Trump & his political appointees worked to discredit the National Weather Service, during a hurricane;
the Federal Reserve, during a recession;
USDA's Economic Research Service, during a farming crisis;
so, sure, why not also the CDC during a pandemic? nytimes.com/2020/09/18/us/…
On the one hand, in the past, when Trump needlessly frittered away statistical/scientific agencies' hard-won reputations, I used to wonder: Won't he regret this eventually? At some point *something* bad will happen and he'll need the public to believe what these experts say
As @Austan_Goolsbee has put it (adapting some wisdom from the late Paul Volcker): Normal times are when you establish the credibility by being honest even if it makes you look bad in the short run, because you will need it when SHTF.
But on the other hand: Even when crisis actually hits, Trump still doesn't appreciate the need for scientific/statistical/independent agencies to be (and appear) honest and authoritative, attacks their credibility nonstop, etc. See: CDC, FDA, Fed, Census, NWS, etc.
For a guy who loves to talk about "reputation" he doesn't seem to understand it all.
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Rep Mike Turner (R-Ohio), chair of House intel committee, tells @jaketapper on @cnnsotu that some of his colleagues have fallen for Russian propaganda and repeated it on the House floor
This follows similar comments from House Foreign Relations Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-Tex) to @juliaioffe, which Turner was asked about.
Immigrant families are hugely overrepresented in the health care workforce
E.g., adult children of immigrants make up 2x the share of physicians, surgeons, & other health care practitioners compared with their share of the population (13% vs. 6%) kff.org/racial-equity-…
Immigrant adults also make up a larger share of physicians, surgeons, & other health care practitioners than they do of the population (23% vs 19%) and play a particularly large role as direct care workers in long-term care settings, representing 28% of these workers.
This is worth keeping in mind when evaluating Trump's immigration policies, which would slash **legal** immigration. wapo.st/4acKW9E
Americans overwhelmingly think Trump would handle the economy and immigration better than Biden.
Again: I implore voters to look at what each candidate would actually do on economic and immigration policy in a 2nd term. today.yougov.com/politics/artic…
All of Trump's 4 key economic planks would *worsen* inflation: wapo.st/3PdHxiY
His immigration policies involve more family separations, terminating legal status for Dreamers, mass detention camps (involving the authority last used for Japanese internment), and cutting off **legal** immigration: washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/… niskanencenter.org/project-2025-u…
Short 🧵 on political FREEDOM.
The more significant political fallout of this IVF discourse may not be revelation that GOP is often anti-family (surprise!), but rather the undermining of narrative that Dems are merely "pro-abortion" (rather than pro-reproductive freedom) (1/x)
Subtext (or text) of Repub attacks on Dem abortion positions is that they're driven by childless elites who want to kill babies.
IVF debate suggests Ds are promoting not abortion, but freedom—specifically, reproductive freedom, to choose when to begin or expand your family (2/x)
If Dems are smart, this is the angle they'll play up -- perhaps taking a page from @SecretaryPete's 2020 campaign, about how Dems should reclaim "freedom" as a rhetorical device. (3/x)
Everyone's favorite time of year: CBO budget/econ outlook day!
Here's how CBO's economic forecast has changed since last year. Check out interest rates, bottom right quadrant below cbo.gov/publication/59…
Thanks largely to those higher-than-previously-expected interest rates, CBO raised its estimate of net outlays for interest over the next decade by $1.2 trillion (or 11%)
CBO also scaling back estimates for Medicaid enrollment in coming years (top right quadrant below)