Politics

Health experts say a second Trump term might make Americans sick — literally

Published

2 years ago

November 11, 2024

Health experts say a second Trump term might make Americans sick — literally

Former Trump administration health official Rick Bright published an op-ed in The New York Times warning of the nightmarish public health scenarios likely to unfold if Donald Trump is elected president again.

Bright ought to know. He was head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency in the Health and Human Services Department but became a whistleblower in 2020 to sound the alarm on the Trump administration’s mismanagement of the Covid pandemic.

In light of new and disturbing reporting about Trump giving Covid test machines to Russian President Vladimir Putin that year, Bright’s warnings about the potential destruction of health institutions in a second Trump term deserve attention. As he writes, Trump would be empowered to undermine public health measures even more than he did the first time if he retakes the White House. And he has a playbook to do just that.

Bright writes:

Now Mr. Trump seeks to return to power with a potentially more aggressive agenda to reshape our health institutions. Proposals supported by conservative initiatives like Project 2025 aim to split the C.D.C., stripping it of its ability to issue critical vaccine guidance, weaken the F.D.A.’s approval processes for key medical products and further slash N.I.H. funding. Some of these proposed changes, should Mr. Trump decide to embrace them, would require congressional approval. Yet a determined president could do a great deal of damage to our public health infrastructure through the installation of loyalists in key positions, redirection of funds and agency restructuring via executive actions.

Bright explains what that could look like in practice:

A weakened C.D.C. would struggle to provide unified guidance during health crises. N.I.H. cuts would impede crucial medical breakthroughs, jeopardizing advancements in cancer treatments, vaccines for diseases like Ebola and vital research on heart disease. A compromised F.D.A. could lead to hasty approvals of unproven treatments, eroding public trust in medical interventions. Furthermore, undermining these institutions would diminish America’s role in global health initiatives, leaving us more susceptible to international health threats.

This topic — about what public health would look like under a second Trump term — has been on my mind since the height of the pandemic, when thousands of Americans died monthly amid Trump’s arrogance and willful ignorance. And, as Bright mentioned, the threat of Trump implementing Project 2025, the far-right plan to pack the government with MAGA stooges, looms large over the health world with weeks to go until Election Day.

That’s why I recently chatted with Drs. Chris Pernell and Regina Davis Moss, two public health professionals who discussed what’s at stake in this election regarding Americans’ health and well-being. Pernell is the director of the NAACP’s Center for Health Equitywhile Moss is the president and CEO of “In Our Own Voice,” an organization that prides itself on leading the “National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda.”

Together, as part of ongoing coverage of Project 2025 from “The ReidOut,” we discussed abortion surveillance, anti-trans crackdowns, the health impact of hypermasculinity, the war on health equity, and the various ways conservatives’ far-right agenda for a second Trump term could make Americans sick … in more ways than one.

Stay tuned for a video of our conversation on The ReidOut Blog next week!

Ya’han Jones

Ja’han Jones is The ReidOut Blog writer. He’s a futurist and multimedia producer focused on culture and politics. His previous projects include “Black Hair Defined” and the “Black Obituary Project.”

Politics

World Cup fuels ticketing reform demands

Published

10 hours ago

June 21, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Demands are growing for a political reckoning over ticket scams at the World Cup — and beyond.

The National Independent Venue Association and Fan Alliance, organizations representing and advocating for entertainment venues and artists respectively, sent a joint letter to Congress on Thursday, calling on lawmakers to ban speculative and ghost tickets, cases where resellers flog tickets they don’t actually have.

The letter — addressed to Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer — includes nearly two dozen accounts of fans who say they were scammed out of thousands of dollars trying to get tickets to the World Cup, which began last week. The groups are also asking fans to share their own stories with elected officials via the Fix the Tix Fan Action Center that launched last week.

“Every one of these stories erodes the public’s faith that consumers should and will be protected from fraud,” NIVA Executive Director Stephen Parker and Fan Alliance founder Donald Cohen wrote. “We urge Congress to work with us to prevent fraud like this in the future and finally enact ticket resale consumer protections that will protect Americans and ensure affordability.”

The letter flagged fans like Dacy Gillespie, who bought World Cup tickets for her sons on Christmas, only to learn on match day — months later — that the seller couldn’t deliver them. And Skylie Shore, who Parker and Cohen said spent well over $6,000 on tickets to the Scotland-Haiti match on June 13, but was forced to wait outside the stadium because she couldn’t access them as fans marched in on gameday.

“These examples reveal a consistent pattern: consumer deception, speculative ticket sales, and broken-hearted American families at the hands of resale ticketing companies like StubHub,” Parker and Cohen wrote.

In a statement, StubHub spokesperson Jack Sterne said that the platform does not allow speculative ticket sales, and blamed FIFA for users’ difficulty in accessing their tickets.

“We understand that attending the World Cup represents a significant investment in time and money, and we take our responsibility to every fan who books through our platform seriously,” Sterne said in a statement. “Many of the issues fans are facing trace back to the event organizer’s technology infrastructure, newly announced transfer restrictions, and a new app that was launched just a month ago.”

In response, FIFA said in a statement that the organization “can guarantee the validity and delivery of tickets purchased through its official platforms” and that FIFA.com/tickets “is the official ticket sales channel” for the tournament.

NIVA and Fan Alliance are urging congressional leadership to place universal price-gouging limits on ticket resale, enact stringent fines on perpetrators and a violation-reporting mechanism for ticket scams, and require secondary ticketing platforms to produce data on ticket fulfillment and consumer complaints.

The groups are not the only ones monitoring for evidence of shady ticket practices. Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway issued a consumer guidance in advance of the tournament, urging match-goers to beware of fraud and promising to hold offenders accountable. And the FBI in May put out a public service announcement, warning fans against purchasing tickets on copycat websites modeled on FIFA’s.

“With the World Cup coming to Kansas City, excitement is high and, unfortunately, so is the potential for fraud,” Hanaway said in her statement. “Missourians should be able to enjoy this once-in-a-generation event without fear of being deceived. My office will hold accountable anyone who seeks to exploit our families, and we stand ready to assist anyone who encounters suspicious activity.”