Thousands of Americans die each year from asbestos-related diseases, including mesothelioma—a toll that prompted the Biden administration to ban the carcinogenic substance, long used in roofing materials and auto parts. Now, President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency is moving to reconsider that ban, despite years of advocacy aimed at preventing such deaths.

In the five months that Trump has been in office,”his administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been on a deregulation spree,” Fast Company reports. “So far, the agency’s leaders have expressed interest in rolling back regulations around ‘forever chemicals,’ or PFAS; reversing a cornerstone finding that greenhouse gases are dangerous for public health; and weakening enforcement of coal ash regulations.”

“This latest move by Administrator Lee Zeldin and EPA is yet another alarming signal that this administration is operating without limits as they dole out favors to polluter lobbyists without regard for the health and well-being of people living in the US,” Michelle Roos, executive director of the nonprofit organization Environmental Protection Network, told the Associated Press

READ MORE: Hegseth Sidelines Juneteenth and Its Military History

The EPA’s proposed 30-month delay to examine the ban would “move the nation backward, once again putting lives at risk,” Linda Reinstein, president and co-founder of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization, told The New York Times.

The majority of asbestos imported into the U.S. comes from Brazil, but about a quarter comes directly from Russia, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Russia is the top global producer of asbestos.

Asbestos originally from Russia also enters the U.S. indirectly through other sources.

“Trump’s support for asbestos'” Ars Technica adds, “has been welcomed in Russia, a primary asbestos supplier to the US. In 2018, a Russian asbestos company began marketing asbestos with Trump’s face and a seal reading ‘Approved by Donald Trump, 45th President of the United States.'”

READ MORE: Trump Appears to Confuse America’s Revolutionary War With the Civil War

In 2019, The New York Times pointed to this photo on a Facebook page showing pallets of asbestos stamped with a seal that featured President Trump’s face and the alleged endorsement—a “public relations stunt.”

“Strangely enough,” Fast Company also reported, “Trump himself wrote in his 1997 book Art of the Comeback that he believed asbestos bans were a conspiracy ‘led by the mob, because it was often mob-related companies that would do the asbestos removal.'”

Critics are blasting the decision to reconsider the asbestos ban.

“The Trump administration isn’t just going after ‘regulations,’ they’re going after your health. Who benefits from bringing back cancer-causing asbestos? Russia,” noted U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-NM).

“It’s another pro-Putin policy from Trump. Russia is a major asbestos producer,” wrote Courier Newsroom correspondent Allan Piper.

“What is this—Make Asbestos Great Again?” snarked former U.S. Secretary of State and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

The Atlantic’s Dr. Norman Ornstein wrote simply, “Pro-death.”

See the social media post above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Feckless or Complicit’: Hegseth Blasted in Heated Hearing Over Social Media Influencer

Image via Reuters

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, whose work includes scrubbing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) from the U.S. military, is reportedly taking a “passive approach” to the federal holiday of Juneteenth, the day symbolizing the end of slavery. The U.S. military played a pivotal role in actions that led to the holiday.

President Joe Biden, in 2021, signed legislation making Juneteenth a federal holiday, and in years since then the Defense Department has marked the occasion. That year, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin issued a statement that read:

“Juneteenth holds particular significance for the United States military since it marks the date in 1865—more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation—on which Union soldiers, led by Army Major General Gordon Granger, issued the famous General Order No. 3, informing the people of Texas that ‘all slaves are free.'”

READ MORE: Trump Appears to Confuse America’s Revolutionary War With the Civil War

In 2023, U.S. Under Secretary of Defense Gil Cisneros published a memo on the Pentagon’s observance of Juneteenth.

“In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation confirming that all enslaved people in the confederate states are to be freed. It took two and a half years before General Gordon Granger presented General Orders No. 3 in Galveston, Texas, stating ‘The people of Texas are informed that, by a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.’ For this reason, Juneteenth is also known as Freedom or Emancipation Day for African Americans. This is why we celebrate June 19, 2023 as Juneteenth National Independence Day to commemorate the notification of emancipation to enslaved African Americans and abolishment of slavery in the United States.”

Secretary Hegseth, however, has issued no similar memos or statements. Instead, his office “requested ‘a passive approach to Juneteenth messaging’ for the holiday on Thursday commemorating the end of slavery, according to an email obtained by Rolling Stone,” the news outlet reported.

This year, there is no plan to even “publish Juneteenth-related content online” according to the Office of the Chief of Public Affairs.

So what is the Pentagon under Hegseth allowing, although not promoting?

READ MORE: ‘Feckless or Complicit’: Hegseth Blasted in Heated Hearing Over Social Media Influencer

According to Rolling Stone, “holiday celebrations that build camaraderie and esprit de corps; outreach events (e.g., recruiting engagements with all-male, all-female, or minority-serving academic institutions) where doing so directly supports DoD’s mission; and recognition of historical events and notable figures where such recognition informs strategic thinking, reinforces our unity, and promotes meritocracy and accountability.”

Secretary Hegseth has implemented stringent anti-DEI policies, and “dutifully carried out Trump’s anti-diversity purge, declaring in a handwritten directive, posted to X, that ‘DEI is DEAD’ at the Department of Defense.”

“Those who do not comply will no longer work here,” he wrote.

Last week in a Senate hearing, Hegseth said in prepared remarks (video below), “DEI is dead. We replaced it with a colorblind, gender-neutral, merit-based approach, and the force is responding incredibly.”

Rolling Stone also reported that “Hegseth has claimed that ‘DEI & social/gender theories directly undermine meritocracy and standards. Which, in the military, makes us less ready — and gets troops killed.’”

Watch the video below or at this link.

. @SecDef “President Trump charge me to focus relentlessly on warfighting, lethality, meritocracy, standards, and readiness.

That is exactly what we’ve done since day one.” pic.twitter.com/o2b9hSTTF0

— DOD Rapid Response (@DODResponse) June 12, 2025

READ MORE: ‘Middle Finger to Parental Rights’: SCOTUS Conservatives Scorched Over Trans Kids Ruling

President Donald Trump, speaking about war as he attempts to decide whether or not to actively support Israel by bombing Iran, appeared to confuse America’s war for independence —the Revolutionary War—with America’s Civil War.

Asked in the Oval Office on Wednesday afternoon if he’s made a decision about what, if anything, he will do regarding Iran, the President told reporters, “I have ideas as to what to do, but I haven’t made a final.”

“I like to make the final decisions one second before it’s due, you know, ’cause things change. I mean, especially with war, things change with war, it can go from one extreme to the other.”

READ MORE: ‘Feckless or Complicit’: Hegseth Blasted in Heated Hearing Over Social Media Influencer

“War’s very bad. There was no reason for this to be a war,” he said, apparently about Israel and Iran.

“There was no reason for Russia, Ukraine. A lot of wars, there was no reason for.”

“You look right up there,” Trump said, pointing to the wall, “I don’t know, you see the Declaration of Independence, and I say, I wonder if you, you know, the Civil War always seemed to me maybe that could have been solved without losing 600,000 plus people.”

The Declaration of Independence was America’s declaration it would no longer be ruled by England. It effectively became a declaration of war: the American Revolutionary War, or the American War of Independence, which lasted from 1775 to 1783.

By contrast, the American Civil War was fought in the following century, from 1861 to 1865, over slavery.

READ MORE: ‘Middle Finger to Parental Rights’: SCOTUS Conservatives Scorched Over Trans Kids Ruling

Critics were quick to mock the President.

“I think we all remember our schooling, when we learned how the Declaration of Independence led to the Civil War,” snarked former journalist Landon Hall.

“As a Canadian, even I know that the Declaration of Independence has absolutely zero to do with the Civil War, what is going on down there?” asked filmmaker Robert Fantinatto.

“Does he think the Declaration of Independence was written in response to the Civil War?
What is he talking about?” asked attorney Robyn J Leader.

Watch the video below or at this link.

Trump: “You look right up there. I don’t know, see the Declaration of Independence and I say, ‘I wonder if you know the Civil War. It always seemed to me maybe that could have been solved without losing 600,000 plus people.’” pic.twitter.com/tKaPrvERXA

— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) June 18, 2025

READ MORE: ‘It’s Biblical’: House Republican Defends His Support for Israel

Image via Reuters