President Donald Trump remains in “excellent health” and is “fully fit” to be Commander-in-Chief, his physician said in a report released by the White House on Sunday, April 13. Trump attended a medical appointment at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Friday—the first physical of his second presidential term. Trump consented to Dr. Sean Barbabella, the President's White House physician, releasing the results of his cognitive test and physical examination and tests. Per the report, Trump’s height and weight are 75 inches and 224 pounds, respectively. Scans of several body systems—including the eyes, ears, neck, throat, and heart—came back normal. The physician noted scarring on Trump’s right ear, obtained during the first assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July, 2024. Dr. Barbabella also shared that the President had undergone a colonoscopy in the summer of 2024, during which it was revealed that he had a benign polyp and diverticulitis, which is inflammation in the pockets of the colon. A follow-up colonoscopy was recommended in three years time. Trump's medical history also includes a past COVID-19 infection. Trump’s medications include prescriptions for cholesterol, a cardiac prevention medicine, and a cream to use as needed for “a skin condition.” The physician also notes that Trump, at some point, had bilateral cataract surgery. Overall, Barbabella—a decorated Navy physician—says that Trump is in “robust cardiac, pulmonary, neurological, and general physical function,” sharing that his “active lifestyle” including both golf and the general activeness required of his station helps his well-being “President Trump exhibits excellent cognitive and physical health and is fully fit to execute the duties of the Commander-in-Chief and Health of State,” Barbabella concludes. The report also said that Trump scored 30 out of 30 on a Montreal Cognitive Assessment exam. Trump’s health and cognitive acuity had been central to calls for him to release his medical records. Trump—who, at 78, is the oldest President to start a second term at the White House—notably faced many calls during his presidential campaign to release his medical records, especially after his then-opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris, released her own in October 2024. “The American people deserve to have confidence in their elected officials’ mental and physical capacity to do the jobs they’ve elected them to do,” an open letter from over 200 doctors and health care providers in October read. “Trump ought to be going above and beyond to provide transparency on his physical health and mental acuity, given his advancing age.” The results of this physical are the first full, robust report we’ve had on Trump’s health since the results from his 2018 physical were released. However, Trump has released a number of brief medical updates over the years, including a signed letter by his former physician Dr. Ronny Jackson—a Republican Representative from Texas—after the July 2024 assassination attempt, and an incredibly brief medical letter that featured in a Nov. 20, 2023, Truth Social post.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, an Independent serving Vermont, made an unexpected appearance at the Coachella music festival in Indio, Calif., on Saturday evening. He offered a stark warning about President Donald Trump during a rousing on-stage speech. Sanders’ surprise address included calls for the younger generation to “stand up” against the fossil fuel industry, insurance companies, and U.S. states that are looking to roll back abortion rights. Upon his first mention of the "President of the United States," the crowd started to boo—a reaction which prompted Sanders to say: “I agree.” ExploreClose Subscribe Apr 13, 2025 7:35 PM IST Sen. Bernie Sanders Issues Stark Warning About Trump During Surprise Coachella Appearance Politics Donald Trump Rebecca Schneid by Rebecca Schneid Reporter 2025 Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival - Weekend 1 - Day 2 Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks onstage before Clairo's performance at the Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival on April 12, 2025, in Indio, Calif.Katie Flores/Billboard—Getty Images Sen. Bernie Sanders, an Independent serving Vermont, made an unexpected appearance at the Coachella music festival in Indio, Calif., on Saturday evening. He offered a stark warning about President Donald Trump during a rousing on-stage speech. Sanders’ surprise address included calls for the younger generation to “stand up” against the fossil fuel industry, insurance companies, and U.S. states that are looking to roll back abortion rights. Upon his first mention of the "President of the United States," the crowd started to boo—a reaction which prompted Sanders to say: “I agree.” Advertisement 00:02 03:00 Read More “[Trump] thinks that climate change is a hoax. He’s dangerously wrong,” Sanders warned. “And you and I are going to have to stand up to the fossil fuel industry and tell them to stop destroying this planet.” The Trump Administration has taken multiple actions that threaten to dismantle climate mitigation efforts since January—from the rollback of protections at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and an Executive Order to increase logging, to mass staff cuts at prominent agencies including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). “This country faces some very difficult challenges, and the future of what happens to America is dependent upon your generation,” Sanders opened his speech saying, appealing to the younger members of the crowd. “Now you can turn away and ignore what goes on, but if you do that, you do so at your own peril. We need you to stand up and fight for justice, to fight for economic justice, social justice, and racial justice.” Sanders went on to ask that the crowd “stand up and fight for women’s rights,” and work for economic justice and equality. “We have an economy today that is working very well for the billionaire class, but not for working families,” Sanders said. Ending on healthcare, he called for the audience “to stand up to the insurance companies and the drug companies and understand that healthcare is a human right.” Despite earning much applause of his own, Sanders was on stage to introduce singer-songwriter Clairo—born Claire Cottrill—who he praised on account of her own activism. “I’m here because Clairo has used her prominence to fight for women’s rights, to try to end the terrible, brutal war in Gaza, where thousands of women and children are being killed,” Sanders said. Earlier in the day, Sanders spoke with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat serving New York, in Los Angeles as a part of their “Fighting Oligarchy Tour.” Their rally drew thousands of attendees, and featured appearances from musicians Maggie Rogers, Neil Young, and Joan Baez. Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez have been touring the nation in hopes to “take on the Oligarchs and corporate interests who have so much power and influence in this country,” and address the growing influence of billionaires on the U.S. government.

In the latest switch-up in the rollercoaster of events that have followed the April 2 announcement of President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs, the Trump Administration has said that some electronics will be exempt from these tariffs. A notice from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), posted late on Friday night, stated that certain electronic devices will be exempt—including smartphones, laptops, hard drives, flat-panel monitors, and machines used to make semiconductors and some chips. The notice said that the exemption applies to products entering the United States or removed from warehouses dating back to April 5. This means these products can now bypass the significantly high “reciprocal” tariffs on China, where Apple has manufactured most of its iPhones since the first model hit the market 18 years ago. However, as Stephen Miller, Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, pointed out on X on Saturday, these electronics are still “subject to the tariff under the original IEEPA on China of 20 percent.” The tariffs would likely have made a large impact on the purchase of electronics, and by extension, on tech giants such as Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia and Samsung, as many of their supply chains are based in China and other countries outside of the U.S. Some experts estimated that with the tariffs, and before the exemption, the iPhone could have cost thousands more for U.S. consumers, especially if made in the U.S. Trump has previously encouraged tech giants to move their companies and manufacturing to the U.S., and referenced Apple’s February announcement that it plans to invest $500 billion in the U.S. in the next four years. ExploreClose Subscribe Apr 13, 2025 12:49 AM IST Are Smartphones and Laptops Exempt From Trump’s ‘Reciprocal’ Tariffs? Here’s What to Know Politics Trump Administration Rebecca Schneid by Rebecca Schneid Reporter US-POLITICS-TRUMP-RETURN President Donald Trump speaks to reporters equipped with smartphones while aboard Air Force One on April 6, 2025.Mandel Ngan—Getty Images In the latest switch-up in the rollercoaster of events that have followed the April 2 announcement of President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs, the Trump Administration has said that some electronics will be exempt from these tariffs. A notice from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), posted late on Friday night, stated that certain electronic devices will be exempt—including smartphones, laptops, hard drives, flat-panel monitors, and machines used to make semiconductors and some chips. The notice said that the exemption applies to products entering the United States or removed from warehouses dating back to April 5. Advertisement 00:03 03:00 Read More This means these products can now bypass the significantly high “reciprocal” tariffs on China, where Apple has manufactured most of its iPhones since the first model hit the market 18 years ago. However, as Stephen Miller, Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, pointed out on X on Saturday, these electronics are still “subject to the tariff under the original IEEPA on China of 20 percent.” The tariffs would likely have made a large impact on the purchase of electronics, and by extension, on tech giants such as Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia and Samsung, as many of their supply chains are based in China and other countries outside of the U.S. Some experts estimated that with the tariffs, and before the exemption, the iPhone could have cost thousands more for U.S. consumers, especially if made in the U.S. Trump has previously encouraged tech giants to move their companies and manufacturing to the U.S., and referenced Apple’s February announcement that it plans to invest $500 billion in the U.S. in the next four years. In a Truth Social post on April 9, Trump said: “This is a GREAT time to move your COMPANY into the United States of America, like Apple, and so many others, in record numbers, are doing. ZERO TARIFFS, and almost immediate Electrical/Energy hook ups and approvals. No Environmental Delays. DON’T WAIT, DO IT NOW!” However, as the Washington Post notes, Apple has a complex system that extends beyond the U.S. While their iPhones are designed in California, they are assembled in China and India, with parts sourced from various suppliers. The notice about exemptions comes after Trump reportedly teased the idea while talking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday. “There could be a couple of exceptions for obvious reasons, but I would say 10% is a floor,” said Trump. He did not specify what those reasons were. Experts have been concerned about how Trump’s tariffs would impact consumers as prices are expected to rise. It’s worth noting that China was the second-largest supplier of U.S. goods in 2024, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. (Mexico was the top source of U.S. imports.) China is especially known for supplying broadcasting equipment and computers to the U.S. The exemption move is the latest change in Trump’s tariffs plan. U.S. and global stocks tanked, prompting fears of a recession, after Trump announced what he refers to as “reciprocal” tariffs on April 2, a day he coined “Liberation Day.” However, on April 9, Trump announced a 90-day pause for most of the “reciprocal” tariffs, with the exception of China, who were hit with much higher import taxes. The tariffs on China now total 145%—a 125% “reciprocal” tariff and a 20% tariff on most goods, as a punishment for the flow of fentanyl into the United States. China has since hit back at the U.S., raising the tariffs on American goods to 125%.

At 78, Donald Trump is the oldest American President to take office. Now he’s undergoing the first physical of his second term. On Friday, he visited Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for a physical exam and a series of medical tests. He wrote on Truth Social on Monday that he was ready for his check-up, and that he has “never felt better, but nevertheless, these things must be done!” It is unclear how much information the White House will release from Trump’s medical exams, but according to Trump, the physical went well and a report from his doctor is due to come out on Sunday. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One after his medical appointment, Trump said: “Overall, I felt I was in very good shape. Good heart. A good soul. Very good soul. I took—I wanted to be a little different than Biden. I took a cognitive test. I don’t know what to tell you other than I got every answer right.” It's been seven years since Trump has released extensive details about his physical health. During the 2024 campaign, Trump promised he would release his health information, but didn’t, departing from decades of tradition among presidential candidates. After a bullet tore through his ear-lobe during an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania in July, his former White House physician Ronny Jackson—now a congressman from Texas—released a letter describing the wound to his ear. During the final two years of Trump’s first term, the White House dialed back how much information was shared publicly about Trump’s healthcare treatments. In October 2020, Trump was hospitalized at Walter Reed with a severe case of COVID-19, but the White House released relatively few details about his health after he recovered from the illness. In 2019, Trump’s medical checkup was kept off his public schedule until days later, and the White House released little information about the results. The last time the public received detailed information about Trump’s health was in 2018. During a 2018 check-up at Walter Reed overseen by Jackson, Trump’s heart rate and blood work was normal. At the time, Trump was taking a statin to lower his cholesterol, aspirin, and Propecia to prevent hair loss, and he received vaccine shots to prevent pneumococcal pneumonia and hepatitis A and B. At the time, Jackson stood on the podium at the White House briefing room and took questions from reporters about the exam. Jackson said Trump had “incredible genes” but he had advised Trump to exercise more and eat healthier food. “If he had a healthier diet over the last 20 years he might live to be 200 years old,” Jackson said. Jackson wasn’t the first of Trump’s doctors to make hyperbolic statements about his health. When Trump ran for President in 2015, his personal physician Harold Bornstein put out a famously glowing assessment. Bornstein wrote at the time that if Trump won the 2016 election he would be “the healthiest individual elected to the presidency”—a seemingly unscientific flourish in a medical report. Three years later, Bernstein told CNN that Trump had dictated the letter to him. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Friday that Trump’s physician will “provide an update” after the President’s physical “in the effort of transparency.” She said the Biden White House had a “lack of transparency” when it came to describing Biden’s “health and competence” and accused reporters of engaging in a “cover up.” President Biden had repeatedly mixed up the names of countries and lost his train of thought during public remarks and had cut back on press conferences and his interactions with the press.

Afederal judge on Friday ordered the Trump Administration to submit daily updates on its efforts to bring back Kilmar Abrego García, a Maryland man mistakenly deported to an El Salvadoran prison last month, a day after the Supreme Court ruled the Administration must “facilitate” his return. The extraordinary demand by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis underscores mounting judicial frustration with what many legal observers view as a pattern of defiance from the White House—and deepens concerns that a long-feared constitutional crisis may now be underway. ExploreClose Subscribe Apr 12, 2025 12:52 AM IST Judge Orders Daily Updates on Trump Administration’s Efforts to Retrieve Wrongly Deported Man Politics Trump Administration Nik Popli by Nik Popli Reporter Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt Holds White House Daily Press Briefing White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt takes a question from a reporter during in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, DC, on April 11, 2025.Win McNamee—Getty Images Afederal judge on Friday ordered the Trump Administration to submit daily updates on its efforts to bring back Kilmar Abrego García, a Maryland man mistakenly deported to an El Salvadoran prison last month, a day after the Supreme Court ruled the Administration must “facilitate” his return. The extraordinary demand by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis underscores mounting judicial frustration with what many legal observers view as a pattern of defiance from the White House—and deepens concerns that a long-feared constitutional crisis may now be underway. Advertisement 00:00 03:00 Read More Judge Xinis issued the directive during a tense hearing in Greenbelt, Md., where a Justice Department attorney repeatedly declined to provide even the most basic information about Abrego García’s whereabouts or status. “I am asking a very simple question: Where is he?” the judge asked, according to CNN. “There is no evidence today as to where he is today,” she later remarked. “That is extremely troubling.” Xinis is requiring the government to file a sworn statement every day from an official with personal knowledge of the situation, detailing Abrego García’s location, his custodial status, and what steps—if any—are being taken to secure his return. “Even if the answer is that the government has no information, I want that on the record,” she said, according to CNN. The case has become a flashpoint in a broader battle over executive power, immigration enforcement, and the independence of the judiciary. Last week, Xinis ordered the government to return Abrego García by Monday at midnight, but Trump officials have contended that they have no power to return a man in custody of a foreign government. The Supreme Court weighed in Thursday night, ruling unanimously that the Trump Administration must “facilitate” Abrego García’s return, but it stopped short of ordering the government to “effectuate” his return—which Xinis had ordered. That distinction has become central to the Administration’s defense. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt emphasized at Friday’s press briefing “that it's the Administration's responsibility to facilitate the return, not to effectuate the return,” raising the question of how far the Administration will go to return Abrego García—and how quickly it would begin negotiations. “We very much appreciate President Bukele and El Salvador's cooperation and the repatriation of Salvadorian gang members who the previous Administration allowed to infiltrate our country,” Leavitt added. Bukele is scheduled to visit the White House on Monday. But legal experts say the Administration’s continued refusal to comply fully with the courts suggests a broader erosion of constitutional norms. The Supreme Court’s ruling, though a procedural win for Abrego García’s legal team, left ample room for executive branch discretion, noting that any further judicial orders must show “due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.” The Trump Administration has seized on that language to argue that judges cannot compel the President to negotiate with a foreign government. Still, multiple lower courts have rejected the Administration’s arguments. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals found unanimously that federal courts retain jurisdiction in the case, and Judge Xinis has been unambiguous in her condemnation of the government’s conduct. “The act of sending Abrego Garcia to El Salvador was wholly illegal from the moment it happened,” she wrote in a recent order. Abrego García, 29, was deported on March 15 despite a standing immigration court ruling from 2019 barring his removal to El Salvador due to credible threats from gangs targeting his family’s pupusa business. The government has since admitted his removal was an “administrative error,” but has argued that it cannot now be compelled to bring him back—an argument dismissed by the Supreme Court’s liberal justices as both factually incorrect and legally dangerous. In a separate opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor and two colleagues wrote that the Administration’s position implies it could deport and imprison “any person, including U.S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene.” Further complicating matters are government allegations—unsupported by charges or public evidence—that Abrego García is affiliated with the MS-13 gang. The immigration judge who halted his removal in 2019 found no credible evidence to support that claim, and his attorneys insist he has no criminal record and was a legal worker pursuing a journeyman license in Maryland. “The government has made no effort to demonstrate that Abrego Garcia is, in fact, a member of any gang,” wrote U.S. Circuit Judge Stephanie Thacker. The Administration’s conduct in this case has alarmed many legal scholars, who see it as part of a troubling pattern. In multiple high-profile cases, the Trump Administration has openly resisted or slow-walked compliance with court orders. “The checks and balances are gone,” Kim Wehle, a law professor at the University of Baltimore and a former assistant U.S. attorney, told TIME last month.

The Trump Administration’s move to withhold millions of dollars allocated for family planning services is affecting reproductive health care access in more than 20 states—including some that have made efforts to protect reproductive rights. Enacted in 1970, Title X is the nation’s sole federally funded family planning program. The program doesn’t fund abortion services, but it does allocate more than $200 million annually for clinics that provide other forms of health care—including birth control, cancer screenings, and STI testing—for people from low-income households. Last week, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said it is withholding funds from 16 organizations in the Title X program “pending an evaluation of possible violations” of federal civil rights laws and President Donald Trump’s Executive Order that said undocumented immigrants are barred “from obtaining most taxpayer-funded benefits.” Affected organizations received notices from HHS that their funds would be temporarily withheld while they respond to the federal government’s inquiry regarding compliance with their grant terms. Reproductive health providers have called the freeze "politically motivated.” The government’s action is threatening roughly $65.8 million in Title X funds, according to estimates by the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA), a membership organization for family planning providers. The association estimates that about 846,000 patients could be affected by the freeze. According to NFPRHA, clinics in 23 states have had at least some of their Title X funding frozen: Alaska, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia. Seven of those states—California, Hawaii, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, and Utah—aren’t receiving any Title X dollars at all right now. Fourteen of the 16 affected organizations are NFPRHA members. Clare Coleman, president and chief executive officer of NFPRHA, says the association has heard concerns from some of them about whether they’ll be able to continue providing family planning services or even stay open if the freeze continues. “They’re going to do everything they can to stay open, to subsidize services, to keep a breadth of services, but there’s a limit to what people can bear,” Coleman says. Some of the affected organizations are based in 11 states where lawmakers have already restricted reproductive health care—Mississippi, for instance, has a near-total ban on abortion, and Utah has prohibited abortion after 18 weeks of pregnancy. “This Title X money … is life-saving for the folks who are living in these states, and now there may be no place for them to turn inside their own state lines,” Coleman says. “Then you start thinking about are people going to have to start crossing state lines to get birth control the way they do for abortion?” States that have made efforts to protect reproductive rights are not immune to the Title X funding freeze. California, Hawaii, and Maine, for instance, are all Democratic-led states that have passed various laws to protect abortion rights. “Even though California stands strongly in the protection of access to abortion and it’s in our constitution, there are other ways to undermine our ability to have reproductive health,” says Democratic Rep. Judy Chu of California, who, along with 161 other House Democrats, signed a letter sent to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on April 3, urging the department to reinstate all Title X funds. “Title X funding is essential for the many, many preventive elements of reproductive health.” “We are an island state,” Tokuda says. “For many of our people, transportation is a barrier, income can be a barrier.” She adds that even before the freeze, Title X funding wasn’t enough to ensure access for all. She says one island doesn’t have any Title X-funded health center at all. Now, she’s hearing from clinics that they’re “scrambling to try to keep doors open.” “Sometimes people assume that if we have broad protections for reproductive freedoms in our state, that we are fine,” Tokuda says. “[But] they’re taking away health care from our people.” Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai’i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky (PPGNHAIK), which serves those four states as well as Idaho and western Washington, was one of nine Planned Parenthood affiliates that received a notice from HHS that its Title X funding was being withheld. Its CEO, Rebecca Gibron, says that about $150,000 is no longer being allocated to its clinics in Hawaii, and a little over $1 million is being withheld from the affiliate’s clinics in Alaska. She says PPGNHAIK serves the majority of Title X patients in those states: in Alaska, Planned Parenthood clinics see nearly 3,000 Title X patients a year, and in Hawaii, they see just under 1,000. “There is no discernible pattern here around whether the Trump Administration is choosing red states or blue states—they’re attacking Planned Parenthood, and more importantly, they’re attacking the patients who rely on this Title X program,” Gibron says. In 2019, during Trump’s first term, his Administration prohibited organizations or providers that receive Title X funding from providing abortion referrals. The restriction—often referred to as the “domestic gag rule”—prompted many organizations, including Planned Parenthood, to withdraw from the Title X program. The Guttmacher Institute, which researches and supports sexual and reproductive health and rights, found that the domestic gag rule, along with the COVID-19 pandemic, led to about 2.4 million fewer people receiving care through Title X in 2020 compared with 2018. Even after former President Joe Biden rescinded the domestic gag rule in 2021, Gibron says states like Alaska were still “struggling to rebuild the safety net.” Hopeful for state funds Maine Family Planning is the sole Title X recipient in the state. With Title X dollars, the organization manages more than a dozen sites, including a mobile medical unit, and distributes funds to other health centers. Maine Family Planning serves between 28,000 and 30,000 patients through the Title X program across the organization’s network of providers, says president and CEO George Hill. HHS is withholding $1.925 million from the organization at the moment, which is about 20% of its operating budget, according to Hill. Maine Family Planning is responding to the government’s inquiry, and in the interim, is relying on private funds to maintain operations, Hill says. He adds that the Maine state legislature is considering a bill that would allocate funding for family planning services, which he is hoping would help mitigate the loss of Title X dollars. But if that is unsuccessful, Hill says the organization will have to consider closing some of its clinics, including in rural communities that “quite literally are the sole source of health care for many people in those areas.” “I think this is the tip of the iceberg,” Hill says. “I think the reaction is going to be exactly what happened after [Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization]: You’re going to have some states that are in better positions to support their sexual and reproductive networks, and some states where you’re going to have sexual and reproductive health care deserts.” Conflict between voters and lawmakers In Missouri, voters made history in November when they passed a ballot measure to enshrine the right to abortion until fetal viability in the state constitution (with exceptions after that if the pregnant person’s life or health is at risk). It marked the first time that a citizen-initiated ballot measure repealed a near-total abortion ban since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Despite that, anti-abortion lawmakers have been trying to block access to abortion care in the state. The state’s sole Title X recipient, Missouri Family Health Council, is one of the 16 organizations that had their funding frozen by HHS. The council’s executive director, Michelle Trupiano, says that a total of $8.5 million is being withheld from the organization, which Missouri Family Health Council would have distributed to clinics both in Missouri and Oklahoma. (Some organizations receiving Title X money distribute funds to clinics in multiple states.) “Without this funding, if it goes much longer, we are at a critical point where we see health centers that are going to be closing their doors,” Trupiano says. She says her team has been communicating with health centers about contingency plans, but that “business as usual” will likely last only a few weeks. Even if centers remain open, some of them won’t be able to offer a sliding fee scale anymore, which will make services unaffordable for many patients who now visit clinics through the Title X program, Trupiano says. “The health centers are already and they have for years been working on what we would call a shoestring budget,” Trupiano says. “Any freeze in funding, any cuts to funding, is detrimental to their ability to stay open because they were already working at a deficit.” She says that, on top of the Title X freeze, many health centers are experiencing other public health funding cuts. Unlike providers in other states, Trupiano doesn’t anticipate that Missouri lawmakers will help make up for the Title X funding freeze; she says the state legislature generally hasn’t been supportive of reproductive health care. “There’s a disconnect from what voters want, what people want, what they’re consistently saying they want, and yet what policymakers are actually prioritizing,” Trupiano says. ‘On our doorstep very shortly’ The day after the Title X funding freeze went into effect, Planned Parenthood of Michigan (PPMI) announced that it was permanently closing three of its health centers in the state, effective April 30, and that it would be consolidating two health centers in Ann Arbor by May 5. Paula Thornton Greear, president and CEO of PPMI, says the affiliate hasn’t received a notice from HHS that its Title X funding would be withheld, but that the organization expects that it will arrive “on our doorstep very shortly.” She says the prospect of the Title X freeze, in addition to other threats to health care, such as the possibility of states barring Planned Parenthood from the Medicaid program, forced PPMI to “make these heart-wrenching decisions in order to ensure the long-term sustainability” of the organization. “We’ve been contingency planning for months in anticipation of the Trump Administration coming and really taking what they did in 2019 to a whole new level,” Thornton Greear says. “The complexity and the layered approach of this is devastating, and that’s why we were forced to make the decision.” PPMI said it plans to expand its virtual health services over the next few months, including by offering telehealth seven days a week to provide services like birth control, medication abortion, and gender-affirming care. In 2022, voters in Michigan passed a ballot measure to enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution. “In Michigan, the constitutional protections that we have for reproductive freedom—that’s absolutely crucial. It ensures that we can keep providing the full spectrum of reproductive health care without state level interference,” Thornton Greear says. “That’s a lifeline that many of our colleagues in other states simply did not have.” “However, here’s the reality: these constitutional protections don’t shield us from federal funding cuts,” she says. “While we can legally provide abortion care in Michigan, the ability to maintain affordable access across our services still depends heavily on programs like Title X, like Medicaid. The ballot measure protects the right, but not necessarily the accessibility or the affordability.” Many reproductive rights experts believe this Title X funding freeze is just the beginning of further federal cuts to family planning and reproductive health services. “Everybody needs to be doing contingency planning,” Coleman says. “Everybody now needs to be concerned that they may lose their Title X, whether it’s for a time or whether it’s for all time.” And experts fear that additional cuts will result in people who need health care services the most being left out of the system. “Health care disparities in this country are not new, but right now, we’re facing an Administration that wants to take a widening gap of health care disparities and turn it into a chasm that can never close,” Thornton Greear says. “For every dollar that is stripped away, we’re going to lose people.”

This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox. In the hours before President Trump abruptly dialed back his sweeping reciprocal tariffs, Senator Jacky Rosen led her Democratic colleagues in sending a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, warning about the tariffs' impact on small businesses. Rosen, a Nevada Democrat, was re-elected to her second term last November, even as Trump won the state for the first time. She talked to TIME about how the tariffs will be felt back home, why Nevada is a bellwether for national trends, and why Sen. Cory Booker's filibuster-style speech was so important. What do you think will be the implication of these tariffs? Really what they are is a national sales tax. What all of this comes down to is, where does everyone manage their lives from? The kitchen table. Everywhere I went, I heard about the price of food. Well, I can tell you that food is going to go through the roof. The price of gas, the price of affordable housing, all the things that go into building a home or apartment, every little nail and insulation and lumber—all of that. So everybody is gonna get squeezed. And of course Nevada, we're going to get double squeezed, because when people are uncertain about their future or how they're going to pay for things, do you think they go on vacation? They do not. We've already seen a reduction in visitors from Canada. We've seen a 70% drop. My friends, my community, my state: We're gonna get hit with the higher prices and lower tourism, and we're gonna get squeezed from both ends. And that's gonna hurt our businesses. You won re-election last year in Nevada, a state Trump won after losing it in the previous two presidential elections. What went wrong for Democrats there, and what did you do differently? Nevada is the most working-class battleground state. We are a pragmatically purple state. Independent-minded people look for pragmatic problem solvers. It's why I won. Hardworking families are hurting from the high cost of living. They wanted change. At the national level, I think Democrats have done a poor job talking to working-class voters and addressing the issues that they care about most. We saw pretty significant losses in 2024 with working-class voters, particularly in our Latino communities, our Asian communities, and those were the key places that I actually overperformed on the ticket. Voters want a leader who's going to listen and going to stand up to the corporate special interests. Can you be more specific? What were you doing that Kamala Harris wasn't? I think that I focused on specifics. Go back to the kitchen table. What's the first thing people think about? They have to buy food. In Nevada, they have two primary grocery store chains: Kroger and Albertsons. They wanted to merge. Now what does that mean? In some of our rural communities, they were the only two stores in town. So if they merge, you think they're going to keep both stores? Certainly not. That means they're going to lose jobs. And then what else does it mean? Well, there's only one store in town, do you think they're gonna lower the prices? Certainly not. And so we blocked that Kroger-Albertsons merger, which meant a lot to Nevada. We have an affordable housing crisis. Particularly in Southern Nevada, we have these corporations who come buy up homes and apartments. So we have legislation trying to block those corporate investors from price-gouging folks. We ran TV ads on both of those issues. I talked about it everywhere. I think too many Democrats in D.C. just spent time trying to convince people that maybe inflation wasn't as bad in America as other places, or that they were doing better than they actually were doing. And that's not how people were feeling. And it made our party, I think, seem out of touch. Do the Democrats have a plan to counter Trump? What is it? The losses in the last election and Trump winning, it was a little shocking to everyone. And it's no secret that we're in the minority in Congress and the levers are few and limited. It hasn't even been 100 days. I think we're starting to find our footing now of what the levers are that we can pull here. I think a real turning point was Cory Booker's speech. I think a lot of people went into it thinking, who's gonna tune in at 2 in the morning, it's just another speech. I will tell you by the end of it, all of the Democrats came that last hour, and there were tears, and clapping, like this emotional response. Then we go into all of those Hands Off demonstrations. And people started calling us saying, 'You guys all stood up. You used your voice. We aren't powerless, we're gonna use ours." I didn't expect it to be such a powerful moment. The tears and applause were coming out in this cathartic moment of, 'We may not have all the legislative tools, but we are not powerless. Now let's get to work." It was kind of a call to action. I think I feel kind of a renewed purpose.

It’s been a volatile few days for the stock market since President Donald Trump’s April 2 announcement of 10% baseline tariffs on all imported goods, as well as additional import taxes on 60 countries. On April 9, Trump went on to pause most of his tariffs for three months, while keeping in place the 10% baseline and significantly increasing the tax on imports from China. The stock market immediately surged after Trump announced his “90-day pause.” The S&P 500 rocketed more than 9% Wednesday afternoon, though the Thursday saw a return to extreme volatility as the Dow dropped 1,900 points and the S&P 500 dipped 5%. Hours before he announced the pause, as stocks were still in negative territory over an intensifying trade war, Trump posted messages on his social media platform, Truth Social, that seemed to be addressed to investors. “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!” the President wrote, signing off with his initials “DJT,” which also serve as the stock symbol for his company, Trump Media and Technology Group Corp. It was noticeable that Trump signed the post with his initials—something he does not always do. Trump Media and Technology Group saw its stocks shoot up nearly 22% after the announcement of the tariff reversal on Wednesday and they were up a further 5% in pre-market trading early Thursday morning. Lawmakers have made accusations of “insider trading” Senator Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, called on Wednesday for an investigation into Trump’s “great time to buy” post, flagging it as potential proof of insider trading or stock market manipulation. “Family meme coins and all the rest of it are not beyond insider trading or enriching themselves. I hope to find out soon,” Schiff told TIME. (Trump previously received criticism over the launching of his Trump meme coins in January.) According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), market manipulation is when “someone artificially affects the supply or demand for a security,” which can include spreading false information or rigging quotes, prices, or trades to make it look like there is more demand. Insider trading, on the other hand, is described as “buying or selling a security, in breach of a fiduciary duty or other relationship of trust and confidence, on the basis of material, nonpublic information about the security.” A classic example of this would be if someone privy to information that would change a volatile stock market let their close family or friends know, so that they could either sell or buy stocks in the hopes of turning a profit. Schiff and other Democrats in Congress argue that the timing of Trump’s post raises “legal and ethic concerns,” and that Trump should make clear who knew about his tariff reversal decision before he announced it, and if any of those people let others know about Trump’s decision. When asked about the timing of his decision to pause most tariffs, and when he had settled on that, Trump said in the Oval Office on Wednesday that he had been considering it “for a period of time." He explained: “I wouldn’t say this morning. Over the last few days, I’ve been thinking about it… I think it probably came together early this morning.” A letter sent to Trump's White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Jamieson Greer, Acting Director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, on Thursday by Schiff and Sen. Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, addressed a number of concerns. They called for a review of “any communications between White House and executive branch agency employees… and external parties, including financial institutions, brokers, dealers… that may have included non-public information.” As a Senator, Schiff can investigate these claims, but lacks the subpoena power that a Congressional committee might employ in such an investigation. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, also spoke out, calling for all members of Congress to disclose any stocks they had bought in the past 24 hours. “I’ve been hearing some interesting chatter on the floor,” she wrote on X on Wednesday night. “Disclosure deadline is May 15th. We’re about to learn a few things. It’s time to ban insider trading in Congress.” In Schiff’s letter of inquiry, he singles out Elon Musk, who's played a high-profile role in the Trump Administration through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). “[Stock] in Elon Musk’s company, Tesla, increased 18% immediately following the President’s announcement to pause most tariffs, which Mr. Musk had publicly opposed,” Schiff wrote. Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, said on Thursday that House Democrats will be launching investigations into “possible stock manipulation.” What are experts saying about the “insider trading” accusations leveled at Trump? Karen Woody, professor of law at Washington and Lee School of Law, says that an investigation into whether the President or others in his circle engaged in insider trading or other illegal financial transactions is “valid.” “This isn't a witch hunt, where it seems like allegations that have come out of thin air. This is a pretty clear example of what we would say is some potential of real market manipulation by someone who has the ability to move the markets,” Woody says. Typically, the next steps, according to Woody, would be for the SEC to investigate these accusations, “given that [the SEC] is sort of the market watchdog.” However, Adam Pritchard, law professor at the University of Michigan, says that Trump’s Truth Social post itself was “pretty clearly not insider trading,” unless there is evidence that Trump himself was trading or providing more detailed information to others privately. “If he [the President] says things, you know, to Donald [Trump] Jr, and then Donald Jr. goes and trades on those things, when he was the only one who heard about it, then we've got an issue, right?” he says. “But when [Trump] says things at a press conference or on social media, then, no, it's not insider trading.” Insider trading law can make violations of it difficult to identify, says Kevin Douglas, an assistant law professor at Michigan State University, who notes there are no federal statutes that explicitly prohibit insider trading and current case law doesn't provide a road map. “The Stock Act, which prohibits the President and federal employees from trading on non-public information, defines non-public information in a way that keeps the law fatally ambiguous,” Douglas tells TIME in an emailed statement, highlighting how the lack of a clear definition can complicate matters. Woody notes that the situation around Trump's tariff pause is particularly murky, as the same key players are involved across the board. “This is an instance where you have the creators of the crisis, then those who are able to either throw fuel on the fire or try to douse it all, being the same people,” Woody says. “These [Trump] tariff policies are what created this market crash. And then [with] the stroke of—not even the pen, but [Trump’s social media post]—you can fix that. Of course people who know about that are able to take a significant advantage.”

After two years of doing their own back-breaking yard work on their acre-and-a-half property in Cold Spring, N.Y., Renata Kero and her husband were ready to finally give in and spend a few thousand dollars to hire a landscaping company. Then they started re-thinking the purchase, given the uncertainty roiling the economy. Tariffs are being levied and reversed. The federal government is cutting jobs across the country. The stock market is historically volatile. It seemed like any kind of big expenditure was not a good idea. “It feels like the Wild, Wild West every time you open the news,” says Kero, a 45-year-old freelance journalist with a 5-year-old son. "I feel a very real sense of instability and volatility, like who knows what economic pitfalls await us." Families and businesses across the U.S. are pulling back on spending amid President Trump’s trade war and abrupt reversals, including Wednesday’s announcement that he would pause the sweeping reciprocal tariffs he announced just days earlier, while ratcheting up levies against China even higher. As an index that measures economic policy uncertainty spikes, consumer confidence fell for the third straight month in March; it’s down more than 30% from November, according to the University of Michigan Survey of Consumers. Consumer spending fell for the first time in two years in January. Businesses are worrying, too. Delta CEO Ed Bastian said Wednesday that because of “broad economic uncertainty around global trade,” revenue might fall in the current quarter. Bastian predicted a recession might come soon, echoing the words of JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. FedEx lowered its full-year profits and revenue forecasts on March 20, citing “weakness and uncertainty” in the economy. And Warner Bros. Discovery has reportedly advised staff to cancel all “non-business critical” travel due to economic uncertainty. Small-business optimism declined in March, according to the National Federation of Independent Businesses, which also said its uncertainty index decreased. New policies have “heightened the level of uncertainty among small business owners,” NFIB chief economist Bill Dunkelberg said in a release. “Small business owners have scaled back expectations on sales growth as they better understand how these rearrangements might impact them.” Uncertainty makes businesses uncomfortable because they don’t know what conditions they will be operating in. Once economic trends and policies are clear, they can adjust. But if those policies keep changing, they can’t respond or plan, so they reduce spending and avoid making major moves until conditions stabilize. Consumers pull back amid uncertainty too, putting off big purchases because they don’t know if they’ll have a job, how mortgage rates will respond to whiplashing policy decisions out of Washington, or what their investment portfolio will look like in a few months. When consumers and companies pull back on spending, GDP turns negative, which leads to a recession. Uncertainty causes “precautionary reductions in spending because of the lack of clarity and difficulty in terms of forecasting where we're going,” says Laura Jackson Young, an economics professor at Bentley University who has studied the economic effects of uncertainty. Trump’s moves have created a moment of acute uncertainty, and Young’s research suggests that makes people and businesses even more cautious. Her work found that when uncertainty is already high, people pay even more attention to “uncertainty shocks”—big changes that cloud the horizon even further. “When everything's okay and we're in tranquil times when nothing's really outlandish, people don't pay as much attention to that uncertain component,” she says. “Whereas in an environment where uncertainty is already pretty high, we're very attentive to something that's going to spike uncertainty, and it has a more pronounced effect.” Businesses are feeling this profoundly. TJ Semanchin runs Wonderstate Coffee, a small coffee roaster in southwest Wisconsin. Semanchin started the year optimistic about the business—he’d just won a prestigious award from a coffee roasting magazine, and hoped to increase sales at his retail locations as well as chains across the country, including Whole Foods, where he sells his product. Now he’s rethinking everything. Coffee prices are already near all-time highs because of climate conditions, and then the beans he imports from countries like Nicaragua were going to be slapped with tariffs so high that his costs would amount to about $20,000 more per shipping container, Semanchin says. Even though Trump has now paused those higher tariffs for 90 days, Semanchin’s worries remain. He’s put off plans to buy a new packaging machine, and is reducing investment for now until the uncertainty clears. “The climate we’re in definitely has me in a more defensive posture,” he says. When businesses and families move into the same defensive posture, it can push the economy into a recession. And when seemingly each day brings sharp new policy shifts, economists—let alone individuals trying to plan household budgets—can’t be sure what to think. The tariff reversal “does very little to resolve the uncertainty,” says Philip Luck, director of the Economics Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. The tariffs might have been “bananas,” he says, but no one can really predict whether they’ll return after 90 days—or even before then. Because of this uncertainty, Kero and her husband decided that they’d once again do their own yard work this year, no matter how miserable it is. She’s not buying a new phone either, even though it’s on its last legs. Summer travel is now out of the question. “We just need to sock away as much as we can,” she says.

With hours to go until the U.S. raises tariffs on goods imported from dozens of countries—including a 104% tax on Chinese imports—world leaders were still scrambling Tuesday to understand President Donald Trump’s tariff strategy and reach the right people in the Administration to secure an exemption. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told Congress on Tuesday that “nearly 50” countries have approached him to address Trump’s blanket of new tariffs. Argentina, Vietnam and Israel have “suggested they will reduce their tariffs and non-tariffs barriers,” Greer said in testimony to the Senate Finance Committee. But Trump isn’t budging anytime soon, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday. Trump is open to talking to countries on a case-by-case basis, she told reporters, but those negotiations wouldn’t stop the across-the-board 10% tariff on all imports that went into effect over the weekend. Higher tariff rates targeting dozens of countries are set to take effect at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday. That includes a 104% tariff on China, the top supplier of U.S. imports. "Trump has a spine of steel. He will not break. America will not break under his leadership,” Leavitt said. Administration officials continued to stress the prospect of the U.S. making new “deals” with other countries, but the timeline for such negotiations were murky. Leavitt confirmed that Trump insists on putting himself at the center of the negotiations, and is willing to consider offers unrelated to trade in exchange for reducing U.S. tariffs, including having countries cover the costs of hosting U.S. military troops and other foreign policy objectives.. "All options are on the table for each country but again these are going to be tailor-made deals,” Leavitt said. During his visit to the Oval Office on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered to remove Israel’s trade barriers. “Israel’s proactive approach should serve as a model for the rest of the world,” Leavitt said. The U.S. tariff on Israel is still set to increase to 17%. Trump’s approval ratings have declined in recent weeks, as dissatisfaction with his handling of the economy has risen. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found his approval rating was at 43% last week, 4 points lower than when he took office in late January. A Wall Street Journal poll published Friday found that 54% of voters opposed Trump’s tariff plans. In his testimony to Congress on Tuesday, Greer, Trump’s top trade negotiator, said the new tariffs are an effort to move the U.S. economy toward producing “real goods and services.” and less dependent on the financial sector and government spending. Greer acknowledged that the country was in the midst of a dramatic shift. “It is a moment of drastic, overdue change, but I am confident the American people will rise to the occasion as they have done before,” Greer said.