![The best thing the Trump presidency did](https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/201025080142-trump-sworn-2017-super-tease.jpg)
The best thing the Trump presidency did
CNN
It's funny what four years of a president who carries a healthy disregard for the Constitution, and a violent insurrection at the US Capitol, can do for people's knowledge of our democratic institutions!
For the first time in 15 years, a majority (56%) of people could name all three branches of the federal government in a new survey conducted by Annenberg Public Policy Center.
That number was under 30% in 2016 but has consistently risen every year since then -- suggesting strongly that Trump's assault on a variety of democratic institutions has made the average American pay more attention to how the government works (and doesn't).
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In less than a month in office the Trump administration has simultaneously dismantled foreign aid programs that support fragile democracies abroad and put on leave federal workers who protect US elections at home in a move that current and former officials say abandons decades of American commitments to democracy.
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Sen. Mitch McConnell was a generational force for the Republican Party — using procedural tactics and political will to stymie much of former President Barack Obama’s agenda, hand President Donald Trump key first-term political victories and deliver a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court majority. Now he’s the odd man out.
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The Trump administration is forcing out senior leadership at the National Archives and Records Administration in a major shakeup, according to a source familiar. President Donald Trump has been highly critical of the archives since the agency asked the Department of Justice to investigate Trump’s mishandling of classified documents after he left office.
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The morning after the mass resignation of prosecutors sparked a crisis inside the Trump Justice Department, acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove led a meeting with the Justice Department’s public integrity section. His message: they had to choose one career lawyer to file a dismissal of the corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, according to three people briefed on the meeting.
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Seventh prosecutor in Eric Adams case resigns and calls out Trump’s former lawyer in scathing letter
A federal prosecutor assigned to the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams resigned Friday in a blistering letter that accused top leaders at the Justice Department of looking for a “fool” to dismiss the criminal charges.