GREEN SCREAM

Trump’s assault on Biden’s climate legacy is hurting MAGA voters. Climate correspondent Anya Zoledziowski breaks down what it means. 

• President Donald Trump’s dizzying attack on federal climate policies has unleashed chaos, from mass firings of scientists and regulators to reversals in environmental policy. He’s also got his eyes on President Joe Biden’s climate money. Biden approved hundreds of billions of dollars in investments for clean energy, environmental justice and resilient infrastructure. A lot of that funding is now in limbo in the wake of Trump’s unprecedented federal funding freeze.

• Environmentalists and Democrats aren’t the only ones troubled by these changes. Some conservatives are grumbling, too. Trump’s climate-related executive orders are “horrifying, really,” former Republican Rep. Bob Inglis told What A Day. Eighteen House Republicans signed a letter back in August urging protections for energy tax credits enshrined in Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act spending package.

• One big reason for their unease: Red states have been the primary beneficiaries of Biden’s climate funds (a choice that may have been strategic). Since Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act was passed in 2022, the bulk of clean energy projects — worth over $200 billion — has landed in conservative strongholds, a.k.a. Trumpland. According to nonprofit Climate Power, more than 216,000 new jobs have been created across 405 clean energy projects in 152 Republican-held districts. Other estimates have found that Republicans have received 85 percent of IRA investment.

• Take Georgia. About $500 million in federal funding is earmarked for the state to modernize its power grid via several projects. That money? Currently unavailable, thanks to the funding freeze. Or consider this $30 million project in Painesville, Ohio, converting a coal plant to solar power. Its funding was paused twice before the funds were finally re-released. Across the country, people face paused or delayed projects, spurring uncertainty and anxiety.

• “I wonder how these congresspeople are going to handle this when suddenly there were going to be a thousand new jobs and now there are going to be none,” Kenneth Gillingham, Yale University professor of environmental and energy economics, told What A Day. “They have to support their districts because they want their voters to do well… But they also have felt, at least up till now, that they need to support Trump.”

This story is playing out across the country with thousands of jobs — and livelihoods — on the line.

• These projects are funding blue collar jobs that benefit rural America. “These folks are confused, they’re upset, they’re concerned and they are understandably outraged,” said Environmental Defense Fund’s Nic Glover.

• Trump’s actions fly in the face of his promises to usher in American jobs. “We’re seeing situations where farmers, small businesses, churches, schools are being left high and dry,” Glover said. One family that runs a three-person construction business in Utah, a Republican stronghold, told local media that because of the federal funding freeze, they’re still waiting for the federal government to pay them about $30,000. “It’s not huge, but it’s not insignificant,” one of the workers said. “We’re a really small business. $30,000 … keeps us going.”

• Farmers overwhelmingly voted for Trump. Yet now, many are scrambling to make ends meet while they wait to learn whether they’ll receive the agriculture-related IRA funding they were promised. “I feel like I’m doing my part and now [Trump’s] going against what [he] said, a little bit,” one affected farmer told the New York Times.

Will this growing economic pain among the MAGA base force Trump to rethink his climate policies? That part remains to be seen.

This story is supported by our nonprofit partner, Crooked Ideas.

MAL VOYAGE

Thinking about taking a vacation abroad from *gestures wildly* everything? Donald Trump is making even that a bit more annoying… but What A Day is here to help.

The Trump administration plans to close dozens of consulates by this summer. Some are in Western Europe — Leipzig, Hamburg, and Dusseldorf, Germany; Bordeaux and Strasbourg, France; and Florence, Italy — and also in Gaziantep, Turkey. (Consulates are basically mini-embassies that aren’t in the host country’s capital.)

So what? Well, if you ever get into trouble abroad, you’ll wish you had a U.S. consulate nearby. They play a crucial role, for example, in helping Americans jailed abroad, recovering hostages, reacting to threats and instability, evacuating Americans during natural disasters, and officially recording births abroad — or, if things go really badly, helping to repatriate Americans who die overseas.

It’s “dipshit logic” that “something being physically overseas does not mean it’s not actively providing services to Americans,” a former diplomatic service agent told me.

Be extra careful if you’re going abroad! These fuckers are making everything harder.

NEWS NEWS NEWS

The U.S. proposed that Hamas hand over hostages in exchange for a two-month ceasefire extension. This comes a few days after Hamas brushed off Donald Trump’s “last warning” threat.

The Trump administration canceled $400 million in grants to Columbia University, citing the school’s “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students” in a statement. Columbia students were a focal point of campus protests against the U.S.’s relationship with Israel following the October 7 attacks. Let’s make this clear once again: Protesting Israel’s far-right government is not antisemitic.

The Pentagon flagged more than 26,000 images for removal from its websites as part of its anti-diversity, equity and inclusion purge. It flagged photos of the Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber that dropped a nuke on Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II — presumably because it contains the word “Gay.” We can hear the GOP cries of “Get rid of this gay plane!” now.

Trump convened his cabinet to clarify that DOGEbag-in-chief Elon Musk doesn’t have the power to fire federal employees. “If they can cut, it’s better,” Trump told reporters. “And if they don’t cut, then Elon will.” Okay so…which is it?

There’s up to a dozen lawmakers in Congress who “don’t have the faculties to do their job,” Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) told Politico, after being asked about the gerontocracy running the government. Only 12? That’s better than I thought.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is planning to study any potential links between vaccines and autism, a thoroughly debunked anti-vax conspiracy theory that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is obsessed with. Spending money on a fishing expedition instead of trusting scientific consensus based on peer-reviewed studies doesn’t strike me as particularly “efficient”!

An unvaccinated adult in New Mexico died after contracting the measles, the second such case in recent weeks in the United States. Vaccines: They don’t cause autism but they do prevent unnecessary deaths! Sounds like kind of a win-win to us?

Former Vice President Kamala Harris will decide whether to run for California governor by the end of summer, Politico reports. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has reached his term limit, and seems to be preparing for a presidential run anyways. If Harris runs and becomes governor, she’d likely be out of the 2028 presidential race.

Trump recently asked aides if the Declaration of Independence — y’know, the 249-year-old founding document encased in an oxygen-free, argon-filled display at the National Archives — could be moved into the Oval Office, according to the Atlantic. Aides have been relieved to learn that, now, the president seems to only want a copy of the document. Phew.

Do you love going out and hanging with friends? Of course you do! 

Does all that eating and drinking start to take a toll? It sure does! 

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