• Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin has been busy since assuming office earlier this year. Zeldin’s been pushing President Donald Trump’s climate agenda by rolling back Biden-era climate protections, deregulating businesses, and cutting staff at the agency. Former EPA Administrator and White House National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy joins us to discuss how states and cities are stepping up to protect their communities and the planet.
• And in headlines: A reporter claimed that Trump administration officials disclosed war plans in a group chat on the messaging app Signal, the Supreme Court rejects challenge to a landmark freedom of the press case, and President Trump announced Susan Monarez as his nominee to lead the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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TRANSCRIPT

Jane Coaston: It’s Tuesday, March 25th. I’m Jane Coaston, and this is What a Day, the show with absolutely spectacular operational security. We have never added the editor-in-chief of a prominent magazine to our group chat, and we never will. That’s the What a Day promise. [music break] On today’s show, lawyers for the White House are in court again to defend deportation flights to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act. And President Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to overrule a lower court decision to rehire thousands of federal workers. But let’s start with the Environmental Protection Agency, a federal department created by Republican Richard Nixon, yes, Richard Nixon, focused as you might expect, on protecting the environment. Or at least, it was. Now the EPA, under Administrator Lee Zeldin, seems less focused on cleaning up our air and waterways, or heaven forbid, doing something about climate change, and more focused on helping America achieve AI dominance? Here’s Zeldin on Fox News last week. 

[clip of Lee Zeldin] At the end of the day we are about powering the great American comeback, making sure that cleaner safer healthier land air water for all Americans are achieved but we also do it unleashing energy dominance making America the AI capital of the world, bringing back American auto jobs, pursuing permitting reform and much more. 

Jane Coaston: Here’s the thing. AI consumes a ton of energy. In 2024, Google reported that its greenhouse gas emissions increased to nearly 50% since 2019 because of its push to focus on AI. And greenhouse gas emissions contribute to climate change, which seems like something the Environmental Protection Agency should be concerned about. It certainly used to be. But now the EPA wants to deregulate businesses cut back or eliminate EPA offices focused on making sure under-represented communities aren’t exposed to environmental toxins and pollution, and do everything possible to make sure companies can pollute as much as their little corporate heart’s desire. Which seems to me bad. So to talk about what the EPA is and isn’t doing and what states and cities are doing to step up, I spoke with Gina McCarthy. She served as the Administrator of the EPA under President Obama and was the first White House National Climate Advisor under President Biden. Gina, thank you so much for joining me. 

Gina McCarthy: Hey, it’s great to be here with you. Thanks for having me. 

Jane Coaston: So a group of former EPA Administrators wrote an op-ed for the New York Times about the behind the scenes work the agency does and how critical it is to our everyday lives. What are some of the things that the EPA does that people might not be aware of? 

Gina McCarthy: EPA does everything from you know regulating industries to making sure landfills don’t drop all their pollution into rivers and streams. We work with local communities. Forty percent of EPA’s money actually goes to states so that they can be supported in efforts to collaborate and make sure that we’re taking care of people’s health in reducing pollution. Our scientists and our policy people go out and do work on hydrofluorocarbons, which are highly polluting in our atmosphere. Um. So there’s lots of things that EPA does that people I think probably just take for granted, frankly, um they don’t understand how difficult and complicated it is to actually keep people safe and the expertise and the policy and the science and the rule-makings behind that uh have really saved millions and millions of lives. 

Jane Coaston: Lee Zeldin, the new head of the EPA, has been very busy since assuming office. He says he’s rolling back dozens of environmental regulations. He’s terminating grants, et cetera, et cetera. He claims that he hasn’t read Project 2025, the giant right wing plan for this administration, but everything he’s doing seems to mirror what’s outlined in that policy blueprint. What does Project 2025 say about the environment and climate change? 

Gina McCarthy: Well, it doesn’t pay a whole lot of uh compliments to EPA, that’s for sure. You know, Project 2025 is all about really minimizing the ability of the federal government to do its job in every way, shape, and form. So I think the announcement by Lee Zeldin was probably expected to happen as a result of demands being made on him. EPA’s mission um that’s been the case through many Republican and Democratic administrations. Its mission is to protect health and the environment. He changed that. He said abundant energy dominance, which is code word for we need to just advance fossil fuels. So, those 31 rules that he’s now reconsidering are rules that are fundamental protections. I will guarantee you that that’s code word for saying, I’m shifting those under the rug and we’re not going to implement them anymore. And there are rules like the endangerment finding, which if that leaves, then climate change and greenhouse gasses can no longer be part of the considerations that we should be taking. I mean, we know the impacts that climate change is having on us and our health and our natural resources. They want to take 65% of the staff and throw them out the door. They want to get rid of our scientists. They’re already talking about eliminating our Office of Research and Development. They’re you know doing everything they can to make it really impossible to continue to move forward at EPA in the way that I think every one of us wants, which is to protect ourselves and our families and our future. 

Jane Coaston: So speaking of the harm, Zeldin isn’t just targeting Biden-era climate policies. He’s going back even further, saying he will reconsider the EPA’s declaration in 2009 that greenhouse gasses are harmful to the environment and human health, which everybody knows. It seems crazy. What would the consequences be of throwing that out?

Gina McCarthy: Well, that would mean that we have to deny that climate change actually exists, and then would have to look at at how we make sure that we don’t help communities stay safe, uh because that wouldn’t be our job anymore. And that’s everything from severe rainstorms that are creating floods, to the fires the wildfires that we’re seeing, uh windstorms and hurricanes and tornadoes that we are seeing. which are all a result of our changing climate. It’s pretty much a total effort to deny not just science and not just EPA’s mission, um but to deny that there are so many people in this country that are impacted by severe pollution, that are facing challenges with water quality or quantity. 

Jane Coaston: It’s fascinating how the environment has become this weird culture war cudgel. And so on the one hand, you hear from Trump and from RFK Junior talking about, oh, we want clean water and clean air. But then they also will give Lee Zeldin carte blanche to make greenhouse gasses great again. And also that anyone who acknowledges that climate change is real and that there’s something we need to be doing about it is a radical left lunatic. How do you think about that? 

Gina McCarthy: I think it’s just sort of like my mind goes, boom, you know, how is this at all consistent? They don’t care about these things. They wouldn’t have taken these jobs and taken the kind of steps they have to dismantle our federal government. My only sort of thing that I’m clinging to is that I am doing work now with America is All In, which is basically recognizing that if the federal government is going to keep  behaving like this, then states and governors and cities and towns, leaders at the sub-national level are going to have to step up. And the good news is they actually are. You know, we are seeing mayors step up, we’re seeing businesses and communities step up. They know what’s at stake. If we continue to move forward at the local level, at least we can keep moving our country forward. Um. What we’re talking about is now building a constituency base that recognizes that if the federal government is out to lunch, we’re going to eat their lunch. That’s how it has to be. 

Jane Coaston: You’ve talked about the importance to step up on the local level and the state level, and that that’s already happening. But we’ve talked on the show before about how the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back climate protections will take a long time to kick in because of all the legal avenues the administration has to go through. And you’ve mentioned how you know we do have some reasons for hope, but what impact are Zeldin and Trump’s actions already having, and what impact do you think that they’re going to have by the end of Trump’s term? What are you worried about over these next couple of years? 

Gina McCarthy: If Zeldin is intent on not implementing regulations, I think we’re gonna have big trouble because they’re already dismantling the enforcement staff at EPA. They’re already talking about maybe we shouldn’t need 10 regions at EPA who are filled with professionals who actually know the areas that they’re servicing. If they get rid of both those things, then we have no ability to make a judgment about what what we’re being exposed to and how we can protect ourselves. And it’s just shockingly difficult to try to figure out how any human being could actually be that callous and that indifferent to our lives and our livelihood, and the very people that elected them, because they’re the ones first and foremost that are going be impacted because they have never been invested in at the level they need to, and you’re gonna see everything from agriculture on down, who’s actually soon going to be in an uproar, because they don’t have the support they need to succeed in feeding us and putting money in their pockets, which is what they’ve been able to do through every difficult administration. But this administration isn’t difficult, it’s indifferent. which is very difficult for all of us.

Jane Coaston: The U.S. has been a world leader in climate policies. Trump pulled us out of the Paris climate agreement for the second time in January when he came into office. How does that impact global climate change mitigation? 

Gina McCarthy: Well, it’s been very difficult, and one thing that that Mike Bloomberg has done is both in 2017 when the Trump administration pulled out and this year when he did, it’s been Mike Bloomberg who basically gave all of the money that the U.S. needed to have to actually put on the table for the UNFCCC, which is the organization that is in charge of these climate efforts in the climate conferences of the parties. I was at the UN just two weeks ago. I’m going to be going to Copenhagen and little old me and others are going to be representing the United States of America because we don’t have anyone in Washington that wants that job to work with other countries, not just to protect the interests of those countries or America, but to protect our ability to give our kids a future. 

Jane Coaston: Gina, thank you so much for joining me. 

Gina McCarthy: Thank you. It was great to be here. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Gina McCarthy, former EPA Administrator and White House National Climate Advisor. We’ll get to more of the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]

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Jane Coaston: Here’s what else we’re following today. 

[sung] Headlines.

[clip of unnamed news reporter] Why were those details shared on Signal, and how did you learn that a journalist was privy to the targets, the types of weapons used, and the timing? 

[clip of Pete Hegseth] I’ve heard I’ve heard I was characterized, nobody was texting war plans and that’s all I have to say about that. Thank you. 

Jane Coaston: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is in hot water after a reporter on Monday claimed Trump administration officials disclosed war plans in a group chat on the messaging app Signal. Journalist and editor-in-chief at the Atlantic Jeffrey Goldberg said those private discussions accidentally included him. In an article Monday titled The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans, Goldberg wrote that he received a connection request on the app earlier this month from a user who appeared to be national security advisor Michael Waltz. He said he was then added to a chat group called the, quote, “Houthi PC Small Group.” Others in the group appeared to include Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Goldberg wrote he had strong doubts the text group was real because he, quote, “could not believe that the national security leadership of the United States would communicate on Signal about imminent war plans.” Also, hello, why was he in the chat? Goldberg said just days later he found out the US was going to bomb Houthi targets across Yemen hours before it happened. Why? Because the account labeled Pete Hegseth texted him the war plan at 11 44 a.m. While Goldberg chose not to directly quote the messages sent by Hegseth, he did write that the information could have conceivably been used by a US adversary to harm American military personnel. Goldberg wrote, quote, “What I will say in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of the signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.” When asked by reporters about the text Monday, Hegseth referred to Goldberg as a, quote, “deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist,” which doesn’t really answer the question, does it? In a statement Monday, White House National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said the group chat, quote, “appears to be authentic.” But he added the thread as a quote, “demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials.” Maybe the White House and Pete Hegseth should chat on Signal. And in horrifying and yet somehow completely unsurprising fashion, reporters seem to break the story to our Commander-in-Chief himself. 

[clip of unnamed news reporter 2] You’re reacting to the the story in the Atlantic, that said that some of your top cabinet officials and aides had been discussing very sensitive material through Signal and included an Atlantic reporter for that. What is your response to that [?]? 

[clip of President Donald Trump] I don’t know anything about it, I’m not a big fan of the Atlantic, it’s to me it’s a magazine that’s going out of business, I think it’s not much of a magazine, but I know nothing about it. You’re saying that they had what? 

Jane Coaston: Someone clearly wasn’t in the group chat. Some Democrats are calling for an investigation. The Trump administration once again wants the Supreme Court to do it a solid and block a lower court judge’s ruling it doesn’t like. The administration Monday asked the justices to block an order to rehire thousands of probationary-status federal workers. These are people who were either recently hired by the government or had moved into a different job and had not yet earned full civil service protections. The White House targeted them for mass firing in February as part of a push to shrink the size of the government. But earlier this month, a federal judge in San Francisco slammed the administration’s, quote, “sham process” for axing all those people, around 16,000 in total, and ordered some agencies to offer them their jobs back. Naturally, the Trump administration isn’t happy about that and wants the nation’s highest court to step in. In a court filing, it argues the judge overreached with his ruling and that it violates the federal separation of powers. In other Supreme Court news Monday, the justices also declined to hear a challenge to a landmark freedom of the press case. Casino mogul and Trump donor Steve Wynn wanted the justices to revisit New York Times v. Sullivan, a 1960s case that protects journalists from libel suits when they write damaging stories about public figures. Wynn had sued the Associated Press in 2018 for publishing sexual misconduct allegations against him that dated back decades. Wynn denies the claims and is apparently very upset that the AP decided to write about them. Life is very hard sometimes. Lawyers for the White House were in court again Monday, arguing over President Trump’s use of wartime powers to deport alleged members of a Venezuelan gang. This time, it was in front of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. The administration asked the court to lift a hold on its use of the Alien Enemies Act to remove people it says belong to the gang Tren de Aragua. It’s not clear when the three-judge panel will issue a decision. As of our recording late Monday, that hasn’t happened yet. But during the hearing, Circuit Judge Patricia Millet, an Obama appointee, ripped into the administration for not giving people the opportunity to challenge their removals. 

[clip of Judge Patricia Millet] There were plane loads of people. There were no procedures in place to notify people. Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemy Act, than has happened here. 

Jane Coaston: Nazis got better treatment. Also on Monday, the lower court judge at the center of the case, District Judge James Boasberg, again ruled against the White House. He refused to lift his block on using the wartime law for deportations. He said people should get the chance to challenge allegations they belong to Tren de Aragua before they’re removed. You know, due process. Lawyers will be back in Boasberg’s court today for another scheduled hearing. DOJ lawyers are supposed to say whether they plan to invoke state secrets privileges to shield details about earlier deportations under the Alien Enemies Act from the court. President Trump announced Susan Monarez  is his nominee to lead the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Monarez  has been serving as the acting director since January. Trump posted on Truth Social Monday that Monarez  will quote, “work closely with our great Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert Kennedy Jr. Together, they will prioritize accountability, high standards and disease prevention to finally address the chronic disease epidemic and make America healthy again.” Monarez was previously the deputy director of a research funding agency that supports transformative biomedical and health breakthroughs. Trump’s announcement comes after the White House pulled the nomination of Dave Weldon earlier this month. The position requires Senate approval starting this year. While Monarez does have a Ph.D., if confirmed she would be the first non-physician to lead the agency in more than 50 years. And that’s the news. [music break]

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Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review. Contemplate the fact that Elon Musk is sending $100 to anyone who signs a petition yelling about judges in Wisconsin in an effort to influence a state’s Supreme Court election and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading, and not just about how this isn’t the first time he’s done this and probably won’t be the last, and the best way to fight back is for Wisconsinites to vote for the person who’s not being supported by noted weirdo Elon Musk, like me. What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston and Wisconsin voters, do your thing. [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producers are Raven Yamamoto and Emily Fohr. Our producer is Michell Eloy. We had production help today from Johanna Case, Joseph Dutra, Greg Walters, and Julia Claire. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our executive producer is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Giliard and Kashaka. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. 

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