On today’s show: The speed at which Trump and Elon Musk have dismantled USAID has shocked people on both sides of the aisle. The Atlantic’s Russell Berman explains why. Trump’s new budget chief was previously one of the architects of Project 2025. Politico White House reporter Megan Messerly discusses how, despite Trump’s repeated disavowal of the controversial policy plan during the campaign, we’re already seeing much of it unfolding. Worries over bird flu are growing after the deaths of several birds at New York City zoos. NBC News reports on the precautions being taken. NPR also reports on why bird flu is affecting prices of eggs but not, for example, chicken wings. Plus, Trump announced new tariffs on aluminum and steel imports, the Philadelphia Eagles are Super Bowl LIX champions, and Kendrick Lamar’s triumphant halftime performance.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of this episode?
Good morning. It's Monday, February 10th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today. On today's show, a key architect of Project 2025 has a big role in Trump's cabinet. Why Super Bowl chicken wings are cheap as egg prices skyrocket. And a night the Chiefs and Drake may never recover from.
But first, President Trump on Sunday gave an interview with Fox News' Brett Baier and discussed Elon Musk's efforts to cut back on what they see as government waste.
I told him do that. Then I'm going to tell him very soon, like maybe in 24 hours, to go check the Department of Education. He's going to find the same thing. Then I'm going to go to the military. Let's check the military. We're going to find billions, hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse. And, you know, the people elected me on that.
So far, Trump and Musk have moved to freeze most foreign aid for 90 days and reduce USAID's workforce of 10,000-plus to around 600 people. On Friday afternoon, a district judge nominated by Trump temporarily halted those plans until a hearing later this week. But that didn't stop the Trump administration from sending crews over to the agency headquarters to remove their name from the building.
Chapter 2: How has Trump and Musk's approach affected USAID?
As we've mentioned on this show before, USAID provides about 40 percent of the world's humanitarian aid. While some conservatives have grown increasingly critical of sending American aid abroad, The Atlantic's Russell Berman told us people on both sides of the aisle have been surprised.
So the speed with which Donald Trump and Elon Musk are dismantling USAID has been shocking to supporters and critics, pretty much everyone. And there have been attempts over the years to either reduce or to abolish USAID in the past. What Trump is doing is going way beyond even the most conservative or most aggressive proposals that were made for USAID.
Musk, in his role as chair of the Department of Government Efficiency, has referred to USAID as a criminal organization and said that he was, quote, feeding USAID into the woodchipper. Last week, White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt listed some examples of expenditures by USAID that she says prove that it's full of waste and corruption.
Chapter 3: What are the controversies surrounding USAID's expenditures?
These are some of the insane priorities that that organization has been spending money on. $1.5 million to advance DEI in Serbia's workplaces. $70,000 for a production of a DEI musical in Ireland. $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia. $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru. I don't know about you, but as an American taxpayer, I don't want my dollars going towards this crap.
The Washington Post and PolitiFact have fact-checked those claims. It is true that USAID provided $1.5 million to a group in Serbia to reduce discrimination against the country's LGBTQ community, but the $70,000 for a DEI musical in Ireland is false. That grant came from the State Department, not USAID, and it went toward a music festival, not a musical, to, quote, promote the U.S.
and Irish shared values of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. As for the opera in Colombia, that money also came from the State Department, not USAID. And the Fulbright program, not USAID, provided the grant that went to the comic book in Peru, which more broadly featured an LGBTQ plus character. Meanwhile, President Trump claimed USAID gave $8 million to Politico.
This is also not true. Staffers at USAID spent $40,000 on Politico subscriptions. In surveys, Americans believe the U.S. spends roughly 25% of our budget on foreign aid. The truth is, foreign aid is less than 1% of our budget. And The Washington Post reports that American farms supply about 41% of the food aid that USAID sends around the world each year.
In raw numbers, that totaled more than $2 billion in food bought from American farmers in 2020. So the impacts of the cuts would be felt here at home as well. Even Trump's own Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has been outspoken in the past about the need to maintain America's foreign aid and the influence that comes with doing so. Here he is speaking in February of 2013, for example.
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Chapter 4: Why is foreign aid important to the US?
We don't have to give foreign aid. We do so because it furthers our national interests. That's why we give foreign aid. Now, obviously, there's a component to foreign aid that's humanitarian in scope, and that's important, too.
And here's Rubio again in August of 2019.
Anybody who tells you that we can slash foreign aid and that will bring us to balance is lying to you. Foreign aid is less than 1% of our budget.
So we asked the Atlantic's Russell Berman, why does the Trump administration see it as advantageous to slash USAID?
I think the reason why they're going after it is because in the huge federal bureaucracy, it's kind of low-hanging fruit. People in the United States outside of the Washington, D.C. area are not going to be as hurt by cuts to foreign aid, which by definition go abroad. I think the other thing that they want to do is show that they can invest. enact major changes without Congress.
And so they're just, to quote a phrase that's been used a lot lately, trying to move fast and break things.
It's unclear if the courts will allow these cuts to go forward. A recent paper published by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service says USAID cannot be moved, abolished or consolidated without approval from Congress. But Trump's allies say the Constitution allows Trump to gut this agency and that it's the courts, not the president, who are overstepping by trying to stop him.
Just this weekend, Vice President J.D. Vance said on social media judges are not allowed to, quote, control the executive's legitimate power. Here's a name of a recent cabinet appointment that you should know. Russ Vogt, who was confirmed last week as the director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Vogt served in this role for two years during Trump's first term, during which time he froze military aid to Ukraine and delayed funding for Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria. And while the budget office isn't as glamorous as some of the other departments we've talked a lot about, it has a tremendous amount of power.
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Chapter 5: Why is Russ Vogt's appointment significant?
He authored Chapter 2 on the executive office of the president, where he really lays out clearly his theory of executive branch power and his vision for sort of testing the limits of that power.
That's Megan Messerly, White House reporter for Politico.
I think this is one of the clearest examples. I mean, we saw Democrats in the run-up to the confirmation vote, you know, just bring up Project 2025 again and again, saying, you know, this is one of Project 2025's authors. We warned you about Project 2025. Now this is coming to fruition with votes, confirmations.
Though Trump repeatedly said on the campaign trail that he had nothing to do with Project 2025.
I haven't read it. I don't want to read it purposely. I'm not going to read it.
Messerly says we're already seeing so much of it unfolding.
We've seen this massive effort already to reshape the federal government. It really runs the gamut here, even just within social issues, school choice, banning transgender troops from serving in the military, ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs. You know, these are all things that are in Project 2025.
Some of the other goals laid out in Project 2025, disbanding the commerce and education departments, undoing climate protections, and redefining marriage and family according to the Bible. During the 2024 presidential campaign, these ideas polled extremely unpopular with voters. In fact, an NBC News poll from last September found that just 4% of voters viewed the plan favorably.
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Chapter 6: What is Project 2025 and its implications?
Last week, every Democrat in the Senate voted against votes nomination. All 53 Republicans voted to confirm, with Politico reporting that Republicans in both chambers are feeling enthusiastic about vote and his ability to enact Trump's agenda.
The day after he was confirmed by the Senate, the Trump administration tapped vote to be acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and his first email to the staff instructed them to stop work immediately. He has since said the bureau will be closed for at least a week.
The CFPB is a watchdog agency intended to look out for American consumers and shield them from misleading or fraudulent practices by banks, credit cards or loan agencies. Just a few weeks ago, before Trump took office, the CFPB sued Capital One, alleging the bank cheated customers out of $2 billion by underpaying the interest on savings accounts. Capital One says it disagrees with the claims.
It's estimated that 1.47 billion chicken wings were consumed over Super Bowl weekend, according to the National Chicken Council, which led NPR to ask the very good question with bird flu going around. How come we're seeing such high prices on eggs, but not the same kind of scarcity with chicken wings?
Well, as it turns out, it's because chickens raised for meat live on different farms than the chickens raised for laying eggs. And even though the chickens that become our wings aren't immune from bird flu, they haven't been hit as hard by the current outbreak. The farmers who raise eggs, on the other hand, are scrambling.
Here's one farmer who has a flock of 14 million egg-laying hens across three states speaking to NPR.
Egg farmers are in the fight of their lives to keep this disease at bay, to keep our hens safe, and to keep eggs coming. We know it's frustrating for consumers who want to go and buy eggs at the prices they've been used to.
That farmer told NPR that it can take six months to a year to recover after a flock of hens is wiped out from bird flu. So far, there are no signs of bird flu easing up. In fact, it seems to be spreading. Last week, we learned that a new strain of bird flu has infected dairy cows in Nevada. And this weekend, bird flu was detected in poultry markets in New York City.
Here's Elizabeth Walters, deputy commissioner for the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets, addressing the outbreak.
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