Donald Trump and maga Republicans responsible for millions of preventable deaths because of USAID cuts

Echo interview published in New York Magazine The Intelligencer by Benjamin Hart.  

(Maine Writer:  President George W. Bush supported USAID, saving millions of lives but now Republicans are ignoring the tragic reality about the consequences of cutting funding for the humanitarian programs. All preventable deaths associated with the cuts to USAID are caused by the Republican's' ignorance.)

‘I’m Not Sure When I’m Ever Not Going to Be Angry Anymore’

During the last days of USAID,  (Agency for International Development) one Trump appointee told longtime agency official Nicholas Enrich that to sway skeptical overseers about the dangers of drug-resistant tuberculosis, he should create a slide show in the style of Barney the carton dinosaur. 

Another confessed that before being briefed on the agency’s disease-fighting efforts, he had thought USAID’s work consisted mostly of funding abortions — which it was federally prohibited from doing. 

As Enrich details in his new book, Into the Wood Chipper, the death of USAID was defined by such simultaneously distressing and farcical details. (The book takes its name from an infamous Elon Musk tweet in which he bragged about disemboweling the agency.) Enrich, a TB (tuberculosis) specialist who became head of USAID’S global health program amid a purge at the agency in early 2025, fought to save what he could, usually to no avail.

Musk wreaked havoc across the government, but he went after USAID — which he characterized as a subversive organization promoting leftist dogma around the world — with a vengeance. DOGE appointees and Trump officials, some of whom had long-standing grudges against the agency, blithely laid waste to it, firing seasoned bureaucrats and suddenly freezing funding for AIDS (Aquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome caused by Immunodeficiency virus- HIV) medication, clinical trials, education programs, and everything else in USAID’s vast, 💲35 billion-a-year remit. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, once a USAID champion, issued a waiver for lifesaving aid to continue, but in practice little changed. Rubio accused agency staffers of “insubordination” and insisted, wrongly, that nobody had died as a result of the cuts he let stand. In the end, the agency was whittled down to almost nothing, then folded into Rubio’s State Department. Though exact figures are difficult to come by, researchers estimate that hundreds of thousands of people have died as a result of USAID’s destruction. Its demise blew a hole in the public-health infrastructure of many developing countries, particularly in Africa; in some places, AIDS is already making a comeback.

Last March, Enrich — whom, full disclosure, I went to high school with many years ago — issued a memo detailing the human toll of the cuts and was placed on administrative leave minutes later. 💥😡 He then gave a statement to Congress, becoming a rare public face for an agency that largely operated out of sight of the American people. I spoke with him about why USAID was so vulnerable to the chopping block, the anger he continues to feel over its destruction, and whether the agency might eventually get a second life.

Your book received quite a bit of press. Have you heard from a lot of your former colleagues at USAID❓ Do they appreciate that you wrote this❓
It’s been unbelievable, actually. It’s definitely not what my publisher was expecting — now they’re scrambling to get more books out. And my former colleagues are really jazzed about somebody speaking out and telling their story. I always get a little uncomfortable about that, because it’s very much not everybody’s story; it’s very much mine. And different people were going through all different kinds of hell, whether it was the workers posted overseas who were forced to pull their children out of school or cancel medical appointments after being told they had to leave immediately, or the contractors in D.C. who were just completely shut out one day and just told to go home. We all had our own stories. But the reaction has been very positive.

To be honest, I was kind of expecting that the USAID community would be excited about the book, but I think it’s getting some larger traction. People are really interested in getting a sense of what actually happened with the DOGE team that was at USAID, and how it was so much more incompetent and indifferent and cruel than they knew.

I’ve been trying to figure out exactly why USAID was hit so hard. One explanation is that Elon Musk was listening to Michael Benz, a former State Department staffer who was on Joe Rogan’s podcast spreading conspiracy theories about USAID. Then Musk became obsessed, and then DOGE came in and killed the whole thing. But is it really that simple❓ The agency faced a lot of problems in Trump’s first term, too. Do you think it would have been in trouble regardless once Trump won again, even without Musk and DOGE❓
I think it’s a confluence of events. The fact that Elon wanted to tear it down allowed the DOGE team to really go after it. But there were also people who came in as political appointees in Trump Two who had been at USAID during Trump One and had axes to grind. There was Pete Marocco, who was basically in charge of the agency. 

And, he brought his buddies, including Mark Lloyd, who ended up being my boss — really terrible guy. Marocco had been there during Trump One, and he felt like he was completely mistreated by the USAID staff, that they leaked everything about him including his long history of Islamophobic remarks, even though his role then was religious freedom adviser for the agency. 

I talked to him at the beginning of Trump Two, and I was like, “Look, did you think you were coming in to run an agency❓ Were you surprised that your job here is just to tear the place down❓” And he said, “I actually came in with a list of people I wanted to get rid of.” He told me that the USAID staff had actually killed his dog.

That seems unlikely, but I suppose it’s possible.
I’m sure they did not actually kill the dog. But it just goes to show the mind-set of a person who is coming into an agency to take revenge on the agency’s staff. There was the DOGE push from Musk, when he first decided he really didn’t like USAID because of what Benz was saying. But it was really the first agency where he started to dig in and see what he could do, and he started to get some pushback. And when he started to find out that his staff couldn’t go into the classified systems, for example, or fire civil servants who have civil-service protections, he dug his heels in and was like, “Well, I bet I can. Watch me."

Another pillar of this is the unique vulnerability of an agency whose primary impact is overseas. I think USAID is a national security agency that keeps Americans safe, keeps diseases at bay, and builds partnerships that help keep the world a secure place. The benefits don’t just happen overseas, but many people around the country question the idea of spending money there when we have real problems at home. And I think that that allowed USAID to be vulnerable in a way that maybe the Social Security administration wouldn’t be.To add to that, there was the problem of visibility. I pay close attention to the news and politics, and before all this happened, I didn’t have a great grasp on what USAID actually did. I knew about PEPFAR and I knew they were doing lifesaving work, but if you had asked me about specifics, that would probably be about it.

You’re 100 percent right. And in all the sad postmortem circles I participated in of former colleagues, that’s definitely one of the things we said we could have done differently, is tell our story better.

It felt like an unfair fight, where Elon would be spouting off, and nobody was really pushing back that hard. Probably in part because it was such a shock to the system to be dismantled so suddenly, and partly because USAID workers weren’t PR professionals. They were policy people and analysts.
And you’d have to dig into these long and tedious reports about data to understand the enormous impact that USAID had. For me, one thing that’s been really weird about all this is that before, people didn’t know what USAID was. I would tell them what my job was, and they’d be like, “Okay, so that’s the State Department❓” Close friends and family didn’t get it. And then this six-week period happens and I’ve got my head down. I’m panicking every day. The world is falling apart for me, and I actually wasn’t paying that much attention to the news.

Then I come out of it and suddenly, everybody has heard of USAID, and there’s protests in all 50 states to try to save us. I’m like, Where did this come from? And when I released these memos about what was actually happening at USAID, and how we were prevented from doing the lifesaving activities that Rubio was saying he had created this waiver for, I thought I was just compiling a record for my colleagues to protect ourselves from when we ended up getting blamed. I was really surprised that I was contacted right away by national media. And they seemed to care about it for the first time that I was aware of.

So you had these DOGE people who had no idea what the agency did and just wanted to smash it up. You had Musk, who believed all these conspiracy theories about it. Then you had people who are maybe a bit more sophisticated, like Jeremy Lewin, who was the administrator for policy and programs for USAID — though also affiliated with DOGE — and has an impressive pedigree. I heard him do a long interview with Ross Douthat a few months ago. His whole spiel was that many countries have become dependent on the U.S.; it’s an endless cycle of aid and nothing really gets better. We’d prefer to put the responsibility in those countries’ hands. This probably sounds reasonable to a lot of people, even if cutting off aid suddenly is cruel. Did Lewin’s justification, or others like it, make any sense to you?
I thought Lewin’s interview was infuriating, partly because there were kernels of truth in it. But before I can talk about whether there are ways to make aid better, more efficient, and less likely to foster dependency, it’s really important to recognize that that is not why they destroyed USAID. They destroyed USAID to satisfy the ego of Elon Musk, and the people who were tasked with destroying it were not aid reformers. You said that maybe Jeremy Lewin was somewhere in between the bozos and the conspiracy theorists, but the reality is he had absolutely zero experience in international development; he’s just good at picking up talking points later. 

There were some interesting and valid points he made in that interview, but that was all put together after the fact. And the people who were there were not trying to improve to more tightly align foreign aid with the president’s agenda or to make it less likely to foster dependency and become more self-sustaining. They were tearing it down.

And so to me, especially for an agency called the Department of Government Efficiency, to come in and talk about and tear down an agency that was allowing us to maintain global stability at a tiny fraction of the cost of what it costs to try to police the world via coercion and force … USAID had operated on less than one percent of the federal budget. And we created trading partners, lasting partnerships, with countries like Korea, Brazil, that didn’t exist before. We’ve saved 92 million lives over the last two decades alone. The return on investment is insanely efficient, especially when compared to other government agencies. To tear down that agency in the totally false name of eliminating waste and creating efficiencies is especially infuriating. I can feel the anger coming through. It still feels pretty raw for you, clearly.💥💢
Well then, I’m portraying my message correctly. Yes, I’m very angry. I actually wrote this book hoping it would allow me to put some of these feelings to bed, but I’m not sure when I’m ever not going to be angry anymore. I think that obviously there’s the personal piece — I lost my job and my career, and so did my colleagues. And watching an agency’s expertise be hollowed out and replaced by a group of completely incompetent and unqualified buffoons, then having to listen to them talk about how they’re actually improving things, when it’s just lies — it’s very, very upsetting.

It’s difficult to get an exact picture of what’s going on on the ground in many of the most affected countries, and local organizations are trying to fill the gap left by USAID. But of the programs that were cut, which ones have been particularly devastating in your eyes?
That’s a really big question. The first thing I’ll say is we don’t really know, because they have not reduced any of the data they’re required to by Congress. And I think that alone is a little bit nerve-racking and telling. In terms of what keeps me up at night, it’s the way that we have exposed ourselves in the United States to the spread of infectious diseases in ways we weren’t just a year ago. 

After COVID, we had invested hundreds of millions of dollars to build up early warning systems to detect and respond to outbreaks in communities before they could even spread to a hospital, much less spread internationally. And that was the first thing to go.

The few things that they have saved, I think — it’s hard to tell, but it sounds like — are continuing treatment for patients with HIV, and continuing to supply drugs for malaria and tuberculosis. But, all the surveillance, all the monitoring, all the prevention is gone. So I’m particularly concerned about what that means for our own vulnerability, as well as the billions of dollars that we’ve invested over the years. How far are we going to backslide before we get a handle on this❓

Along the same lines, they did release one-quarter of PEPFAR data. (President Bush's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief)

 It’s a weird single quarter in the middle of a time period, and who knows what monkey business was involved in deciding on that. 

But, the reason they did it was that it showed no major decline in the number of people total that were on treatment from pre-cuts to post-cuts, about six months in. Of course, the reason that it showed that was because treatment is often distributed in six-month batches, so you wouldn’t actually see the decline until just after that. But what that data did show was that they basically have stopped providing testing services. We’ve seen a cut of 4 million HIV tests year over year. Diagnosis is equally down, not surprisingly. And they have basically stopped all the prevention activities and stopped providing support to vulnerable communities. They call that DEI, but really it’s just standard epidemiology.

How bad is this for the fight against HIV and AIDS overall?
What it looks like from the data is that the U.S. government has abandoned its commitment to ending the HIV pandemic and is only looking at trying to preserve treatment of already diagnosed patients. We were getting very close to ending it as a public-health threat, and now we’re basically giving up on that and putting ourselves in a position that we’re always just going to be providing drugs without ever trying to actually get past the epidemic itself, or to help build health systems that can deal with this on their own. There’s talk about not fostering dependency, but the administration’s actions show that the activities that they’re continuing are the most likely to involve us providing drugs forever.

One other crushing thing is the end of our global immunization campaign, where we provided immunizations against a host of the world’s worst and most likely killers of children under 5. That just stopped in its tracks. We haven’t seen the impacts of it yet, but over the next five years, kids are going to die in massive numbers, and none of them had to.

Lots of other governments are also pulling back on foreign aid, and I know nonprofits can’t replace the level of funding that was lost. But have you seen any positive signs of other people or organizations stepping in to do any of this work?
No. The nonprofits are just as devastated as the government. They’re all going bankrupt or getting rid of their staff because they were very much either tied in with or dependent upon U.S. government funding to run their programs. And like you said, other countries haven’t stepped up to replace the U.S. — weirdly, it’s been the opposite.

Over the long term, this administration talks a lot about countering threats from China, but what we’re actually getting is a situation where all the goodwill, all the trust that we’ve built over all these years … it’s kind of similar to what’s happening with NATO and other alliances. When we break our promises so profoundly and the resulting damage is so immediate and devastating, how can we expect countries to come back to the table in the future and want to be our partners? It makes me wonder where they’re going to turn instead for support when they need it.

USAID also did a lot of work that wasn’t lifesaving treatments. They also funded news outlets and political opposition around the world, and not all of it was savory. Let’s say there’s a revamp of the agency. Should it focus more narrowly on the issues we’ve discussed in this interview, like immunization and medicine?
There are definitely things that are outside of lifesaving treatment that should be continued in a new agency for international development. I think maybe the easiest example of that is education. The support for increasing literacy and for having girls and women stay in school longer is one of the most effective and long-term efficient ways that we build stability and build economic development in countries, which actually ends up benefiting the United States.

Specific to democracy and government stuff — this is a little bit outside my expertise, but I will say that when at the beginning of the Iran war when Trump stood up and said he wanted the grassroots pro-democracy protesters to take over the regime, it was frustrating to hear because those were some of the groups that USAID had supported. And a year before, he had abruptly cut off support to them and made them extremely vulnerable to retaliation by the regime. That investment may have been able to pay off, but we’ll never know.

What do you think of the prospect that USAID could come back under a Democratic president? Do you think anyone would spend the political will on actually doing it❓ And perhaps make it leaner or more efficient❓
I don’t know if the will is there, but I think it needs to be, and I hope Americans will demand that the agency be brought back. Again, it doesn’t have to be the same. There are ways USAID could be made much more efficient. And in that sense, there is an opportunity to redesign it in a way that breaks through some of the bottlenecks we faced and the very real inefficiencies of USAID. There are ways to do that when it’s been torn apart so completely.

But I think we do need to have an independent agency for international development. Having an independent agency that is the face of American generosity means something to the world. The way it’s being run out of the State Department, with these transactional and exploitative partnership agreements, where basically we’re dangling the prospect of providing treatment for lifesaving diseases to countries in exchange for them to give us access to their mineral rights or to send our deportees to their countries — it’s like forgetting all the lessons we’ve learned about what works in international development over the last 60 years, which is that if you build your foundation of partnership on goodwill and trying to do good, you will actually be able to build more long-lasting trust.

The other thing I’ll say about this is that people didn’t know about USAID — that’s true. But now, they’ve actually heard of it, and they’re really mad about the way it was torn down. Pew came out with some good polling about what people think of foreign aid and about what DOGE did to it. I think politicians will see that it actually is not going to cost them a lot of political will to restart USAID. I think that’s actually what people want and expect.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

Another failed Trump assassination attempt! A weird cluster. but do the incidents pass the straight face test?

My Instagram friend authored this opinion on his page and it is worth republishing. I could not have explained this weird pattern of failed Trump assassinations any better:  See source at this link here.

Did (3-D printer Barbie press secretary) Karoline Leavitt have inside information regarding events to come at the Whitehouse Correspondents Dinner

White House Correspondents Association in Washington DC on April 25, 2026

❓ In her own words an hour before the start of the event: "There will be shots fired tonight in the room"

None of this makes any sense. Under normal protocol, any threat to the President would demand that the entire facility be placed on immediate and complete lockdown. How this was handled raises so many questions.

This event was obviously pre-arranged and is in alignment with Trump’s exit strategy to redirect any attention back to himself that allows him to say that the Press is out of control and out to get him. Trump attended this dinner in the first place only for the opportunity for him to have another attention grabbing fiasco. This is his go-to plan to redirect the focus back on himself and stop any further attention to his failing poll numbers, his popularity, his demented decision for getting us involved in the Iran War, and the Epstein files.

Trump and his minions have a track record of not being able to coordinate their stories...ie, their lies. He wants to be able to say that he is the only President to survive three "supposedly" attempted assassinations. And now he is dictating to the Press that this dinner be rescheduled within the next month. For him, "The show must go on" for more distractions. Idiot❗

Republicans are enabling the destruction of America. Impeach Trump NOW! Attention Senator Susan Collins

Baltimore Sun opinion echo by Tom Jurkowsky

The unwillingness of our U.S. friends, allies and alliances to help the U.S. in its efforts against Iran should come as no surprise.

Donald Trump has spent time during both of his terms in office criticizing, insulting and demeaning NATO leaders — even going so far as to insult the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron and criticizing the pope.

Unfortunately, Trump’s bullying style of diplomacy does not engender a willingness by allies and friends to step forward and provide assistance to our efforts in Iran. Berating foreign leaders who complained about his tariffs, continuing with threats to take over Greenland and accusing British Prime Minister Keir Starmer of cowardice are just a few examples that don’t create feelings of warmth, friendship and respect.

After a recent meeting in the White House with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, Trump berated allies and told Rutte that he was considering reprisals against NATO countries for their lack of support in the war against Iran. According to Politico, the conversation was nothing but a tirade of insults.

Throughout his terms in office, Trump has continued to repeat claims that the NATO alliance has never done anything to help the U.S. He continues to ignore the fact that when the U.S. was attacked on 9/11, many NATO countries supported our efforts in Afghanistan. In fact, approximately 3,600 NATO-led coalition troops died in Afghanistan, while over 23,000 were injured. The president’s staff should remind him of those numbers. Failing to acknowledge NATO’s contributions during our 20 years in Afghanistan is insulting.

Donald Trump’s inept style of failed diplomacy stands in stark contrast to that of former Secretary of State George Shultz, who served under President Ronald Reagan.

Shultz compared diplomacy to gardening. “You go around and talk to people, you develop a relationship of trust and confidence, and then if something comes up, you have that base to work from.”

Shultz used his “tending the garden” metaphor throughout his tenure as secretary of state. He said the term described the continuous, daily nurturing of international relationships and diplomatic alliances. Shultz felt that neglecting those relationships, like neglecting one’s garden, will grow weeds.

Trump obviously is unwilling to buy into Shultz’s experienced foreign policy style, choosing instead to bully, threaten and belittle allies and friends because they would not send naval forces to help open the Strait of Hormuz.

Clearly, the Iranian regime is evil. Its sponsorship of global terrorism and murdering dissident citizens if they deviate from the Iranian ideology should not earn the country sympathy. Nor should Iran earn gold stars for supporting its murderous network of allies that includes Hamas and Hezbollah.

However, the unwillingness of countries to answer Trump’s call for help in Iran is understandable. First and foremost, Trump did not provide an argument to either the American people or Congress for his decision to attack Iran. He similarly failed to consult with any allies or friends about the war in advance of his taking kinetic action. This was reckless and careless. Many of our European and Asian allies are dependent on oil and gas from Iran. Blind-siding them with his actions on Iran was a fundamental mistake.

Did Trump not realize what Iran’s reaction would be to being attacked — closing the Strait of Hormuz and a resultant global economic impact? There have been many war games conducted regarding the Middle East over the last several decades. Not one has ever left the Strait of Hormuz open.

Nicolas Burns, a former ambassador to NATO, said, “If you prepare the ground diplomatically before you go in, even if they don’t want to fight alongside you, they understand your strategy, and you get so much more buy-in.”

Two former defense secretaries writing in The New York Times, Chuck Hagel and Leon Panetta, say problems arise when our country engages in conflicts that drift without clear objectives and end points. “They often become tragic, unwinnable wars that history does not remember kindly,” they contend.

“America needs allies, trading partners and friends. But now, instead of working together with them to maintain a global system that has brought real geopolitical and economic benefit to us all, we are isolating ourselves,” say Hagel and Panetta.

Unfortunately, Trump’s thoughtless “do it alone” actions have destabilized the world and are cultivating anti-American sentiment not just in Europe but among people in the Middle East and Pacific. Many countries in those regions are looking to China as a better strategic economic partner.

One of my foreign service friends once told me that diplomacy is based around “ships.” Being a Navy guy, I immediately thought he meant the use of seapower and Navy ships when discussing diplomacy. He quickly corrected my train of thought by saying diplomacy centers around three different kinds of “ships” — partnerships, relationships and friendships.

Adhering to those three ingredients in one’s diplomatic pouch will lead to a weed-free garden that George Shultz strove to achieve, along with friends and allies who will support you. Donald Trump should take heed.

Tom Jurkowsky is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy who served on active duty for 31 years. 

#ImpeachTrumpNOW❗

When will main stream media report about the growing calls from the public for Donald Trump's impeachment?

Hello Maine Stream Media❓  Are we awake yet❓  After three previous failed assassination attempts and now a fourth one.  Donald Trump is clearly a danger to all who are around him❗

Letter: 'Donald Trump ... is a danger to our country and the world'

Published in the Community Advocate

Donald Trump's reckless and irresponsible behavior in recent weeks has demonstrated anew that he is a danger to our country and the world. We must speak out strongly against this threat. For this reason the Westborough Democratic Town Committee has voted approval of a resolution that calls on our congressman and U.S. senators to support the removal of Donald Trump as president by any constitutional or legal means. 

Furthermore, we also call on the full Congress and the Donald Trump cabinet to take immediate action to remove Trump from the presidency.

Unfortunately, we understand that Trump's removal is probably unlikely, at least for now.  Also, we understand that some will criticize our resolution as partisan. Be that as it may, this is no time for silence. The American people must unify around the demand for Trump to go, now.  (Maine Writer:  Donald Trump's brand is "cruelty")

#ImpeachTrumpNOW 

Respectfully, from Tom Hubbard

Vice Co-Chair/Westborough Democratic Town Committee Massachusetts 

Donald Trump and maga Republicans are wasting billions of dollars to fund the illegal Iran war. They must have oversight!

Published in the New York Times by Haider Ali Hussein Mullick

Mr. Mullick served in the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General from 2016 to 2026.

American tax payers will be spending 💲money in Iran for a long time.

In fact, America’s spending on the war in Iran will far outlast active combat. The U.S. government has already made contracts and other commitments to repair damaged bases, field counter-drone platforms, feed and shelter thousands of troops and replenish munitions.

Even if Donald Trump signs a deal ending the war tomorrow, we will harden bases in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, by reinforcing aircraft shelters, building blast walls around fuel and communications nodes, replacing destroyed satellite communications equipment and installing layered defense systems to defeat Iranian drones — the kind that killed six Americans in Kuwait. We will monitor for years Iran’s nuclear and missile programs and the Strait of Hormuz with carrier strike groups, destroyers and intelligence assets. Also, the U.S. military will have to replenish its munitions stockpiles: The war has burned through U.S. supplies of offensive missiles such as Tomahawks, used to strike Iranian ground targets, and defensive Patriot and THAAD interceptor systems, deployed to halt an onslaught of thousands of Iranian drones.

I worked for a decade in the Defense Department’s inspector general’s office, conducting oversight of the sorts of conflicts that the United States so often finds itself in — ones that are easy to start and hard to end, just like this one. The Pentagon calls wars such as these “overseas contingency operations,” a misnomer that hides their true nature: long, stubborn conflicts marked by changing objectives, cost overruns, fraud and waste. The risk is high that the public will not understand how much the Iran conflict will cost and that a lot of money will be wasted, either lining the pockets of fraudsters or paying for things that are marginal to the mission.

Congress should force the Trump administration to provide full, regular transparency on what it has signed up the nation to pay. And it needs to be clear with the American people how well the government is using the billions it is set to spend.

So, the best path forward is to tap a special inspector general to estimate costs, audit contracts, investigate fraud, inspect logistics chains and track whether stated objectives are met. The conflict in Iraq and Syria has one, as do the conflicts in Afghanistan and Ukraine. While I was with the Pentagon inspector general’s office, we created a website that provides the public information on funding and other oversight work relating to America’s support of Ukraine in its war against Russia.

But, the Iran war has neither a special inspector general nor a public website explaining how much is being (wastefully❗) spent 💲and on what❓

Federal lawmakers know they cannot count on executive branch officials for a straight answer about this war’s cost. Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, told the House Budget Committee on April 15, “I don’t have a ballpark for you.” It is incredible for him to claim that he has no general sense of the Iran war’s cost so far. Many people, including in the government, have been counting.

The Pentagon told Congress that the first six days of the war cost more than 💲11.3 billion. The Center for Strategic and International Studies calculated that munitions consumed 84 cents of every dollar spent on the Iran conflict in the opening 100 hours, as the U.S. military burned through Tomahawk, Patriot and THAAD inventories. With over 50,000 U.S. troops deployed in the region and about 13,000 strikes against Iran, the American Enterprise Institute estimated the cost at between 💲25 billion and 💲35 billion.

And that’s before the long-tail contracts that follow every war. Those costs can be enormous, and we need to anticipate them.

In 2014, the United States began its operation to defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The so-called caliphate fell in 2019. Yet Congress enacted 💲11.5 billion for the operation across fiscal years 2024 and 2025 — six years after ISIS was supposedly defeated. The lead inspector general filed his latest quarterly report this February, in the operation’s 12th year.

Over 17 years, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction documented 💲26 billion in waste, secured 171 criminal convictions and recovered almost 💲1.7 billion in criminal fines and other savings to the U.S. government. And the spending on this conflict is not done. Most Americans think the war in Afghanistan ended in 2021. Active combat did. Thirty-two days after the U.S. pullout, a new operation began — the Defense Department’s over-the-horizon counterterrorism mission to contain terrorist threats emanating from Afghanistan, conducted mainly from bases in Qatar. In fiscal year 2025, about four years after the fall of Kabul, the Defense Department’s comptroller reported that the mission’s obligations exceeded 💲4.2 billion.

For Ukraine, the Pentagon inspector general found that the Navy outspent its funding by 💲399 million in a single fiscal year. A separate audit found 💲1.1 billion in questioned costs across 323 payments. Another evaluation discovered that most of the weapons sent to the Ukrainians had not been properly inventoried.

Congress should designate one person — the Pentagon’s inspector general — to lead aggressive and continuing oversight of the whole government’s Iran war effort, providing ample funding for this work in every supplemental war appropriations measure it approves.

Congress should also ensure that the Iran war’s watchdogs have real power, giving them subpoena authority to prompt government agencies to fix problems the auditors find. As of this month, there were over 1,400 open recommendations for the Department of Defense. In December, the Pentagon failed its eighth consecutive financial audit. This department has requested another 💲200 billion for its war in Iran and cannot account for the funding it already has.

But, the Trump illegal Iran world war is not just about treasure. Thirteen American service members were killed in Kuwaid and more than 380 have been wounded. Good oversight would hold the government accountable for both. 

As a Navy Reserve officer recalled to active duty in April 2023, I supported the rescue of 70 U.S. Embassy staff and their families from Sudan as that country collapsed into civil war. The capabilities that made the rescue possible — the airlift, the intelligence, the precision logistics, the access to partner bases — are what inspectors general assess and protect.

The money is already flowing. The oversight must happen soon.

Donald Trump has a fixation on creating cruelty.

File under "You cannot make this stuff up".  

Donald Trump’s latest fantastic notion is to repurpose Alcatraz Island, one of the National Park Service’s most popular historical sites, as the remote, isolated California prison it used to be.

Nothing about it makes sense.

It was costing nearly three times as much to operate as other federal prisons, which is why Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy made the sensible decision to close it in 1963.

Every necessity, such as fuel, food and water, had to be barged in. The buildings, visibly crumbling in the salty environment of San Francisco Bay, needed major repairs. Contrary to legend, it wasn’t escape-proof, either.

A total waste of money💲💰❗

The 💲151 million that Trump is asking Congress to squander on Alcatraz would barely begin to restore it as a prison. The operating expenses would be as extreme as before, if not more so.

But at least he’s asking Congress, rather than acting by imperial fiat like he did by destroying the White House’s East Wing for a grotesquely oversized monument to bad taste.

Congress should say no.

What’s most interesting about his Alcatraz fantasy is how it displays Trump’s obsessions with symbolism and cruelty.

Trump has written of it as a “symbol of law, order and JUSTICE.” What he means is punishment as hard as possible, at least for the criminals he doesn’t see fit to pardon.

Trump was clearly under the impression that no one had ever escaped from Alcatraz. That’s debatable. Over 29 years, according to the Bureau of Prisons, 36 men attempted 14 separate escapes. Five of them are still listed as “missing and presumed drowned.”

Although San Francisco Bay is cold, the fitness icon Jack La Lanne once swam to the island pulling a rowboat, and several children also made the swim.

It would disappoint Trump to know there are no man-eating sharks.

A Clint Eastwood movie: Clint Eastwood's movie “Escape from Alcatraz,” may be all Trump knows about the subject. Eastwood's movie depicts the 1962, escape of three men who broke out of the main cellblock and vaulted a fence to the water without being seen. The FBI closed that case after 17 years, believing they had drowned, but it’s still on the active books of the U.S. Marshals Service.

The Bureau of Prisons has a super-maximum facility in Florence, Colorado, that’s far tougher than Alcatraz ever was.

Inmates, including the Mexican drug czar and escape artist known as El Chapo, spends 23 hours a day in a cell roughly the size of a parking place. Their only view of the outside world is a patch of sky seen through a window four inches wide.

It’s an escape deterrent designed to keep them from knowing even what wing of the prison they’re in.

Robert Hanssen, the Soviet spy in the FBI who’s still considered the nation’s worst-ever security breach, was at ADX Colorado for 21 years until his death three years ago.

The Colorado supermax, nicknamed the “Alcatraz of the Rockies,” should satisfy anyone’s thirst for harsh punishment. As one former warden described it, “We’ve figured out a system that’s far beyond death.”

But, in Trump’s mind, the public apparently needs to see something that’s more symbolic than an out-of-the way complex in remote Colorado.

‘We think he’s mad’: As far as the public seems to be concerned, Alcatraz is perfectly fine as a historical site. Some 1.4 million people visit it every year, many of them foreign tourists, and San Francisco is aghast at the prospect of losing that revenue stream to Trump’s crazy 😠😓whims❗

The scheme is far enough along that Pam Bondi visited the island with Doug Burgum, the interior secretary, whose department owns it now. (This was before Trump fired the pathetic Pam Bondi as attorney general.)

Alcatraz began as a military fortress and lighthouse, then became a military prison, converted to civilian use in 1933. It had become a white elephant by 1962, the year the Burt Lancaster movie “Birdman of Alcatraz” was nominated for Academy Awards.

A New York Times reporter working on a story about Trump’s pipe dream interviewed a British couple, Tony and Deb Vickery, while they were visiting Alcatraz. They mentioned having sailed through the Panama Canal and Canada, two other Trump acquisition targets.

“We think he’s mad,” Ms. Vickery said. “We think he’s lost his marbles.”

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board in South Florida.

Donald Trump and maga Republicans illegal war of choice in Iran paid for by Americans paying higher costs on almost everything

Chattanooga Times Opinion: Americans continue to bear the cost of Trump’s chaos.

Last April, 2025, Donald Trump announced what will go down as one of the dumbest economic policy decisions in American history.

Nearly every economist told the president that tariffs imposed using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act were a loser — with disagreement coming mostly from how bad their impact would be — and the administration was warned the move was likely unconstitutional.

Trump pushed on anyway, causing Americans to spend millions more for goods.

Now, a year after Donald Trump's so-called Liberation Day tariffs began, it is time for the government to repay more than 💲166 billion in duties that were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

So much for making America wealthy again. 🙄

Even after being rebuffed by the court, Trump enacted new tariffs, which are expected to cost the average U.S. family more than 💲2,500 this year — a 43󠀥％ increase (➕ ) from the 💲1,745 average estimated during the first year of his second term, according to data recently released by the Joint Economic Committee.

Small-business importers paid an average of 💲306,000 more per business in tariffs.

All for nothing.

A year of economic chaos just so Trump can go on a power trip. But that is what Trump's second term is shaping up to be.

Jeremy Siegel, professor emeritus of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, called Trump's tariffs the "biggest policy mistake in 95 years," alluding to the 1930, Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.

The 1930, measure raised import duties on more than 20,000 goods by 50％ to 100％, aimed at protecting American farmers and industries from foreign competition during the Great Depression. 

But, it backfired, triggering retaliatory tariffs from other nations, causing a 26％ drop in global trade and worsening the economic downturn.

Trump's tariffs added about 💲20,000 to the price of a new home 🏠. They also increased the cost of clothes by 14％. Household furnishings, cleaning supplies and toilet paper are up  at least 5％.

Tariffs increased food prices on a host of items, including beef, up 16％, coffee up nearly 20％ and seafood up more than 6%.

The president claimed tariffs would magically revive American manufacturing. In fact, nearly 100,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs have been lost since the start of Trump's second term.

To add warmongering to injury, Trump's conflict with Iran added to the cost pressures on consumers. Gas prices jumped above 💲4 a gallon. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNN on Sunday that gas wouldn't drop below 💲3 a gallon until next year. 💢

Thanks to Trump's illegal war of choice in Iran and tariffs, consumer confidence dropped to its lowest level since 2014.

Meanwhile, Trump keeps threatening to commit war crimes in Iran, while his administration's diplomatic efforts amount to the Three Stooges, with the former hillbilly and former Marine Corps corporal Vice President JD Vance, Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and New York developer Steve Witkoff charged with negotiating peace.

Trump's shortsighted policies, rogue tactics, and erratic leadership have caused major allies to see the U.S. as unreliable and destabilizing. Trump is causing harm around the world, and yet expects the international community to help him out of the mess he created in Iran. Few allies have heeded his call.

For all his tough talk, America has never looked more incompetent or weaker.

In his concurrence with the high court opinion that Donald Trump exceeded his authority when he imposed sweeping tariffs, Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, reminded legislators of their responsibility to represent the people. 

Nevertheless, Republicans who control Congress have stood aside as Trump flails around with no clear plan.

Fortunately, many Americans are now paying attention. Trump and his policies are highly unpopular, and two-thirds of U.S. adults disapprove of his handling of inflation and the Iran war. Even the MAGA coalition is beginning to fray in the face of White House chaos and broken promises.

As the midterm elections approach, voters seem intent on sending the message that America can no longer afford the cost of an unchecked Trump presidency.

Donald Trump is a political failure along with is incompetent cabinet and cult loyalist followers. Impeach Trump Now

 

Chattanooga Times Fee Press Opinion: 

Americans continue to bear the costs 💲 of Trump’s chaos.

Donald Trump made yet another, among his many, terrible decisions; He unilaterally decided what will go down as one of the dumbest economic policy decisions in American history.

Nearly every economist told the president that tariffs imposed using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act were a loser — with disagreement coming mostly from how bad their impact would be — and the administration was warned the move was likely unconstitutional.

Trump pushed on anyway, causing Americans to spend 💲millions more for goods.

Now, a year after Donald Trump's so-called Liberation Day tariffs began, it is time for the government to repay more than 💲166 billion in duties that were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

So much for making America wealthy again.

Even after being rebuffed by the court, Trump enacted new tariffs, which are expected to cost the average U.S. family more than 💲2,500 this year — a 43% increase from the 💲1,745 average estimated during the first year of his second term, according to data recently released by the Joint Economic Committee.

Small-business importers paid an average of 💲306,000 more per business in tariffs.

All for nothing.

A year of economic chaos just so Trump can go on his evil power trip. But, that is what Trump's second term is shaping up to be. An insanity laced power trip.

Jeremy Siegel, professor emeritus of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, called Trump's tariffs the "biggest policy mistake in 95 years," alluding to the 1930, Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.

The 1930, measure raised import duties on more than 20,000 goods by 50% to 100%, aimed at protecting American farmers and industries from foreign competition during the Great Depression. It backfired, triggering retaliatory tariffs from other nations, causing a 26% drop in global trade and worsening the economic downturn.

Trump's tariffs added about 💲20,000 to the price of a new home. They have increased the cost of clothes by 14%. Household furnishings, cleaning supplies and toilet paper are up at least 5%.

Tariffs increased food prices on a host of items, including beef, up 16%, coffee up nearly 20% and seafood up more than 6%.

Donald Trump claimed tariffs would magically revive American manufacturing. In fact, nearly 100,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs have been lost since the start of Trump's second term.

To add warmongering to injury, Trump's conflict with Iran has added to the cost pressures on consumers. Gas prices jumped above 💲4 a gallon. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNN on Sunday that gas wouldn't drop below💲3 a gallon until next year.

Thanks to Donald Trump's illlegal war of choice in Iran and tariffs, consumer confidence dropped to its lowest level since 2014.

Meanwhile, Trump keeps threatening to commit war crimes in Iran, while his administration's diplomatic efforts amount to the Three Stooges, with Vice President JD Vance, Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and New York developer Steve Witkoff charged with negotiating peace.

Trump's shortsighted policies, rogue tactics, and erratic leadership have caused major allies to see the U.S. as unreliable and destabilizing. Trump is causing harm around the world, and yet expects the international community to help him out of the mess he created in Iran. Few allies have heeded his call.

For all his tough talk, America has never looked more incompetent or weaker.

In his concurrence with the high court opinion that the president exceeded his authority when he imposed sweeping tariffs, Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, reminded legislators of their responsibility to represent the people.

Yet, the Republicans who control Congress have stood aside all while Trump flails around with no clear plan.

Fortunately, many Americans are now finally paying attention. Trump and his policies are highly unpopular, and two-thirds of U.S. adults disapprove of his handling of inflation and the Iran war. Even the MAGA coalition is beginning to fray in the face of White House chaos and broken promises.

As the midterm elections approach, voters seem intent on sending the message that America can no longer afford the cost of an unchecked Trump presidency.

Donald Trump and hypocrites in White House violate God's first Commandment: "No Strange Gods Before Me"

Opinion letter published in the Chattenooga Times Free Pess

I am shaking my head in disbelief.

"I am the Lord Thy God"

Exodus 20:2 is the opening statement of the Ten Commandments, establishing a covenant relationship between God and His people.

"There shall be no strange God's before me"....
🙄 In the last couple of weeks I have seen an ugly Donald Trump post depicting himself as Jesus Christ. JD Vance, who has been a Catholic for about 10 minutes, arrogantly insulted Pope Leo XIV by telling him to be "careful" talking about theology. Pete Hegseth, apparently thinking he was correctly quoting Ezekiel 25:17 in a Pentagon service prayer, instead quoted "Pulp Fiction." ❗

White House (fake female bogus shaman) spiritual advisor Paula White compared Trump to Jesus (OMG "no strange God's before me"💢). 

Now Trump is picking a fight with the Pope Leo, admonishing him to "get his act together." 

I was raised as a mainstream Protestant but now rarely attend church, so I am the last one to claim any level of Biblical literacy. But, I am appalled and offended.  They are hypocrites❗

From Nancy Bishop in Ooltewah, Tennessee

Donald Trump and maga Republicans are wrong to confuse Trump's evil Iran war with Christianity

Donald Trump's incoherent actions, attitude concern readers for the nation’s future: Opinion published in the Chattanooga Times Free Press: Apostle Matthew 5-9: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God"  

War is not Christian and not in any way evidence of Patriotism❗

Not Christian nor American:  I find this version of "Christianity" that insists God is blessing Donald Trump's illegal Iran war, that prays for "bullets to find their target," that promotes bombs as God's instruments, to be repulsive, reckless and irresponsible. 

Those evil descriptors don't begin to address the issue that this is neither the values representing Christianity nor the values we have traditionally held dear as Americans.

And did I mention, this has bypassed Congress, has ignored our very Constitution and has come in direct conflict with international law❓ Who have we become that we are not hearing more dissent? Why are we not absolutely resolute in insisting our lawmakers in Congress take back their rightful role in the co-equal branches of government❓

Tragically, so much is at stake. Truly, this is much more than one's political affiliation. This is an issue that should matter to every single American. This is about our values and morality and our willingness to hold those who are conducting this current war to a standard that reflects our values and morality. 

Handwringing doesn't cut it. Insistence and persistence are our friends in making our voices heard and our expectations clear to our lawmakers and to those who are tasked with leadership.

From: Rev. Kate Stulce in Harrison, Tennessee

Donald Trump and maga Republicans are enabling failed incompetent foriegn policy, They have fallen in Iran and cannot get up!

Trump’s extended ceasefire shows his desperation to exit his failed and illegal Iran war — but he doesn’t know how. Americans are endangered by Trump's inability to conduct a foreign policy that goes beyond threats and military force. Echo opinion published in the Philadelphia Inquirer by Trudy Rubin.

In 1966, the famous American psychologist Abraham Maslow came up with a description of a mental bias that became known as “Maslow’s hammer.”  “If the only tool you have is a hammer, I suppose it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail,” Maslow contended. Or, as some have reworded his theorem: When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

This is a good diagnosis for how Donald Trump has trapped us all in his unnecessary and illegal war with Tehran. A war from which he can’t find a good exit.

It also explains why he indefinitely extended an April 21, ceasefire deadline with Iran, announced on Tuesday evening, even though he’d just threatened to resume bombing if there was no nuclear deal by then.  (Like Douglas Shields from Pittsburg wrote in a letter to the New York Times: "seen more stable direction from a weather vane — and at least it knows which way the wind is blowing. At this point, the only consistent policy is inconsistency, and even that seems subject to revision.") 

As Maslow would no doubt have diagnosed, Trump is a bully whose modus operandi is to browbeat, insult, and threaten opponents and allies (especially those who respond with timidity). He is impatient and seeks quick hits and big headlines.

Overseas, the military hammer has become his preferred tactic so long as the strike is quick, as in Venezuela and the U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities in June.

But, when an adversary is tougher and the fight more complex, with a strategy that outflanks his erratic tactics, POTUS is flummoxed. The illegal Iran war has laid bare how Trump’s strategic and cognitive weaknesses endanger Americans, as well as the entire world.

“Trump did not know what he was getting into,” I was told by Ryan Crocker, former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kuwait, Syria, and Lebanon, and one of the smartest Mideast analysts in the field. “This is the first real foreign policy crisis he has faced, and he has no idea what he is doing. It’s scary 😱😰😧.”

POTUS swallowed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pitch that Iran’s Islamic regime could quickly be toppled by U.S.-Israeli bombing and replaced by more malleable secular leaders. 

CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) Director John Ratcliffe called such regime-change scenarios “farcical,” and Secretary of State Marco Rubio labeled them “bullshit,” according to a New York Times investigation. But given his lack of knowledge about Iran and his conviction that his instincts trump expertise, the president picked up his military hammer.

Trump underestimated Iranian leaders’ tolerance for pain and determination to salvage their Islamic republic (even though their numbers were decimated and their country’s economy was in shambles).

But, most importantly, said Crocker, Trump failed to foresee (even though he was warned) that the Iranians had a critical card to play: the closure of the Strait of Hormuz through which about 20% of the world’s energy resources flow. Iran had never tried to close the strait before, but U.S. and Israeli bombs convinced its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that this was a necessary option.

“Iran now knows they can close the strait,” Crocker said. “Every day that the strait is closed adds to the economic pain of the U.S., Europe, and Asia. This has terrible consequences globally. They have turned the Strait of Hormuz into the Strait of Iran.”

Even Trump, with his unfettered verbosity, has referred to it by that name.

Last week, Iran offered to reopen the strait, but made clear its military would still control traffic in and out and charge tolls to passing tankers. Unsatisfied with this unpleasant option, Trump ordered the U.S. Navy to blockade Iranian ports so its oil exports were also halted.

But, Iran’s current leaders are betting, probably correctly, that they can withstand that pain longer than Trump can, with his eye on rising gas prices and midterm elections. Tehran says it won’t return to talks until the U.S. blockade is lifted.

Faced with this standoff, and the choice whether to resume bombing or extend the ceasefire deadline again,👀 Trump blinked.

Let me be clear, I am glad he backed down. But it revealed his desperation to exit the mess he has made.

“Iran has won the first round,” Crocker contended. “This is not going well.”

Trump’s problem is that he now has only bad options to reopen the strait.



Some right-wing hawks are advocating that he pick up the hammer. Fox News’ Hugh Hewitt actually recommended Trump go “full Sherman,” recalling the famed Civil War general’s scorched-earth march to Atlanta, and proposing POTUS destroy all of Iran’s oil and energy infrastructure.

Not only would this be a war crime affecting civilians and a further blow to global energy prices, but it would be unlikely to move the survival-intent hard-line IRGC, which now appears to be running the show.

Moreover, the worst possible option — which would be totally insane — would be for Trump to launch a land war in Iran to try for real “regime change.”

Iran was not an immediate threat to the United States before Trump started this war, and even he knows that sinking into such a bloody quagmire would probably set him on the path to bipartisan impeachment.

The only way out, said Crocker, is to try to swap a simultaneous end to the U.S. blockade against Iran’s ports for a full Iranian opening of the strait. Ideally, this would mean no IRGC control of shipping or tolls on vessels entering or leaving.

“This will be harder for Trump to do now, when he is weaker,” Crocker said. Especially when the Iranians know he is eager for an offramp, after he extended the deadline.

“But it is pretty apparent to everyone, except Donald Trump,” Crocker added, “that he’s not going to bomb Iran out of anything. The only way he can leave [the war] and save face is to get back to the status quo ante on the Strait of Hormuz.”

As for a return to talks on eliminating Iran’s nuclear program, Crocker believes that “at some point we will go back to the table.” However, he noted, the nuclear deal negotiated by President Barack Obama — which would have halted Iran’s nuclear program for 15 years had Trump not withdrawn from it — took two years to complete.

For future negotiations to have a chance, Trump would have to abandon his “I win, you lose” approach to diplomacy. He would finally have to assemble and listen to an expert team instead of sending his ill-informed real estate buddy and son-in-law.

Hope springs eternal, but this hope requires a suspension of disbelief.

True, Trump is desperate to end his misbegotten Iran venture, but he seems to believe he is winning. On Truth (Fake❗ ) Social, he was posting New York Times clips from 2004, citing the top ratings of “The Last Season of My Apprentice Juggernaut.” In other words, how can such a winner be wrong❓

The best we can hope for is that fear of higher gas prices will keep Trump’s hammer in abeyance — and that he will find a way to negotiate the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, declare a fake victory, and bring the troops home.

Perhaps after this Iran debacle, the U.S. public will grasp the danger of leaving a one-tool 🔨president in charge of foreign policy and the nuclear button when they vote in November — and choose legislators who are willing and able to rein him in.