Judge blocks mass firings and changes at HSS

• Trump’s mass firings and reorganization at the Department of Health and Human Services was put on hold by a federal judge in early July. The judge ruled that HHS Secretary Kennedy’s plans to wipe out entire programs and reorient the agency’s priorities and work far exceeded his authority, writing, “The executive branch does not have the authority to order, organize or implement wholesale changes to the structure and function of the agencies created by Congress.”

Trump slashes inspectors who keep guns away from criminals

• Trump is slashing the number of inspectors who monitor federally licensed gun dealers by two-thirds, sharply limiting the government’s crimped capacity to identify businesses that sell guns to criminals, gun traffickers, straw purchasers, and people with severe mental illness. His budget will eliminate 541 of the estimated 800 investigators responsible for determining whether federally licensed dealers are following federal law and regulations 

Trump’s Big Bad Bill takes away health care and food from tens of millions of Americans  

• Trump’s Big Bad Bill passed by Republicans in Congress slashes support for SNAP, the program that 41 million Americans rely on to keep from going hungry. The BBB takes away health coverage from 16 million Americans who get coverage through Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.  

• The Big Bad Bill takes away health coverage for 8.5 million Americans who get health care through Medicaid and 7.6 million who get health coverage through the ACA marketplaces. The BBB adds huge amounts of red tape to kick people off their health coverage and keep them off. The BBB raises health insurance premiums to millions of people on the ACA. Working families. People who get seriously ill. People with disabilities.  Trump slashes Medicaid and the ACA by more than $800 million to give trillions of tax breaks to the wealthy. 

• The Big Bad Bill takes  food under the SNAP program from roughly 3.2 million adults a month including  800,000 parents with children and  millions of adults aged 55 through 64. And cuts food stamps for tens of millions of others who rely on SNAP to pay for groceries. The BBB adds layer and layer of red-tape to make it difficult to apply and keep eligible for keeping meals on the table.. It shifts the cost of the program of running SNAP to state taxpayers, forcing states to run the program with a big reduction in funds. It’s a total of $300 billion slashing of food for families. 

• When one-out-of-five American children are obese, Trump’s Big Bad Bill ends the SNAP-ED program that educates children about how to find, eat healthy, affordable foods.

Trump slashes smoking and vaping prevention – tobacco money wins

• Trump slashed an array of programs that have moved the rate of smoking to a record low, saved lives and billions of dollars in health care spending. Still, some 29 million people in the U.S. continue to smoke.

• Big tobacco gave tens of millions to Trump as legal bribes. JustReynolds American , which makes Newport cigarettes and Vuse vapes, just in 2024 gave, $10 million to Trump PACs and $4.6 million to Republican leaders in Congress. Altria, the maker of Marlboro cigarettes and NJOY vapes, ponied up $6.4 million to congressional Republicans and $1 million to the Trump inaugural committee.

• Trump’s FDA fired staff members who fined on retailers that sold tobacco to minors or marketed illicit vapes. Scientists who were experts in addiction and toxicology were fired along the team that wrote proposals to  ban menthol cigarettes  and to reduce the amount of nicotine in cigarettes, efforts Trump abandoned. The F.D.A. ran a campaign that reached young people on YouTube and gaming platforms, preventing 444,000 young people from taking up vaping in 2023 and 2024.

Trump cut funding for a women's health program that yielded a $140 return in health care savings for every $1 spent and removes emergency abortion protections

• The Women's Health Initiative (WHI) was launched to fill the knowledge gap caused by decades of underrepresentation of women in medical research. It was still tracking 42,000 participants aged 78–108 when Trump accused it of “waste, fraud, and abuse.” After public outcry, funding for the WHI was restored. 

• Trump revoked a requirement that hospitals provide emergency abortions to women whose health is in peril, including in states where abortion is restricted or banned. His  policy statement said hospitals would still be subject to a federal law requiring them to provide reproductive health care in emergency situations. But it did not explain exactly what that meant.  experts said the murky policy could have dire consequences for pregnant women by discouraging doctors from performing emergency abortions in states where abortions are banned or restricted.

Trump endangers the health and well-being of the most vulnerable… meals on wheels nursing home residents, disability support 

• Trump pulls the rug out from under nursing home residents, the disabled, and reentry programs that help people transition out of institutional settings.

• Trump reduces meal deliveries and limits who qualifies for Meals on Wheels. Reports indicate delays in funding local providers, and many communities are bracing for cuts.

• Trump shuts down regional offices of disability navigation and support services, leaving disabled individuals without direction or clarity on future funding.

Trump asks Congress to delay Rx Price Negotiation

• Trump issued an executive order urging Congress to delay Medicare negotiating prescription drug prices for four years. While pretending to want to lower Rx prices, Trump is urging Congress to put on hold the most important measure taken to lower Rx prices ever enacted, when Congress enacted legislation to require Medicare to negotiate with the big drug companies to lower prices. The first 10 drugs will see lower prices starting in January 2026, unless Congress bows to Trump’s demand. 

Trump must cut Medicaid to give the Rich a Tax Trillion Dollar Tax Cut, CBO finds

• Trump pushed Republicans in the House to pass a budget  that cuts $880 billion from Medicare, Medicaid, or the Children’s Health Insurance Program according to the Congressional Budget Office. The budget gives big tax breaks to the wealthy. 

Trump makes it harder to enroll in ACA and threatens to raise premiums

• President Trump has already made it much harder to enroll in Affordable Care Act insurance by  cutting short the enrollment period, firing people who helped enroll people and adding needless red tape. Now he wants  to raise premiums forcing  millions of Americans to give up their health coverage and face the possibility of medical debt.

Trump Slashed $1 Billion in Food Aid

• Trump created a nutrition crisis in Appalachia, emptying food bank freezers that once held meat and vegetables—now stocked only with Cheez-Its from a truck accident and “fig pieces” that even volunteers can’t stomach. “We don’t pray for truck crashes,” said Pastor Jackie Thompson, as desperate churches resort to serving processed snacks instead of real food to families in poverty. Seniors like retired teacher Patricia Rosebourgh are left wondering where their next meal will come from.

• Trump's cuts destroyed local farmers' livelihoods, leaving both hungry families and cattle ranchers without income. “They’re cutting the backbone of America,” said rancher Simon, whose orders dropped 80%, unaware his business was collateral damage in Trump’s budget cuts. 

Trump makes big cuts to Department of Health and Human Services  including NIH and CDC. 

• Trump pushed out or fired 20,000 people who work at The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,nearly a quarter of its workforce, under a plan announced by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

• Trump’s wants to gut major health and disease prevention programs, including the National Institute for Health (NIH) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC). Trump wants to cut the CDC funding almost in half, eliminating C.D.C. programs devoted to preventing chronic disease and injuries, including gun violence injuries. He wants to slash NIH research on preventing and curing  disease by 40%. He also proposes cutting more than $1 billion from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which directs funds and support nationwide to address two of the country’s biggest public health crises.

Trump Abruptly Cuts Billions From State Health Services

• Trump abruptly canceled over $12 billion in federal grants to states, affecting critical public health initiatives like infectious disease tracking, mental health services, and addiction treatment, which were initially funded during the COVID-19 pandemic.

  • A federal judge put an indefinite block on the cuts, but only in the 24 Democratic led states, including the District of Columbia that sued to keep the essential funding. Those states cover 185 million people, more than half of all Americans. But people in the GOP led states that did not sue will lose the vital services.  

• Trump’s health services cuts, made with no notice, threaten the viability of public health projects across the country, with states scrambling to understand the impact and prepare for potential layoffs, including epidemiologists and data scientists.

• Trump’s reduction of State Health Services contradicts Congressional authorization for the funds, potentially wastes millions of taxpayer dollars and leaves vital health programs unfinished.

Trump takes away health care coverage from Dreamers

• Trump proposed to end health insurance coverage under the ACA for “Dreamers,”  undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S.A. when they were children. Dreamers can now get coverage in 31 states.