Latest / 5 minute updates on the latest Trump actions by Prof Christina Pagel / Three things you might have missed this week in American news

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Three things you might have missed this week in American news · 5 minute updates on the latest Trump actions by Prof Christina Pagel

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  SPEAKER_00: So I've logged 63 authoritarian actions this week.
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  Some of the big ones are Hegseth allegedly ordering survivors
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  of a boat strike to
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  SPEAKER_00: be killed off the coast of Venezuela,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is a move that ex-senior military lawyers have called a war crime,
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  and a really massive escalation and anti-immigrant rhetoric
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  following the tragic
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  SPEAKER_00: shooting of two National Guard members in DC.
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  SPEAKER_00: But there are other stories,
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  SPEAKER_00: and here are three that probably didn't make it to you,
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  SPEAKER_00: even though they probably should have.
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  SPEAKER_00: So let's start.
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  SPEAKER_00: with some attacks on organizations promoting diversity,
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  SPEAKER_00: equity,
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  SPEAKER_00: and inclusion,
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  SPEAKER_00: also known as DEI.
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  SPEAKER_00: So before I actually say what's happened this week,
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  I just want to remind people that DEI practices are things like
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  institutions having
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  diversity goals for hiring or promotion or running outreach and
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  mentoring programs
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  SPEAKER_00: with underrepresented communities.
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  SPEAKER_00: So what's happened?
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  SPEAKER_00: So the first thing that happened is that the US military,
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  SPEAKER_00: which has partnered with the Scouts of America for 100 years,
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  SPEAKER_00: has now severed ties with the Scouts this week.
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  And Hegseth basically said it was because of the DEI policies
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  of the Scouts,
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  SPEAKER_00: which he said meant it was no longer a meritocracy or boy-friendly.
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  And what that means is that the Pentagon is no longer going to
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  help with the
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  SPEAKER_00: Scouts' annual national jamboree.
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  And it also means that it will no longer host Scouts visiting
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  on educational trips
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  SPEAKER_00: and things like that.
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  And then the second thing that happened is that the US State
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  Department is
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  SPEAKER_00: proposing to exclude 38 universities,
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  SPEAKER_00: including Harvard and Yale,
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  SPEAKER_00: from its Diplomacy Lab Partnership.
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  SPEAKER_00: And again, they said that's because they don't like their DEI practices.
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  And what the Diplomacy Lab programme does is it pairs
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  university researchers with
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  SPEAKER_00: state department policy officers.
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  And the idea is that you want kind of the latest research to
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  factor in to state diplomacy.
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  So the thing about shaking up kind of the diplomacy lab is that
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  I don't actually
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  SPEAKER_00: think Hegseth cares about DEI and diplomacy as such.
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  I think it's just a way to punish universities the
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  administration doesn't like.
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  SPEAKER_00: But actually, it kind of matters, right?
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  Because many of the countries that you want to do diplomacy
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  with are the ones that
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  SPEAKER_00: are most culturally different from the US.
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  So actually,
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  this is somewhere where you really want to get minoritized
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  voices into the room.
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  So the kind of longer term consequences of these continued
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  attacks on any kind of
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  SPEAKER_00: organization that has DEI policies are twofold.
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  So firstly,
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  it just makes life harder for anyone who's not a straight white
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  man.
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  SPEAKER_00: But secondly,
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  it really suppresses dissent and it's a way of bringing any
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  organisation that might
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  SPEAKER_00: oppose the government to heel,
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  SPEAKER_00: really.
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  SPEAKER_00: So for instance,
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  SPEAKER_00: on Saturday,
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  SPEAKER_00: news broke that Northwestern University had reached a deal with the Trump
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  administration to restore $800 million that had been withdrawn
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  earlier this year.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the deal includes paying the administration $75 million,
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  SPEAKER_00: but also promising to cut all the DEI programmes.
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  SPEAKER_00: And you can just kind of see how
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  SPEAKER_00: These kind of capitulations,
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  SPEAKER_00: if you like,
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  are acquiescing to the administration's kind of worldview that
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  what they really
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  SPEAKER_00: want is to go back to the kind of cultural society of the 1960s.
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  So the second thing I really wanted to cover is ongoing threats
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  to public health.
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  SPEAKER_00: So one thing is the Environmental Protection Agency or the EPA.
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  SPEAKER_00: are seeking to abandon some really tough standards for soot pollution.
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  SPEAKER_00: When the EPA previously brought in those standards,
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  they said that reducing soot pollution could prevent thousands
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  of premature deaths
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  SPEAKER_00: a year in the US.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the reason this matters is that soot is really bad for you,
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  SPEAKER_00: particularly really fine soot particles.
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  Because they're so small,
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  they can get into the bodies and get past the body's defences.
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  SPEAKER_00: So they can get into your lungs, your heart, your blood, even your brain.
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  SPEAKER_00: Um...
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  SPEAKER_00: And the smaller the particle,
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  the worse it is because it kind of becomes biologically more
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  active in your body.
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  And decades of research have shown that basically chronic
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  exposure to these small soot particles
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  shortens life,
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  accelerates disease processes and harms almost every major
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  organ system.
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  And so reducing these standards and allowing more of these
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  particulates to be
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  SPEAKER_00: produced,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: by vehicles or by industry,
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  SPEAKER_00: really does affect every American,
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  SPEAKER_00: particularly those living in areas with higher air pollution.
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  So the administration has kind of been undermining vaccines
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  pretty much since the
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  SPEAKER_00: spring when RFK junior took office.
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  SPEAKER_00: But this week has seen even more escalation on that front.
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  SPEAKER_00: Firstly,
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  SPEAKER_00: the director of the Food and Drug Administration,
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  SPEAKER_00: so the FDA,
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  SPEAKER_00: the head of its vaccine division,
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  told agency staff in a memo that an internal review had found
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  that at least 10
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  SPEAKER_00: children had died because of COVID vaccines.
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  SPEAKER_00: Which sounds really scary,
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  but basically what happened is that there is this kind of
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  unverified reporting
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  SPEAKER_00: system.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's called VAERS in America.
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  SPEAKER_00: We have something similar, actually, in the UK.
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  And basically what it is is that it encourages doctors or
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  patients or family
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  members to upload anything that they think might be associated
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  with a vaccine.
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  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean it is.
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  SPEAKER_00: So it's just encouraging people to upload it.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's not verified.
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  SPEAKER_00: And you should never use that system for drawing conclusions about...
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  SPEAKER_00: whether a vaccine causes harm or not.
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  But effectively what happened was that the administration with
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  this new kind of
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  SPEAKER_00: vaccine skeptic hat on has gone
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  well,
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  one researcher called dumpster diving into that database to try
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  and find scary numbers.
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  SPEAKER_00: And this is what they found.
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  And then what they've done because of that is they've now used
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  that as an excuse to
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  SPEAKER_00: further tighten vaccine regulations in the US.
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  SPEAKER_00: So they've made it harder to get approvals.
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  SPEAKER_00: They've promised to re-look at annual booster policies and so on.
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  And experts have said this is actually really dangerous because
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  it will just make
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  SPEAKER_00: it much harder to approve new vaccines and even annual boosters.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then kind of in parallel to all of that going on,
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  the CDC said the Centers for Disease Control have appointed a
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  new deputy director,
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  SPEAKER_00: who is another known vaccine sceptic.
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  He used to be a senior official health official in Louisiana
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  during the pandemic.
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  SPEAKER_00: And when he was there,
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  he refused to promote COVID vaccines and also said that COVID
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  vaccines were
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  SPEAKER_00: dangerous.
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  And I just want to kind of remind people that a Commonwealth
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  Fund study from 2022
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  estimated that COVID vaccines prevented more than 18 million US
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  hospitalisations
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  SPEAKER_00: and 3 million deaths and saved the country over a trillion dollars.
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  It's just so pernicious how they're just chipping away at the
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  things that keep
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  SPEAKER_00: Americans healthy.
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  SPEAKER_00: So the last thing that I just wanted to touch on,
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  SPEAKER_00: which I'm pretty sure is under the radar,
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  SPEAKER_00: is kind of exporting nationalism.
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  SPEAKER_00: So what do I mean by exporting nationalism?
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  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean just that, right?
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  SPEAKER_00: So the Secretary of State,
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  SPEAKER_00: Marco Rubio,
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  SPEAKER_00: has ordered American diplomats in various US allies across Europe,
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  SPEAKER_00: Canada,
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  SPEAKER_00: Australia,
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  and New Zealand to basically encourage their host governments
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  to restrict almost
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  SPEAKER_00: all immigration.
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  And if those governments aren't doing that,
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  he wants the diplomats to file reports back to him.
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  And it's all part of this kind of agenda that President Trump
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  and his top aides
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  SPEAKER_00: have of talking about migrants and immigrants as a bad thing.
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  SPEAKER_00: You know, they call it a scourge.
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  SPEAKER_00: They call it an attack, an invasion, and so on.
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  SPEAKER_00: And they've publicly said that about Europe.
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  They've said it about individual European countries,
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  including the UK and Germany and France.
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  SPEAKER_00: And really,
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  they have been adopting the language of far-right political
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  parties across the
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  SPEAKER_00: world,
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  SPEAKER_00: both now and in history,
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  SPEAKER_00: to do so.
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  And so it's just another example of how the US is trying to use
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  its really outsized
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  SPEAKER_00: influence on the world to promote politics.
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  SPEAKER_00: its own kind of version of populist nationalism more generally.
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  So the reason that I picked those three topics is really
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  because they fall directly
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  SPEAKER_00: into the standard authoritarian playbook,
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  SPEAKER_00: right?
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  SPEAKER_00: The first is you attack your marginalized populations.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that's where you start.
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  SPEAKER_00: Pretty much every populist regime has done that in history.
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  The second one is you also want to attack science and the
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  elites and you want to
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  SPEAKER_00: attack any other kind of sources of knowledge making.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then the third one is global destabilization,
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  SPEAKER_00: where you do want to undermine kind of stable democracies.
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  SPEAKER_00: And you can see, for instance, that Putin's been doing that for decades.