Health experts warn of as many as 500,000 deaths over 10 years from Trump’s cuts
President Donald Trump's cuts to USAID could mean as many as 500,000 people die over the next 10 years, one expert predicted.
Al Jazeera cited health experts and aid organizations saying that ending many of the USAID programs that help those with HIV/AIDS "in many African countries could lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths on the continent."
In South Africa alone, an official at the Desmond Tutu HIV Center told Al Jazeera that cuts to U.S. funding could cause 500,000 deaths over 10 years.
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Trump has ushered in massive government cuts, including international humanitarian aid that funds efforts to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS and help those who already have the disease.
Trump created the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) through an executive order and assigned billionaire South African Elon Musk the task of making the cuts. As a result, thousands of government employees worldwide lost their jobs and health insurance.
Some USAID employees were U.S. workers in other countries who were working to stop the spread of disease, help feed starving children, and collect critical data.
Earlier this month, WIRED reported one of the programs the administration cut was funding for drugs that help stop the spread of HIV/AIDS from mother to baby.
“At a minimum, 300 babies that wouldn’t have had HIV, now do,” one USAID worker estimated.
"On Thursday came news that the Trump administration had decided to stop funding UNAIDS, the UN’s HIV/AIDS programme that serves communities around the world," the report also said.
UNAIDS funds work in 55 countries.
“We will see lives lost. In excess of half a million unnecessary deaths will occur because of the loss of the funding, and up to a half a million new infections," said Linda-Gail Bekker, chief operating officer of the Desmond Tutu HIV Center.
Ukraine’s Zelenskyy is keeping an ace up his sleeve in his negotiations with Trump: report
Volodymyr Zelenskyy is meeting with Donald Trump at the White House Friday where the U.S. president is expected to claim victory for a rare minerals deal that will serve as "payback" for U.S. assistance to the war-torn nation. Trump has long sought to be reimbursed for providing Ukraine with weapons needed to push back the Russians, even thought the heads of state for Great Britain and France tried to explain this week that that's not how it's done.
In the Oval Office Thursday Trump asserted that European nations will "get their money back" from what they put into Ukraine's war effort, but Prime Minister Keir Starmer insisted that wasn't true: "Quite a bit of ours was gifted. It was given," Starmer said.
Earlier in the week, French President Emanuel Macron also corrected Trump's claims of payback: "To be frank," Macron said, "we paid 60% of the total effort...through guaranteed grants."
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Zelenskyy and Trump have traded barbs in recent days, with Trump calling the elected Ukrainian leader a "dictator" and Zelenskyy claiming Trump was living in a "disinformation space." But in a new analysis piece for CNN.com, Stephen Collinson wrote that "[Zelenskyy] has learned a critical lesson" in dealing with Trump: Give the U.S. president "the win."
And, so Zelenskyy is traveling to the U.S. to sign a modified deal that offers less than what Trump originally wanted, but still makes him look like the strongman he aspires to be.
"The first draft of the deal looked a lot like colonial-style pillage being forced upon a desperate nation; Zelenskyy refused to sign it, warning he couldn’t sell out his nation’s wealth," Collinson wrote.
"The latest version appears far less onerous for Ukraine," he continued. "There’s talk of a joint reconstruction fund but no mention of Trump’s initial claim for a $500 billion value — which was a perfect metaphor for a foreign policy vision that sees the world as a real estate deal."
Collinson explained, "[Zelenskyy] is styling the agreement as only a framework for a future pact — largely because he’s trying to leverage Ukraine’s mineral wealth for future US security guarantees he sees as vital to the survival of any eventual peace deal."
But "just because the rare earth minerals deal with Ukraine seems likely to fall short of the president’s expectations, it doesn’t mean that he won’t market it as an extraordinary victory for himself and Americans," Collinson wrote.
‘Deeper fault lines to come’ as Republicans revolt over Trump’s faltering economy: report
Collapsing consumer sentiment, prices still increasing and the double-barrelled threat of tariffs and growing unemployment numbers have some Republicans on edge, reports Semafor.
GOP lawmakers' decision to remain quiet and give Donald Trump a honeymoon as he attempts to reshape the government is quickly coming to an end as the economy struggles and it appears the president's threat of tariffs may come true which will hit American's pocketbooks no matter what he claims.
According to Semafor's Eleanor Mueller, Burgess Everett, and Shelby Talcott, Trump is "running into harsh economic reality" since being sworn in with no quick fixes on the horizon and that has Republicans already looking at the 2026 midterms with dread.
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Noting "... his party will have to answer for the broader economic effects of his policies," the report continues, "Trump won’t have to face voters again, but congressional Republicans will next fall. They’re clearly conscious of the need to corral inflation while staving off recession."
According to Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) who is already facing an uphill battle to be re-elected, "the tariff regimen has to be right, or it’s going to be inflationary" while warning it could "end up being a very, very difficult cycle for us.”
Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI) stated he is already hearing from concerned constituents about the coming tariffs, explaining, "They’re kind of trying to figure out what are the changes that Trump’s going to make now, and [whether] that could once again have an effect on their businesses.”
Rep. Adrian Smith (R-NE) also sounded the alarm, telling Semafor, "I’m not the biggest fan of depending on [tariffs] for revenue ... the cost to consumers is something we’re talking about, and we need to be mindful of that.”
The report notes that, with Republicans becoming more publicly critical of the Trump administration, the public fretting "may betray deeper fault lines to come."
You can read more here.
John Fetterman poised to flip and become Republican ‘majority-maker’: ex-chief of staff
Sen. John Fetterman's increasingly independent political moves are drawing concern from Senate colleagues and raising questions about whether the Pennsylvania Democrat might eventually leave his party.
Fetterman said last week he would formally switch his party affiliation if Democrats make opposition to Israel part of their official platform — the first time he's laid out specific conditions for departing – and he pointed to recent contested primaries as evidence the party is shifting toward candidates who are "intensely anti-Israel," not just critical of its policies.
One Democratic senator, speaking anonymously to NOTUS, said, "I am concerned" about the prospect of Fetterman switching parties unexpectedly.
Fetterman has also set up a joint fundraising committee with Republican Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA), an arrangement that struck colleagues as unusual. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) said he'd "never seen it before." Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-PA), a progressive who has left open the possibility of challenging Fetterman in 2028, called the move "crazy stuff," arguing it helps Republicans in battleground Pennsylvania races.
Fetterman brushed off the arrangement as "nothing sinister," rooted in shared state interests, and fired back at Deluzio over the congressman's earlier campaign donation to Graham Platner, the Maine Senate candidate who dropped out amid a sexual assault allegation he denies.
The senator has increasingly clashed with his party over Israel, the Iran war, and border security, and recently expressed regret for once calling to eliminate the filibuster, praising former Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema for opposing its removal.
His standing among Pennsylvania Democrats has slipped sharply — a Quinnipiac poll found his approval at just 19% among Democrats, with 52 percent of voters overall saying they want him to leave the party.
Adam Jentleson, Fetterman's former chief of staff, said he believes Fetterman might switch parties "in order to stay relevant," particularly if Democrats win a narrow Senate majority in November and Fetterman could become a decisive vote. Jentleson also warned Fetterman could side with Republicans on a future Supreme Court nomination.
“I think, if he is the majority-maker, he will flip, because it would give him a massive amount of attention,” said Jentleson, who last year expressed concerns about Fetterman's mental health.
Other Democrats pushed back on the switching narrative. Sen. Peter Welch noted Fetterman "votes Democratic all the time," while Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) urged him to stay, saying his positions still align more with Democrats than Republicans on balance.
“I would just encourage him to stay,” Heinrich said. “I think you can have policy differences, but on balance, with the exception of one or two issues, when you look at what he cares about, I think that looks a lot more like the Democratic Party than the Republican Party. He’s always, always welcome in our caucus.”
