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July 24, 2026 Tony Romm and Brad Plumer of the New York Times reported this afternoon that the Trump administration's claim last October that it was cutting programs in order to protect taxpayers against waste was in fact a lie. In court filings, federal officials admitted that the $7.5 billion in cuts from CLE projects begun under former President Joe Biden were based solely on whether states had voted for Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vogt announced the cuts by saying nearly $8 billion in green new scam funding to fuel the left's climate agenda is being canceled. But in fact, a government lawyer told the court that none of the cancellations were based on any programmatic statutory, cost reduction or performance based factor. In contrast, the administration funded grants for states that had backed Trump in 2024 even though the Energy Department had recommended they be canceled. The admission calls into question the administration's claims that it is making cuts to combat waste, fraud and abuse, especially as Vogt is working to finalize rules that would make political appointees the final arbiters of how the government would award more than $1 trillion in annual grants rather than combating waste. It appears Trump and his cronies are trying to take control of the US Government, using the power of the American people for their own ends. Illinois Governor J.B. pritzker promptly pointed out that the canceled grants included $583 million intended for Illinois that would have gone toward lowering energy costs, strengthening grid reliability and creating energy jobs. He demanded the funds be restored. Despite what he might think. Donald Trump is not the president of maga, pritzker said in a statement. But the president of all America. He must release remaining federal grants to Illinois immediately. Pritzker can add the energy grants to Trump's tab. After the Supreme Court declared Trump's April 2025 tariffs unconstitutional in February 2026, Pritzker wrote a public letter billing Trump for an $8.68 billion refund to the people of Illinois. Your tariff taxes wreaked havoc on farmers, enraged our allies and sent grocery prices through the roof, he wrote. On behalf of the people of Illinois, I demand a refund of $1,700 for every family in Illinois. There are 5,105,448 households in my state, bringing the total damages you owe to $8,679,261,600. Pritzker reiterated that demand on July 20th. But Trump is clinging to his determination to surround the United States with a tariff wall at 12:01 this morning, Trump levied tariffs from 10% to 12.5% on goods from more than 80 countries that make up 99.4percent of US trade, claiming the countries are producing goods with forced labor. More likely, this argument justifies tariffs under a different law than the one that led the Supreme Court to strike down his 2025 Liberation Day tariffs. It's also a different law than the one he used to impose tariffs after the Supreme Court decision. The time limit permitted for new tariffs under that law expired today. Kevin Bruninger of CNBC reported that within hours of the announcement of the new tariffs, two small businesses sued in the US Court of International Trade, saying the new tariffs were just a way to reinstate the tariff levies the Supreme Court said were unconstitutional. A senior administration official told reporters that the tariffs were not an attempt to recreate the previous system and that dealing with the issue of forced labor is something that President Trump has been focused on for many years. Annie Linsky and Josh Dossey of the Wall Street Journal reported today that Trump is angry and frustrated over the Iran war, from which he cannot seem to find an exit. They wrote that some of Trump's advisers are worried at what the war is doing to his popularity by causing higher prices as well as the deaths of 18 service members. That concern is likely behind the change in the number of US Military personnel listed on a Pentagon website as killed in the Iran conflict. Helene Cooper, Lara Jakes and John Ismay of the New York Times reported yesterday that the Pentagon has dropped the names of the four Americans killed in Jordan and Iraq, reducing the number of U.S. personnel killed in the conflict to 14. Three military officials told the reporters that the number was revised because the four were killed after Trump announced the ceasefire in April. The acting press secretary for the Pentagon, Joel Valdez, said the four were dropped owing to temporary data disruptions. But claiming the four died after a ceasefire bolsters the administration's insistence that the president doesn't need to get congressional approval for continuing operations against Iran because the April ceasefire declaration ended the first operation. The record of the Trump administration on July 24, 2026, shows a White House focused on the goals of Trump alone. It's a striking contrast to a fireside chat broadcast over the radio on July 24, 1933. In that talk, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt took stock of what he had accomplished in his first 100 days in office. He explained that his administration had stabilized the nation's banks and raised taxes to pay for millions in borrowing that federal money was feeding starving people, as well as employing 300,000 young men to work in the Civilian Conservation Corps, planting trees to prevent soil erosion, building levees and dams for flood control, and maintaining forest roads and trails. It was also funding a public works program for highways and inland navigation as well as state based municipal improvements. The government had also raised farm income and wages by regulating agriculture and abolishing child labor. FDR urged Americans to get behind a program of shorter hours and higher wages to create purchasing power that would restart the economy. He explained, it goes back to the basic idea of society and of the nation itself, that people acting in a group can accomplish things which no individual acting alone could even hope to bring about.
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Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dedham, MA. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.