Author name: moderat ereport

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McDowell County, West Virginia—the birthplace of the food-stamps program—is watching its safety net collapse due to President Donald Trump’s domestic policy law. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy sent his agriculture secretary to hand out food cards to a miner’s family in Welch, launching the pilot that would become the modern Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. Today, many of the county’s 17,000 residents rely on SNAP. More than half of the children are enrolled in the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and one-third of seniors depend on Medicaid. Now the Associated Press reports that new eligibility restrictions embedded in Trump’s new law will tighten access to SNAP, hitting counties like McDowell especially hard—places where a third of the population lives below the poverty line. Nonprofits that were already on the brink are laying off staff or burning through reserves just to stay afloat. As Rosemary Ketchum, the executive director of the West Virginia Nonprofit Association, told the AP, “These federal cuts are starving people.” Last year, Trump won 79% of the vote in McDowell County. Datawrapper Content West Virginia isn’t just one of the poorest states in the country—it’s also one of the reddest, and it’s the third-most dependent on federal support. It’s a genuine triumph of conservative culture-war politics that the people who most depend on government services are the ones voting for the party that destroys those services. These people are voting for their own demise, cheering the latest attack on a transgender kid while their food assistance vanishes. And because West Virginia relies so heavily on federal money, it’s absorbing the full weight of Trump’s policies. Coal jobs vanish, Medicaid shrinks, food programs dry up, disaster relief disappears—and yet MAGA devotion remains untouched. Republican governors in red states, proud of their rock-bottom tax rates, are now privately begging Trump not to cut the federal aid they can’t live without. In West Virginia, federal dollars make up nearly 50% of the state budget. But that doesn’t stop them from ranting about so-called socialism in California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Washington—the very states subsidizing them. Coal miners wave signs as then-candidate Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Charleston, West Virginia, in May 2016. And yet we liberals never complained about that arrangement. We were happy to help the less fortunate—yes, including white people in dirt-poor Appalachia. And how did they repay that generosity? By voting for the guy who’s now gutting the very programs keeping them alive. West Virginia isn’t alone, of course. As I noted in my story on how red counties depend on the very government they hate, this is the national pattern. Us coastal elites have been subsidizing these salt-of-the-earth, bootstrap types for decades. And McDowell County may be the clearest example yet: The place is utterly reliant on federal dollars, and it’s now being crushed by the policies of lawmakers it helped elect. The people of McDowell County helped create SNAP. Now they’re likely to lose much of it—not because it failed, but because they voted for leaders who see federal programs as the enemy, not the solution. And those cuts aren’t theoretical. They’re meals skipped, hospitals closing, and seniors going hungry. Don’t worry—most people in McDowell will still find a way to blame Democrats like Joe Biden or Barack Obama for their misery. The MAGA cult is hard to escape, and West Virginia is all in. All we can do is shake our heads and marvel at this ongoing, breathtaking act of self-destruction.

When the United States pulled troops out of Afghanistan and the Taliban took over, Ed went back to his home country to rescue his family. Ed had already lost his only brother as punishment for Ed’s work with the U.S., first as a translator and then enlisted directly in the U.S. Army, he said. He didn’t want anyone else to die. He and others interviewed for this article asked not to be fully identified to protect their safety and that of their family members. After about two years, he was finally able to get permission for his mother and several sisters to come to the U.S., he said. They left, believing that his other sister would soon follow with her husband and children. Last year, that sister and her family made it as far as Doha, Qatar, where the Biden administration staged Afghan refugees for processing under a special program called Enduring Welcome that was not widely publicized due to the safety risks. Related | Tortured by the Taliban, locked up in the US At the time the U.S. government was moving up to 5,000 Afghans per month through its satellite processing sites to the U.S., according to Jessica Bradley Rushing, a former State Department employee who worked in the office that resettled Afghans. When President Donald Trump took office in January, he quickly stopped the flights bringing Afghans to the U.S. An executive order shut down the refugee resettlement program and canceled travel for the Afghans who already had flights booked, including Ed’s sister. Her family was scheduled to fly to the U.S. on Jan. 27, Ed said. “We were concerned that if it were too publicly understood, that the Taliban would be a mitigating factor,” Bradley Rushing said. “At this point in time, the Taliban is not the obstacle. The obstacle is the Trump administration. I think that says a lot about where we are with this administration if the barrier to our allies is Trump, not the Taliban.” The State Department recently laid off staff in the office where she worked and is letting contracts expire with others, Bradley Rushing said. Ed’s sister is among roughly 1,500 Afghans who were promised new lives in the U.S. and are now waiting in limbo in Qatar, terrified of the possibility of being returned to Afghanistan, according to Bradley Rushing. Tens of thousands more had crossed the border into Pakistan and were awaiting processing at the U.S. consulate there, she said. It’s not clear how much longer the countries hosting them will allow them to stay. Afghan passengers board a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III during the Aug. 2021 Afghanistan evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. According to #AfghanEvac, an advocacy organization that has helped Afghans who worked with the U.S. government flee their country, more than 50,000 Afghans are waiting in third countries to be resettled in the U.S., and more than 200,000 others had been identified inside Afghanistan as needing evacuation. Some Afghans have fled their country on their own and made it to the U.S. border. But the Trump administration’s changes to the asylum system have complicated their paths to protection as well. Others who were here already have had their protection stripped, as the administration recently ended temporary protected status for Afghans. Trump has also blocked U.S citizens and green card holders from sponsoring Afghan relatives’ visas with the latest travel ban. The collective result of these policies has left a countless number of Afghans separated from family, stranded in countries that might kick them out or stuck in the country they were trying to flee, hiding from the Taliban. When asked about the policy changes, the Department of Homeland Security sent a press release from when it announced the end of temporary protected status for Afghans. In the statement, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that conditions in Afghanistan no longer merit protection. On Sunday, Trump posted on social media that “starting right now” he would “try to save” Afghans who worked with the U.S. military and are currently in the United Arab Emirates facing imminent deportation back to Afghanistan. He did not mention the other places where Afghans are waiting while facing the possibility of being returned to danger. The Department of Defense deferred to the State Department, which did not respond to a request for comment from Beyond the Border. Veterans Feel Betrayed Ed said that because of his service in the U.S. military, nobody in his family would be safe in Afghanistan. “There’s no way back for my sister and her husband,” Ed said. “We have a collective culture. We live collectively. We are punished collectively as well.” He said he felt betrayed that the country he served would leave his family behind. “Nothing makes sense,” Ed said. Mohammad, another former translator who went on to join the U.S. Army, said he felt similarly. He still has shrapnel in his body from a roadside bomb blast that killed a young Marine next to him, he said. A cyclist passes in front of the former U.S. embassy while a vendor waits for customers on June 5, in Kabul, Afghanistan. He was in Afghanistan working as an intelligence contractor when U.S. troops withdrew, he said. He managed to get out during the chaos at the airport, but his family members did not. His parents and siblings stayed on the move and in hiding for years until the U.S. government approved them for a flight to Qatar. Now they are in limbo, too. “It’s unbearable for someone like me, with my background and sensitivity of jobs and work that I have done, for my family to be sent back. It’s an absolute nightmare to be honest with you,” Mohammad said. “It’s horrifying.” He pointed out that it’s a violation of international and U.S. law to return refugees to a country where they will be persecuted. He said many of his family members need medical treatment that they aren’t receiving while at the temporary camp in Qatar. He said he talks with his

Former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper announced on Monday that he’s officially launching a bid for U.S. Senate in the Tar Heel State, landing Democrats a prized recruit and boosting the party’s chances of picking up a critical Senate seat. Cooper made the announcement in a two-and-a-half-minute-long video posted to X, in which he said he is running to help the middle class succeed, focusing on his successes as governor in expanding Medicaid coverage, raising teacher pay, and balancing the state budget. “Right now, our country is facing a moment as fragile as any I can remember, and the decisions we make in the next election will determine if we even have a middle class in America anymore,” Cooper said. “I never really wanted to go to Washington. I just wanted to serve the people of North Carolina right here where I’ve lived all my life. But these are not ordinary times. Politicians in D.C. are running up the debt, ripping away our health care, disrespecting our veterans, cutting help for the poor, and even putting Medicare and Social Security at risk just to give tax breaks to billionaires. That’s wrong and I’ve had enough.” North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis’ departure will make way for Cooper to run. North Carolina’s Senate seat will be open in the 2026 midterms, after GOP Sen. Thom Tillis announced that he’s not seeking reelection because there is no room to defy President Donald Trump in the Republican Party. Tillis made that unexpected announcement on the day he voted against the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” that rips Medicaid and food stamps from the poor in order to give tax breaks that benefit the richest few.  That already boosted Democratic chances, as history shows that incumbency provides politicians a boost at the ballot box. “In the face of opposition from President Donald Trump, GOP Sen. Thom Tillis announced he will not seek re-election in 2026. The senator’s decision doesn’t change the overall Senate battleground, but it makes the seat more vulnerable to a Democratic takeover without an incumbent,” Inside Elections’ Nathan L. Gonzales wrote in a piece reassessing the competitiveness of the seat after Tillis’ announcement.  But Cooper is likely Democrats’ strongest recruit in North Carolina—a purple state that Trump carried by just over 3 points in 2024. Until January, Cooper had been a top statewide official in North Carolina since 2001—when he first took office as attorney general. He served in that role for 16 years, winning four statewide elections even as Republicans won at the presidential level in all but one of those years (2008, when former President Barack Obama romped his way to victory). In 2016, Cooper then ran for governor, defeating GOP incumbent Pat McCrory even as Trump won at the top of the ticket. Cooper then won reelection again in 2020, when Trump carried the state as well. Datawrapper Content In 2026, the political environment should be more favorable for Democrats—as the party in power traditionally loses ground. Cooper will likely have a glide path to the Democratic nomination. Former Rep. Wiley Nickel, who had been running in the Senate primary, dropped his bid when it became clear that Cooper was going to run. On the GOP side, Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley announced his bid last week. Trump endorsed Whatley in the race, likely giving him a clear shot to the GOP nomination as well. Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump had been mulling a bid, but she announced on Thursday that she is not going to run, paving the way for Whatley’s announcement. Inside Elections rates the race a toss-up, saying it’s the best chance for a Democratic pick-up next fall.

President Donald Trump on Sunday announced a major trade deal with the European Union, which he portrayed as a major policy win, but American families are likely to see significant cost increases as a result. Trump announced the deal after meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The agreement will impose a 15% tariff on most goods imported from European countries, which is below the 30% rate that Trump had previously threatened—but far more than the average 1.2% rate last year. “It’s a very powerful deal, it’s a very big deal, it’s the biggest of all the deals,” Trump said, attempting to spin the announcement as a victory for his unpopular administration. Tariff costs historically have been passed on to consumers, which is a concept that economic experts—and political leaders like former Vice President Kamala Harris—have warned about. Trump has disregarded these concerns and pursued economically harmful policies. A worker tends to a vineyard in the southern France region of Provence, in October 2019. The tariff deal is expected to increase the cost of French wine in the U.S. Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at accounting-firm network RSM, told CNN after the latest announcement, “You’re going to pay more for your European imports. That’s what this means.” “These trade deals are all underwhelming for one simple reason: While trade barriers were a big deal in Trump’s youth, they’ve been tiny for decades. When tariffs are 1-2%, there’s not much to gain from a trade war,” Justin Wolfers, a University of Michigan economics professor, wrote on social media. “But you can do a lot of harm by charging Americans a 15% (or higher) import tax.” Despite his victory proclamation, Trump failed to secure an agreement from the E.U. to eliminate value-added taxes and digital taxes. Trump’s approach to trade runs contrary to the economic improvements experienced under the Biden administration. The tariffs he has imposed and negotiated increase prices for American consumers. The agreements have also been slammed by major American-based industries, like auto manufacturers, for giving foreign competitors a leg up over U.S. companies. Trump is desperate for wins after the bulk of his campaign promises have failed to materialize. His “big” tariff deal is more of the same and not a victory.

In the beginning, there was the name. A prophet guided Errol Musk to bestow it on his eldest son, or so he claimed. The seer was Wernher von Braun, a German engineer and an inspiration for Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove. Though von Braun had built missiles for Hitler and used concentration-camp prisoners for manual labor, the U.S. government recruited him, and eventually brought him to a base in Alabama and tasked him with sending men into orbit, then to the moon. Von Braun had always dreamed of venturing deeper into the galaxy. Back in 1949, before he emerged as the godfather of the American space program, he spilled his fantasies onto the page, in a novel titled Project Mars. He described how a new form of government would take hold on the red planet: a technocracy capable of the biggest and boldest things. At the helm of this Martian state would sit a supreme leader, known as the Elon. Whatever the truth of this origin story, Elon Musk has seized on von Braun’s prophecy as his destiny. Since the founding of SpaceX in 2002, his business decisions and political calculations have been made with a transcendent goal in mind: the moment when he carries the human species to a new homeland, a planet millions of miles away, where colonists will be insulated from the ravages of nuclear war, climate change, malevolent AI, and all the unforeseen disasters that will inevitably crush life on Earth. Far away from the old, broken planet, a libertarian utopia will flourish, under the beneficent sway of the Elon. This sense of destiny led Musk on October 5, 2024, to a Trump rally in western Pennsylvania. Wearing a gray T-shirt bearing the slogan OCCUPY MARS, Musk told the crowd that Trump “must win to preserve democracy in America.” Thanks to their alliance, Musk briefly achieved powers that few unelected Americans have ever possessed. As the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, he demolished large swaths of the federal government and began to remake the infrastructure of the state. For a few erratic months, he assumed the role of the terrestrial Elon. Five months into Trump’s second term, Musk’s inflated sense of his place in history clashed with the ego of his benefactor, the relationship ruptured, and each man threatened to ruin the other. Musk vowed that his spaceships would no longer carry Americans, or the supplies that sustain them, to the International Space Station. Trump threatened SpaceX’s federal contracts, reportedly worth $22 billion. Weeks later, they were still bludgeoning each other. In July, Trump mused that he might deport the South African–born Musk, who in turn impishly announced that he would bankroll a new third party. Both men are likely bluffing. Musk still needs the U.S. government to fund his grand designs. And the U.S. government very much needs Elon Musk. Last year, 95 percent of the rockets launched in the United States were launched by SpaceX. NASA was a mere passenger. Musk has crowded low Earth orbit with satellites (nearly 8,000) that are becoming indispensable to the military’s capacity to communicate and the government’s surveillance of hostile powers. Even if Trump had pushed to dislodge Musk, he couldn’t. No rival could readily replace the services his companies provide. [Read: American spaceflight is now in Elon Musk’s hands] That Musk has superseded NASA is a very American parable. A generation ago, NASA was the crown jewel of the U.S. government. It was created in 1958 to demonstrate the superiority of the American way of life, and it succeeded brilliantly. In the course of landing humans on the lunar surface, NASA became the symbol of America’s competence and swagger, of how it—alone among the nations of the Earth—inhabited the future. NASA’s astronauts were 20th-century cowboys, admired in corners of the world that usually abhorred Americans. The Apollo crews traveled to the heavens on behalf of “all mankind,” a phrase that appeared both in the act that created NASA and on the plaque left on the moon by Apollo 11. Even NASA’s engineers, with their skinny ties and rolled-up sleeves, became the stuff of Hollywood legend. The rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun. In his novel, Project Mars, he imagined humans traveling to the red planet. (Evening Standard / Getty) NASA was born at the height of liberalism’s faith in government, and its demise tracks the decline of that faith. As the United States lost confidence in its ability to accomplish great things, it turned to Musk as a potential savior, and ultimately surrendered to him. This isn’t an instance of crony capitalism, but a tale about well-meaning administrations, of both parties, pursuing grandiose ambitions without the vision, competence, or funding to realize them. If the highest goal of policy is efficiency, then all the money that the government has spent on SpaceX makes sense. Even the company’s most vituperative detractors acknowledge its engineering genius and applaud its success in driving down launch expenses (unlike many defense contractors, SpaceX largely eats the cost of its failures). But in the course of bolstering Musk, in privatizing a public good, the government has allowed one billionaire to hold excessive sway. With the flick of a switch, he now has the power to shut down constellations of satellites, to isolate a nation, to hobble the operations of an entire army. Because of Musk’s indispensability, his values have come to dominate America’s aspirations in space, draining the lyricism from the old NASA mission. Space was once a realm of cooperation, beyond commercial interests and military pursuits. Now it is the site of military brinkmanship and a source of raw materials that nations hope to plunder. The humanistic pursuit of the mysteries of the universe has been replaced by an obsession with rocket power. Musk wants to use his influence to impose the improbable endeavor of Mars colonization on the nation, enriching him as it depletes its own coffers. In the vacuum left by a nation’s faded ambitions, Musk’s delusions of destiny