The Headlines - How Republicans Will Try to Pay for Trump’s Agenda, and a New A.D.H.D. Study

Episode Date: January 23, 2025

Plus, an A.I. judge at the X Games.   On Today’s Episode:White House to Old Staff: Go Home. Don’t Call Us. We’ll Call You, by Michael Crowley and David E. SangerFederal Workers Ordered to Report on Colleagues Over D.E.I. Crackdown, by Erica L. Green and Hamed AleazizHouse G.O.P. Floats Medicaid Cuts and More to Finance Trump’s Huge Agenda, by Catie Edmondson and Andrew DuehrenWhy Is Israel Targeting Jenin, in the West Bank?, by Ephrat LivniPeople With A.D.H.D. Are Likely to Die Significantly Earlier Than Their Peers, Study Finds, by Ellen BarryWas That a 900 or 1080 on the Halfpipe? X Games Can Now Ask A.I., by Victor Mather Tune in every weekday morning. To get our full audio journalism and storytelling experience, download the New York Times Audio app — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.Tell us what you think at: [e-mail]. 

From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Thursday, January 23rd. Here's what we're covering. Donald Trump's dramatic steps to reshape the federal government are causing upheaval across the board. At the Department of Health and Human Services, a memo went out temporarily prohibiting the release of any public communication unless it's reviewed by a Trump administration

appointee first. That includes any new health guidance or notices from agencies like the Centers for Disease Control or the Food and Drug Administration. They are essentially muted. Over at the National Security Council, which is tasked with dealing with crises around the world, the staff were told yesterday to pack up, go home, and wait to see if they'd be invited to apply to get their positions back. Trump's National Security Advisor has said anyone who's brought back will be, quote, fully aligned with Trump's America First agenda. And at the State Department,

which Trump has called the Deep State Department, insinuating that it's full of people working against him, dozens of senior officials have cleared out faster than usual, and many don't have replacements yet. Trump has also put a stamp on the hiring process for new federal employees. Yesterday, he revoked a long-standing policy banning discrimination in government hiring. Lyndon Johnson put it in place back in the 1960s during the civil rights movement.

Trump has said that he wants to return to what he calls a merit-based and colorblind system. Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Republicans have been meeting to try and figure out how to pay for President Trump's ambitious agenda. The immigration crackdown and tax cuts that he's promised voters are enormously expensive. Even just extending the tax cuts he pushed during his first term would cost the government $5 trillion. So lawmakers are passing around a 50 page list of potential options

that basically has everything they can think of to offset Trump's sweeping proposals. They could tax people who get perks at work, like free gym memberships, that could raise about $20 billion. They could tax all college scholarships and fellowships to generate $54 billion. Or they could put in place a work requirement for Medicaid recipients. That would cause hundreds of thousands of people to lose coverage and save the government about $100 billion. The list is a political minefield, and narrowing it down will be a challenge. Many of the proposals would hurt low-income Americans to help pay for tax cuts, which largely benefit the wealthy.

And there's a group of hardline Republican lawmakers who say they won't support any new proposals that would add to the national debt. Still, Republicans are hoping to come to a consensus around one major bill that will bundle Trump's priorities, along with the measures needed to pay for them. They would then likely use a process called reconciliation to push it through Congress without needing any democratic support. My colleagues and I spoke to people in the West Bank this week who said just after the ceasefire came into effect in the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces were moving in large numbers into the northern West Bank. My colleague Adam Raskon has been covering the new military operation Israel is now carrying out in the occupied West Bank. Nearly three million Palestinians live in the territory,

along with half a million Jewish settlers. Israel's turned its attention specifically to the city of Jenin, which it raided a dozen times in the last year. The Palestinian Health Ministry says 10 people have been killed so far. The city of Jenin has long been a bastion of militancy, but over the past four years, the number of militants and sophistication has grown. Members of Islamic Jihad and Hamas and other groups have taken up arms. They say they're fighting Israel's occupation, but Israel says these people are terrorists and they've carried out a number of attacks against both Israeli soldiers and civilians. Every time there's a major operation by the Israelis, there's enormous impact for civilians.

And in the past, when the Israeli military has raided Jenin, they've left behind a trail of destruction, damaging roads, ripping up water lines in sewage systems, in what it says is an effort to neutralize improvised explosive devices. The mood in Geneva is very tense. People are wondering how long this operation will last. It's upended thousands of residents' lives. Many are unable to reach their homes, and they're wondering

whether they'll expand to other parts of the West Bank and grow in intensity and scale. There's a new study out today that looks at life expectancy for adults with ADHD. The findings, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, show that people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder have significantly shorter lifespans than people without it—around seven years shorter for men, nine years shorter for women. The study doesn't identify exactly why that's happening, but the researchers found that people with ADHD are nearly twice as likely to smoke or abuse alcohol,

and they have far higher rates of self-harming and suicidal tendencies. Overall, it's said adults with ADHD find it harder to manage their impulses and engage in more risky behaviors. Traditionally, a lot of the conversation about ADHD has centered around kids instead of adults, and often around whether they can focus in school.

One ADHD researcher said, it's now clear it should not be thought of as a childhood issue, but instead as a lifelong disorder. disorder. And finally, this was almost perfect. I'm tearing up that frontside 1080 with a tail grab. Wow. The winter X Games start later today in Colorado. She's just got to hang on frontside 900. McTwist! Back to bed! Henscrape! Athletes are strapping on their snowboards at the top of the giant half pipes, and judges are getting ready to decide what's a 1620 and what's just a measly 1400. But now, for the first time, organizers are testing out what they call a potential superpower

for those judges. An AI system that will kick out its own ratings for the snowboarders. The idea is that a system of cameras and computers can track the athletes as they spin, flip, and fly through the air better than the human eye can. Though for now, the humans will still have the final say. The head of the X Games said the appeal is pretty simple.

Quote, sometimes humans make mistakes. It's part of a larger digital shift in sports. Electronic systems are watching for ins and outs in tennis. Cameras are on the lookout for offsides in soccer. And officials in gymnastics have already been using AI to review judges' scores. How far and how fast the technology will spread is still up in the air. People who love to argue with the ref or scream at the umpire might just have to get used to yelling at a computer instead.

Those are the headlines. Today on The Daily, a look at President Trump's plan to turn away from clean energy and double down on oil. That's next in the New York Times audio app or you can listen wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Tracy Mumford, we'll be back tomorrow.