A child celebrates Independence Day | Getty Images Creative

Autocrats and authoritarians share certain traits.

They don’t recognize checks and balances nor the institutions tasked with imposing them. 

They do not recognize the rule of law. Laws that do not suit simply do not apply. 

So, a country’s governing documents such as a constitution are malleable. Truth is what they say it is, facts be damned.

Critics who challenge this – journalists and the organizations they work for, law firms, universities, disagreeable judges, artists, etc. – are in for punishment and derision. They are cast as unelected elites, liars and betrayers of the country’s ideals, the better to silence or mute their influence.

But perhaps most importantly, autocrats and authoritarians must identify enemies for the rest of us to hate. Anyone who’s not part of their tribe, ideologically, ethnically, racially, by gender or sexual orientation is a target. If they speak another language, all the better.

President Donald Trump has focused for years on targeting  immigrants.

Trump himself is a  descendant of white immigrants and is married to one, but that’s where he makes an exception. 

He has accepted white South Africans as refugees while dismantling protections for people from countries he once described as sh–holes. Which is to say, refugees who aren’t white. 

He claims white South African refugees are the victims of extreme violence. As descendants of apartheid adherents, they are members of a group that has retained its privilege in South Africa. They are certainly  not victims of genocide, as Trump claims. The data shows that they are less likely to be the victims of violence than Black South Africans.

Trump’s executive order to enshrine English as the country’s official language – America for English-speaking Americans only – is another example of whites-only tribalism. 

Long ago, the languages of European immigrants like Trump’s forebears  were thought to  delay assimilation and demonstrate traitorous loyalty to other countries. But these days, the fear is rooted around Spanish of the Latin American variety and the languages of immigrants from Asia and Africa.

Around the globe, people in  other countries think a populace fluent in many languages is an advantage, not a deficiency. 

But Trump’s American is one of proud provincialism.

In any case, immigrants already recognize English as the indispensable language of commerce and success in this country.

Ask any child of immigrants. My parents desired that I master written and spoken English, though the price was less literacy in their native language – Spanish.

My proficiency in English brought my parents the most pride.

Now, for many people, speaking perfect English is a matter of safety. Trump  is deporting immigrants of color under an assumption they are members of criminal gangs. But in many cases there is plenty of evidence that those charges are misplaced, and people are being deported  without due process. 

Trump is carelessly rounding people up and sending them to a hellhole prison in El Salvador and to other countries he would assuredly describe as sh—holes —  even to a dysfunctional non-country such as Libya, in the midst of a civil war, without giving them time to respond to the charges against them. 

He has long labeled immigrants as terrorists, although there is little discernible link between immigrants and terrorism.

Under his broad definition, importing drugs to satisfy Americans’ appetites for illicit substances is a terrorist threat,  not  a public health issue.

Even when the administration is forced to admit error in deporting people who have a legal right to be here, it is not returning them. See, Abrego Garcia, mistakenly deported to a notorious El Salvadoran prison.

Like many citizens of color, I’ve become hardened to Trump’s racist  animus. We’ve been cast as job stealers, criminals and a threat to American culture. This is the same animus that made the  civil rights movement necessary. 

Not so long ago, we thought  the pendulum had swung to a more equitable, inclusive country.

But then more than 77 million Americans voted for Trump for the purpose of making America great again.

A country led by an authoritarian leader who thumbs his nose at the rule of law is not the America I know. And it certainly isn’t great. 

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Pierre Kory testifies in front of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. | Screenshot via CSPAN

This story was published in partnership with the Center for Media and Democracy.

Last month, Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary and longtime anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attended the funeral for the second unvaccinated child in Texas to have died in the ongoing measles outbreak. While in Texas, he met with the two grieving families — along with two local doctors promoting unproven measles treatments, whom he called “extraordinary healers.” 

Following the first death, Children’s Health Defense (CHD), the anti-vax organization Kennedy led until recently, pushed its own narrative claiming that the 6-year-old Mennonite girl did not actually die from the measles. In this effort, CHD has relied heavily on Pierre Kory, a Wisconsin doctor who has both amplified that assertion and claimed that the measles virus has been weaponized by unknown conspirators.

Kory is a Kennedy ally who has been widely criticized for spreading Covid misinformation during the pandemic, including pushing the use of ivermectin as a “miracle drug” for treating that virus. 

For years, CHD and Kennedy have promoted the debunked claim that the standard measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine given to almost all children in the U.S. is tied to autism. With an upsurge in the pandemic-era, right-wing embrace of the anti-vax movement — and of Kennedy himself — there has been a notable decrease in routine pediatric vaccinations in the U.S. 

Now that measles immunization rates have fallen below thresholds to maintain herd immunity in certain parts of the country, outbreaks such as the one in West Texas are expected to become more common. In February, Texas reported the country’s first measles death in a child in the more than two decades since the disease was classified as eradicated in the U.S. 

In response to this death, CHD posted a video on March 19 featuring Kory and Ben Edwards, another Texas doctor Kennedy applauded, discussing the girl’s medical records, which her parents released to the organization. 

Despite having no training in pediatric medicine and having had his board certifications in internal medicine and critical care revoked last year, Kory claimed the child’s death was due to incorrect antibiotic management of a bacterial pneumonia infection that had “little to do with measles.” Edwards — a family doctor who has been treating measles-stricken children in Texas with medications not indicated for measles and was accused of seeing pediatric patients while actively infected with measles himself — concurred with Kory. 

Without being able to examine the medical records themselves, pediatricians consulted for this article were limited in their critique of Kory’s assessment. But they did question his understanding of empiric antibiotic recommendations for pediatric pneumonia. Secondary bacterial pneumonia infections following viral diseases are common, and pneumonia is a well-documented complication of a measles infection. 

These doctors also questioned the strong personal bias underpinning Kory’s assessment and pointed to his history of extreme claims about Covid made online and to right-wing media outlets  as evidence against his reliability as an “expert.” 

Furthermore, Kory has been inconsistent in his messaging around this measles death when addressing various audiences. When Alex Morozov, founder of the counter-misinformation group Eviva Partners, confronted Kory about his statements regarding the young girl’s cause of death at the so-called “Summit for Truth & Wellness” on March 29, the answer he got was very different. At that event, Kory suggested this was a case of the measles being “weaponized.”

In an audio recording of their conversation published by Morozov, Kory said: 

Do you want to know the real story on this case? Quite a few of us believe that they weaponized the measles virus. And this measles is more. They’re doing this on purpose. She got sicker from the measles probably because they monkeyed with the measles virus…. Do you know how many bioweapons labs there are and what they can do?

Like the unfounded claim of an error in medical treatment, this “weaponized measles” narrative has spread rapidly throughout the online crankosphere. However, this conspiratorial rhetoric has not been accompanied by urgent recommendations for increased vaccinations to prevent infection from a supposedly more virulent strain.

Kennedy, who promoted pandemic conspiracy theories along with ivermectin as an alternative to Covid vaccines, has called Kory “honest, brave, and sincere” and “a brave dissident doctor.” The doctor appeared with him at various campaign-related events in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election, both before and after RFK Jr. suspended his own campaign and joined forces with Trump to launch the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement. 

As ivermectin proved to be ineffective against Covid, Kory turned on the life-saving mRNA vaccines while cozying up to Kennedy and CHD. Kory and the ivermectin group he co-founded — the Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), now called the Independent Medical Alliance following a pro-MAHA rebrand — have rallied with Kennedy and CHD on multiple occasions, including against Covid vaccine mandates during the deadly Omicron wave in late 2021 and early 2022.

Kory has not just turned on Covid vaccines, but routine childhood immunizations in line with Kennedy’s and CHD’s established anti-vax rhetoric as well. 

In 2023, Kory appeared in an FLCCC webinar about pediatric vaccines titled “Your Child, Your Choice.” The same year, despite his lack of pediatric credentials, he served as an “expert” on the issue of childhood vaccinations for Republicans in Wisconsin.

That same year, Kory testified at the Wisconsin Capitol as part of a GOP-led effort to block adding the meningitis vaccine as a state requirement for school-aged children, which is  required in many other states and has been recommended by the Center for Disease Control’s Advisory Council on Immunization Practices since 2005. (While Kory and company were initially successful, the meningitis vaccine was eventually added to Wisconsin’s requirements as of the 2023/24 school year.) 

During this measles outbreak, both Kennedy and Kory have once again promoted “alternative” treatments. 

Kennedy has drawn heavy criticism for pushing vitamin A as a treatment for measles while simultaneously failing to provide a sorely needed, full-throated endorsement of the MMR vaccines. Following the second death, while the HHS secretary correctly called the vaccines the “most effective way” to prevent measles, he quickly undermined his own statement. In his tweet about the funeral, Kennedy included a shoutout to doctors Edwards and Richard Bartlett, his other “extraordinary healer” from Texas, for their use of unproven treatments on infected children in the local community. 

On March 31, Kory appeared in another CHD video about the first Texas child’s death, claiming she should have received intravenous vitamin C, which is not indicated for measles-related pneumonia. Of note, prior to his co-authorship of questionable papers on the use of ivermectin to fight Covid, Kory co-authored a since-retracted paper on a Covid hospital protocol that featured vitamin C.

Given his past statements on Covid and routine pediatric vaccines as well as his ties to Kennedy and CHD, Kory would have a vested interest in distancing himself from children’s deaths from vaccine-preventable illness. But this is dangerous, experts warn, during a measles outbreak where vaccines play a vital role in stopping the spread of disease.

A representative for the hospital that treated the first child spoke out against “misleading and inaccurate claims” about this case being circulated online. “Our physicians and care teams follow evidence-based protocols and make clinical decisions based on a patient’s evolving condition, diagnostic findings, and the best available medical knowledge,” the spokesperson said.

CHD did not back down in the wake of the second pediatric measles death early last month. The organization requested hospital records for this case while offering a free e-book — featuring a foreword by Kennedy — on “secrets the government and media aren’t telling you about measles and the measles vaccine.” The book accuses the mainstream media of weaponizing outbreaks “for political gain.” 

In an email to their followers on April 7 — the day after the second child’s funeral — CHD announced an April 17 webinar event called “Inside the Measles Deception” featuring Kory, Booker, and Edwards. The restricted event was available only to their donors. 

On April 8, CHD tweeted, “Our mission hasn’t changed. The MMR vaccine is dangerous and has caused more deaths than measles,” a claim that is totally unsubstantiated. The next day, Kory returned for another CHD video claiming to have reviewed the medical records for the second case and, unsurprisingly, again maintained that the 8-year-old girl did not die from the measles. He said:

“This is just getting exhausting, this constant fear-mongering by the media. I’ve already lost so much trust in the institutions of society. But to see them rampage like this on inaccuracies and peddling falsehoods and just distortions, it’s terrible. It’s terrible for our health. They are scaring people into getting what I think is a very dangerous vaccine.” 

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From left to right, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth attend a Cabinet meeting at the White House on April 30, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump released a budget request Friday that would dramatically slash some federal spending, the initial step in a monthslong process that will include heated debate on Capitol Hill as both political parties work toward a final government funding agreement.

The proposal, for the first time, details how exactly this administration wants lawmakers to restructure spending across the federal government — steep cuts to domestic appropriations, including the elimination of dozens of programs that carry a long history of bipartisan support, and a significant increase in defense funding.

Trump wants more than 60 programs to be scrapped, some with long histories of assistance to states, including Community Services Block Grants, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, the National Endowment for Democracy, the National Institute on Minority and Health Disparities within the National Institutes of Health, and the Sexual Risk Avoidance and Teen Pregnancy Prevention programs.

Congress will ultimately decide how much funding to provide to federal programs, and while Republicans hold majorities in both chambers, regular funding bills will need Democratic support to move through the Senate’s 60-vote legislative filibuster.

White House budget director Russ Vought wrote in a letter that the request proposes shifting some funding from the federal government to states and local communities.

“Just as the Federal Government has intruded on matters best left to American families, it has intruded on matters best left to the levels of government closest to the people, who understand and respect the needs and desires of their communities far better than the Federal Government ever could,” Vought wrote.

The budget request calls on Congress to cut non-defense accounts by $163 billion to $557 billion, while keeping defense funding flat at $893 billion in the dozen annual appropriations bills.

The proposal assumes the GOP Congress passes the separate reconciliation package that is currently being written in the House, bringing defense funding up to $1.01 trillion, a 13.4% increase, and reducing domestic spending to $601 billion, a 16.6% decrease.

Many domestic cuts

Under Trump’s request many federal departments and agencies would be slated for significant spending reductions, though defense, border security and veterans would be exempt. 

The cuts include:

• Agriculture: – $5 billion, or 18.3%
• Commerce: – $1.7 billion, or 16.5%
• Education: – $12 billion, or 15.3%
• Energy: – $4.7 billion, or 9.4%
• Health and Human Services: – $33 billion, or 26.2%
• Housing and Urban Development: – $33.6 billion, or 43.6%
• Interior: – $5.1 billion, or 30.5%
• Justice: – $2.7 billion, or 7.6%
• Labor: – $4.6 billion, or 34.9%
• State: – $49.1 billion, or 83.7%
• Treasury: – $2.7 billion, or 19%

Increases include:

• Defense: + $113 billion, or 13.4% with reconciliation package
• Homeland Security: + $42.3 billion, or 64.9% with reconciliation package
• Transportation: + $1.5 billion, or 5.8%
• Veterans Affairs: + $5.4 billion, or 4.1%

The budget request also asks Congress to eliminate AmeriCorps, which operates as the Corporation for National and Community Service; the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides some funding to National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service; the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences; and the 400 Years of African American History Commission.

What if Congress won’t act on the cuts?

Debate over the budget proposal will take place throughout the summer months, but will come to a head in September, when Congress must pass some sort of funding bill to avoid a partial government shutdown.

A senior White House official, speaking on background on a call with reporters to discuss details of the budget request, suggested that Trump would take unilateral action to cut funding if Congress doesn’t go along with the request.

“Obviously, we have never taken impoundment off the table, because the president and myself believe that 200 years of the president and executive branch had that ability,” the official said. “But we’re working with Congress to see what they will pass. And I believe that they have an interest in passing cuts.”

The 1974 Impoundment Control Act bars the president from canceling funding approved by Congress without consulting lawmakers via a rescissions request, which the officials said the administration plans to release “soon.”

The annual appropriations process is separate from the reconciliation process that Republicans are using to pass their massive tax cuts, border security, defense funding and spending cuts package.

Huge boost for Homeland Security

The budget proposal aligns with the Trump’s administration’s plans for mass deportations of people without permanent legal status, and would provide the Department of Homeland Security with $42.3 billion, or a 64.9% increase.

The budget proposal suggests eliminating $650 million from a program that reimburses non-governmental organizations and local governments that help with resettling and aiding newly arrived migrants released from DHS custody, known as the Shelters and Services Program.

The Trump administration also seeks to eliminate the agency that handles the care and resettlement of unaccompanied minors within Health and Human Services. The budget proposal recommends getting rid of the Refugee and Unaccompanied Alien Children Programs’ $1.97 billion budget. The budget proposal argues that because of an executive order to suspend refugee resettlement services, there is no need for the programs.

A federal judge from Washington state issued a nationwide injunction, and ruled the Trump administration must continue refugee resettlement services.

The budget proposal also calls for axing programs that help newly arrived migrant children or students for whom English is not a first language.

For the Education Department, the budget proposal suggests eliminating $890 million in funding for the English Language Acquisition and $428 million for the Migrant Education and Special Programs for Migrant Students.

Key GOP senator rejects defense request

Members of Congress had mixed reactions to the budget request, with some GOP lawmakers praising its spending cuts, while others took issue with the defense budget.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., outright rejected the defense funding level, writing in a statement that relying on the reconciliation package to get military spending above $1 trillion was unacceptable. 

“OMB is not requesting a trillion-dollar budget. It is requesting a budget of $892.6 billion, which is a cut in real terms. This budget would decrease President Trump’s military options and his negotiating leverage,” Wicker wrote. “We face an Axis of Aggressors led by the Chinese Communist Party, who have already started a trade war rather than negotiate in good faith. We need a real Peace Through Strength agenda to ensure Xi Jinping does not launch a military war against us in Asia, beyond his existing military support to the Russians, the Iranians, Hamas, and the Houthis.”

The senior White House official who spoke on a call with reporters to discuss details of the budget request said that splitting the defense increase between the regular Pentagon spending bill and the reconciliation package was a more “durable” proposal.

Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, wrote the panel will have “an aggressive hearing schedule to learn more about the President’s proposal and assess funding needs for the coming year.”

“This request has come to Congress late, and key details still remain outstanding,” Collins wrote. “Based on my initial review, however, I have serious objections to the proposed freeze in our defense funding given the security challenges we face and to the proposed funding cuts to – and in some cases elimination of – programs like LIHEAP, TRIO, and those that support biomedical research. 

“Ultimately, it is Congress that holds the power of the purse.”

Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., wrote in a statement she will work with others in Congress to block the domestic funding cuts from taking effect.

“Trump wants to rip away funding to safeguard Americans’ health, protect our environment, and to help rural communities and our farmers thrive. This president wants to turn our country’s back on Tribes—and let trash pile up at our national parks,” Murray wrote. “Trump is even proposing to cut investments to prevent violent crime, go after drug traffickers, and tackle the opioids and mental health crises.”

A press release from Murray’s office noted the budget request lacked details on certain programs, including Head Start.

House Speaker Mike Johnson R-La, praised the budget proposal in a statement and pledged that House GOP lawmakers are “ready to work alongside President Trump to implement a responsible budget that puts America first.”

“President Trump’s plan ensures every federal taxpayer dollar spent is used to serve the American people, not a bloated bureaucracy or partisan pet projects,” Johnson wrote.

Spending decisions coming

The House and Senate Appropriations committees are set to begin hearings with Cabinet secretaries and agency heads next week, where Trump administration officials will explain their individual funding requests and answer lawmakers’ questions.

The members on those committees will ultimately write the dozen annual appropriations bills in the months ahead, determining funding levels and policy for numerous programs, including those at the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Interior, Justice, State and Transportation.

The House panel’s bills will skew more toward Republican funding levels and priorities, though the Senate committee has a long history of writing broadly bipartisan bills. 

The leaders of the two committees — House Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., House ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., Senate Chairwoman Collins and Senate ranking member Murray — will ultimately work out a final deal later in the year alongside congressional leaders.

Differences over the full-year bills are supposed to be solved before the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1, but members of Congress regularly rely on a stopgap spending bill through mid-December to give themselves more time to complete negotiations.

Failure to pass some sort of government funding measure, either a stopgap bill or all 12 full-year spending bills, before the funding deadline, would lead to a partial government shutdown.

This round of appropriations bills will be the first debated during Trump’s second-term presidency and will likely bring about considerable disagreement over the unilateral actions the administration has already taken to freeze or cancel federal spending, many of which are the subject of lawsuits arguing the president doesn’t have that impoundment authority.