Trump claims he’s launching a new census, seizing on an idea from the Republican fringe

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Trump claims he’s launching a new census, seizing on an idea from the Republican fringe What’s wrong with the president’s apparent plan for a mid-decade U.S. census? It’s not a short list of problems.

Aug. 7, 2025, 9:02 AM EDT

By Steve Benen

The language of the U.S. Constitution is unambiguous when it comes to the decennial census: The government is responsible for counting “all persons” in the United States as part of a process that’s conducted every “ten years.” There are no asterisks. There is no fine print. The first census was in 1790 , and the count has been conducted every 10 years since, including one in 2020.

Donald Trump, however, apparently has a new plan in mind that runs counter to our constitutional system. The president published a three-sentence