Latest / 5 minute updates on the latest Trump actions by Prof Christina Pagel / What Happened in America Last Week — Beyond the Iran Headlines

Transcript

What Happened in America Last Week — Beyond the Iran Headlines · 5 minute updates on the latest Trump actions by Prof Christina Pagel

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  SPEAKER_00: So with the headlines still
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  SPEAKER_00: dominated by the Iran war, here are some of the less
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  SPEAKER_00: well covered stories that happened in the US
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  SPEAKER_00: last week that I think are really important to know about.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the first is kind of sticking to Iran,
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  SPEAKER_00: but thinking about, how the administration
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  SPEAKER_00: is trying to control the press and press reporting of it.
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  SPEAKER_00: So firstly, the Defense Department has barred press photographers
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  SPEAKER_00: from briefings, on the war after they published photos
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  SPEAKER_00: of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that his staff deemed unflattering.
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  SPEAKER_00: Hegseth then also attacked the media for not being positive
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  SPEAKER_00: enough about the US attacks on Iran.
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  SPEAKER_00: So during a Pentagon press conference,
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  SPEAKER_00: he claimed that the campaign was an unprecedented success
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  SPEAKER_00: and repeatedly accused journalists
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  SPEAKER_00: of downplaying gains on the battlefield.
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  SPEAKER_00: He singled out CNN, saying the sooner David Ellison
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  SPEAKER_00: takes over that network the better.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, Ellison is a Trump ally and donor,
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  SPEAKER_00: and he's the front runner to acquire CNN's parent company, Warner Bros.
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  SPEAKER_00: Discovery.
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  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, the Federal Communications Commission or the FCC
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  SPEAKER_00: chair, Brendan Carr, is threatening to throttle
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  SPEAKER_00: news broadcast over what he calls hoaxes about the Iran war.
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  SPEAKER_00: So on social media, he said that broadcasters running fake
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  SPEAKER_00: news have a chance now to correct course
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  SPEAKER_00: before their license renewals come up.
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  SPEAKER_00: And his warning is coming amid sustained complaints from Trump
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  SPEAKER_00: and other members of the administration
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  SPEAKER_00: over what they call the mainstream media’s coverage of the Iran war.
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  SPEAKER_00: Trump then backed Brendan Carr's threat to pull the licenses
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  SPEAKER_00: of news outlets over the Iran war coverage, saying that he was thrilled
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  SPEAKER_00: that Carr was looking into revoking the broadcaster's licenses.
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  SPEAKER_00: And since then, Trump has also called media companies
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  SPEAKER_00: potentially traitors for negative coverage of the war.
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  SPEAKER_00: Finally, Trump posted an image on social media
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  SPEAKER_00: basically boasting that he had over the last year defunded
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  SPEAKER_00: independent media or removed critical journalists
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  SPEAKER_00: or TV hosts while at the same time securing allies into running key
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  SPEAKER_00: agencies and media companies who were aligned with his ideology.
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  SPEAKER_00: So moving on to health, quite a lot has happened this week.
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  SPEAKER_00: So firstly, Republican Senator Josh Hawley introduced legislation
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  SPEAKER_00: in the House to remove regulatory approval by the FDA
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  SPEAKER_00: for the use of Mifepristone to end pregnancies.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now Mifepristone, when combined with the drug,
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  SPEAKER_00: misoprostol can end pregnancies
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  SPEAKER_00: during the first two months after conception.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's really widely used in the United States, where an estimated
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  SPEAKER_00: 7 million women have used it to terminate pregnancies
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  SPEAKER_00: since the FDA approved it back in 2000.
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  SPEAKER_00: So this is 25 years ago.
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  SPEAKER_00: And basically, the bill represents
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  SPEAKER_00: further restrictions on women's access to abortion in America.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it has already quickly
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  SPEAKER_00: gained the support of major anti-abortion groups.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sticking with FDA, it’s also now no longer warning
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  SPEAKER_00: against ineffective autism treatments like chlorine dioxide.
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  SPEAKER_00: And raw camel milk on its website.
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  SPEAKER_00: So what's happened is that the FDA
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  SPEAKER_00: has taken down a web page that was warning about therapies
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  SPEAKER_00: and products making false claims of treating autism.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then an analysis published last week in the American Journal
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  SPEAKER_00: of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine
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  SPEAKER_00: found that Trump's policies on health are basically likely to drive
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  SPEAKER_00: soaring rates of lung disease and premature death in the US.
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  SPEAKER_00: And this is all happening at the same time that new medical
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  SPEAKER_00: research is being defunded.
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  SPEAKER_00: So the National Institutes of Health this week
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  SPEAKER_00: published data on its grant giving activities last week.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it's showed dramatically fewer grants.
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  SPEAKER_00: So, for instance, new grants for Alzheimer's and aging
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  SPEAKER_00: research have almost halved over the last year.
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  SPEAKER_00: The same is true for mental health research grants
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  SPEAKER_00: and new grants for cancer research have fallen by almost a quarter.
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  SPEAKER_00: And finally, the US State Department is basically threatening to withhold
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  SPEAKER_00: lifesaving assistance to people with HIV in Zambia,
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  SPEAKER_00: the South African country, as a negotiating tactic
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  SPEAKER_00: to force the government to sign a deal
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  SPEAKER_00: giving the US more access to its precious minerals.
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  SPEAKER_00: On the environment.
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  SPEAKER_00: The first two actions are about California.
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  SPEAKER_00: So firstly, the Trump administration has sued California,
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  SPEAKER_00: claiming that the state's zero emission vehicle rules are illegal
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  SPEAKER_00: and is trying to overturn them.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then the Trump administration has ordered Sable Offshore,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is a private company,
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  SPEAKER_00: to restart its operations of the Santa Ynez
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  SPEAKER_00: Unit and Santa Ynez Pipeline system off the coast of California.
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  SPEAKER_00: Basically, they want to generate more oil into the system.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, those pipelines
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  SPEAKER_00: have remained shut since the Refugio oil spill in 2015.
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  SPEAKER_00: At that time, the pipeline had corroded
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  SPEAKER_00: and it caused 142,000 gallons of oil to spill, contaminating
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  SPEAKER_00: one of the most biologically diverse areas on the US West Coast.
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  SPEAKER_00: So the pipeline has since been repaired a few years ago,
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  SPEAKER_00: but the state of California has been restricting the use of it
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  SPEAKER_00: because it still has concerns about the environmental impact.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the California attorney general basically called Trump's
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  SPEAKER_00: executive order a brazen abuse of power.
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  SPEAKER_00: Still on kind of the oil theme, the Trump administration approved
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  SPEAKER_00: a $5 billion
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  SPEAKER_00: oil drilling project in the ultra deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico,
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  SPEAKER_00: despite protests from Democrats and environmental advocates.
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  SPEAKER_00: He says that it poses significant risk to wildlife and communities.
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  SPEAKER_00: So the Trump administration is now planning to convene
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  SPEAKER_00: the so-called God Squad, which is a high level federal panel
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  SPEAKER_00: that has the power to override protections
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  SPEAKER_00: that are given under the Endangered Species Act, specifically
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  SPEAKER_00: around this oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of Mexico.
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  SPEAKER_00: So the Gulf is home to the critically endangered Rice’s
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  SPEAKER_00: whale, which is a species that exists nowhere else,
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  SPEAKER_00: and there's only thought to be about 50 of the whales left on Earth.
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  SPEAKER_00: And finally, I want to talk about civil rights.
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  SPEAKER_00: So the Trump administration is giving government attorneys more power
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  SPEAKER_00: to start legal guardianship proceedings for veterans
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  SPEAKER_00: unable to make their own healthcare decisions.
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  SPEAKER_00: And what's worrying about it is
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  SPEAKER_00: people are seeing this really as a way of forcing homeless veterans
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  SPEAKER_00: and those at risk of homelessness into involuntary institutional care.
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  SPEAKER_00: Then going back to Pete Hegseth.
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  SPEAKER_00: He announced the formation of a new task force
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  SPEAKER_00: that would conduct a review of US military colleges to ensure
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  SPEAKER_00: that they're effective and focused on core national security issues.
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  SPEAKER_00: But what he's really trying to ensure is that they're not implementing
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  SPEAKER_00: any DEI practices.
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  SPEAKER_00: So diversity equity and inclusion practices.
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  SPEAKER_00: So Hegseth said that the new task force would ensure that meritocracy
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  SPEAKER_00: was at the forefront.
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  SPEAKER_00: And he basically then said,
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  SPEAKER_00: what we've seen
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  SPEAKER_00: in our civilian institutions
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  SPEAKER_00: must never surface in our military education institutions.
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  SPEAKER_00: And if we're pulling officers
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  SPEAKER_00: out of civilian universities because they're too woke,
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  SPEAKER_00: then we better make
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  SPEAKER_00: sure our own universities are prepared to do the task properly.
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  SPEAKER_00: And finally, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination
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  SPEAKER_00: of Racial Discrimination warned last week in a report that Trump's racist
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  SPEAKER_00: hate speech, anti-immigrant agenda and the actions of Ice were fostering
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  SPEAKER_00: grave human rights violations in America.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I'll end on that cheery note again.
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  SPEAKER_00: All actions are available on Trump action tracker.info, which received
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  SPEAKER_00: a big refresh last week.
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  SPEAKER_00: So do go check it out and I'll be back in a week or so.