Maddow: The bill comes due for Trump's bad decisions

You know, you live long enough, you realize that there are some days, there are some times when the bill comes due.You know, you've done things in the past, perhaps ill -advised things you kind of knew at the time weren't a good idea, and sometimes you are able to skate by for a little while, you get away with that stuff for a little while, but eventually you learn in this life that the bill comes due.

We're having one of those times in the news right now.So, for example, when we as a country elected this president, he decided, in his infinite wisdom, that he would immediately allow his top campaign donor, Elon Musk, to cut whole swaths of U .S.government capacity based on nothing but Elon Musk's own say -so and his gut feelings.So things that took decades, if not generations, to build up, some of these things, the gold standard government capacity for the whole world, President Donald Trump just said, hey, you're my top campaign donor as far as I'm concerned.That gives you the right to sledgehammer the U .

S.government to your heart's content.I don't care.You enjoy yourself.And that is how thousands of subject matter experts and, you know, forest rangers and specialist lawyers and prosecutors and scientists, and, and, and.It's how all these people lost their jobs and their careers in the U .

S.government.But it's also how we as a country lost things like, say, a project that had been funded, that was shovel -ready, expertly planned, much needed, ready to go, a project to build fire breaks.in the Superior National Forest in Minnesota.Elon Musk and Donald Trump did not care enough or were not bright enough to understand what a project like that might conceivably be for, and so they ixnayed it.

You know, even as Trump blames wildfires and even

on earth on people not cleaning up the forest so there would be less to burn, Trump, in his wisdom, literally stopped funding last year for the shovel -ready project to build fire breaks in the Superior National Forest in Minnesota so there would be less to burn, so it would be easier to fight any fire that did break out.He and Elon Musk stopped the funding of that project, and so now, The bill has come due.The Superior National Forest in Minnesota, as we speak, is on fire.Thank you, Doge.Thank you, Donald Trump.That was the Washington Post reporters doing good work this weekend tracing the line between those fires burning right now in Minnesota after Trump last year stopped the funding that would have made that forest less likely to burn.

That is the bill coming due.Similarly, Cyclospora, This time last year, NBC News reporting that Donald Trump, in his infinite wisdom, had inexplicably decided to attack and degrade the government's ability to investigate and combat foodborne illness.For 30 years, there had been a joint surveillance system involving the CDC, the FDA, the U .S.Department of Agriculture, the EPA, and state health departments, a joint project to actively surveil for dangerous foodborne illnesses like cyclospora.Kind of an unfamiliar word, right?

Cyclospora.Never really heard it much until recently.Now you hear it all the time.You never really had to know the word cyclospora to cover the national news before this year, not because it wasn't around.It was.But it was never a crisis like this.

That's in part because for the past generation, the U .S.government had a world -class active surveillance program going out and actively looking forsigns of it in the food supply, identifying it early, stopping it from spreading as food is distributed all over the country to make sure we don't have widespread outbreaks of cyclospora in the US food supply nationwide.

Trump got rid of that program for cyclospora last year.Yeah, because who needs that?

And now this year, we've got thousands of people sick from cyclospora in 41 states, and no sign whatsoever that the wellness influencers and anti -vaccine conspiracy theorists who now populate the federal government's health agencies have any idea of how to even monitor it, let alone stop it.That is another bill that is now coming due.I mean, two of the USDA labs that play a key role in investigating cyclospora contamination are located at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center just north of Washington, D .C.

Trump right now is in the process of closing down that whole facility in the midst of this massive cyclospora outbreak.He's in the midst of closing that facility, including those specialty labs, because yeah, who needs it?I mean, the CDC under Trump has lost a quarter of its staff.Because yeah, who needs the CDC?We can all obviously do our own research and investigate foodborne parasitic infections.We just use the TikTok or crystals, right?

Or maybe building a new White House ballroom will help.

The bill is coming due on this stuff.The bill is also coming due on vaccination quackery.

When you put a quack anti -vaccine conspiracy theorist in charge of the part of the federal government that oversees vaccination policy, literally, RFK Jr. is someone who said COVID may have been ethnically targeted to favor Chinese people and the Jews.right?That's who you, when Donald Trump puts someone like that in charge of health and human services for the United States of America, well guess what happens in the United States of America?

The bill is now coming due and now we've got the largest measles crisis in this country in decades.Quote, more measles cases have been reported in the United States in the last two years than in all the years from 2000 to 2024 combined.Children have borne the brunt of the infections, making up more than 70 % of confirmed cases.More than 80 children and adolescents have been hospitalized this year for complications like pneumonia, which leaves patients gasping for air, and brain swelling, which can cause lasting damage, including blindness.deafness, and intellectual disabilities.There are no treatments for measles.

Reversing course on measles nationwide would require a nationwide push to improve vaccination rates, a prospect that experts say seems unlikely under the leadership of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.The bill is coming due there.The bill is also coming due for Trump's decision to put a troubled and totally inexperienced Fox News host in charge of the Department of Defense.This weekend, the Pentagon, under Pete Hegseth's leadership, posted this online.

Winning.But then look at the caption they posted at the top of it.It's not an option.Winning.It's not an option.That's literally what it says.

What are you doing?They eventually took it down.But you know what?The American people agree with that sentiment before they took it down.Winning does not seem to be an option here, not with these guys.

In the new CBS YouGov poll, Trump overall is 22 points underwater in his overall approval rating, minus 22 in terms of whether people like him or not.or disapprove of him.But on his handling of the Iran war in particular, he's not 22 points underwater.He's 30 points underwater.Amid that massive public disapproval of how well these guys are doing managing this inexplicable war they started with Iran, Pete Hegseth's Pentagon this weekend was caught apparently trying to conceal the number of American service members who have been killed or wounded in that war, playing games with the numbers, like taking down off the casualty list four service members who were killed recently Supposedly because Trump's worthless ceasefire was technically in effect when they were killed, so that means they were killed during peacetime, I guess?

They shouldn't be counted as war dead?

Trump and Hegseth's Pentagon got caught for that, and for just not disclosing the number of Americans wounded in the war so far.facing just white hot rage from military families over those revelations, they have since started posting more numbers.So we know that even by their new and improved counting, it's over 620 Americans who have been wounded so far in Trump's inexplicable Iran war, and 18 Americans who've been killed.As the war expands into its sixth month now, and as it expands from the Persian Gulf into the Red Sea, and as of this weekend, even into the Caspian Sea, bringing in more and more countries, and more and more casualties, and more and more economic damage all the time, the Pentagon under Pete Hegsoth, what are they working on?

They say they're gonna shoot up troops with testosterone.That's their plan to get around all the winning, right?Because sure, that's really the problem here.I mean, the bill is starting to come due for this stuff.Maybe if you had like a really extraordinarily capable commander -in -chief, you might be okay with somebody at the Pentagon who had no idea what he was doing, right?But in this case, it's the pair of them.

I mean, you've got Trump as commander -in -chief and then Hegseth at the Pentagon.These are the guys, right?Playing with the US military like it's a cross between G .I.Joe and beer pong.

And so yes, we are in another inexplicable and apparently inextricable Middle East war that is wildly unpopular, that appears to have no end, that appears to have no point, and that we clearly are losing.

The bill comes due for bad decisions on important matters like this.

The bill even comes due politically.In that same CBS poll today, the one that shows Trump minus 30 on the Iran war, it also shows him minus 30 on his handling of the economy.On his handling of inflation, he's not 30 points underwater, he's 42 points underwater.He's got 71 % disapproval on his handling of inflation.as he is right now imposing new tariffs and basically restarting the Iran war, and not for nothing, shutting down energy generation projects all over the country, all of which are going to make inflation and the cost of living even worse.

And so with an electorate where people say that the economy and inflation are the number one thing on their mind when it comes to casting their vote, And Trump and Republicans know that voters just champing at the bit to throw them out, to vote against them, to vote for Democrats instead.And so what do we get from Trump today?We get Trump demanding that the U .

S.Supreme Court allow him to monkey wrench the elections this fall.Trump today asked the United States Supreme Court to cast aside lower court rulings

let him go ahead with his bizarre executive order that would, among other things, allow him to use the U .S.S.Post Office, the U .S.

Postal Service, to block people from mailing in their ballots in this November's election.Of course, he is asking for that power because if people were just able to vote like they normally do, he and the Republicans know what would happen.