In short, as I tried to argue, Beto's plan offers a real and serious answer to Trumpism. For a really good explainer of some of these ideas, and a lot more, see this @toddntucker thread:
@toddntucker Great points from @paulkrugman on how Trump's nationalism is seductive to Trump country, but is actually deeply damaging it. Farmers rely on global markets his trade wars are closing off.
As noted above, this is the worldview Beto's trade agenda rebukes.
Horrific: One of the USAID programs Trump just terminated was set to deliver lifesaving treatment to hundreds of thousands of starving kids abroad. Much of it is now in a Georgia warehouse.
Rubio's promise to preserve urgent assistance was a lie.
This is one of hundreds of terminated USAID contracts. The full list is appalling: There's tons of the "lifesaving humanitarian assistance" that Rubio promised to protect.
Former USAID official Atul Gawande tells me we'll see a "a massive loss of life."
The cancellation of the lifesaving assistance for starving kids abroad is really a galling one. This stuff was grown by American farmers and manufactured by American workers. This spreading of American bounty and good will long had bipartisan support.
Awful news --> Delivery of therapeutic food assistance to nearly 400,000 severely malnourished kids is suddenly in doubt due to Trump-Musk firings at USAID, two manufacturers of the product tell me.
The product is called Ready to Use Therapeutic Food. It's a paste made mostly of peanuts, milk, and sugar, designed for children to ingest if they're on the edge of starving to death.
It's made in two US factories, one in Georgia, the other in RI.
Remarkable: Trump's own pollster just found that in swing House districts, Dems lead by 5 points and voters want tax policy to prioritize working people, per Politico.
Yet GOP is about to slash the safety net and give the rich huge tax cuts!
Trump's pollster found that in 18 swing House districts, 68% are unhappy about their financial situation. Majorities want ACA's expanded subsidies to continue and oppose corporate tax cuts.
Swing voters want the opposite of what Trump/Rs are set to do.
Next week, House Republicans will vote on a blueprint that could lead to $880 billion in Medicaid cuts, big cuts to spending on food stamps, and more big tax cuts for rich/corporations.
Trump's own pollster finds broad opposition to these priorities.
Scoop --> Trump-Musk cuts just resulted in the firing of numerous top researchers at NIH's center for combating Alzheimer's, sources tell me. They predict big setbacks to fighting dementias.
Republicans like Roy Blunt, Tom Cole, and Susan Collins have all powerfully championed public spending to combat Alzheimer's. NIH's center on this is named after Roy Blunt. Cole spoke at its opening.
Will any Rs step up and voice these sentiments now?
Awful: Internal USAID memo instructs employees to refrain from talking to the media about cuts in aid to the most vulnerable or they may get fired, WaPo reports.
Trumpworld knows this is a big political problem for them. Keep the focus on it.
Given this memo ordering USAID employees not to talk to the press, also recall that Trump fired USAID's IG for revealing that the freezes put $500 million in food aid at risk of spoiling.
Dem strategists warning against talking about this are wrong.
Trumpworld seems split on what they can get away with. For Tom Homan to "joke" on national TV about prosecuting Eric Adams if he displeases Trump on immigration while Fox sycophants giggle is someone who thinks he can get away with anything.
In December, NYT revealed that Elon Musk and SpaceX were failing to meet govt reporting protocol designed to protect state secrets while they haul in billions in Pentagon contracts.
This triggered three reviews, per NYT. One was from the Defense Department inspector general. 1/
It's time to ask: What's going on with those reviews into Musk/SpaceX's failure to meet basic reporting protocol linked to their billions in Pentagon contracts?
Dems tell me they fear these investigations might get killed under Trump. 2/
When Trump fired all those inspector generals, one of them was the IG for the Defense Department. He was examining whether Musk/ SpaceX were failing to meet reporting protocol to safeguard state secrets as huge beneficiaries of Pentagon contracts. 3/