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‘Bloodbath’: Shock as Trump Fires Thousands at HHS Amid Measles and Bird Flu Outbreaks
The United States is reportedly on pace for its worst year of measles infections this century, with 483 confirmed measles cases across 20 states. At the same time, 70 human cases of bird flu have been identified in 13 states. As these outbreaks of potentially deadly diseases escalate, with no clear resolution in sight, the Trump administration has begun the process of firing an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 employees at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Amid the ongoing bird flu outbreak, the “top FDA veterinarian working to help the Trump administration fight bird flu has been let go,” according to Wall Street Journal health reporter Liz Essley Whyte.
Medical and public health experts are in shock and sounding the alarm.
“The FDA as we’ve known it is finished, with most of the leaders with institutional knowledge and a deep understanding of product development and safety no longer employed,” remarked Dr. Robert Califf, who served twice as Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, under presidents Obama and Biden. He calls this “a dark day for public health” that history will see as “a huge mistake.”
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Dr. Califf says he is now hearing that firms are preparing to move research and development to Europe and China. He added, “maybe there’s a plan to nurture the profound advances in medicine & tech on the horizon rather than promote unproven remedies like cod liver oil and supplements for serious diseases.”
The Washington Post points to the “purge of leadership” at the U.S. health agencies that make up HHS. They include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), among others.
“At the National Institutes of Health, a nearly $48 billion biomedical research agency, at least five top leaders were put on leave,” according to the Post. “Among those offered reassignment were the infectious-disease institute director Jeanne Marrazzo,” who “had succeeded Anthony S. Fauci as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, an institute that helped lead the nation’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and that later became a target of Republicans.”
Sam Stein at The Bulwark calls Tuesday’s firings a “bloodbath,” and a “mass culling.”
“Multiple officials who work in the department told The Bulwark that entire offices were being eliminated, the conservative media outlet reported. “To get a fuller sense of the despair, head over to the NIH’s Reddit forum; or the HHS forum. It’s bleak. That’s what happens, we suppose, when a weeks-old administration decides that it will eliminate 10,000 full-time employees from one of its most critical departments.”
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“Generation of scientists, health care officials being wiped out,” Stein wrote on social media.
Dr. Rob Davidson, executive director of the nonprofit Committee to Protect Health Care wrote: “Slashing 20,000 HHS jobs is reckless. Pairing that with Medicaid cuts? That’s not reform—it’s sabotage. You don’t ‘fix’ healthcare by gutting its core. People will suffer.”
Claiming “streamlining,” and “efficiency,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the layoffs late last week, declaring he “will eliminate an entire alphabet soup of departments, while preserving their core functions by merging them into a new organization called the Administration for a Healthy America or AHA. This overhaul will improve the health of the entire nation — to Make America Healthy Again.”
Dr. Craig Spencer, an emergency room physician who treated Ebola patients and subsequently contracted the often deadly disease but survived, blasted the firings.
“Thousands of the best experts at FDA, NIH, and all across HHS are being terminated right now,” Dr. Spencer wrote. “These are the people who make sure the medications you and your children take are safe. These are the people who perform and oversee research on cancer, infant health, and so so so much more. These are the people who make sure new devices that physicians and patients use are effective. These are the people who keep workers safe on the job and help prevent devastating injuries for workers all around the country. These are the people who track what drugs and medications are experiencing shortages so we can adapt. These are the people who help tackle HIV and other infectious diseases, asthma, lead poisoning, and everything else that makes many Americans sick. And now, thousands of them are gone. There is no way this makes Americans healthier. We will regret this.”
STAT News reports that about twenty-five percent of the entire HHS workforce is expected to be eliminated:
“As of last week, it was estimated that the FDA would take the biggest cut, losing roughly 3,500 employees, or about 19% its workforce, followed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which was expected to lose … about 18% of its staff. The National Institutes of Health was projected to lose about 1,200 employees, or about 6% of its workers.”
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who served as FDA Commissioner during President Donald Trump’s first administration, did not appear to directly address the firings, but chose the day they are happening to warn about the destruction of the ecosystem that works to create new drugs, which includes HHS agencies like the FDA and the NIH.
“Twenty-five years ago, it was common to hear complaints about a ‘drug lag’—the perception that Europeans routinely enjoyed medical advances years before their American counterparts. Through a generation of congressional actions, investments in expertise and hiring, and careful policymaking, we built the FDA into the most efficient, forward-leaning drug regulatory agency in the world—and established the U.S. as the global center of biopharmaceutical innovation. Today, the cumulative barrage on that drug-discovery enterprise, threatens to swiftly bring back those frustrating delays for American consumers, particularly affecting rare diseases and areas of significant unmet medical need.”
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After a policy meeting Monday, President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to launch a spirited campaign amplifying dozens of posts backing his proposed $400 million White House ballroom — a project Republicans now want to be funded by taxpayers, not by the private donations he promised before demolishing the East Wing months ago.
Among those whose remarks were screenshotted and reposted were acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Democratic U.S. Senator John Fetterman, Republican U.S. Senator Rand Paul, Republican U.S. Senator Katie Britt, social media influencer Libs of TikTok, and social media users “MAGA Kitty” and “Comfortably Smug.”
“We were there front and center,” wrote Senator Fetterman, apparently referring to the alleged assassination attempt during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. “That venue wasn’t built to accommodate an event with the line of succession for the U.S. government. After witnessing last night, drop the TDS and build the White House ballroom for events exactly like these.”
“I’m dropping a bill tomorrow. Let’s build the Ballroom,” wrote Senator Paul.
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“It’s time for the Democrats to show up and start acting like AMERICANS,” wrote U.S. Senator Rick Scott (R-FL). “STOP defunding DHS. STOP blocking the White House ballroom. STOP elevating people who call for political violence. Stop letting TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME guide every single decision you make. Enough is enough!”
“I’m working with my team to draft legislation ensuring the White House Ballroom is completed,” U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) said. “I don’t believe congressional approval is required for the project, but if it’ll keep activist judges on the sideline, so be it. More to come this week.”
“Ballroom time!” exclaimed MAGA Kitty.
But most Americans are opposed to the ballroom project.
“Americans reject President Donald Trump’s planned White House ballroom by a 2-to-1 margin, according to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll,” the Post reported last week, “and they appear largely unmoved by the intensified calls from the president and his allies in Congress to allow the project to go forward.”
READ MORE: ‘Everybody Is Fighting’: Republicans Fear GOP ‘Dysfunction’ Will Blow the Midterms
Image via Reuters
There are several “legally persuasive” reasons to say that former FBI Director James Comey is innocent of charges related to his widely-discussed “86 47” post, argues The Bulwark‘s Jonathan V. Last. But there is only one that matters.
Calling the prosecution a “travesty,” Last says it is important to identify several factors that some have proposed.
“Comey is not innocent because Republicans have spoken the same way about Democrats. His defense is not whataboutism,” writes Last.
“Comey is not innocent because he made a death threat and then claimed to just be joking. His defense is not ‘just kidding,'” he adds. And “Comey is not innocent because he was merely calling for metaphorical violence against the president. His defense is not the First Amendment.”
But Comey is “legally and morally innocent,” posits Last.
Why?
Because, “there is no rational universe in which the phrase ’86 47’ can be taken to mean anything other than a call to retire or get rid of President Trump,” he says. “There is no rational universe in which it is associated—even in an arcane or euphemistic way—with violence of any sort.”
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Last argues that it would be “bad” had Comey made “allusions to violence,” even if it were not unlawful. “People like Comey,” he says, a former FBI director and officer of the court, have a “civic obligation” to not use violent rhetoric or “speak loosely about encouraging violence,” even if they are within their legal rights to do so.
But Last makes clear — as have others — that what Comey did was use a term, “86” that “comes from the hospitality industry and refers to being out of something—a dish, a beer, wine, breadsticks.”
He suggests that unless the Trump DOJ can come up with “some extremely important facts not in evidence” then what the former FBI chief did was legal, “but also well within the bounds of wisdom and civility.”
Last concludes that Comey “is entirely innocent—legally, morally, and prudentially,” and therefore, the prosecution of Comey is “manifestly totalitarian.”
On Sunday, The New York Times reported that acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” if others who in some way have promoted the “86 47” phrase would also be prosecuted.
“The ’86 47′ message, Mr. Blanche said, is ‘posted constantly — that phrase is used constantly.'”
“Every one of those statements do not result in indictments,” Blanche said.
But he also argued that “other evidence” has been collected, “which he said he could not describe.”
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Image via Reuters
CNN analyst Harry Enten revealed on Monday support for President Donald Trump is “collapsing” among GOP-leaning independent voters — a core constituency.
“Who are the people who are dragging down President Trump’s approval rating?” Enten asked. “We are talking about a very important bloc for the president of the United States. That is, Republican leaning independents.”
In his first term in office, Trump at this point was at 73 percent support from that core constituency. But that’s changed.
“Down he goes, an absolute collapse,” among those voters, Enten explained. “Now, just 53% of independents who lean Republican now approve of the President of the United States.”
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Enten also said that during the 2024 election against Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump received 91 percent support from those independent GOP-leaning voters.
“But down he goes, down into the deep blue sea,” he said. “Now, at 53% on the job approval rating,” noting the 38-point drop from where Trump was during the 2024 election.
“This is a core group for Donald Trump, and they are waving, ‘Adios, amigos, goodbye.'”
Enten also suggested that Republican members of Congress are saying, “Oh, my God, I hope this doesn’t affect me.” He said, “if it does, a lot of those swing district congressional members, right on the Republican side, will be waving adios, amigos goodbye.”
Enten said what’s going on is GOP-leaning independent voters had supported Republican candidates “by 83 points, but now it’s 68 points — that’s a 15 point drop, again, in only 18 months time.”
“These are not numbers that Republicans win with. These are numbers Republicans lose with,” he warned.
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Image via Reuters
‘Everybody Is Fighting’: Republicans Fear GOP ‘Dysfunction’ Will Blow the Midterms
‘Down He Goes’: CNN Analyst Stunned by Core Trump Group in ‘Absolute Collapse’
Ballroom Blitz: Trump Goes on Wild Truth Social Posting Spree
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Ballroom Blitz: Trump Goes on Wild Truth Social Posting Spree
Why Trump DOJ’s Case Against Comey Is ‘Manifestly Totalitarian’: Columnist
‘Down He Goes’: CNN Analyst Stunned by Core Trump Group in ‘Absolute Collapse’
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