--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Wednesday, February 26th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, how inflation became Trump's problem, where trans kids are left after an executive order banning gender-affirming care, and the White House takes control of the press pool. But first, to Washington, where House Republicans narrowly passed a budget framework bill last night.
--:-- Jacob Bogage: After initially pulling the measure and seeming to not have the votes, Speaker Mike Johnson minutes later brought it back to the floor as members of Congress rushed, in some cases running, back to vote. It passed in a 217 to 215 vote.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The budget resolution in the House is one step of a complicated process that would enable Congress to pass much of Trump's legislative goals. But as they move ahead, Republicans will need to find consensus as much as possible, given their slim three-vote majority in the House. And some GOP lawmakers want completely different things.
--:-- Jacob Bogage: It's kind of impossible to find a middle ground. You've got folks who want these really, really steep budget cuts. They want to go after different kinds of social safety net programs. Then you have moderates who are saying, over my dead body, you can't do that. Then you have super hardline conservatives saying, I want more.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And because the margins are so slim in the House, every member can demand very specific policy. The tension between these goals can be seen clearly in the math. Collectively, this package could add more than $11 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years, and it would aim to reduce spending by about $2 trillion.
--:-- Jacob Bogage: But all the budget resolution does is tell committees to make spending cuts. It's up to the committees themselves to find those cuts, and it's in the specifics where things get tricky. To cut spending by the amount some Republicans want, it's very likely Medicaid, which provides health insurance primarily to low-income Americans, would be a target.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Earlier this week, several Republican lawmakers signed a letter raising concerns about possible cuts to Medicaid to make the budget work. Recently, President Trump told Fox News that wouldn't happen.
--:-- President Trump: Look, Social Security won't be touched. Other than it's fraud or something, we're going to find it's going to be strengthened, but won't be touched. Medicare, Medicaid.
--:-- Shamita Basu: According to The Wall Street Journal, Speaker Johnson managed to unite all but one Republican in the House around a plan that would require significantly reducing Medicaid costs and likely won't accommodate all of Trump's desired tax cuts.
--:-- Jacob Bogage: Bogage told us if Republicans do go ahead and reduce Medicaid, it could be disastrous for their constituents and for their own political futures. There are districts in this Republican majority where more than half of the population are on Medicaid. And those are districts Republicans need to keep in the midterm elections if they want to continue governing with a majority
--:-- Shamita Basu: This is only the beginning of the budget process Republicans are hoping to pass this agenda through a process called reconciliation where the House and Senate have to agree on a budget. And if they do that, it would mean Democrats cannot filibuster in the Senate. Lawmakers have until March 14th to agree on a budget. Otherwise, the government faces a shutdown.
--:-- Greg Ip: Various consumer sentiment surveys show Americans are feeling jittery. Consumer confidence fell for its third straight month in February, marking the largest monthly decline since August of 2021.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The latest survey from the University of Michigan found people are worried about Trump's tariffs potentially raising prices and inflation in general. CNN reports that this is a dramatic reversal from the brief burst of optimism in the economic mood after President Trump's election in November.
--:-- Greg Ip: You might remember when he won, a number of experts and polls indicated that anger over inflation played a huge role. People endured quite a few years of rising prices for groceries, gasoline, other basics.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Greg Ip is the chief economics commentator for The Wall Street Journal. So I think Trump knows that he has to deliver on lower costs for people in order to really fulfill the economic mandate that he's been handed. That was one of Trump's promises to lower costs on day one.
--:-- Greg Ip: Lately, officials in his administration have tempered that promise, saying it's unlikely the president can do anything to bring down the cost of things like groceries anytime soon. And Ip told us there's a universal truth in that. Whatever is happening in the economy, do not blame or thank the president because there is so little that a president can do.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Most of these things are driven by really complex, multifaceted phenomena that have to do with the quality of the workforce, the level of technology. Big global shocks like the financial crisis from 15 years ago or the COVID pandemic.
--:-- Greg Ip: Trump officials say expanding American energy production and rolling back regulations could help lower prices. But Ip told us Trump's agenda of higher tariffs and lower taxes risks making it difficult to keep inflation in check.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The president has promised 25 percent tariffs and all imported steel and aluminum to take effect in a few weeks time. And we have already seen U.S. steel companies raising their prices because now they can compete better with imports. And we've seen prices on markets go up and that will find its way into a variety of products that Americans consume.
--:-- Greg Ip: Early polling indicates voters want to see prices drop quickly. A recent Reuters-Ipsos poll found that only 32 percent of respondents approved of the job Trump is doing so far on inflation. And a recent Gallup survey found that 20 percent of people rated the economy as excellent or good, which is lower than any point during Trump's first term, according to CNN.
--:-- Shamita Basu: As Ip explained to us, every president gets a honeymoon period when they're first elected. But Trump's may be wearing off. He and his advisers are also very aware that if the inflation problem persists beyond a few months, the ability to blame this on Biden starts to ebb away and people are going to hold him responsible for it
--:-- Emily Witt: One of the first actions President Trump took after he was inaugurated was signing an executive order titled Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation. The order banned the federal government from funding, sponsoring, and supporting gender-affirming care for kids, which includes things like puberty blockers, hormone treatments, and certain surgeries.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Shortly after the order was signed, The New Yorker reported major hospitals in blue cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. began canceling appointments for patients receiving this type of care.
--:-- Emily Witt: And despite the fact that this month, two separate federal judges temporarily blocked Trump's order, not all hospitals have rescheduled. Surgeries were canceled at at least two of New York City's biggest hospital systems, NYU Langone and Mount Sinai, as they dealt with pressure from all sides.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That could be that there's stuff between a rock and a hard place. Emily Witt is a staff writer for The New Yorker. A hospital like NYU Langone receives government grants for research. They receive probably more than a billion dollars a year in Medicaid reimbursements.
--:-- Emily Witt: They have Trump on the one side saying that he'll withdraw federal funding for their hospitals if they continue certain forms of treatment, and then the state saying that they'll sue. That threat came directly from New York State Attorney General Letitia James, who published a letter reminding hospitals that canceling care on the basis of gender is illegal in New York.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Witt told us some hospitals were canceling appointments even before Trump signed the order. And the parents of those kids who had had their appointments canceled were worried about what it all might mean.
--:-- Emily Witt: There was a real sense of panic among the parents that, you know, even though it's not law yet, that the hospitals were preemptively canceling care. And that was scary because New York is one of several states that passed safe haven laws for trans patients and especially trans minors that were, you know, laws that were supposed to protect care for them in the state.
--:-- Shamita Basu: One family Witt spoke with told the story of their child, who had exhibited signs of self-harm and other worrying behavior, before expressing that in her heart and brain, she was a girl.
--:-- Emily Witt: So the family allowed her to seek medical care and start presenting as a girl. As soon as the child made that adjustment, she became very well-adjusted, was thriving at school. She's now 14, and under a doctor's supervision, she takes puberty blockers so she can decide later whether to pursue hormone replacement therapy or undergo natural puberty.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This is a child that lives as a girl. Her friends don't even necessarily know that she's trans. And so for the parents, it's really scary because it would be a very violent adjustment. And it's scary also thinking about the future of this child and what her life might look like and the discrimination she might face and the difficulties in getting the care that she been used to getting for all these years
--:-- Emily Witt: Witt said she spoke to other people who been receiving care at some of these big institutions for a long time. Suddenly the thought of it all going away is just very scary for people. They were on the phone with me. They were, in some instances, breaking into tears. The parents were telling me they were up at night, unable to sleep. They're just very worried right now.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following. 21 employees from Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency resigned yesterday, saying they refused to use their technical expertise to dismantle core government services and jeopardize Americans' sensitive data.
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--:-- Shamita Basu: The people who resigned were part of the United States Digital Service, a department which typically helps federal agencies improve IT systems and websites. It's since been renamed the U.S. Doge Service.
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--:-- Shamita Basu: In a post on X, Musk said those who resigned were, quote, Dem political holdovers who refused to return to the office, saying they would have been fired had they not resigned. NPR reports they were mostly software engineers and product managers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A federal judge says the Trump administration has until midnight tonight to pay funds to foreign aid contractors and grant recipients. The order is part of a lawsuit brought against the administration by contractors who work with USAID.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Reuters reports it's the third time the judge has ordered Trump's team to release aid that was paused under Trump's directive to halt foreign spending for 90 days. The administration announced Sunday it would put all 4,700 USAID workers on leave and eliminate 1,600 positions at the agency.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And finally, in an unprecedented move, the White House says it will decide which reporters will participate in the presidential press pool, breaking with an almost century-long tradition.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The rotating pool of reporters who follow the president up close at the White House is usually decided by the White House Correspondents Association, an independent group made up of TV, print, online and radio journalists. Now the White House says they will pick who gets to participate on a day to day basis.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In a statement, the head of the White House Correspondents Association said, quote, this move tears at the independence of a free press in the United States. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt made the announcement after a judge ruled against the Associated Press, which sued Trump after he denied them access for their refusal to call the Gulf of Mexico by his newly designated name, the Gulf of America.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the news app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next. Bloomberg Businessweek goes inside the wild world of the massive Chinese e-commerce company Timu, the Americans who love it and how U.S. trade policy and tariffs could impact its business.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story. And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
