by prohibiting the wearing of masks, thus making ICE agents more easily identifiable.

This coming Friday, TSA employees will have gone a month without a paycheck. Is it any wonder that many are not showing up for work. Is it any wonder that the security lines are only getting longer?

The White House is dispatching ICE agents to airports across the U.S. in an effort to help the TSA, which is struggling with depleted ranks. It will be the ultimate irony if ICE agents meaningfully help airports return to normal. That will likely make Democrats even angrier.

Meanwhile, the American public is nearing the boiling point, furious at both parties for not resolving the DHS funding roadblock. Some Republicans (of the RINO variety, like Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski) are ready to cave to Democrat demands and provide funding for the TSA and other non-ICE agencies. Texas Senator Ted Cruz has a better idea, which is to fund the TSA, FEMA and the Coast Guard immediately and to create another budget reconciliation bill which could pass later in the year in order to secure money for ICE.

Republicans should follow Cruz’ suggestion. They can use the reconciliation process to achieve other high priority objectives, including providing funding for the SAVE Act. Using the reconciliation approach, which permitted the passage of the Big Beautiful Bill, allows the narrow GOP majority to bypass the filibuster problem, and get on with the nation’s work.

That’s a win-win, and that’s what the country wants right now.

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We call it “Trumpism” for short, the collection of positions, policies and preferences embraced by the president of the United States.

But does all this amount to a coherent philosophy that can be carried out by future Republicans once Donald Trump is no longer in office?

And where does that leave conservatism? Trump never pretended to be a classic conservative, which deeply divided the movement.

There are those who quietly abandoned their previous views and have backed virtually everything Trump does, from tariffs to deportations to the war in Iran.

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And there are those who renounced Trump from the start, who believe he betrayed conservatives – and who tend to have prime spots in cable commentary, so shows can boast they have Republican pundits (who happen to hate Trump).

Some on the right bring a fierceness that eclipses the attacks by liberal critics. Former Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Gerard Baker, a Fox News contributor, said yesterday after the Iranians denied having talks with the White House that the “unsettling reality” is Americans have to “suspect that the enemy’s version of events is more likely to be true than our own. We have become Baghdad Bob.”

Talking to reporters before leaving Palm Beach yesterday, Trump said: “My life is a deal. That’s all I do is deals.” 

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The context was what he insisted were the negotiations with Iran, but the declaration certainly applies to his business pursuits and political career.

I’ve known Trump since 1987, and I can tell you that he basically does whatever works in the moment. If that is inconsistent with his position the previous day or week or month, so be it. Let the pontificators argue about that. 

Trump is immune to corrosive criticism about flip-flops because he views every day as a clean slate, in which his allies may be those he once furiously criticized and his enemies may be former loyalists.

For instance, the president’s first-term position, backed by Congress, was that TikTok was a threat to national security because of its Chinese ownership, and should be banned unless it was sold to an American company.

When I asked him about this before the election, Trump, whose campaign greatly benefited from its use of TikTok, said he was no longer in favor of a ban. This, he said, was because removing TikTok would help Facebook, and he deemed Mark Zuckerberg’s empire more of a threat.

Not a terribly convincing explanation, but with the president, that was then, this is now.

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For what it’s worth, a deal was finally reached this year to sell the hugely popular app to a joint venture in which American investors have majority control.

The hot media debate right now is what comes after Trump, and whether future Republicans – JD Vance, Marco Rubio, whoever – must follow his blueprint. This is especially resonant because the America First candidate who crusaded against foreign wars radically changed his approach by attacking Iran.   

Atlantic contributor Pete Wehner, whose specialty is Christian ethics, says that in 2016 he was a lifelong Republican who had served under Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

He said in a New York Times op-ed that Trump “would threaten the future of the Republican Party,” that he “sought to cultivate and encourage the ugliest passions within the GOP, dousing the embers of hate with kerosene.”

Among Republicans, including evangelical and fundamentalist Christians, the president “rewired their moral circuitry… And in the process, he killed American conservatism. MAGA is not just antithetical to conservatism; it is at war with it.”

But look at Trump’s record. He sealed the southern border which was utterly porous under Joe Biden. He launched a mass deportation program aimed at illegal immigrants, a major target on the right. He cut taxes, and if most benefits went to the affluent, that’s what Republicans have always done. He slashed regulations at such places as the EPA. He reduced the size of the federal government by at least 300,000 jobs, or 10 percent, despite the mixed record of DOGE. And he was responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade.

Aren’t all these things, from easing tax burdens to restricting abortion to shrinking government, in line with conservative principles?

That’s not to say all these initiatives were handled well – look at the excesses of ICE and the killing of two Americans – or that they were wise decisions. But they’re not exactly at war with the conservative agenda of yore. 

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And then there’s all the other stuff, some of it breaking with fiscal orthodoxy, including the vow to protect Social Security and Medicare.

Wehner concedes that many Republicans voted for Trump because they were struggling economically (and, I would add, felt marginalized by the mainstream culture).  He twists the knife by saying “at the core of the MAGA project and Trumpism is disruption and destruction, the delegitimization and razing of institutions, and the brutalization of opponents… The MAGA movement represents the betrayal of the temperamental tradition of conservatism” and “the disfigurement of the Republican Party.”

Jonah Goldberg, co-founder of the Dispatch, which has had success as a conservative, anti-Trump site, scoffs at such pointy-headed analysis.

“Trump has no ‘ideology,’” Goldberg writes. “He does have a few ideas. Off the top of my head: take the oil, tariffs are economic Viagra, strength good, never apologize, women won’t resist celebrities when they grab them by their privates, ‘good genes’ matter a lot, allies are whiny b—-es, a bunch of romantic convictions about the supremacy of his instincts…”

He says these “gut impulses” and “sentiments” could be turned into an ideology. “But constructing an actual ideology requires thinking about how your various commitments might conflict, where the trade-offs are, what the edge cases might be, etc.”

To Jonah, it’s a matter of psychology. “But Trumpism is not just about Trump’s psychology, it’s the psychology of many of his supporters. If Trump is for it, it must be right.”

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I’d just note that our politics is so polarized that many liberals engage in similar behavior, demonizing opponents, spouting the party line and never giving the other side a scintilla of credit. 

Iran has been the world’s leading terror state since 1979, but while raising questions about congressional approval, nearly all Democrats won’t say anything positive about the attack on Iran.

Chuck Schumer, on “Morning Joe” yesterday, repeatedly refused to acknowledge to Joe Scarborough that the U.S. decimating Iran’s military was a good thing. He just kept deflecting.

One notable dissenter, John Fetterman, told CBS that what the president has accomplished in Iran is “remarkable.” And the senator said on a podcast that “our party is governed by TDS,” Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Of course, Democrats don’t seem as wedded to one ideology because of undeniable splits over Israel, over pronouns, over transgender issues, over the old defund-the-police rhetoric, running the gamut from more moderate lawmakers to the Squad. What’s more, they don’t have a leader ready to denounce them and endorse primary opponents, so there’s little penalty for going off the reservation.

Gavin Newsom, a man of the left, has problems with progressives in his party because he has fought labor initiatives, backed housing deregulation, vetoed a bill allowing colleges to favor descendants of slaves, and opposes trans women playing in men’s sports.

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There’s no single answer to the future legacy of Trumpism. That depends on the president’s popularity, and the economic picture, and how Iran is viewed, in 2028. Trump the dealmaker is a singular figure, impossible to imitate.

But one thing is certain: the Republican Party will never return to the green-eyeshade stinginess of Paul Ryan, the compassionate conservatism of Bush 43, the NATO embrace of Bush 41, or the bipartisan chumminess of Ronald Reagan with Tip O’Neill. 

The next era may be unclear, but Donald Trump has transformed the GOP forever.