[image: image.png] opening thoughts*:**From dread to action: Tracking the Trump-Musk death toll from cuts to USAID **A researcher at Boston University is keeping tabs on deaths likely caused by dismantling U.S. foreign aid programs* www.salon.com/2025/04/26/from-dread-to-action-cuts-to-usaid-spurred-one-researcher-to-begin-tracking-the-impact/
At the outset of the United States’ freeze on billions of dollars in foreign aid, Brooke Nichols thought President Donald Trump <www.salon.com/topic/donald_trump> would never cut funding to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a $6.5 billion program that supplies most of the HIV treatment drugs in low-income countries across the world. PEPFAR <www.salon.com/2025/02/28/our-progress-in-ending-the-hivaids-epidemic-shows-the-importance-of-support/> saves too many lives, the global health expert recalled thinking, he couldn’t possibly touch it.But the Trump administration soon did. Dread then set in.”I immediately knew what the impact was,” Nichols, a Boston University associate professor of global health and infectious disease mathematical modeller, told Salon in a video call. “If you don’t have that funding, and it just disappears overnight, people die.”Nichols said she wracked her brain over how she could make clear to others just how devastating the cuts to U.S. foreign aid would be for the world. How could she impart how outrageous the Trump administration’s decision was — and how outraged everyone should be?Then an idea came to her during a run: create a model tracking the human impact, including the inevitable increase in HIV/AIDS infection and transmission and the subsequent rise in otherwise preventable deaths. HIV response research was one of her first professional focuses when she got her start in 2008, so the effort came naturally, the Amsterdam-based mathematical modeler said.The first version of her model, now a web dashboard focused on multiple diseases called theImpact Counter <www.impactcounter.com/dashboard?view=table&sort=funding_status&order=asc> estimating the death tolls caused by the funding freezes, terminations and the effective elimination of the U.S. Agency for International Development, would go live on Jan. 28. The hope, Nichols said, was that it would resonate with others and galvanize them to advocate for the government to change course. “I hope that people can feel the numbers because I know there’s a subset of people that understand and ‘feel’ numbers, that these are people,” she said. “To a lot of people, numbers are just numbers, and without stories around them, it’s really hard to engage with what those mean. But because I’m a numbers person, I’m speaking to the numbers people, and I hope that all the people that visit the site or engage with the work can feel the gravity of what’s happening.”On the first day of his presidency, Trump signed an executive order <www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/reevaluating-and-realigning-united-states-foreign-aid/> establishing a 90-day, program-by-program review of foreign assistance programs to determine which would continue, bringing funding for foreign assistance to a screeching halt. Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency also forced out the majority of USAID employees, reducing <www.nytimes.com/2025/03/28/us/politics/usaid-trump-doge-cuts.html> its staff to just 15 legally required positions and folding it into the State Department as part of the administration’s concerted effort to shrink the size of the federal government. Aid organizations dependent on U.S. funding felt the fallout immediately, including largely successful programs that contained outbreaks of Ebola and saved more than 20 million people through HIV and AIDS treatment. Musk and Trump have both characterized USAID projects as a waste of money that push a liberal agenda. As of Friday afternoon, the Impact Counter estimates that the funding discontinuation and terminations will result in 70,856 adult deaths and 147,852 child deaths at a combined rate of 103 deaths per hour. The PEPFAR-related counters, which reflect the number of adult and child deaths to date since funding disruption earlier this year, estimate nearly 40,000 additional adult HIV deaths and just over 4,000 additional infant HIV deaths. Those numbers are projected to reach nearly 159,300 and 16,954 deaths, respectively, after one year. In the face of such anticipated loss at the hands of her native government, Nichols said she’s battling a “general feeling of powerlessness” not unlike other Americans, particularly those on the left. But she said creating the Impact Counter is her way of attempting to fight back
part one: Antisemitism reaches 45-year high in US. It’s ‘the canary in the coal mine.’
Sophie Hills is the Monitor’s faith and religion writer, focusing on the intersection of religion and politics, culture, and ideas. She’s based in Washington, D.C.
part two: The FBI Arrests a Milwaukee Judge in “a Whole New Descent Into Government Chaos” Trump’s escalation in the struggle between the courts and his administration sent shock waves through Milwaukee and beyond.
John Nichols is a national affairs correspondent for *The Nation*. He has written, cowritten, or edited over a dozen books on topics ranging from histories of American socialism and the Democratic Party to analyses of US and global media systems. His latest, cowritten with Senator Bernie Sanders, is the *New York Times* bestseller *It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism* <www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/667864/its-ok-to-be-angry-about-capitalism-by-bernie-sanders-with-john-nichols/> .
Listen online at www.wnhnfm.org/live. Listen anytime to the podcast at www.podomatic.com/podcasts/staff74238 <www.podomatic.com/podcasts/staff74238> podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/attitude-with-arnie-arnesen/id1634055179 tunein.com/podcasts/News–Politics-Podcasts/Attitude-with-Arnie- <tunein.com/podcasts/News–Politics-Podcasts/Attitude-with-Arnie-Arnesen-p1711842/> Arnesen-p1711842/ <tunein.com/podcasts/News–Politics-Podcasts/Attitude-with-Arnie-Arnesen-p1711842/> Attitude with Arnie Arnesen, Trump-Musk, the Impact Counter, USAID, AIDS, Brooke Nichols, death, Sophie Hills, CSMonitor, Antisemitism, John Nichols, The Nation, Milwaukee Judge, arrested ICE, FBI
At the outset of the United States’ freeze on billions of dollars in foreign aid, Brooke Nichols thought President Donald Trump <www.salon.com/topic/donald_trump> would never cut funding to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a $6.5 billion program that supplies most of the HIV treatment drugs in low-income countries across the world. PEPFAR <www.salon.com/2025/02/28/our-progress-in-ending-the-hivaids-epidemic-shows-the-importance-of-support/> saves too many lives, the global health expert recalled thinking, he couldn’t possibly touch it.But the Trump administration soon did. Dread then set in.”I immediately knew what the impact was,” Nichols, a Boston University associate professor of global health and infectious disease mathematical modeller, told Salon in a video call. “If you don’t have that funding, and it just disappears overnight, people die.”Nichols said she wracked her brain over how she could make clear to others just how devastating the cuts to U.S. foreign aid would be for the world. How could she impart how outrageous the Trump administration’s decision was — and how outraged everyone should be?Then an idea came to her during a run: create a model tracking the human impact, including the inevitable increase in HIV/AIDS infection and transmission and the subsequent rise in otherwise preventable deaths. HIV response research was one of her first professional focuses when she got her start in 2008, so the effort came naturally, the Amsterdam-based mathematical modeler said.The first version of her model, now a web dashboard focused on multiple diseases called theImpact Counter <www.impactcounter.com/dashboard?view=table&sort=funding_status&order=asc> estimating the death tolls caused by the funding freezes, terminations and the effective elimination of the U.S. Agency for International Development, would go live on Jan. 28. The hope, Nichols said, was that it would resonate with others and galvanize them to advocate for the government to change course. “I hope that people can feel the numbers because I know there’s a subset of people that understand and ‘feel’ numbers, that these are people,” she said. “To a lot of people, numbers are just numbers, and without stories around them, it’s really hard to engage with what those mean. But because I’m a numbers person, I’m speaking to the numbers people, and I hope that all the people that visit the site or engage with the work can feel the gravity of what’s happening.”On the first day of his presidency, Trump signed an executive order <www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/reevaluating-and-realigning-united-states-foreign-aid/> establishing a 90-day, program-by-program review of foreign assistance programs to determine which would continue, bringing funding for foreign assistance to a screeching halt. Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency also forced out the majority of USAID employees, reducing <www.nytimes.com/2025/03/28/us/politics/usaid-trump-doge-cuts.html> its staff to just 15 legally required positions and folding it into the State Department as part of the administration’s concerted effort to shrink the size of the federal government. Aid organizations dependent on U.S. funding felt the fallout immediately, including largely successful programs that contained outbreaks of Ebola and saved more than 20 million people through HIV and AIDS treatment. Musk and Trump have both characterized USAID projects as a waste of money that push a liberal agenda. As of Friday afternoon, the Impact Counter estimates that the funding discontinuation and terminations will result in 70,856 adult deaths and 147,852 child deaths at a combined rate of 103 deaths per hour. The PEPFAR-related counters, which reflect the number of adult and child deaths to date since funding disruption earlier this year, estimate nearly 40,000 additional adult HIV deaths and just over 4,000 additional infant HIV deaths. Those numbers are projected to reach nearly 159,300 and 16,954 deaths, respectively, after one year. In the face of such anticipated loss at the hands of her native government, Nichols said she’s battling a “general feeling of powerlessness” not unlike other Americans, particularly those on the left. But she said creating the Impact Counter is her way of attempting to fight back
part one: Antisemitism reaches 45-year high in US. It’s ‘the canary in the coal mine.’
Sophie Hills is the Monitor’s faith and religion writer, focusing on the intersection of religion and politics, culture, and ideas. She’s based in Washington, D.C.
part two: The FBI Arrests a Milwaukee Judge in “a Whole New Descent Into Government Chaos” Trump’s escalation in the struggle between the courts and his administration sent shock waves through Milwaukee and beyond.
John Nichols is a national affairs correspondent for *The Nation*. He has written, cowritten, or edited over a dozen books on topics ranging from histories of American socialism and the Democratic Party to analyses of US and global media systems. His latest, cowritten with Senator Bernie Sanders, is the *New York Times* bestseller *It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism* <www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/667864/its-ok-to-be-angry-about-capitalism-by-bernie-sanders-with-john-nichols/> .
Listen online at www.wnhnfm.org/live. Listen anytime to the podcast at www.podomatic.com/podcasts/staff74238 <www.podomatic.com/podcasts/staff74238> podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/attitude-with-arnie-arnesen/id1634055179 tunein.com/podcasts/News–Politics-Podcasts/Attitude-with-Arnie- <tunein.com/podcasts/News–Politics-Podcasts/Attitude-with-Arnie-Arnesen-p1711842/> Arnesen-p1711842/ <tunein.com/podcasts/News–Politics-Podcasts/Attitude-with-Arnie-Arnesen-p1711842/> Attitude with Arnie Arnesen, Trump-Musk, the Impact Counter, USAID, AIDS, Brooke Nichols, death, Sophie Hills, CSMonitor, Antisemitism, John Nichols, The Nation, Milwaukee Judge, arrested ICE, FBI
