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Aisha.
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I'm Ayesha Rascoe, and this is the Sunday Story from Up First. The news cycle moves fast and is often focused on what's happening in Washington, like cutting federal workers tariffs, things like that. But how are the headlines playing out for everyday people? For the past several months, NPR reporters Debbie Elliott and Kirk Sigler have been fanning out from Mississippi to Montana to, to see how President Trump's early actions are affecting Americans. And they're joining us to take a little radio road trip to hear some of that reporting. Welcome to the podcast.
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Hey, Aisha. Great to be here.
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C
Hi, Aisha. Thanks for having us.
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So, you know, I do love a good road trip as long as I'm not driving. You know, I have some Doritos, a Coke, and I control the play less. But for this road trip, this reporting road trip, where are we headed first?
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C
Well, I want to take you first to Tupelo, Mississippi. How does that sound?
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B
That sounds good.
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Okay, so Tupelo is up in the north central part of the state. It's not that far. If you're making a road trip, say, from Memphis, then like any good road trip, you have to stop first at the local claim to fame. And in Tupelo, that is the birthplace of the king of rock and roll.
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You ain't nothing but a hound.
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Welcome to Elvis Presley's birth.
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And look, everybody love a little Elvis. You know, you gotta go to the Elvis tourist attractions. I, you know, if I see one, I want to stop.
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C
Absolutely. But I was also drawn to Tupelo for a few other reasons. You know, it's this quaint little downtown. It's really got some interesting little shops and restaurants and a little scene brewing there. But it's also a huge manufacturing town, and I wanted to find out how tariffs were affecting people there. You know, plants here make everything from automobile seats to box springs to bespoke blue jeans. Something like one in five jobs in the region is in manufacturing and also, Aisha, this is big Trump country. Voters here overwhelmingly supported him, and I wanted to just see what their expectations were. So I stopped by Hawkeye Industries, which makes custom sheet metal parts. CEO and founder Brian Hawkins told me business was good.
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We're as busy as I've ever been. I'm trying to hire people right now.
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He is super proud to show off the operation.
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All right, let's see.
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Let's walk over here.
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So he's walking me past this giant machine. It's a laser cutter. He says it's worth something like a million dollars. It cuts sheets of metal into parts that are going to be used on air conditioning units.
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It's just so much fun to watch. And I can cut anything from as thin as your hair to up to 1 inch thick.
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But the thing is, Aisha, these metal sheets are going to get more expensive with President Trump's tariffs. And Hawkins is okay with that.
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I look at that as, like, taxes. Everybody's got to pay it, you know, so just get used to it.
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So what does he mean by everybody?
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Well, he told me he's going to pass the cost on to his customers, and ultimately it'll be consumers who pay. He thinks right now he's looking at about a 5% increase. But here's the thing, Aisha, he does not think that this pain will last.
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First of all, I think the tariffs are going to be short lived. I don't believe the tariffs are an economic tool. I believe they are a political tool.
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Now, Hawkins used to be the chairman of the Mississippi Manufacturers Association. He's still very active with the group, and he thinks the pace of change coming from the White House is just fine.
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Mr. Trump is a businessman and he knows how to make deals, and his track record has shown it. And he knows what he's doing. He's telegraphing things just to get people upset. You know, he's stirring the pot. And when he does, everybody just comes, just wailing, you know, and that's okay. That's all right.
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So I also spent some time in Tupelo with David Rumbarger, who heads up the local Community Development Foundation. He says people around town seem to feel that Trump's policies will eventually result in a better business climate. But in the short term, the changing tariff rates have caused a bit of whiplash for businesses.
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You know, business likes a stable environment, so uncertainty does cause a little bit of pain.
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Andy says manufacturing in the city is dependent on a global supply chain.
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I mean, we're all interlocked in whether we like it or not in international competition, for talent, for products, for sales, and for quality of life. If you don't think a company's competing internationally, if you think we're just selling to the U.S. it's wrong. I mean, everyone is competing internationally.
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So, I mean, from your reporting in Tupelo, what was your sense of the overall mood of people there? I mean, as you said, this is Trump country.
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You know, Kirk and I went into this project without any preconceived thesis about what we were looking for. Instead, we just kind of wanted to open our ears and hear how people are responding. To the changes that we've been seeing in the second Trump administration and sort of what people are expecting in the longer term. In Tupelo, I found a couple of takeaways. One, people are very willing to be patient and give Trump the benefit of the doubt. Here's how defense contractor Gerald Godbolt with Hypernian Technology put it.
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We support the national interest of making our supply chain more resilient and if possible, bringing as much of that manufacturing back to the United States or to our friends and allies as possible. I think that's just in America's best interest.
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So you hear folks willing to put up with some uncertainty for now as they wait for what they expect to be an influx of manufacturing.
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Well, I guess that is like the key question here that, you know, we don't know the future is will manufacturing actually come back? You know, obviously it sounds like people in Tupelo are banking on that happening.
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They are.
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When we come back on this American Voices road trip, we head to the oil fields of New Mexico to hear from people there. Stay with us.
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This message comes from NPR sponsor FX presenting the Lowdown starring Ethan Hawke, introducing you to Lee Raybon, a quirky journalist, rare bookstore owner, unofficial truth seeker who is always on the tail of his latest conspiracy. This time, his most recent expose puts him head to head with a powerful family that rules Tulsa, meaning only one he must be on to something big. FX's the Lowdown. All new Tuesdays on FX stream on Hulu. This message comes from Schwab at Schwab. How you invest is your choice, not theirs. That's why when it comes to managing your wealth, Schwab gives you more choices. You can invest and trade on your own. Plus get advice and more comprehensive wealth solutions to help meet your unique needs. With award winning service, low costs and transparent advice, you can manage your wealth your way at Schwab. Visit schwab.com to learn more. This message comes from Ritual what makes Ritual Vitamins different? Ritual vitamins are made with bioavailable, clinically studied key ingredients and a patented nutrient delivery system that aims to help your body use the nutrients you're getting. Ritual's essential multivitamins are made with you and your body in mind and backed by scientific research, filled with key ingredients as well as the essence of mint so you can enjoy taking your vitamins. Get 25% off your first purchase when you visit ritual.com NPR we're back with the Sunday story.
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Kirk, you cover the west and also a lot of rural areas dependent on natural resources that don't get much coverage in the national media. And you've also been looking into how the Trump administration has been affecting American businesses. So where do you want to take us next on the American Voices road trip?
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Well, as you said, I cover the West. So let's go west to the oil and gas fields of northwestern New Mexico, where the old iconic pump jacks are still reliably pumping up light, sweet crude and natural gas. Now, when Trump first returned to the White House, there was optimism, Ayesha, in the oil and gas industry industry, that companies would see higher profits in part because, you know, the Interior Department is saying it's going to fast track approvals for oil, gas, coal, and mineral projects on federal land by cutting down environmental reviews from years to weeks. But I have to say that optimism has started fading, at least in some places, because of bigger concerns about the economy. I met up with Sean Dugan. He's a third generation owner of this family drilling business called Dugan Production. It's in Farmington, New Mexico, in the northwestern part of the state. Are you guys here until you're done? Now, Dugan told me they're only just now recovering from the COVID pandemic, when new drilling and exploration on public lands was almost at a standstill. But now, you know, there is a surge in regional development, like these massive data centers going up down in Phoenix. And so there's a potential of a boom. We need more energy. But Aisha, as he's watching these roughnecks and grubby overalls moving huge, long pipes, watched his grin turn into a grimace. Your poly pipe, which is what these pipelines are made out of now, that all comes from the Asian markets. He says it was already expensive to do business out in this rural area as the cost of parts were already going up with inflation. But now President Trump's trade war is making it worse. And so it's like, now you're checking the tariff rate. You wake up, check the tariff rate.
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And, you know, the thing is, normally Republican administrations are very friendly to oil and gas. But in this instance, those tariff rates mean real money and real costs. And the money that, you know, Sean's trying to live off of seems like, you know, it's having an impact on him.
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Totally. I mean, you know, consider this. He used to spend 80 grand on a load of those steel pipes that we're looking at out there. You know, they come from Korea. Like he says. Now it's more like 120,000 doll. Dugan's a businessman. He needs to plan years out. But he told me he doesn't even know what's going to happen tomorrow. It just kneecaps you when all this uncertainty and volatility is in the air. George Sharp had a similar view. I think the whole tariff thing is going to backfire on Trump. Now, Sharpe is an investment manager for a company called Marion Oil and Gas. It's one of New Mexico's oldest operators. You know, Trump's drill, baby drill and lower oil prices are not simpatico.
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What does he mean by that when he says they aren't simpatico?
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Right. Well, he's basically saying that if Trump's policies, in his words, tank the economy and oil prices continue to hover at or below the cost of production, I mean, you can remove all the regulations, you want to make it easier for companies to drill and they're just not going to do it. Build, baby, build. They want manufacturing to be built here in the U.S. well, there's not a manufacturing center that exists here in the US that doesn't have a supply chain that's worldwide. And Aisha, I heard a similar frustration. Like we said, this is a road trip traveling 1,000 miles to the northwest. The west is a big place up to Washington state where I've been a couple times now to talk with wheat farmers right up here on the ridge. They ship most of what they grow to Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and they've really been doing that for decades. The assumption was that it would have been done strategically with some thought and planning. This is Jim Moyer talking about the trade war. He's a wheat farmer in the Palouse region of eastern Washington. His family has farmed out there since 1891. You see the different kinds of wheat. This is one variety and that tall one's another variety. And the ones with the little stubby heads, another variety. Moyer says it's been months now of back and forth. You've got tariffs on, then off, then a social media post putting them back on. It's just making it impossible, he said, to plan for the future. We're looking for stability so that we can adjust and, and start managing with a pathway that we're reasonably certain of going forward.
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And I mean, that's been a huge issue with the tariffs. Right. Like just the lack of stability has made it hard for business people to plan ahead.
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Absolutely. I mean, we just heard two concrete examples of that. Right. On a follow up reporting trip to eastern Washington, I met one of Moyer's neighbors, another wheat farmer named Tom Camerzel, who also homed in on this idea. You just look at the amount of money that's laid out. Combines are a million dollars apie now. And with prices as low as they are, it's going to be tough. Bottom line. So they've got inflation on top of this trade war. But like a lot of people I've been meeting on this whole project, the minute I asked Camerozel what he thinks about Trump and how he's moving the US Toward protectionism, it sure feels like. And away from global trade, things get a little awkward, I got to tell you. Well, it's worth paying attention to, but these things ebb and flow, too, so I'm not going to get into politics. I hear that all the time. Aisha, we are really logging some miles here. So let's turn around and go east to the tiny town of Wimbleton, North Dakota. I chatted with soybean farmer Justin Sherlock. He was in his idling pickup as a Canadian Pacific train rumbled by grain cars. I see some box cars. I see fertilizer cars that are heading back up to pick up fertilizer in Canada to bring it back to the.
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U.S. so, Kirk, it sounds like you're kind of getting the front row seat to, you know, this global trade, right? Like, because a lot of the crops that are grown in the middle of the US they don't stay here in the US they're sent to the international market.
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Right. So in North Dakota alone, it's about half of all the soybeans that are grown are for export, mostly to China. I mean, we just can't consume that much. We've gotten so good at growing crops. China is also imposing retaliatory tariffs in response to President Trump's. And it's not looking soon anyway that China's going to be buying much of any American soybeans this year. So this is going to be a lot of harm on farmers. And things are changing hour by hour. How do you operate a business that way?
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And I mean, the uncertainty that we're talking about that goes beyond tariffs and international trade. When we come back, we head to Alabama, where residents fear gains to diverse representation are at risk. And what would a summertime road trip be without a stop at a national park? We'll hear about the impact of Trump's budget cuts to national parks and the Forest Service. What I've been likening it to is it's this facade of a park experience, right? Everything looks great, but there's not much behind it. That's after the break.
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Support for NPR and The following message come from Bolen Branch. Turn your bed into a sanctuary this fall with their buttery, breathable bedding. Enjoy 15% off your first set of sheets at B O L L and Branch.com with code NPR exclusions apply. This message comes from NPR sponsor Odoo. Some describe Odoo like a magic beanstalk because it scales with you and is magically affordable. Odoo, exactly what a business needs. Sign up@odoo.com, that's o-o o.com welcome back.
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To the Sunday Story. We've been traveling throughout the country with NPR reporters Debbie Elliott and Kirk Sigler hearing how Americans are responding to the Trump administration's early actions. One of those has been to cut diversity, equity and inclusion programs. DEI Debbie, you traveled to a couple of Alabama cities to speak with people who are fighting to protect the progress they've made for black residents in the state. So what did you hear?
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Aisha? I heard some guarded optimism, I would say. I started right along the Gulf Coast. So tell me where we are.
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So we are currently in downtown Mobile in Benville Square.
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I met with Shalaya Doughty. She's an army veteran and a West Point grad who lives there. And she was one of the black voters who recently sued Alabama to have a bigger voice in Congress.
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It's about fair representation. It's about just making sure you have someone that cares about your community and to me, just being willing to go in the community and talk to the people.
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So she was one of the people in this lawsuit that actually made it all the way to the U.S. supreme Court. They were arguing that Alabama's congressional map discriminated against black voters in a state where African Americans made up about a quarter of the population. But there was only one black representative in the U.S. house of Representatives. So the courts ordered the legislature to change things, but the legislature didn't do it. So the court stepped in and wrote a map that the state had to use. And those new lines resulted in the election of a black Democrat. Representative Shamari figures so Alabama now has two black members of Congress out of its seven seats in the House of Representatives. For Dowdy, she says it's made a.
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Difference in the past. I really never really saw my representative, my member of Congress. So it sounds like she's saying that's changed, like, and that now she feels like she has a voice and some power.
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She does. You know, early in the year she made a trip to Washington, D.C. and she said she was able to get a face to face meeting with representative figures. Something that made her feel like she had a seat at the table for the first time. One of the things that she wanted to talk about with her new representative in Congress was what's happening in the Department of Defense. As we said, she's an army veteran and West Point grad. She's super upset that her alma mater has recently disbanded certain cultural clubs.
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The Women's Engineering Club is no longer able to operate. The National Society of Black Engineers is no longer able to operate. We had a majority African American American club that was kind of like our black student union, but we called it Contemporary Affairs Seminar. No longer able to operate. So if three or more black students are gathered, it can look suspicious.
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The U.S. military Academy disbanded them to comply with President Trump's executive order intending to remove race and sex based preferences across the federal government and to combat DEI programs in the private sector. You know, Trump says those kinds of policies undermine national unity and the traditional American values of hard work and individual achievement. Dowdy sees it a little differently.
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I will honestly say it's the good old boy system. Someone has a problem with people of color excelling. To me personally, I feel like it's all about making America white again. Well, I mean, what Shalaya is saying, I mean, is something that, you know, you often hear from black people who are concerned about these moves, that it's not about making everyone equal, but it's about keeping black people behind. And that is the concern that I know I've heard and sounds like you were hearing, too.
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That is exactly what I heard. And I heard it throughout this district, which sort of stretches from Mobile across the state and then sucks in much of the Alabama state capital city of Montgomery. Shalaya kind of looked at it as a reminder of when there's progress, there's pushback. I heard a similar sentiment from Evan Milligan. He is actually the named plaintiff in that redistricting lawsuit.
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You know, the importance of having more representation at a time when the idea of representation is being undermined, that's a really important thing.
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So you can hear. We were outside. I was sitting down with Milligan on the front porch of a community center he runs right near downtown. And, you know, you've been to Montgomery, Aisha. We were just struck by the history all around us. Alabama's capital city has the place where Rosa Parks refused to yield her bus seat. There's also the steps of the Capitol where Jefferson Davis took his oath as president of the Confederacy. The history is not lost on Milligan. And he says he's committed to building on it and staying engaged in the struggle.
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I think we have to believe in.
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Ourselves and believe that collectively we actually not only can resist, but, you know, over time transcend the direction that some are pulling this country in right now. And that's a very difficult thing to do. But it starts with the hope.
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So, Aisha, you hear him, he's holding onto the hope.
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I mean, in, in times I feel like as a people, that's what we've had to do, is hold on to hope.
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I will say, Aisha, that of most of the people I spoke with in that new district, they would be giving you an amen.
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You're listening to THE Sunday story. Stay with us.
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Support for NPR and the following message come from GoodRx. Prescriptions keep getting pricier and more of a hassle to fill. It's like the Wild west getting prescription medication these days. Good thing Goodrx wrangles it for you. From telehealth to wellness tips to easy discounts of up to 80%, GoodRx is riding with you at every step. GoodRx is not insurance, but if you have insurance or Medicare, Goodrx may beat your copay. Save time and money on prescriptions@goodrx.com upfirst.
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B
We're back with the Sunday Story. Now let's talk about public lands in our national parks. Kirk, I know you've been talking to people who've been facing big changes to the work that they do on public lands. The U.S. forest Service has had all these workforce reductions and thousands of jobs have been eliminated. At the same time, they're the country's lead firefighting agency. So wouldn't that hurt the country's ability to fight wildfires?
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A
Right. U.S. forest Service hasn't granted me any interview requests, so I'm just working on statements they email me. But, you know, they've maintained their operational readiness, isn't affected by the hiring freezes, and that wildland firefighters are exempt anyway. But I don't think this is the whole story.
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B
So what do you mean? Like, what are the larger issues here?
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A
Well, consider back in February, an untold number of probationary employees were fired around that time. And a lot of these people carried red cards, meaning they might do something else for these lands agencies. But when there's a wildfire, they're trained such that they can leave their regular jobs to help out. So at a stop on our road trip back in New Mexico, I met a woman named Kayla who works for the Forest Service, whose full name we aren't using because she was fired, then rehired, like I said, and was worried about retaliation.
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It was like a slap to the face.
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It just.
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It's shocking to me that our position.
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Could be taken away that easily without.
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Thorough investigation on exactly what we do and how we perform.
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So, like we've been hearing across all federal agencies, morale is way low. Kayla told me the work that actually helps protect the land and wildlife from wildfires isn't really getting done with the.
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Loss of so many positions. It just seems impossible at this moment. And it's. It's scary. It's really scary.
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B
I mean, that all sounds like very risky given that fires, like, regularly engulf western states. What about the National Park Service? You know, I. I remember reading headlines like last spring, and they were, you know, warning that visitors centers would be closed because there's not enough staff or bathrooms weren't going to be maintained because the agency wouldn't be able to handle the millions of tourists this summer. Did people's worst fears actually play out?
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A
I mean, I had the same questions reading those articles and going out in the field. I guess I'd answer you by saying not really, not yet. Kind of like with the wildfires. These cuts are real, but they're just not totally obvious to visitors yet. So let me explain. I went to Montana's Glacier national park, which, like most major parks, lost an estimated 25% of its permanent staff due to those doge cuts or the buyouts or some combination of the federal agency hiring freeze that Trump has ordered. The crazy thing is Glacier was again shattering visitor records this summer amid all of these agency cuts. But some tourists I spoke with along the park's stunning. Going to the Sun Road. It's a big draw. They told me it just felt like business as usual up there. It seems like it's very well maintained.
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The bathrooms we went to here yesterday were nice.
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A
I don't know that we can say we perceive a disruption at all based on any sort of staffing cuts or whatever. I couldn't tell you that they happened based on our experience. I could tell you that they happened because it's in the news. But former and current park staff and national park watchdog groups told me this is all by design. Here's Sarah Lundstrom with the National Parks Conservation Association.
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B
What I've been likening it to is it's this facade of a park experience this summer, right?
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E
Like, everything's fine. You're walking down the street.
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B
It's like you're in a Hollywood movie set and everything looks great. But there's not much behind it.
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A
Lundstrom says Glacier national park has gotten money to hire more seasonal rangers. You know, the public facing staff, so that makes things seem normal. But she says, go to the back office. And everything from infrastructure improvements to wildlife studies to even hiring next year's seasonal workers isn't getting done.
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There's no deputy superintendent.
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B
There is an acting chief ranger.
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They're missing an electrician, you know.
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A
And even though some people got hired back, employees at Glacier told me there's been a loss of institutional knowledge, and that's concerning. Many who remain are working overtime. They're doing two or more jobs in the park. A river ranger is now in charge of patrolling wilderness trails. Volunteers are out trying to police illegal camping, doing traffic control. Private raft guiding companies are even the ones, in some cases, cleaning bathrooms along the Flathead River.
- [28:19]
B
So what's the administration's response to all of this?
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A
Well, like in the Forest Service, I told you, the Park Service, which is under the Department of Interior, hasn't been granting us any interviews. So we're working on statements and, you know, we keep trying, but it's really hard to know. It's really hard to answer that question fully. A lot of what we have to go on is Trump's Interior Secretary, Doug Burgum, speaking to a Senate committee in May where he told lawmakers that it's about cutting red tape and bureaucracy in the agency. I want more people in the parks, whether they're driving a snowplow in the wintertime or whether they're working with his interpreter in the summertime or whether we're doing trail work. If they're firefighting, I want more of that. I want less overhead.
- [29:02]
B
We've heard from a lot of voices, but it does seem like a theme in your reporting. Kirk, has been people being concerned about, like, speaking about what's going on. Like, is that something that you've typically faced, like, when going out on the road?
- [29:20]
A
I mean, I always have. However, nothing like now. It's really been a difficult thing to get out and get the real story, just because a lot of people are just sort of hesitant to really open up because they're afraid of what's ahead.
- [29:38]
B
Well, Kirk and Debbie, thank you all so much for bringing all of this reporting, all the hard work that you do. I'm gonna hop out of this radio road trip right now and stretch my legs.
- [29:49]
A
All right, happy to do it, and glad to be here.
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C
We enjoyed the ride. Aisha, thanks so much for having us.
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That was NPR reporters Debbie Elliott and Kirk Sigler. This episode was produced by Andrew Mambo and Abby Windle. The editor was Jenny Schmidt. It was engineered by Robert Rodriguez. Fact checking by Barclay Walsh. The rest of the Sunday Story team includes Justine Yan and Liana Simstrom. Irene Noguchi is our executive producer. I'm Aisha Rascoe. Up first is back tomorrow with all the news you need to start your week. Until then, have a great rest of your weekend.
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