Letters from an American - February 27, 2025

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

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Music February 27th, 2025. Yesterday, an unvaccinated child in Texas died of measles, as nearly 140 people in Texas and New Mexico have been reported ill with the disease. This is the country's first measles death since 2015. Measles cases appear almost every year, but usually the government works to suppress measles, as well as other contagious diseases. It's not clear the Trump administration intends to do that. Yesterday, the Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, abruptly canceled a scheduled meeting to select the strains of flu to be included in next season's vaccines. This year's flu season has been severe. According to NBC News health and medical reporter,

Berkeley Lovelace Jr., 86 children and 19,000 adults so far have died from the flu this year, and 430,000 adults have been hospitalized. On February 20th, Lovelace reported that a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, scheduled for February 26th through 28th, was canceled.

Speaking earlier this month, in favor of confirming anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services, Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican of Louisiana, who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, and who is a doctor himself, assured his colleagues that Kennedy had promised to notify the Senate before making changes to vaccine programs and that if confirmed he will maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices without change.

Cuts from the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGGI have made it hard for the country to confront the bird flu that is sweeping the poultry industry and now infecting dairy herds as well. Marcia Brown of Politico reported today that the Trump administration is trying to rehire government employees who are working on combating the disease after widespread cuts to employees in the agriculture department during the first purge of government workers gutted research on it. Now, some of the employees in the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the National Animal Health Laboratory Network Program, and so on have been offered their jobs back, but those offers are haphazard and not all employees are keen to take jobs that are clearly

not secure. Indeed, health does not seem to be a top priority of the administration. Apoorva Mandeville of the New York Times noted today that during his remark at the cabinet meeting yesterday, billionaire Elon Musk, who the administration has claimed in court is only an advisor to the president and neither leads nor is employed by Doggy, admitted that the Department of Government Efficiency had made some initial mistakes, such as when it accidentally canceled very briefly efforts to contain an outbreak of Ebola in Uganda. But Musk reassured his audience that mistaken decisions were quickly reversed. Doggie restored the Ebola prevention immediately and there was no interruption.

Except that they didn't. In theory, USAID workers could get a waiver to continue work, but in reality, money did not resume and much of the work was forced to stop. The administration continues to insist it is cutting waste, fraud, and abuse, but the reality that it is cutting programs on which Americans depend is becoming clearer. During yesterday's cabinet meeting,

Trump indicated that the next major round of workforce cuts will be at the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, created by Congress in 1970 at the urging of Republican President Richard M. Nixon to protect clean air, land, and water. Trump said that 65 percent of the 15,000 people who work there will be fired. An official later clarified that the president meant that the budget would be cut by 65%. Today, three former heads of the EPA warned in a New York Times op-ed that

Americans would miss the agency when it's gone. William K. Reilly and Christine Todd Whitman, who headed the EPA under Republican presidents, and Gina McCarthy, who headed it under a Democratic president, recalled how between 1970 and 2019 the EPA cut emissions of common air pollutants by 77% while private sector jobs grew 223% and our gross domestic product grew by almost 300 percent. The EPA minimizes exposure to dangerous air during wildfires, cleans up contaminated lands and tests for asbestos, lead and copper in water, delivering health benefits that outweigh its costs, the authors say, by more than 30 to one. Trump administration officials claim

they are enacting the policies their voters demand. But Melanie Zanona, Jonathan Allen, and Matt Dixon of NBC News reported Tuesday that the blowback on Republican representatives willing to hold town halls during the House recess was so intense that House leaders are urging them simply to stop holding constituent events. If they want to continue to do so, leaders suggest

making sure they vet attendees to make sure there won't be altercations that go viral on social media, as several have done recently. Leadership wants to stop what they say is a developing narrative that paints Republicans in a bad light. Republican National Committee Senior Advisor Daniel Alvarez told the NBC News reporters, the president's policies are incredibly popular and the American people applaud his success in cutting the waste, fraud and abuse of their hard-earned taxpayer dollars. Pathetic astroturf campaigns organized by out-of-touch far-left groups are exactly why Democrats will keep losing.

But today's news is unlikely to quiet the blowback. The administration announced cuts of 800 workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which monitors ocean currents, atmospheric changes, and climate change, and provides weather and ocean reports. It suggested further cuts tomorrow could bring the total to 1,000. NOAA's weather reports and marine forecasts are vital to Americans.

As climate scientist David Hull pointed out, for example, NOAA operates both of the US tsunami warning centers. Employees from them were fired today. Also in doggies crosshairs is social security. Today, the administration announced a major organizational restructuring of the Social Security Administration. This restructuring appears to mean large cuts to the agency

even though staffing is already at a 50-year low. It is not clear exactly how many positions will be cut. Multiple outlets say half of the agency's 57,000 employees will be let go while an executive at the agency's 57,000 employees will be let go, while an executive at the agency told Eric Wagner and Natalie Alms of Government Executive that the initial number of firings will be 7,000. At least five of the eight regional commissioners whose offices oversee and support the agency's

frontline offices across the country are leaving. And former Social Security Administratorrator Martin O'Malley warned, Social Security is being driven to a total system collapse. There are also rumblings of concern among business people about the Trump Administration's approach to the economy. Trump said today that the 25% tariffs on products from Mexico and Canada he paused for a month in early February will take effect on March 4th. An additional 10 percent tariff on goods from China will also go into effect that day. Tariffs are expected to drive up prices and Bloomberg

reported that in this quarter's earnings calls for 500 of the country's most valuable businesses, when company managers, investors, and analysts discuss the company's financial performance, mentions of tariffs reached an all-time high. Selena Wang of ABC News reported the warning of economists that the mass firings and the Trump tariff threats are having a chilling effect on the economy. The tariffs make it hard to plan for future costs, so companies are holding back on investments while people who lose their jobs, or are afraid they're going to lose their jobs, stop spending money.

A survey by the Conference Board, a nonpartisan nonprofit that provides insight for business, shows that consumer confidence is dropping dramatically. When Stanford University announced today that, given the uncertainty, we need to take prudent steps to limit spending, adding that we are implementing a freeze on staff hiring in the university. Carl Quintanilla of CNBC posted, here come the multiplier effects. Voters and business people are not the only ones pushing back against Trump's policies. Rachel Bluth and Melanie Mason of Politico reported today that the

country's 23 Democratic state Attorneys General have been working together to stop Trump's unconstitutional actions. Under the urging of then Attorney General Bob Ferguson of Washington State in February 2024, they began to prepare for cases based on Trump's campaign statements, taking them seriously as potential policies, and on Project 2025, which they recognized would play a big part in a second Trump administration. They worked together to figure out the most effective strategies for challenging the administration in court. As Trump issued executive orders at breakneck speed in his first few days in office,

they were ready to respond. Today, U.S. District Judge William Alsop ordered the administration, specifically the Office of Personnel Management, to rescind the mass firing of government workers with probationary status, ruling that the firings were probably illegal. Alsop pointed out that Congress had given personnel decisions

to the agencies themselves. The Office of Personnel Management does not have any authority whatsoever, under any statute in the history of the universe, to hire and fire employees at another agency. They can hire and fire their own employees. Probationary employees are the lifeblood of these agencies," the judge added. They come in at the low level and work their way up. And that's how we renew ourselves

and reinvent ourselves. Meanwhile, Trump and his team appear to be trying to undermine the rule of law in the United States. Today, Rebecca Crosby and Judd Legum of Popular Information reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission has stopped its prosecution of Justin Sun, a Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur who had been charged in March 2023 with securities fraud. After Trump was elected in 2024, Sun bought $30 million worth

of Trump's World Liberty Financial crypto tokens, putting $18 million directly into Trump's pockets. Since then, he has invested another $45 million in World Liberty Financial. Altogether Sun's investments have netted Trump more than $50 million. Crosby and Legum note that the SEC also appears to have dropped its case against the crypto trading platform Coinbase after the platform donated $75 million to a political action committee associated with Trump and donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration. And after Trump issued blanket pardons to those

convicted of crimes associated with the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, including those who attacked police officers. His administration now appears to have put pressure on Romania to lift a travel ban on social media influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate. The brothers were under investigation in Romania for rape, human trafficking, and money laundering and are under similar allegations in the UK. Maga Republicans attracted followers by claiming they would stand up for law and order. So the arrival in the US of the Tates

was not universally popular among them. A number of Maga Republicans rushed to distance themselves from the Tates. Florida's Attorney General, for example, said that Florida has zero tolerance for human trafficking and violence against women. And Florida Governor Ron DeSantis appeared angry as he said he learned of the Tate brothers' arrival

through the media. Letters from an American was written and read of the Tate brothers' arrival through the media. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"] Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, dead in Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"] Thank you.