Letters from an American - June 11, 2025

Episode Date: June 12, 2025

Get full access to Letters from an American at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe

June 11, 2025. While President Donald Trump is trying to project strength by ordering a federalized National Guard and the Marines into Los Angeles, a new Quinnipiac poll of American registered voters out today reinforces that both Trump and his policies are unpopular. The numbers are remarkable. The poll shows that 38% of registered voters approve of the way Trump is handling his job as president. 54% disapprove. Voters aren't keen on Trump's appointees either. 38% of voters approve of the way Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

is handling his job. 53% disapprove. 37% of voters approve of the way Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth is handling his job, while 46% disapprove. 38% approved of the work billionaire Elon Musk did, while 57% said it was either not so good or poor. More voters disapprove than approve of Trump's handling of immigration issues,

43% approval to 54% disapproval. Deportations, 40% approval to 56% disapproval. Deportations, 40% approval to 56% disapproval. The economy, 40% approval to 56% disapproval. Trade, 38% approval to 57% disapproval. Universities, 37% approval to 54% disapproval. The Israel Hamas conflict, 35% approval to 52% disapproval. And the Russia-Ukraine war, 34% approval to 57% disapproval. Voters are opposed to the budget reconciliation bill the Republicans have dubbed the One Big

Beautiful Bill, and Democrats have called the Big Beautiful Betrayal, by 53% to 27%. While the measure cuts almost $800 billion out of Medicaid over the next 10 years, only 10% of registered voters believe the federal funding for Medicaid should decrease. There is little good news for the administration in economic numbers either. Yesterday, the World Bank, an international organization of 189 countries, joined the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in concluding that Trump's trade war would cut U.S. economic growth sharply. The World Bank estimates that growth will fall by half in 2025 compared to 2024.

In 2024, U.S. economic growth was 2.8 percent. In 2025, the World Bank predicts growth of just 1.4 percent. It forecasts that Trump's trade wars will cut global economic growth from 2.8 percent in 2024 to 2.3 percent in 2025. After promising 90 tariff deals in 90 days, Trump has been desperate for a deal with China. In retaliation for Trump's high tariffs, China tightly controlled exports of rare-earth minerals and the magnets made from them, which the U.S. needs to build cars, electronic products, and missiles. Rare-earth minerals are valuable minerals that are not uncommon but are present in such small concentrations the amount of

labor it takes to refine them is enormous. Most of them are currently mined in China. As Anna Swanson reported yesterday in the New York Times, late last month Ford had to close a Chicago factory temporarily and other countries have been forced to suspend some of their operations. On Sunday on CBS's Face the Nation top White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett said the point is we want the rare earth the magnets that are crucial for cell phones and everything else to flow just as they did before the beginning of April. That is, before Trump imposed his Liberation Day tariffs.

Today Trump posted, our deal with China is done. Although China simply called it a framework, and neither Trump nor Xi has agreed to it. Malcolm Ferguson of the New Republic wrote that the proposed deal simply revives a May deal that rolled tariffs back for 90 days. Further, the rare earth deal lasts for only six months.

University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers wrote, the US and Chinese trade negotiators have negotiated a handshake agreement to seek sign-off to agree that a previously agreed agreement was still their agreed-upon agreement. That agreement is not an agreement, but a framework for seeking future agreements. He added, notice that not only are we not getting a better deal, we're not even getting back to where we were at the start of the administration.

Before the House Ways and Means Committee today, Treasury Secretary Scott Besant said Trump is likely to extend the 90-day pause on his tariffs with countries to whom the administration is speaking. Meanwhile, Constantine Toropin and Steve Bannon of Military.com confirmed today that the troops Trump addressed in a partisan speech at Fort Bragg had been hand-picked Trump supporters with a fit physical appearance. One message simply read, no fat soldiers.

Toropin and Bannon reported, the soldiers roared with laughter and applauded Trump's diatribe in a shocking and rare display of troops taking part in naked political partisanship. They also reported that an Oklahoma-based retailer was selling pro-Trump and right-wing campaign-style merchandise at the event, a violation of military policy. When questioned about Trump's undermining of the traditional nonpartisanship of the

military, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell told the journalists, "'Believe me, no one needs to be encouraged to boo the media. Look no further than this query, which is nothing more than a disgraceful attempt to ruin the lives of young soldiers. But a commander at Fort Bragg commented, �This has been a bad week for the Army, for anyone who cares about us being a neutral institution, speaking with Military.com on the condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation.

This was shameful. I don�t expect anything to come out of it, but I hope maybe we can learn from it long term. Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Roger Wicker, a Republican of Mississippi, and chair of the House Armed Services Committee, Mike Rogers, a Republican of Alabama, have said nothing. Ron Filipkowski of Midas Touch, who served as a Marine, called their silence a betrayal of their duty to the military and the Republic. The administration's policies continue to gather opposition. More than 90 scientists at the National Institutes of Health

in Bethesda, Maryland, signed, and another 250 supported anonymously, a letter sent to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and NIH leader Jay Bhattacharya titled the Bethesda Declaration. The scientists used as a model Bhattacharya's own October 2020 Great Barrington Declaration, which echoed the political plan of the first Trump White House and called for ending any attempt to control COVID-19

and instead simply letting it spread. The Bethesda Declaration said, "'We dissent to administration policies that undermine the NIH mission, waste public resources, and harm the health of Americans and people across the globe. It said the leaders of NIH and members of Congress who oversee it are prioritizing political

momentum over human safety and faithful stewardship of public resources. They called out the politicization of research by stopping high-quality peer-reviewed grants and contracts, thus throwing away years of hard work and millions of dollars, risking the health of participants in studies and damaging public trust. They noted that some of the signers felt they had to remain anonymous, while others, due to a culture of fear and suppression created by this administration, chose not to sign their names for fear of retaliation. Giselle Ruia-Ewing of Politico reported today that former Trump allies are turning on Federal

Bureau of Investigation Director Cash Battelle and Deputy Director Dan Bongino. Both of them had pushed a number of conspiracy theories on right-wing media before Trump appointed them to office. And supporters expected that they would expose the deep state once they were in power. But they have not released new information about the Jeffrey Epstein case, which right-wing adherents believe

will show a list of people who are implicated in the convicted sex offenders' actions. Micah Morrison at the right-wing Judicial Watch wrote, Conservative insiders are alarmed by mounting signs that Patel and Bongino have been taken hostage by the deep state consensus and are failing to bring meaningful change to the FBI. Yesterday, voters in districts in Florida, Massachusetts, and Oklahoma chose statehouse and Senate members in special elections. G. Elliott Morris of Strength and Numbers notes that in five of the six, Democrats continued

to overperform relative to their 2024 numbers. Politico's Lisa Koshinsky, Kaylin Razor, and Mia McCarthy reported today that of the 50 Republican members of Congress they surveyed, only seven said they planned to go to the June 24th military parade in Washington, D.C. Although the parade is in honor of the 250th anniversary of the creation of the U.S. Army, the chairs of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees do not plan to attend. Senator Rand Paul, a Republican of Kentucky, who has criticized Trump's budget reconciliation bill, yesterday

said, I love parades, but I'm not really excited about $40 million for a parade. I don't really think the symbolism of tanks and missiles is really what we're all about. All the images that come to mind are Soviet Union and North Korea. Today, Paul told Jordan Carney of Politico that the White House has uninvited him from the annual White House picnic for members of Congress and their families, a move that Paul learned of only when he tried to pick up the tickets and that he called incredibly petty. He commented that the level of immaturity is beyond words.

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.