P.M. Edition for Mar. 27. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced 10,000 job cuts across the department. We speak with WSJ health reporter Liz Essley Whyte about the cuts’ impact. Plus, energy security in the U.S. was once all about oil—now, it’s about electricity. WSJ chief economics commentator Greg Ip discusses what that means for economic growth. And U.S. stocks end the day lower as investors react to President Trump’s automotive tariffs. Alex Ossola hosts. The Ford Executive Who Kept Score of Colleagues’ Verbal Flubs Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are the major changes announced by RFK Jr. for U.S. health agencies?
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announces 10,000 job cuts and a major restructuring of the Department of Health and Human Services. Plus, U.S. economic growth now depends on electricity.
Electricity is almost a purely domestically sourced energy supply. And it's also very diverse. Because of these many different modes of electricity, there's no maximal exposure to disruptions in any single mode.
And U.S. stocks end lower as President Trump's planned tariffs rattle the auto industry. It's Thursday, March 27th. I'm Alex Osola for The Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he will cut 10,000 jobs from the Health and Human Services Department that he leads.
Chapter 2: Who will be affected by the job cuts at HHS?
It's a move that will reshape the nation's health agencies and close regional offices. These worker cuts, in addition to the roughly 10,000 voluntary departures since President Trump took office, mean that the department will shed about one quarter of its workforce. For more, health reporter Liz Esley White joins me now from Washington. Liz, who will be affected by these cuts?
It'll be workers from across the Department of Health and Human Services, including thousands from the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And we're not quite sure how this will play out. Kennedy has said this will not affect essential health services, but definitely people involved in the work there are worried.
Democrats and the union are coming out and saying this will definitely affect health services just because it will slow down the people who do drug approvals and who respond to outbreaks because they'll have less tech support or less external communication support. What does this tell us about Kennedy's broader goal for HHS?
Chapter 3: What are the broader goals of RFK Jr.'s restructuring of HHS?
This is in keeping with a lot of criticism that Kennedy has leveled against HHS even before becoming secretary. One of his tweets last fall told FDA workers to pack your bags. And now they're facing some of the biggest cuts in this big reorganization. Also is very focused on fighting chronic disease.
And part of what he's doing is combining several offices into a new administration for a healthy America that he says will help fight chronic disease and make Americans healthier overall. One of the really key parts of this is that Kennedy would like to centralize the agency's comms, I.T., procurement, H.R., policy planning. Kennedy is saying that makes HHS really inefficient.
And it seems like FDA and CDC are going to bear a big portion of these cuts. FDA is poised to lose nearly 20 percent of its workforce under the proposed cuts and CDC a similar percentage. That was WSJ Health reporter Liz Esley-White. Thank you, Liz. Thank you so much.
Chapter 4: How are President Trump's tariffs impacting the auto industry?
New data out today from the National Association of Realtors shows that the number of homes going under contract in the U.S. rose 2% in February, a little faster than economists expected, but still lagging behind last year's levels. And the U.S. Commerce Department revised its fourth quarter GDP growth figure to 2.4%, up from a previous estimate of 2.3%.
The first official estimate of first quarter GDP growth, which most economists expect to come in below 2%, comes April 30th. U.S. markets are still reacting to President Trump's announcement yesterday that he would impose 25 percent tariffs on automotive imports to the U.S. Foreign trading partners hit back.
The European Union vowed a robust response, while Mexico's president said discussion, collaboration and negotiation were still possible. Last night, the U.S. president threatened even more tariffs. In a social media post, he warned that if the European Union and Canada work together to harm the U.S. economically, they would face levies that were, quote, far larger than currently planned.
Shares in carmakers such as General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis sank, alongside international rivals like BMW, Toyota, and Hyundai. Major U.S. indexes ended the day slightly lower. The S&P 500 fell about 0.3 percent, the Dow dipped roughly 0.4 percent, and the Nasdaq dropped about half a percent. The White House is pulling the nomination of Representative Elise Stefanik for U.S.
Ambassador to the United Nations. In a post on Truth Social, President Trump said he asked Stefanik to stay in Congress to help pass his agenda. If she left the House, it would trigger a special election in the New York district she represents, which would put Republicans' tight majority at risk.
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Chapter 5: Why is energy security shifting from oil to electricity in the U.S.?
Britain and France are faltering in their campaign to persuade other European allies to send troops into Ukraine to secure a peace deal, as doubts grow about the U.S. 's willingness to guarantee their security. French President Emmanuel Macron convened dozens of leaders today in a bid to hammer out an agreement for a European deployment of land, air, and maritime forces that could go into Ukraine.
But he emerged from hours of negotiations without a public commitment from other European countries to send troops. Coming up, move aside, oil. The future of the U.S. 's energy security is all about electricity. That's after the break. For a long time in the U.S., energy security meant shoring up our supply of oil.
The country wanted as much stability as possible because an interruption to supply from wars, disasters or political convulsions could cause chaos. But as WSJ chief economics commentator Greg Ips says, the future of energy security means electricity.
That will be especially true as the demand for electricity grows from things like data centers, new factories, and the gradual electrification of everything from cars to home heating. Greg is here to tell us more. So, Greg, where does most of this electricity come from in the U.S. ?
Chapter 6: What are the primary sources of electricity in the U.S.?
Almost all of it comes from domestic sources, sources like renewables, wind, and especially solar, which has become very, very important. There's a lot of excitement about new nuclear technologies that are on the drawing board. Geothermal, also another potential area of expansion. What's interesting about electricity is that unlike oil, which is very much a global market,
And therefore, we are in some sense vulnerable to global developments. Electricity is almost a purely domestically sourced energy supply. And it's also very diverse. Because of these many different modes of electricity, there's no maximal exposure to disruptions in any single mode.
Given that most of the sources are domestic now, what does energy security look like for electricity?
Well, the economics of electricity are very different from the economics of oil. With oil and to some extent natural gas, when it's burned for heating, for example, most of the cost involves the fuel itself. But with electricity, most of the cost is the infrastructure involved in generating and transmitting it. And so electricity is a very capital intensive form of energy relative to oil.
And that means you have long lead times and enormous capital demands. And that's especially important right now because the central point of my column is that we are seeing much faster rates of growth in electricity demand in coming years than we've seen in many decades. And that means that we need to have in place these capital intensive infrastructure
arrangements to make sure that we have the capacity to generate that electricity.
What are electricity providers in particular doing to secure the supply?
All of them are aware of these needs that are coming along. So they're filing with regulators plans to build more generating capacity, but you're seeing other arrangements coming along as well. So big users of electricity like Google and Amazon and Microsoft are building co-location agreements.
Instead of simply building a data center and then buying their electricity off the grid, they're actually making arrangements with like nuclear power plants to have direct access to that power.
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