What ProPublica’s Reporters Are Covering During Donald Trump’s Second Presidency — and How to Contact Them
From Trump’s relationships with billionaires to immigration, here are some of the issues and topics our reporters are watching during his second presidency.
Now that Donald Trump is the president for the second time, we will once again turn our focus to the areas most in need of scrutiny at this moment in history. As our editor-in-chief wrote in November, that’s what our more than 150 working journalists do.
We will watch closely as the Trump/Vance administration takes shape and makes plans. To find stories, we will, as always, rely on insights from people closest to the issues. Concerned public servants are some of our most important sources. If you are a federal employee, is there unfinished business — a sensitive project, a little-known but key policy, an important lawsuit — you worry will be quashed or left to molder? Are there records, research or databases you feel strongly should be preserved?
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We appreciate the difficult situations people weigh as they decide whether to reach out to us, and we take source privacy very seriously. Read more about ProPublica’s approach to investigative journalism in our ethics code. If you have tips, documents, data or stories the public should know about, you can contact all of our journalists at propublica.org/tips. Here’s information on how to do so securely. And if you don’t have a specific tip or story in mind, we could still use your help. Sign up to be a member of our federal worker source network to stay in touch.
We will tell you more about our whole team and about our coverage plans in the months to come. We work across a number of beats and disciplines, from tax policy to education to health care. We have data reporters who can handle complicated datasets and public records specialists eager to strategize.
Here are just a few examples of the topics we’re thinking about, plus contact information for some reporters on the beat:
Rule of Law
Trump’s Business Interests
Immigration
Trump and Billionaires
Consumer Finance
Foreign Affairs/Policy
Environmental Regulations
Public Records and Government Data
Civil Rights
Technology and Cybersecurity
Regulation of the Space Industry
Reproductive Health
Federal Poverty Policy
Housing and Transportation
Health Care Policy
Drug Safety and Regulations
Counterterrorism and Surveillance
Education and Schools
This is just a small sample of our reporting team. We will continue to share our areas of interest as the news develops. You can hear more from our journalists about their work by signing up for our Dispatches newsletter.
What We’re Watching
During Donald Trump’s second presidency, ProPublica will focus on the areas most in need of scrutiny. Here are some of the issues our reporters will be watching — and how to get in touch with them securely.
I cover health and the environment and the agencies that govern them, including the Environmental Protection Agency.
Andy Kroll
I cover justice and the rule of law, including the Justice Department, U.S. attorneys and the courts.
Melissa Sanchez
I report on immigration and labor, and I am based in Chicago.
Jesse Coburn
I cover housing and transportation, including the companies working in those fields and the regulators overseeing them.
If you don’t have a specific tip or story in mind, we could still use your help. Sign up to be a member of our federal worker source network to stay in touch.
Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer’s chief of staff issued the warning as department employees have spoken to the news media about harms they see resulting from the dismantling of their agency, which enforces laws guaranteeing workers’ rights.
The administration is quietly putting America’s children at risk by cutting funds and manpower for investigating child abuse, enforcing child support payments, providing child care and much more.
Abigail Dillen sees the increase of lawsuits targeting green groups as just one of the growing threats to environmental advocacy organizations — and the people who staff them.
The administration’s lack of transparency about tariff exemptions has experts concerned that some firms might be winning narrow carve-outs behind closed doors. “It could be corruption, but it could just as easily be incompetence,” one lobbyist said.
The cuts, which are part of Trump’s slashing of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, will also halt a first-of-its-kind study of the causes of thousands of firefighters’ cancer cases.
By slashing teams that gather critical data, the administration has left the federal government with no way of understanding if policies are working — and created a black hole of information whose consequences could ripple out for decades.
The cuts, which are part of Trump’s slashing of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, will also halt a first-of-its-kind study of the causes of thousands of firefighters’ cancer cases.
The administration is quietly putting America’s children at risk by cutting funds and manpower for investigating child abuse, enforcing child support payments, providing child care and much more.
The administration’s lack of transparency about tariff exemptions has experts concerned that some firms might be winning narrow carve-outs behind closed doors. “It could be corruption, but it could just as easily be incompetence,” one lobbyist said.
A little-known firm with investors linked to JD Vance, Elon Musk and Trump could get a piece of the federal expense card system — and its hundreds of millions in fees. “This goes against all the normal contracting safeguards,” one expert said.
While China enforces strict laws against domestic drug trafficking, state-supported companies have openly shipped fentanyl to the U.S., investigators say. One prison-owned chemical company boasted online: “100% of our shipments will clear customs.”
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