Republican Hypocrisy Reaches Into the Countryside
President Trump won his second term in office with the overwhelming support of rural America.
Not only was overall turnout up in the nation's rural counties, but Trump won many of those areas by more than two-to-one. And while it is a little too much to say that Trump's dominance with rural voters delivered him the White House, it is true that without this over-performance, his path to victory would have been harder.
Given the importance of rural voters to his political coalition — and that of any Republican who hopes to follow in his footsteps — you might assume that Trump would prioritize the interests of rural voters. This is, after all, what you're supposed to do in a democracy: reward your supporters for their support.
Not so for Trump and his Republican allies in Congress. If anything, their agenda is calibrated to devastate rural America.
Consider the budget proposal now making its way through the House of Representatives. To pay for their $3.8 trillion tax plan, which includes possibly trillions in tax cuts and extensions for the wealthiest Americans, Republicans want to cut $700 billion from Medicaid and other federal health programs. If passed into law, these cuts — some which come in the form of work requirements for Medicaid — could cause as many as 8.6 million Americans to lose their health insurance.
Some prominent Republicans may see many of these Medicaid recipients as adult layabouts, but it's more likely that these cuts will affect low-income children, seniors and Americans with disabilities, who rely on Medicaid for health and home care.
But the big point I want to make is that, as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities notes, rural areas in particular depend on Medicaid spending. Nearly half of all children in rural areas, 47 percent, receive health insurance through Medicaid. Rural hospitals, which have struggled to stay afloat in the face of broad and overlapping challenges, also rely on Medicaid to stay open and provide needed services to isolated areas.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
News24
29 minutes ago
- News24
'Very disappointed' Trump in stunning live break-up with Musk
Trump says he is 'very disappointed' in Elon Musk after criticism of his tax and spending bill. Musk hits back on X, calling Trump 'ungrateful' and claiming he helped him win the 2024 election. Tesla shares drop 8% as public fallout between the two billionaires rattles markets. Tensions between Donald Trump and Elon Musk exploded into public view on Thursday, as the US president said he was 'very disappointed' by his billionaire former aide's criticisms and Musk hit back in real time on social media. 'Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will anymore,' Trump told reporters in the Oval Office after Musk slammed his tax and spending mega-bill as an 'abomination'. The world's richest man responded by live-tweeting on his X social media platform as Trump spoke on television, saying that the Republican would not have won the 2024 election without him and slamming him for 'ingratitude.' Where is the man who wrote these words? Was he replaced by a body double!? — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 5, 2025 In an extraordinary rant as visiting German Chancellor Friedrich Merz sat mutely beside him, 78-year-old Trump unloaded on SpaceX and Tesla boss Musk in his first comments on the issue. 'I'm very disappointed, because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here... All of a sudden, he had a problem,' Trump said when asked about Musk. The clash comes less than a week since Trump held a grand Oval Office farewell for Musk as he wrapped up his time leading the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). South African-born Musk, 53, hit back minutes later, saying Trump's claims he had advance sight of the bill were 'false.' 'Whatever,' he added above a video of Trump saying Musk was upset about the loss of subsidies for electric vehicles. Whatever. Keep the EV/solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil & gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), but ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill. In the entire history of civilization, there has never been legislation that both big and beautiful.… — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 5, 2025 Musk then ratcheted up the public spat even further, saying the Republican would have lost the election without his support. He was the biggest donor to Trump's campaign, to the tune of nearly $300 million. 'Without me, Trump would have lost the election,' Musk said on X. 'Such ingratitude.' Tesla shares fell sharply on Wall Street, down 8%, after his comments, in a sign of the huge stakes for a falling out between the world's richest man and its most powerful. 'A little make-up?' A wistful-sounding Trump took reporters through the break-up with Musk on live television, in what at times sounded more like a therapy session than a meeting with a foreign leader. Trump talked about Musk's farewell appearance in the Oval Office on Friday, when he turned up with a black eye that he said was caused by a punch from his son. Musk, at the time, was also facing reports of drug use on the Trump campaign trail. 'You saw a man who was very happy when he stood behind the Oval desk, and even with the black eye. I said, you want a little makeup? We'll get you a little makeup,' Trump said. 'But he said, 'No, I don't think so,' which is interesting and very nice. He wants to be who he is.' Trump said he could understand why Musk was upset with some of the steps he had taken, including withdrawing a nominee to lead the NASA space agency, which the tech tycoon had backed. Through it all, the visiting German chancellor sat silently. Merz had prepared to avoid a repeat of the ambushes that Trump unleashed on the Ukrainian and South African presidents in the Oval Office - but in the end it was Musk that the US president ambushed. At the center of the bitter row is Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' on tax and spending. The centrepiece of his domestic agenda, it aims to continue tax cuts from his first term - and could define his second term and make or break Republican prospects in the 2026 midterm elections. Musk, however, called it a 'disgusting abomination' on Tuesday on the grounds that it will increase the US deficit. A day later, the magnate called for Republicans to 'kill the bill,' and for an alternative plan that 'doesn't massively grow the deficit.'
Chicago Tribune
32 minutes ago
- Chicago Tribune
Supreme Court makes it easier to claim ‘reverse discrimination' in employment, in a case from Ohio
WASHINGTON — A unanimous Supreme Court made it easier Thursday to bring lawsuits over so-called reverse discrimination, siding with an Ohio woman who claims she didn't get a job and then was demoted because she is straight. The justices' decision affects lawsuits in 20 states and the District of Columbia where, until now, courts had set a higher bar when members of a majority group, including those who are white and heterosexual, sue for discrimination under federal law. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote for the court that federal civil rights law draws no distinction between members of majority and minority groups. 'By establishing the same protections for every 'individual' — without regard to that individual's membership in a minority or majority group — Congress left no room for courts to impose special requirements on majority-group plaintiffs alone,' Jackson wrote. The court ruled in an appeal from Marlean Ames, who has worked for the Ohio Department of Youth Services for more than 20 years. Though he joined Jackson's opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas noted in a separate opinion that some of the country's 'largest and most prestigious employers have overtly discriminated against those they deem members of so-called majority groups.' Thomas, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, cited a brief filed by America First Legal, a conservative group founded by Trump aide Stephen Miller, to assert that 'American employers have long been 'obsessed' with 'diversity, equity, and inclusion' initiatives and affirmative action plans.' Two years ago, the court's conservative majority outlawed consideration of race in university admissions. Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has ordered an end to DEI policies in the federal government and has sought to end government support for DEI programs elsewhere. Some of the new administration's anti-DEI initiatives have been temporarily blocked in federal court. Jackson's opinion makes no mention of DEI. Instead, she focused on Ames' contention that she was passed over for a promotion and then demoted because she is heterosexual. Both the job she sought and the one she had held were given to LGBTQ people. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars sex discrimination in the workplace. A trial court and the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Ames. The 6th circuit is among the courts that had required an additional requirement for people like Ames, showing 'background circumstances' that might include that LGBTQ people made the decisions affecting Ames or statistical evidence of a pattern of discrimination against members of the majority group. The appeals court noted that Ames didn't provide any such circumstances. But Jackson wrote that 'this additional 'background circumstances' requirement is not consistent with Title VII's text or our case law construing the statute.'
Washington Post
32 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Top US universities raced to become global campuses. Under Trump, it's becoming a liability
WASHINGTON — Three decades ago, foreign students at Harvard University accounted for just 11% of the total student body. Today, they account for 26%. Like other prestigious U.S. universities, Harvard for years has been cashing in on its global cache to recruit the world's best students. Now, the booming international enrollment has left colleges vulnerable to a new line of attack from President Donald Trump. The president has begun to use his control over the nation's borders as leverage in his fight to reshape American higher education. Trump's latest salvo against Harvard uses a broad federal law to bar foreign students from entering the country to attend the campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His order applies only to Harvard, but it poses a threat to other universities his administration has targeted as hotbeds of liberalism in need of reform. It's rattling campuses under federal scrutiny, including Columbia University , where foreign students make up 40% of the campus. As the Trump administration stepped up reviews of new student visas last week, a group of Columbia faculty and alumni raised concerns over Trump's gatekeeping powers. 'Columbia's exposure to this 'stroke of pen' risk is uniquely high,' the Stand Columbia Society wrote in a newsletter. People from other countries made up about 6% of all college students in the U.S. in 2023, but they accounted for 27% of the eight schools in the Ivy League, according to an Associated Press analysis of Education Department data. Columbia's 40% was the largest concentration, followed by Harvard and Cornell at about 25%. Brown University had the smallest share at 20%. Other highly selective private universities have seen similar trends, including at Northeastern University and New York University, which each saw foreign enrollment double between 2013 and 2023. Growth at public universities has been more muted. Even at the 50 most selective public schools, foreign students account for about 11% of the student body. America's universities have been widening their doors to foreign students for decades, but the numbers shot upward starting around 2008, as Chinese students came to U.S. universities in rising numbers. It was part of a 'gold rush' in higher education, said William Brustein, who orchestrated the international expansion of several universities. 'Whether you were private or you were public, you had to be out in front in terms of being able to claim you were the most global university,' said Brustein, who led efforts at Ohio State University and West Virginia University. The race was driven in part by economics, he said. Foreign students typically aren't eligible for financial aid, and at some schools they pay two or three times the tuition rate charged to U.S. students. Colleges also were eyeing global rankings that gave schools a boost if they recruited larger numbers of foreign students and scholars, he said. But the expansion wasn't equal across all types of colleges — public universities often face pressure from state lawmakers to limit foreign enrollment and keep more seats open for state residents. Private universities don't face that pressure, and many aggressively recruited foreign students as their numbers of U.S. students stayed flat. The college-going rate among American students has changed little for decades, and some have been turned off on college by the rising costs and student debt loads. Proponents of international exchange say foreign students pour billions of dollars into the U.S. economy, and many go on to support the nation's tech industry and other fields in need of skilled workers. Most international students study the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and math. In the Ivy League, most international growth has been at the graduate level, while undergraduate numbers have seen more modest increases. Foreign graduate students make up more than half the students at Harvard's government and design schools, along with five of Columbia's schools. The Ivy League has been able to outpace other schools in large part because of its reputation, Brustein said. He recalls trips to China and India, where he spoke with families that could recite where each Ivy League school sat in world rankings. 'That was the golden calf for these families. They really thought, 'If we could just get into these schools, the rest of our lives would be on easy street,'' he said. Last week, Trump said he thought Harvard should cap its foreign students to about 15%. 'We have people who want to go to Harvard and other schools, they can't get in because we have foreign students there,' Trump said at a news conference. The university called Trump's latest action banning entry into the country to attend Harvard 'yet another illegal retaliatory step taken by the Administration in violation of Harvard's First Amendment rights.' In a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's previous attempt to block international students at Harvard, the university said its foreign student population was the result of 'a painstaking, decades-long project' to attract the most qualified international students. Losing access to student visas would immediately harm the school's mission and reputation, it said. 'In our interconnected global economy,' the school said, 'a university that cannot welcome students from all corners of the world is at a competitive disadvantage.' ___ The Associated Press' education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
