Reagan Appointee: Trump NIH Cuts Represent “Racial Discrimination”

A judge appointed by Ronald Reagan just ruled that President Trump’s cuts to DEI-related equity research grants at the National Institutes of Health were both discriminatory and illegal.

The Trump administration, led by DOGE, cut more than $1.81 billion in National Institutes of Health grants in less than 40 days. The National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities got the worst of it, with 30 percent of its grant funding being cut—twice the average. Grants focusing on Black women’s maternal health and HIV were also slashed. The cuts were made on the grounds that “so-called diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) studies are often used to support unlawful discrimination on the basis of race.”

Today Judge William Young, 84, declared those cuts “illegal” and “void.”

“I am hesitant to draw this conclusion, but I have an unflinching obligation to draw it–that this represents racial discrimination. And discrimination against America’s LGBTQ community. That’s what this is. I would be blind not to call it out. My duty is to call it out,” he wrote in his ruling. “It is palpably clear that these directives and the set of terminated grants here also are designed to frustrate, to stop, research that may bear on the health—we’re talking about health here, the health of Americans, of our LGBTQ community. That’s appalling.”

Young continued, clearly upset with the Trump administration’s action.

“I’ve never seen a record where racial discrimination was so palpable. I’ve sat on this bench now for 40 years. I’ve never seen government racial discrimination like this.... I ask myself, how can this be?” he said. “I have the protection that the Founders wrote into the Constitution, along with imposing upon me a duty to speak the truth in every case. I try to do that. What if I didn’t have those protections? What if my job was on the line, my profession? ... Would I have stood up against all this? Would I have said, ‘You can’t do this?’ You are bearing down on people of color because of their color. The Constitution will not permit that.

“Have we fallen so low? Have we no shame?”

Even with Young’s ruling’s spirited proclamation, there is no indication that Trump will actually follow it and reinstate the NIH grants.

The Trump administration is thinking about adding 26 more countries—most of them African—to his travel ban list.

The Washington Post obtained a Trump administration memo that would give the 26 countries listed 60 days to capitulate to State Department demands. Some countries were flagged for having “no competent or cooperative central government authority to produce reliable identity documents or other civil documents,” or “government fraud.” There was also a requirement against “antisemitic and anti-American activity in the United States” by people from the listed countries. Nearly all of the listed countries are in Africa, the Caribbean, or the Middle East.

The added countries are:

Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Cambodia, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Dominica, Ethiopia, Egypt, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Malawi, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, South Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Tonga, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Trump already banned travelers from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen earlier in June.

This is a xenophobic blanket policy that singles out Arab and African countries. And one thing Trump doesn’t seem to care about is how the timing and targets of this ban will impact both the 2026 World Cup in New York, Atlanta, Boston, and more, and the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. These events, often massive international draws, could very well turn into ICE outposts, discouraging people from attending entirely. And even if it doesn’t, the reputational hit alone could do further damage to America’s international goodwill.

America’s leader decided to open the international G7 summit with a long complaint, seemingly in support of Russia.

Speaking before the global trade coalition, Donald Trump lamented that the group—which consists of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States—would not allow Russia to join its ranks.

“The G7 used to be the G8,” Trump said. “Barack Obama and a person named Trudeau didn’t want to have Russia in, and I would say that that was a mistake, because I think you wouldn’t have a war right now if you had Russia in,” he added, referring to the former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The seven other members of the then G8 suspended Russia’s membership in 2014 as punishment for Moscow’s annexation of Crimea. But Trump doesn’t seem to have as many qualms about Russia’s efforts to seize neighboring territories.

“And you wouldn’t have a war right now if Trump were president four years ago, but it didn’t work out that way,” he continued, referring to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “But it used to be the G8, and now it’s, I guess, what’s that, nine years ago? Eight years ago? They threw Russia out, which I claimed was a very big mistake even though I wasn’t in politics then. I was very loud about it.

“You spend so much time talking about Russia, and he’s no longer at the table, so it makes life more complicated, but you wouldn’t have had the war,” Trump added.

As Trump’s rant continued, the summit’s leadership stepped in to intervene.

“I’m going to exercise my role, if you will, as G7 chair,” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said as reporters continued to shout questions at the U.S. president about the escalating Iran-Israel conflict.

The U.S. has played a weaker and weaker hand in its game against Russia since Trump’s inauguration. On the campaign trail, Trump pledged to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of returning to power—but that hasn’t been the case.

Instead, Trump’s aggression toward Ukraine (which included scolding and mocking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a livestreamed White House meeting) and his repeated concessions on Russia’s enduring violence have been interpreted by Kremlin propagandists as a massive win for Russian President Vladimir Putin, resulting in televised laughter on Russian programs at the downfall of American power.

In the months since he took office, Trump has claimed that Russia has come ready and willing to reach a peace deal, even though many of its demands—such as staking a Russian flag in Crimea—reverse long-standing U.S. policy.

Following a deadly airstrike on Kyiv last month, European leaders urged Western countries to enact sanctions on Moscow as a way to reel Putin back to the negotiating table. But Trump responded by wringing his hands, claiming that applying pressure on Russia would “hurt” a deal.

Just about everyone in the U.S.—including Trump’s own party—wants the White House to act. By late May, Senate Republicans resorted to begging Trump to take a stand against Russia while they mulled over the possibility of going over his head to enact the internationally recommended sanctions. Senate Majority Leader John Thune announced last week that the upper chamber would begin work on a sanctions bill sometime this month.

Those realities pushed Senator Mitch McConnell into a terse exchange with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week, in which the high-ranking Republican questioned the Cabinet official regarding which side the White House actually wanted to win.

Healthcare professionals at the Department of Veterans Affairs can now discriminate against Democrats, and it’s all thanks to Donald Trump’s anti-trans executive order.

While medical staff are still required to treat patients regardless of race, color, religion, or sex, new rules at the VA have explicitly removed protections based on political party affiliation, martial status, and national origin, The Guardian reported Monday.

Similarly, health care professionals can now be banned from working at the VA over their political affiliation, marital status, and union membership, according to documents obtained by The Guardian.

The new rule changes apply to professionals across disciplines, including doctors, certified nurse practitioners, psychologists, dentists, chiropractors, optometrists, podiatrists, licensed clinical social workers, and speech therapists.

VA press secretary Peter Kasperowicz did not deny the reporting Monday, and told The Guardian that the changes were just a “formality” made in order to comply with Trump’s executive order “defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government.”

VA Deputy Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs Macaulay Porter, however, denied The Guardian’s characterization of the new policy, saying, “Updates will have no impact whatsoever on who VA treats or who works at VA.” Porter said that the VA would continue to comply with federal law preventing discrimination against patients and employees.

Dr. Arthur Caplan, founding head of the division of medical ethics at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, told The Guardian that the VA’s new rules were “extremely disturbing and unethical.”

“It seems on its face an effort to exert political control over the VA medical staff,” Caplan said. “What we typically tell people in healthcare is: ‘You keep your politics at home and take care of your patients.’”

“Those views aren’t relevant to caring for patients. So why would we put anyone at risk of losing care that way?” Caplan added.

Trump’s executive order attempting to redefine the government’s definitions of gender and sexuality has already upended essential medical care for transgender patients across the country, and opened the door for a sweeping crackdown on LGBTQ+ rights throughout the federal government.

The Trump administration has also taken part in a disturbing trend of targeting Democrats with violence and chaos. On Sunday, the president threatened to expand his inhumane immigration enforcement efforts to areas where voters support Democratic candidates. On Saturday, two democratic lawmakers in Minnesota and their families were targeted by an assassin.

These new rules are also spurred by a Republican leadership that has embraced the nuclear American family in its desperation to cling to some invented past, sought to punish divorced people, and undermine programs that help single parents.

This story has been updated.

The “Trump Phone” is coming this fall.

President Trump’s son Eric Trump went on Fox Business’s Mornings with Maria to discuss how the new phone can be used to “correct” a political sphere they think is unfairly targeting them.

“More and more we’re using technology as a company to correct the problems. Obviously Truth Social was to correct freedom of speech, right? I mean, he lost his throughout the political process. Obviously crypto—we’ve got the biggest projects in crypto—was to correct another problem, the fact that they were debanking all conservatives. I was the most cancelled person probably in the country,” the president’s second son said. “And now we’ve got Trump Mobile, and Trump Mobile is going to revolutionize, kind of, cell phones, mobile calling.”

“We’re going to do it better, we’re going to do it safer, we’re going to have more functionality, more features. And the coolest thing about all these ventures is that we’re doing it right here in the United States. You’re not calling up call centers in Bangladesh, you’re doing it right out of St. Louis, Missouri. You’re gonna have phones that are made right here in the United States of America.… It’s gonna be cheaper, 47 bucks a month, you’re gonna have more international dialing for free, hundreds of countries.… It is the biggest bang for the buck, and we’re really excited to get into this space.… Obviously real estate’s always been our bread and butter but … I really believe we’re gonna have one of the great kind of tech platforms as part of the Trump organization.”

The phone drops in September for $499 (preorder for $100 down) and we still don’t even know what it really looks like, if it’s waterproof, or if it will actually be made in America, as no notable smartphone is. All we know it that it’s Trump’s, and that will very well be enough for some people. The Verge’s David Pierce noted that it would be “utterly unfathomable” for the Trump Organization to produce a good, working phone at that price, with multiple contradictory specs, in the next three months.

This family just cannot stop coming up with these modern snake oil salesmen side hustles that likely work on a good chunk of their base. From the Trump Gold Card, to pawning his influence to the highest crypto buyer, to even the sneakers—these guys will stop at nothing to make a buck. All while we’re forced to take them at their word over questions about conflicts of interest with the Trump Organization and President Trump.

The possibilities are endless here. Will the phones be some kind of Google Pixel or Samsung dupe? Will they have spyware? Will they actually carry out any of the features Eric Trump described above? Only time will tell.