President Trump celebrates his first 100 days with a rally in Michigan. The MAHA movement has hit the ground running – banning food dyes and investigating the causes of autism. And, AI chat bots are the newest feature to hit social media platforms, and Meta is taking fire again for failing to protect children.
It’s Wednesday, April 30, and this is the news you need to know to start your day.
Morning Wire is available on video! You can watch today’s episode here:
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<h2>Trump Takes Victory Lap After 100 Days In Office</h2>
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Topline: The White House is celebrating 100 days of Donald Trump’s presidency.
Tens of thousands of Trump supporters turned out for what was a political rally, a victory party, and a highlight show all in one. The president has made clear that he feels the media has not given him credit for all he’s accomplished so far – and last night was his way of reminding the American people of the campaign promises he’s fulfilled these past 100 days. The event, titled “100th Day in Office Achievement Speech,” was held just outside Detroit, in Macomb County, which was crucial to Trump’s victory in 2024.
“This is the best 100 day start of any admin,” Trump said. “What the world has witnessed in the past 14 weeks is a revolution of common sense.”
Trump touted the rapid drop in illegal border crossings and his efforts to secure the border and deport illegal aliens – in the early days of his presidency, Trump signed the Laken Riley Act into law, which requires DHS to detain illegal immigrants charged with or convicted of a variety other crimes. “We have increased arrests by 655%. Is that okay? We’re trying to get it higher … we are delivering mass deportation and it&#8217;s happening pretty fast.”
While most of his speech focused on touting his own accomplishments, Trump also took shots at the Democratic Party, which has struggled to define its strategy in the aftermath of its resounding loss in 2024. “They have no confidence anymore as a party,” Trump said. “No candidates. Bernie is the best they have and he is 7 or 8 years older than me. He is a lunatic, but he’s still pretty sharp. I have to give him credit. He goes around with AOC and plus 3. They get little crowds.”
President Trump did not back off his support for tariffs – although he assured some anxious Americans that more deals were coming.
<h2>MAHA Gains Momentum</h2>
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Topline: The MAHA movement is quickly gaining momentum, initiating actions such as prohibiting food dyes and launching inquiries into the origins of autism.
Less than a month into Trump’s second term, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in as the secretary of HHS and directed by President Trump to “Make America Healthy Again.” Last week, Kennedy announced that he’s phasing out a number of artificial food dyes and colorings by the end of 2026. Specifically, there will be a ban on petroleum-based synthetic dyes, including Red 3 and Red 40, Blue 1 and 2, Yellow 5 and 6, and Green 3.
Another huge development is the transformation of SNAP, commonly called food stamps. Kennedy has made it clear that he doesn’t want the government subsidizing purchases like soda, candy, or other highly processed junk foods, and he’s encouraging states to submit a waiver to the Department of Agriculture to limit SNAP purchases. West Virginia and Arkansas have already submitted those requests, and Utah, Idaho, Tennessee, South Carolina, Missouri, Indiana, and others are exploring SNAP restrictions as well.
Kennedy has directed the FDA to revise a rule that allowed companies to “self-affirm” the safety of some food ingredients. Under this revision, manufacturers will have to publicly submit safety data for all new ingredients. The FDA also unveiled a tool in March that allows people to look up chemical contaminants in foods from a large database – you can find that on the FDA website.
Research priorities have also shifted – the National Institutes of Health, which is part of HHS, said it will stop spending money to find out why Americans are hesitant to get vaccinations, and is terminating or scaling back more than 40 related grants. However, money is being spent on autism research. Kennedy launched a $50 million initiative aimed at investigating the causes of autism and improving treatments. In April, Kennedy said he’s commissioning a series of studies on suspected links to high autism rates, including mold, pesticides, food chemicals, medication, and ultrasounds during pregnancy.
<h2>AI Chatbots Sext Users Identified As Children</h2>
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Topline: Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, is causing alarm over its new AI chatbots, which some staffers warn will talk sex with kids.
In a bombshell report by the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/meta-ai-chatbots-sex-a25311bf">Wall Street Journal</a> released over the weekend, employees at Meta said the company rushed to get these new “digital companions,” or chatbots, up and running on Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp, and because these bots can perform sex role-plays, there’s now a problem where children can get exposed to sexually explicit discussions. These chatbots can flirt over text, they can have live voice conversations, and they can even share selfies.
Another related issue is that sometimes the AI chatbots will have sexual discussions even when they are programmed to pretend to BE children. Meta also made deals with celebrities like John Cena and Kristen Bell to use their voices for the chatbots. The company promised these actors that their voices would not be used in sexually explicit discussions, but the WSJ investigation found that a bot using Cena’s voice was willing to engage in a graphic sexual scenario with a user identifying as a 14-year-old girl, and a bot using Kristen Bell’s voice flirted with a user posing as a 12-year-old boy, roleplaying as Bell’s character Princess Anna from the Disney movie “Frozen.” Disney put out a statement demanding Meta put a stop to this.
Meta said the way the Journal tested the chatbots was “manipulative,” but did make some changes including banning kids’ social media accounts from being able to do sexual roleplays with the Meta AI bot and cracking down on it being able to do those roleplays using celebrities’ voices.
The condemnation of such chatbots has been swift and widespread: Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday demanding answers.
“What we would like for them to do is to take this down,” Blackburn told The Daily Wire. “You have got to disable this type of exposure on these websites to children.”

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Morning Brief: 100 Days Of Trump, MAHA & Meta’s Lewd AI Chatbots

Artificial Intelligence

Donald Trump

Media

Morning Wire

Politics

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Minutes after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in as Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing Kennedy and his team to Make America Healthy Again.
The order created the MAHA Commission, and specifically instructed Kennedy to focus on addressing the root causes of America&#8217;s escalating health crisis, especially childhood chronic disease.
Kennedy did just that — and swiftly.
Here’s what the secretary has done so far to transform American food standards and reorient his agency’s health initiatives.
<h3>Food Changes </h3>
DYES: Kennedy announced in April that he’s phasing out a number of artificial food dyes and colorings by the end of 2026. Specifically, HHS is banning petroleum-based synthetic dyes, including Red 3 and 40, Blue 1 and  2, Yellow 5 and 6, and Green 3. Such dyes are common in cereals, candy, baked goods, soft drinks, and other junk foods commonly consumed by children.
HHS will also be partnering with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to conduct comprehensive research on how these dyes impact children’s health and development.
INGREDIENT STANDARDS: Kennedy has directed the FDA to revise a rule that allows companies to “self-affirm” the safety of food ingredients. Under the revision, manufacturers will have to publicly submit safety data for new ingredients. HHS <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/press-room/revising-gras-pathway.html">says</a> such enhanced oversight will “bring transparency to American consumers.”
LIMITING SNAP: Several states are moving to limit food stamps, also known as SNAP benefits, to healthier options. The limits often exclude sugary drinks like soda, candy, and some other highly processed foods.
RFK has urged governors to submit waivers to the Department of Agriculture to effectuate such limits on SNAP. On April 16, Arkansas was the first state in the nation to submit such a request. States like West Virginia, Utah, Idaho, Tennessee, South Carolina, Missouri, and Indiana are exploring SNAP restrictions, too.
TRANSPARENCY TOOL: In March, the FDA unveiled a tool that allows people to look up chemical contaminants in foods from a large database. The tool, which can be <a href="https://www.hfpappexternal.fda.gov/scripts/fdcc/index.cfm?set=contaminant-levels" target="_blank" rel="noopener">accessed here</a>, includes tolerances, action levels, guidance levels, derived intervention levels, recommended maximum levels, and advisory levels of contaminants. Some of the contaminants included in the database are Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, or DDT, a synthetic pesticide; Chlordane, an organochlorine pesticide; and Aldrin and Dieldrin, which are both synthetic chemicals in the insecticide family.
<h3>Formula </h3>
OPERATION STORK SPEED: The FDA announced in March that it is tightening its standards on infant formula and reevaluating current products on the market. The move followed a Consumer Reports investigation, which found that about <a href="https://www.consumerreports.org/babies-kids/baby-formula/baby-formula-contaminants-test-results-a7140095293/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">half of the 41 formulas</a> it tested contained potentially harmful levels of arsenic, lead, BPA, acrylamide, or PFAS, <a href="https://www.newsnationnow.com/health/rfk-jr-baby-formula-operation-stork-speed/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to News Nation.
The FDA, for example, will increase testing for heavy metals and other contaminants in infant formula and encourage companies to work with the FDA to increase transparency and clearer labeling
<h3>Fluoride Fight </h3>
This month, Utah became the first state in the nation to ban the addition of fluoride to public drinking water. Numerous other states are also considering bans, including Florida, where a bill proposing a statewide ban just passed the Senate.
The movement seems to have been sparked by Kennedy, who has routinely spoken out against fluoridation. Just before the election, he <a href="https://x.com/RobertKennedyJr/status/1852812012478398923">posted</a> on X that on day one of Donald Trump’s presidency, he would advise that all United States water systems remove fluoride. He’s also called fluoride an “industrial waste” and says it’s associated with numerous negative effects, like arthritis, IQ loss, and thyroid disease.
<h3>Autism </h3>
CONTRIBUTING FACTORS: There have been reports since March about the CDC studying potential links between vaccinations and the rise in autism. HHS never confirmed nor denied such reports, but said “no stone would go unturned” when researching autism causes. In April, RFK confirmed that he’s commissioning a series of studies on suspected links to high autism rates, including mold, pesticides, food chemicals, and, notably, medication.
NIH, which falls under HHS, is investing $50 million in research for causes and improving treatments for autism, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2025/04/25/hss-autism-registry-nih-data-platform/83269805007/">according</a> to USA Today.
DEADLINE ON CAUSES: RFK told Trump in April that HHS will know what is causing the autism epidemic by September. Kennedy also revealed new CDC data that found 1 in 31 children are diagnosed with the disorder, which is nearly 5 times higher than when the CDC started these surveys back in 1992, according to some estimates.
<h3>Cleaning House </h3>
Kennedy announced in March that he’s restructuring HHS and terminating tens of thousands of employees.
“What I found when I came to HHS, is really a sprawling bureaucracy. We have over 100 communications departments — we should have one. We have 40 IT departments, 40 procurement departments, dozens of HR departments,” Kennedy <a href="https://x.com/michaeljknowles/status/1905403551024554014" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told Daily Wire host Michael Knowles</a>. “And that is where we’re doing the cuts. We’re going down from 82,000 personnel to 62,000.”
“We’re keeping the scientists, we’re keeping the front-line providers,” he added. “We&#8217;re trying to do our best, not only to serve as stewards of the taxpayer money, but also to make the agency more efficient.”
<h3>Realigning Funding and Research </h3>
VACCINES: The National Institutes of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/03/10/vaccines-nih-rfk-research-canceled/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Health</a> (NIH) will stop spending money to find out why Americans are hesitant to take vaccines. NIH is terminating or scaling back more than 40 related grants and has said that such spending no longer aligns with NIH priorities.
AUTISM RESEARCH: As noted above, Kennedy has launched a $50 million initiative aimed at investigating the causes of autism and improving treatments.
FUNDING CHRONIC DISEASE: RFK is reallocating funds he’s cut from the NIH and CDC to address chronic disease.
<h3>What’s Next?</h3>
Kennedy is only starting on his mission to address the alarming rates of chronic disease, especially among children. But the secretary has also signaled that he’s eyeing the pharmaceutical industry next.
Kennedy has voiced concerns about how we overmedicate, especially young Americans. There have also been reports that RFK is aiming to curb or <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2025/04/04/rfk-jr-may-want-to-ban-prescription-drug-ads-but-can-he/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ban</a> prescription drug ads.

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MAHA In 100 Days: How Trump And RFK Are Transforming Food And Healthcare In America

Health and Human Services

Vaccines

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth continues to take fire, but the commander-in-chief is standing by him. The Trump administration is taking steps to phase out eight synthetic food dyes and issuing warnings about a popular ingredient. And, Trump de-escalates – backing off tariffs and his attacks on the Fed – sending stocks surging. It’s Thursday, April 24, and this is the news you need to know to start your day. If you’d rather listen to your news, today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below:
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<h2>Trump Stands By Embattled Defense Secretary As Recruitment Soars</h2>
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Topline: President Donald Trump is standing by embattled Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, as new data shows soaring military recruitment after years of decline.
There&#8217;s no doubt Hegseth’s tenure at DOD has been tumultuous so far. First, there was what Democrats refer to as SignalGate, in which Hegseth and other cabinet members discussed war plans in an unsecured group chat that accidentally included a reporter. Then, last week, several senior advisors at the Pentagon were fired after an investigation found that they had been leaking sensitive information to the press. 
This week, the negative media coverage continued after the New York Times reported Hegseth had shared details of airstrikes on Yemen in a separate Signal chat that included his wife and brother. Hegseth’s team says his wife is a trusted confidant and that his brother works at the Pentagon, but the story gave yet more fodder to those who want him relieved of his position. 
“What a big surprise that a few leakers get fired and suddenly a bunch of hit pieces come out from the same media that peddled the Russia hoax…This is what the media does,&#8221; Hegseth said. &#8220;They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees and then they try to slash and burn people and ruin their reputations.&#8221;
President Trump also continues to back Hegseth, routinely <a href="https://x.com/cspan/status/1914354554918863075">praising</a> him in statements to the press. &#8220;Pete&#8217;s doing a great job. Everybody&#8217;s happy with him. We have the highest recruitment numbers they’ve had in 28 years…It’s just fake news, they bring up stories. It’s disgruntled employees. He was put there to get rid of a lot of bad people and that’s what he’s doing. You don’t always have friends when you do that.”
Military recruitment numbers have spiked since Trump was elected and Hegseth was appointed. Six months into fiscal year 2025, every single branch is on pace to surpass its recruiting goals. The Navy is on track for its best year in two decades, the Air Force has seen a 20% increase compared to last year, and the Army’s biggest challenge is finding enough space for all its recruits. Last year, it had 55,000 enlistments — with six months to go, they’re already at 52,000! After years of falling short, it could double its target in 2025. According to Army Vice Chief of Staff James Mingus, “we’ve seen momentum unlike anything in a decade.”
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<h2>RFK Jr. Moves To Phase Out Food Dyes</h2>
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Topline: HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants to phase out numerous artificial food dyes and colorings by the end of 2026.
The Department of Health and Human Services is banning petroleum-based synthetic dyes: Red 3 and Red 40, Blue 1 and  2, Yellow 5 and 6, and Green 3. Those are very common in cereals, candy, baked goods, soft drinks, and other junk foods commonly consumed by children.
HHS is implementing several steps to make this happen. First, it will work with food companies to establish a national standard and timeline for moving away from petrochemical-based dyes. HHS wants these phased out, at the latest, by the end of next year. The department will also revoke authorization for two synthetic food colorings &#8211; Citrus Red No. 2 and Orange B – that will happen even sooner &#8211; in the coming months. Red dye No. 3 was banned by the FDA at the end of the Biden administration, but the timeline for its phaseout is years away. Kennedy said he’s looking to speed up that ban. 
HHS will also partner with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to conduct comprehensive research on how these dyes affect children’s health and development. Lastly, the department will authorize four new natural color additives within a matter of weeks, while speeding up the review and approval of other natural color additives. 
“For the last 50 years, American children have increasingly been living in a toxic soup of synthetic chemicals,” FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary said at a press conference with Kennedy on Tuesday. “The scientific community has conducted a number of studies raising concerns about the correlation between petroleum-based synthetic dyes and several health conditions, such as ADHD, obesity, diabetes, insulin resistance, cancer, GI issues – as I’ve seen in the hospital – and allergic reactions.” 
Secretary Kennedy said that there are &#8220;shockingly few” studies on food additives and food dyes, specifically, and suggested that this is because of “conflicts of interest” suppressing the science. RFK also warned the public about the dangers of sugar. He said he’s not able to ban it, but wants parents to understand how harmful and addictive it is. He said it’s as “addictive as crack” and called it “poison.”
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<h2>Economic Update: Trump De-escalates</h2>
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Topline: Stocks soared Wednesday after reports that President Trump said he has no intention of removing Fed Chair Jerome Powell. 
In recent days, we&#8217;ve seen what appears to be a de-escalation from the Trump administration on many key planks of its economic policy – including reassurances that the trade war with China will be resolved soon and that Powell will not be fired. There&#8217;s been a lot of public negotiating going on from Trump and his team, including some mixed messaging over the last few weeks.
“It was frankly, chaos to start,” EJ Antoni, an economist from the Heritage Foundation, told Morning Wire. “A lot of that is getting resolved – not all of it, but a lot of it… In terms of the de-escalation, I think what we&#8217;re looking for there is essentially agreements one by one just getting hammered out and eventually signed. It looks like trade deals, reducing tariff and non-tariff barriers…as those deals get done, as the details get ironed out, we can look for more free trade, not less. We can look for fairer trade – in other words, not only are American consumer markets still open to foreign producers, but finally foreign consumer markets will be open to our domestic producers.”
Antoni also told us that while the Fed has used its influence over the economy for political advantage, sometimes against President Trump&#8217;s interests, removing him before the end of his term would have caused more unease about the future direction of the economy. “The market doesn&#8217;t really like Jerome Powell, but the idea of removing him creates a tremendous amount of uncertainty, and that&#8217;s the last thing markets need right now.”

US armed forces recruiting station on Times Square

Morning Brief: Trump Stands By Hegseth, RFK Jr. Targets Food Dyes & Stocks Surge

Pete Hegseth

Tariffs

Trade War

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to direct food manufacturers to phase out eight petroleum-based food dyes from cereals, sports drinks, and other grocery staples by the end of 2026.
The directive, expected to be announced in full detail on Tuesday, affects hundreds of thousands of grocery store items containing eight petroleum-based dyes, which health experts have long criticized for potentially causing hyperactivity and other neurobehavioral problems in children, according to a New York Times report.
The eight dyes being targeted <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/dining/rfk-jr-food-dyes.html">include</a> Red No. 40, Yellow No. 5, Yellow No. 6, Blue No. 1, Blue No. 2, Green No. 3, Red No. 3, and Orange B, according to details provided by HHS officials to the Times.
Food industry experts estimate that the reformulation costs could reach into the billions, though many companies have already developed alternative formulations for their European and Canadian products.
FDA Commissioner Martin Makary signaled the move as being in line with President Trump&#8217;s &#8220;Make America Healthy Again&#8221; initiative, stating last week to the Times, “My feeling is, why gamble with the health of our children?”
“We have some data points. We have some observational studies. We believe that these artificial food chemicals are implicated,” he said. “My feeling is why not err on the side of safety? Why say, ‘Let’s just take the risk because the vibrance of the colors is so appealing, it’s worth it.’&#8221;
Health activist Vani Hari, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kraft-removing-artificial-dyes-preservatives-from-mac-cheese/">credited</a> for pressuring Kraft to remove artificial colors from its macaroni and cheese products in 2015, noted, &#8220;We never had a president ever talk about these issues in this way. You are watching an entire population who largely never knew about these issues hear about them for the first time.&#8221;
Products manufactured for European and Canadian markets already use natural color substitutes like blueberries and carrots instead of artificial dyes, while American versions of the same products contain Red No. 40, Yellow No. 5, and Blue No. 1.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton recently opened an investigation into Kellogg for marketing its products as &#8220;healthy&#8221; despite containing petroleum-based artificial food colorings that he claimed had been linked to hyperactivity and other health problems.
Some food manufacturers had previously pledged to eliminate artificial ingredients by 2018, promises that largely went unfulfilled. This history of unfulfilled commitments formed part of the basis for Texas Attorney General Paxton&#8217;s recent investigation into Kellogg.
The International Food Additives Council expressed support for a unified federal approach in a statement, saying, &#8220;A unified, federal approach is essential for maintaining a safe and reliable food supply.&#8221;
West Virginia took early action on the issue last month when it banned foods containing most artificial food dyes and two preservatives, citing potential health risks.
These state-level initiatives, coupled with consumer advocacy campaigns, have increasingly pressured major food manufacturers to reformulate products sold in the American market to match the stricter standards already in place abroad.
The initiative gained significant momentum in March when Kennedy summoned executives from major food companies, including PepsiCo, Kellogg, and General Mills, to a Washington meeting, where he made clear that eliminating food dyes was a top priority of the administration.

HHS Sec. RFK Jr. Discusses CDC’s Latest Autism Survey

RFK Jr. To Ban Petroleum-Based Food Dyes

Department of Health and Human Services

Food

Health

U.S.

The political and legal battle escalates over an alleged member of a violent gang deported to El Salvador. RFK Jr. launches a series of studies into the causes of autism, prompting both condemnation and praise. And, Democrats take aim at President Donald Trump over his call for the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, while Trump touts key economic wins.
It’s Monday, April 21, and this is the news you need to know to start your day. If you’d rather listen to your news, today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below:
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<h2>Deportation Debate Continues</h2>
<div id="attachment_909961" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-909961" class="size-large wp-image-909961" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2210280248-864x576.jpg" alt="Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D) takes questions during a press conference after returning from El Salvador, where he met with wrongly deported Maryland man Kilmar Abrego Garcia, on April 18, 2025 at Dulles International Airport in Dulles, VA." width="864" height="576" />(Photo by Pete Kiehart for The Washington Post via Getty Images)</div>
Topline: Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) is back stateside after visiting suspected gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador.
Van Hollen returned from El Salvador over the weekend after meeting with suspected MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador last week. Garcia was detained and deported to a megaprison there along with more than 200 other suspected gang members last month. Critics have argued that Garcia’s due process rights were violated, and a federal judge has ordered that he be brought back to the United States immediately. The Trump administration has insisted that the matter is out of its hands – and that, gang member or not, Garcia is an illegal alien and should have been deported anyway.
“My goal was to meet with [Abrego Garcia] and make sure I could tell his wife and family he was OK,” Van Hollen told ABC.
When questioned about Garcia’s alleged connection to MS-13, Van Hollen deflected.
“What Donald Trump is trying to do here is change the subject,” Van Hollen <a href="https://x.com/westernlensman/status/1913945751824240693">said</a>. “The subject at hand is that he and his administration are defying a court order to give Abrego Garcia his due process rights. They are trying to litigate on social media what they should be doing in the courts… What [Garcia] told me was he was sad and traumatized that he was being imprisoned because he has committed no crimes, and that goes to the heart of this issue.”
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<h2>RFK Commissions New Studies of Autism &#8216;Epidemic&#8217; </h2>
<div id="attachment_910057" style="width: 880px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-910057" class="size-large wp-image-910057" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Autism-870x576.jpg" alt="" width="870" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Autism-870x576.jpg 870w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Autism-300x199.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Autism-768x508.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Autism-1536x1017.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Autism-2048x1356.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 870px) 100vw, 870px" />(Photo by Nora Carol Photography via Getty Images)</div>
Topline: HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is commissioning a series of studies to investigate potential environmental factors that might contribute to autism.
RFK Jr. commissioned the new studies shortly after previous data were released indicating a surge in autism diagnoses in recent years.
“The autism epidemic is running rampant,” Kennedy <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/press-room/autism-epidemic-runs-rampant-new-data-shows-grants.html">said</a>.  “One in 31 American children born in 2014 are disabled by autism. That’s up significantly from two years earlier and nearly five times higher than when the CDC first started running autism surveys<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5601a1.htm"> in children born in 1992</a>.. Prevalence for boys is an astounding 1 in 20 and in California it’s 1 in 12.5.”
“President Trump has tasked me with identifying the root causes of the childhood chronic disease epidemic &#8212; including autism,” Secretary Kennedy continued. “We are assembling teams of world-class scientists to focus research on the origins of the epidemic, and we expect to begin to have answers by September.”
The Autism Society of America actually <a href="https://autismsociety.org/statement-on-robert-f-kennedy-jr-s-comments-regarding-the-cause-of-autism-and-misleading-deadline/">condemned</a> Kennedy for those remarks, calling them “harmful, misleading, and unrealistic.” The organization said that autism is a “complex developmental disability” and it’s “neither a chronic illness nor a contagion, that qualifies harmful language like ‘epidemic.’”
Another autism organization, <a href="https://www.autismspeaks.org/what-causes-autism">Autism Speaks</a>, has suggested that the rise in autism cases is largely due to better screening, better understanding of the disorder, and therefore a higher diagnosis rate. The organization said that other genetic and environmental factors are still being studied, but they likely account for only a small part of the increase. Kennedy believes that’s flipped, and that only a small portion of the increase can be attributed to a better diagnostic process.
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<h2>Economic Update</h2>
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-910059" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/The-Federal-Reserve-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/The-Federal-Reserve-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/The-Federal-Reserve-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/The-Federal-Reserve-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/The-Federal-Reserve-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/The-Federal-Reserve-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/The-Federal-Reserve-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/The-Federal-Reserve-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" /></div>
Topline: Democrats are up in arms about President Trump&#8217;s latest economic moves, but Team Trump says he&#8217;s doing exactly what Americans elected him to do.
Democrats are accusing Trump of crossing the line by pressuring the Fed Chair, Jerome Powell, to lower interest rates. Powell appears to be digging in, while the president is now openly saying his termination can’t come soon enough.  Powell’s term is scheduled to end May 15, 2026. Trump’s team is reportedly looking into whether there are ways to remove Powell early. Democrats argue that this is an unprecedented violation of the balance of powers.
“There’s a reason we have an independent Fed,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) told CNN. “It has served us well through many crises, through downturns, through depressions, through the pandemic. They’re able to respond and stabilize things. And what Jerome Powell is doing right now is warning that these tariffs are having a huge destabilizing effect on our economy and hurting everyday people. And that’s going to affect decisions that the Fed makes. That’s his job and he’s doing it.”
Meanwhile: Trump is maintaining his pause of higher tariffs for most countries – except China – for 90 days, and he’s set a 10% baseline tariff on imports to encourage negotiations. The Trump administration says at least 75 countries have reached out to negotiate at this point. As we’ve reported, the major outlier is China, which has escalated tariffs in response. A few days ago, Trump indicated an openness to making a deal to protect consumers, but no talks with Xi Jinping have been confirmed yet. 
Japanese negotiators met with U.S. officials recently, with Trump citing “big progress.” Toyota is considering shifting RAV4 production to the United States to mitigate the impact of tariffs. Likewise, Trump reported a “great call” with South Korea focusing on steel and automobiles. Vietnam has also offered to remove all tariffs on U.S. goods. Discussions with India are also in progress, with India angling for a bilateral trade agreement to boost trade to $500 billion by 2030.
The European Union has paused retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. and is advocating for a zero-tariff agreement. As for the UK, talks with Prime Minister Keir Starmer are ongoing, with Vice President JD Vance expressing optimism that any deal they reach will be mutually beneficial.

US deports 17 gang-linked criminals in joint operation with El Salvador

Morning Brief: Deportee Battle Escalates, RFK Jr. Takes On Autism & Trump’s Fed Fight

Deportations

El Salvador

Kilmar Abrego Garcia

MS-13 Gang

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced this past week that he&#8217;s commissioning a series of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rfk-says-we-know-environmental-toxins-are-causing-autism-epidemic?author=Amanda+Prestigiacomo&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=3&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=RFK+Says+‘We+Know’+Environmental+Toxins+Are+Causing+Autism+Epidemic" target="_blank" rel="noopener">studies</a> to investigate potential environmental causes for autism, and underscored how the rate of autism, including severe autism, is continuing to increase.
Speaking specifically of severe cases of autism, RFK Jr. noted that some children may never grow up to play baseball or even use the bathroom by themselves.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
RFK JR: And these are kids who will never pay taxes, they&#8217;ll never hold a job, they&#8217;ll never play baseball, they&#8217;ll never write a poem. They&#8217;ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted <a href="https://t.co/8T3hcYYn9O">pic.twitter.com/8T3hcYYn9O</a>
— Acyn (@Acyn) <a href="https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1912532475265576977?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 16, 2025</a></blockquote>
Some Democrat politicians, like <a href="https://x.com/SenWarren/status/1912895256040726625" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sen. Elizabeth Warren</a> (MA) and Illinois <a href="https://x.com/GovPritzker/status/1913044914780144023" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gov. JB Pritzker</a>, criticized Kennedy for allegedly standing against people with autism. RFK, however, was met with support from family members of Americans who suffer from severe autism.
&#8220;I am not an RFK jr. fan but he just described children with what some would call &#8216;profound&#8217; or &#8216;severe&#8217; autism at a press conference and I have already seen so much pushback about how &#8216;their kid who has autism isn&#8217;t like that&#8217; and like&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;.congratulations???? mine is,&#8221; one X user posted.
&#8220;For my daughter, autism is not a super power. It makes her life very difficult. She struggles to communicate her needs, it&#8217;s hard for her to participate in things with other children. I am not a conspiracy theorist, I am not anti vax, and &#8216;love on the spectrum&#8217; is not my life,&#8221; she continued. &#8220;Like on one side you have people telling you that your kid&#8217;s disability essentially isn&#8217;t that big of a deal and on another they&#8217;re saying, &#8216;We believe you.&#8217; Even if I disagree with their conclusions, they have empathy for me. For my child.&#8221;
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for my daughter, autism is not a super power. it makes her life very difficult. she struggles to communicate her needs, it&#8217;s hard for her to participate in things with other children.
i am not a conspiracy theorist, i am not anti vax, and &#8220;love on the spectrum&#8221; is not my life.
— emily may (@emilykmay) <a href="https://twitter.com/emilykmay/status/1912614950230515715?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 16, 2025</a></blockquote>
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like on one side you have people telling you that your kids disability essentially isn&#8217;t that big of a deal and on another they&#8217;re saying, &#8220;we believe you.&#8221;
even if I disagree with their conclusions, they have empathy for me. for my child.
— emily may (@emilykmay) <a href="https://twitter.com/emilykmay/status/1912616252977147919?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 16, 2025</a></blockquote>
Another social media user commented, &#8220;As the mother of a daughter with severe autism, mild mental retardation and an intellectual delay, I resent your disdain for Secretary Kennedy’s efforts to research the increasing numbers of autism in America. My daughter was diagnosed over 20 years ago and he is the first Secretary of HHS to show concern for the autistic community. You may not like his choice of words, but his actions are commendable.&#8221;
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As the mother of a daughter with severe autism, mild mental retardation and an intellectual delay, I resent your disdain for Secretary Kennedy’s efforts to research the increasing numbers of autism in America.
My daughter was diagnosed over 20 years ago and he is the first…
— Lisa Walsh (@LisaWal24884807) <a href="https://twitter.com/LisaWal24884807/status/1912970063096983877?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 17, 2025</a></blockquote>
Another person shared a photo of her 9-year-old son who has severe autism and is &#8220;non-speaking.&#8221; &#8220;He has also had extensive genetic testing and they’ve found nothing not one mutation or gene that points to autism,&#8221; she wrote. &#8220;I’m glad these folks talking about my son has autism and pays taxes are good, but we’re not. We need all the help we can get because my son will never pay taxes, graduate, have a girlfriend, get married, or even have privacy using the toilet.&#8221;
&#8220;So if you could please sit down and shut up and let RFK try to help us,&#8221; she added. &#8220;He’s not talking about you!&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
This is my baby he is 9 and has severe autism. 
I usually shield him from this ugly world but in light of the recent attacks on autism research I’ll tell you about him 
He didn’t get any vaccines until he was 6 years old well beyond his autism diagnosis 
So don’t even argue that… <a href="https://t.co/62s6vT9P5M">pic.twitter.com/62s6vT9P5M</a>
— Isable Jones (@IsableJones919) <a href="https://twitter.com/IsableJones919/status/1913560065820238280?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 19, 2025</a></blockquote>
&#8220;The ignorance [surrounding] severe autism is actually mind boggling,&#8221; another comment said. &#8220;My nephew is severely autistic. He is in his 20s, but mentally is 8. He won’t ever be able to work. He won’t ever be able to be in a relationship. He has violent outbursts often. He has to be with my brother-in-law at all times. He does not have any other diagnosis other than severe autism.&#8221;
&#8220;Pretending people like him don’t exist in the world just because RFK said they did is literally insane,&#8221; the person added.
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The ignorance surround severe autism is actually mind boggling.
My nephew is severely autistic. He is in his 20s, but mentally is 8. He won’t ever be able to work. He won’t ever be able to be in a relationship. He has violent outbursts often. He has to be with my brother-in-law…
— Libertarian Mama 🔔 (@LibertarianMama) <a href="https://twitter.com/LibertarianMama/status/1912953380533944821?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 17, 2025</a></blockquote>
Kennedy said this past week that mold, pesticides, other food chemicals, and medicines could be potential toxins contributing to the autism epidemic. He also suggested ultrasound scans could be a factor, given the timing of such technological advances.
“This is a preventable disease,” he said. “We know it’s environmental exposure. It has to be. Genes do not cause epidemics. It can provide a vulnerability, but you need an environmental toxin.”
“We’re going to announce a series of new studies to identify precisely what the environmental toxins are that are causing it,” the secretary added. “This has not been done before. And we’re going to do it in a thorough and comprehensive way, and we’re gonna get back with an answer to the American people very, very quickly.”
Kennedy also revealed that 1 in 31 children are diagnosed with autism, according to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study. About 25%, he added, have &#8220;severe autism.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rfk-says-we-know-environmental-toxins-are-causing-autism-epidemic?author=Amanda+Prestigiacomo&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=3&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=RFK+Says+‘We+Know’+Environmental+Toxins+Are+Causing+Autism+Epidemic" target="_blank" rel="noopener">RFK Says ‘We Know’ Environmental Toxins Are Causing Autism Epidemic</a>

Democratic Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Delivers Address To Jewish Community In New York

‘Let RFK Try To Help Us’: Families Of Severely Autistic Americans Come To Kennedy’s Defense

Families Of Severely Autistic Americans Come To Defense Of RFK

Trump Administration

COLLEGE PARK, MD — Long classified files pertaining to the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy are now available to the public, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard revealed to The Daily Wire in an exclusive interview.
“Today is a big day,” Gabbard said during an interview from the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. “It is the first time the country will be able to see the documents that have been sitting here, at the National Archives records agency, around the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.”
Speaking from the lab where government employees busily worked to prepare documents to be digitized, scanned in high capacity scanners, and then ultimately uploaded to the National Archives website, Gabbard said the files are ready to go after decades under lock and key.
“These are boxes that have been here, in storage, never scanned before, never reviewed by the public before,” Gabbard said. “Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, and his executive order mandating maximum transparency, we have had well over a hundred people who have been working around the clock, going page by page, scanning them in, going through these reviews…all to lead us to this day, where the 10,000 pages that have been sitting here are now going to be available online.&#8221;
The batch of newly available files is <a href="https://www.archives.gov/research/rfk">now available on the National Archives website</a>.
WATCH: 
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Kennedy, who served as Attorney General of the United States in his brother’s presidential administration, was elected to the Senate in 1965. He announced his presidential campaign in 1968, while representing New York in the upper chamber. On June 5, 1968, Kennedy was shot and killed by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian immigrant, during a campaign event at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. He was pronounced dead the next day.
Sirhan admitted that he shot Kennedy in a 1969 trial, though he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/05/26/who-killed-bobby-kennedy-his-son-rfk-jr-doesnt-believe-it-was-sirhan-sirhan/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">claimed</a> he had no memory of doing so. Two decades later, Sirhan told British journalist David Frost that he felt <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/20/us/sirhan-felt-betrayed-by-kennedy.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">betrayed</a> by Kennedy — whom he once viewed as a hero — due to his “support of Israel.”
Kennedy’s autopsy report found that the senator was killed by a shot fired behind the ear — though Sirhan was standing in front of Kennedy — leading some to speculate that Sirhan did not fire the fatal bullet.
One proponent of the second gunman theory: Kennedy’s son, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
“The people that were closest to [Sirhan], the people that disarmed him all said he never got near my father,” Kennedy said in 2018. That year, RFK Jr. had traveled to California to meet with Sirhan, saying he “was curious and disturbed by what I had seen in the evidence.”
“I was disturbed that the wrong person might have been convicted of killing my father. My father was the chief law enforcement officer in this country,” Kennedy said at the time. “I think it would have disturbed him if somebody was put in jail for a crime they didn’t commit.”
RFK Jr. <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-gabbard-rfk-assassination-files-release/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">supported</a> Sirhan’s 2021 parole request, which California Governor Gavin Newsom rejected.
Trump signed an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/everything-will-be-revealed-trump-declassifies-jfk-rfk-and-mlk-jr-assassination-files" target="_blank" rel="noopener">executive order</a> shortly after his inauguration declassifying all files pertaining to the assassinations of RFK, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. Trump in March <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-releases-roughly-80000-pages-of-secret-jfk-assassination-files" target="_blank" rel="noopener">released</a> around 80,000 pages of previously secret files pertaining to JFK’s 1963 assassination, which revealed, among other things, that some Cuban diplomats at the time <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/what-we-learned-from-the-jfk-files" target="_blank" rel="noopener">immediately concluded</a> the CIA was behind the assassination.
As Gabbard previewed the release of the files on Thursday, she warned The Daily Wire that they may challenge details of the current narrative surrounding Kennedy’s death.
“Of course there are a lot of different theories and questions surrounding these assassinations,” Gabbard explained on Thursday.
“People will find in the release today, there is no ‘smoking gun,’ but there are a lot of things that have not been previously known that really call into question what really happened — and who was behind it, which includes conversations that were happening in other countries, and messages that were going around about the assassination itself.”
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<div id="attachment_909461" style="width: 459px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-909461" class="size-large wp-image-909461" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-3243546-449x576.jpg" alt="16th March 1968: Headshot of Senator Robert F. Kennedy (1925 - 1968) announcing his candidacy for president of the United States, Washington, D. C. (Photo by Arnold Sachs/Consolidated News Pictures/Getty Images)" width="449" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-3243546-449x576.jpg 449w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-3243546-234x300.jpg 234w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-3243546-768x986.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-3243546.jpg 798w" sizes="(max-width: 449px) 100vw, 449px" />Senator Robert F. Kennedy announcing his candidacy for president of the United States, Washington, D. C. (Photo by Arnold Sachs/Consolidated News Pictures/Getty Images)</div>
Asked about what other countries were involved, Gabbard pointed out a diplomatic cable that&#8217;s part of the 10,000 files that National Archives staff had placed out for her to view.
“If you look on this memo alone, you see Kuwait, London, Tel Aviv, Beirut, Benghazi…all of these American embassies who were the recipients of this cable,” she explained. “People are going to have to go to the website and read for themselves to kind of get an insight into what the conversations were like before, and after, Senator Kennedy’s assassination.”
“There are more questions than answers,” she warned.
Gabbard repeatedly stressed the importance of transparency in releasing these files to the public, noting that people will have to dig into them themselves in order to understand the realities of what they hold. Such was the case with the release of the files related to John F. Kennedy’s assassination. While the files offered a deeper picture into the American president’s death, they did not offer immediate answers or solutions.
“President Trump is ushering in a new era of maximum transparency,” Gabbard <a href="https://x.com/DNIGabbard/status/1902136765953032472" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> at the time.
In addition to the RFK files, the National Archives facility in College Park is home to <a href="https://www.archives.gov/college-park/highlights/textual" target="_blank" rel="noopener">records</a> pertaining to the JFK assassination and other historical artifacts, <a href="https://www.archives.gov/files/publications/prologue/2015/spring/hitler-will.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">including</a> the last will and testament of Adolf Hitler.
The historical artifacts related to the JFK and RFK assassinations are housed in a secure vault for safety, where Executive for Research Services Chris Naylor took Gabbard on Thursday afternoon.
Inside, Naylor showed the passport Lee Harvey Oswald carried when he defected to the Soviet Union, as well as his passport application and the shirt he was wearing when he was shot and killed. Also showcased was the camera used to record what is best known as the Zapruder film, the home movie that provides the most complete view of JFK&#8217;s 1963 assassination in Dallas, Texas.
“There’s so many stories behind all of this,” Gabbard said as the tour concluded. “It’s incredible to be here, to actually see it.”
As she strolled down the hall with Jim Byron, the senior advisor to the acting head archivist, Gabbard asked why the JFK artifacts aren’t showcased to the public, including the bullet that struck the deceased president.
Gabbard and Byron agreed that the artifacts should be opened up to the public.
“That’s how it works in this administration,” she said with a laugh.

MixCollage-17-Apr-2025-09-35-PM-8009

EXCLUSIVE: Tulsi Gabbard Takes The Daily Wire Inside The RFK Assassination File Drop

assassination

National Archives

Tulsi Gabbard

Attorney General Pam Bondi announces a lawsuit against Maine for defying President Donald Trump’s transgender athlete ban. A new report exposes glaring bias in media coverage of two illegal immigrants. And, new studies have thrown into doubt everything we thought we knew about ADHD.
It’s Thursday, April 17, and this is the news you need to know to start your day. If you’d rather listen to your news, today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below:
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<h1>Trump DOJ Sues Maine</h1>
<div id="attachment_908933" style="width: 845px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-908933" class="size-large wp-image-908933" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Janet-Mills-Stank-Face-835x576.jpg" alt="" width="835" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Janet-Mills-Stank-Face-835x576.jpg 835w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Janet-Mills-Stank-Face-300x207.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Janet-Mills-Stank-Face-768x530.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Janet-Mills-Stank-Face-1536x1060.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Janet-Mills-Stank-Face-2048x1413.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 835px) 100vw, 835px" />(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)</div>
Topline: After a months-long standoff, the Department of Justice has filed a civil lawsuit against Maine’s Department of Education over its transgender sports policies.
The suit says that Maine is “openly and defiantly flouting federal anti-discrimination law” by allowing males to compete in girls&#8217; sports. It says girls are being displaced from podiums, losing opportunities for advancement to regional and national competitions, and missing out on critical visibility for college scholarships and recognition.
In a press conference, Attorney General Pam Bondi said that Maine officials, notably Democratic Governor Janet Mills, forced their hand.  “We don’t want to be suing people, we want them to comply with the law, and that’s what we’re doing. We have given [every] opportunity over and over again. The Department of Education, HHS, they went and sat down with them in person, multiple meetings, and got nowhere.”
Minnesota and California have also apparently been put &#8220;on notice,&#8221; and other states are in talks with the federal government to resolve issues with Title IX enforcement.
Governor Mills issued a statement shortly after the suit was announced. She criticized the Trump administration for the “unprecedented campaign to pressure the State of Maine to ignore the Constitution and abandon the rule of law.” Mills also accused the administration of “politically motivated investigations” into Maine that had “predetermined” outcomes.
&nbsp;
<h1>Media Bias In Coverage Of Illegal Immigrants</h1>
<div id="attachment_908935" style="width: 788px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-908935" class="size-large wp-image-908935" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Media-Bias-Comedic-Graphic-778x576.jpg" alt="" width="778" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Media-Bias-Comedic-Graphic-778x576.jpg 778w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Media-Bias-Comedic-Graphic-300x222.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Media-Bias-Comedic-Graphic-768x569.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Media-Bias-Comedic-Graphic-1536x1138.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Media-Bias-Comedic-Graphic-2048x1517.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 778px) 100vw, 778px" />(Photo by designer491 via Getty Images)</div>
Topline:  A new report exposes glaring bias in the media coverage of two illegal immigrants in Maryland — one deported by the Trump administration and the other convicted of murdering a mother of five.
The study by the Media Research Center found major bias from legacy media outlets. The group found that while the outlets devoted ample coverage to an illegal immigrant deported from Maryland by the Trump administration, they completely ignored the conviction of an illegal immigrant for the brutal rape and murder of a Maryland mother of five.
The MRC report analyzed media bias in the coverage of two people: Maryland mother Rachel Morin, whose illegal immigrant rapist and murderer was just convicted on Monday, and Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an illegal immigrant with alleged ties to MS-13.
“We have added up about 65 minutes on ABC, CBS and NBC devoted to the guy they call “the Maryland man,’” Tim Graham, Executive Editor and Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center, told Morning Wire. &#8220;He&#8217;s an illegal alien who&#8217;s been living in Maryland for a decade, but he was deported. The Trump administration said this was an error, but they didn&#8217;t really wanna fix it. Compare that to the trial that just went on in Maryland with Rachel Morin, a mother of five who was murdered by an illegal alien… you have 65 minutes on the illegal alien mistakenly deported; you have zero seconds on the Rachel Morin trial.”
Graham argued that the main factor in network news coverage was whether a particular story helped or hurt President Trump. “They didn&#8217;t wanna talk about Laken Riley, Jocelyn Nungaray. [Rachel Morin]. When you have illegal immigrants rape a woman, or in Nungaray&#8217;s case, a 12-year-old girl, and then murder them, you can&#8217;t say, well, we only, you know, we don&#8217;t cover. You&#8217;re not gonna say that it&#8217;s a matter of who is the rapist and the murderer. That somehow turns it into a zero second story.”
&nbsp;
<h1> ADHD Study</h1>
<div id="attachment_908937" style="width: 880px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-908937" class="size-large wp-image-908937" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/ADHD-870x576.jpg" alt="" width="870" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/ADHD-870x576.jpg 870w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/ADHD-300x199.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/ADHD-768x509.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/ADHD-1536x1017.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/ADHD-2048x1356.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 870px) 100vw, 870px" />(Photo by Gam1983 via Getty Images)</div>
Topline: New research on ADHD is raising questions about how doctors are diagnosing and treating Americans, particularly children.
For years, scientists have believed that a biomarker – like a specific gene – could lead to a direct diagnosis of ADHD, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. But research now suggests that’s false, and that ADHD is just a collection of symptoms that can be subjective and arbitrarily diagnosed. Children and adults can temporarily experience these symptoms – they can come and go – and they’re largely associated with your environment.
Additionally, children who were put on ADHD medications – which is some version of amphetamine – were found to only have short-term relief of symptoms. Compared to kids with no intervention at all, there was no difference long-term. Studies have shown that long-term use of such medications is <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2811812">associated</a> with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, particularly hypertension and arterial disease. It can also stunt growth, which is particularly concerning since so many children are put on these medicines. Kids who took ADHD meds were<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/magazine/adhd-medication-treatment-research.html"> found to be shorter</a> than those never on the medications – and they never made up for the growth loss, according to longer-term data. 
Numbers from the CDC show that 7 million kids have been diagnosed with ADHD. Boys are more frequently diagnosed than girls, by almost a 2:1 ratio. In fact, 21% of all 14-year-old boys and 23% of 17-year-old boys have been given an ADHD diagnosis. Additionally, a growing number of adults are on these medications – the largest increase in first-time diagnosis is actually with people 30 to 44 years old.
“Fifteen percent of American youth are now on Adderall or some other ADHD medication,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. <a href="https://www.instagram.com/cpac/reel/DFbGwY3PtMm/?api=1%2F&amp;hl=bg">said</a> during his confirmation hearing. “Even higher percentages are on SSRIs and benzos. We are not just overmedicating our children, we are overmedicating our entire population.”
New <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/magazine/adhd-medication-treatment-research.html">research</a> shows that a busier schedule – or times of higher “environmental demand” – can actually alleviate symptoms of ADHD. The New York Times report noted that jobs or college courses that were demanding and interesting helped reduce ADHD symptoms. Other anecdotal evidence found that people who say they experienced ADHD symptoms felt relief when they found a way to channel it in a field they found interesting or excelled at, which tracks with the latest research. Further, addressing general over-reliance on medications for kids, RFK is looking at how our technological habits impact our overall health, as well as physical activity and nutrition.

Janet Mills and Donald Trump

Morning Brief: DOJ Sues Maine Over Trans Policies, Media Runs Cover For Illegals & The ADHD Scam

Immigration

Maine

Media Bias

Title IX

Women's sports

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said during a press conference on Wednesday that the autism epidemic is caused by environmental toxins, and is commissioning a series of studies on numerous toxins.
Kennedy specifically cited mold, pesticides, other food chemicals, and medicines as potential toxins contributing to the epidemic. He also suggested ultrasound scans could be a factor, given the timing of such technological advances.
&#8220;This is a preventable disease,&#8221; the secretary said. &#8220;We know it&#8217;s environmental exposure. It has to be. Genes do not cause epidemics. It can provide a vulnerability, but you need an environmental toxin.&#8221;
&#8220;We&#8217;re going to announce a series of new studies to identify precisely what the environmental toxins are that are causing it,&#8221; Kennedy added. &#8220;This has not been done before. And we&#8217;re going to do it in a thorough and comprehensive way, and we&#8217;re gonna get back with an answer to the American people very, very quickly.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
RFK JR: &#8220;We&#8217;re going to announce a series of new studies to identify precisely what the environment toxins are that are causing [autism]. This has not been done before&#8230;&#8221;<a href="https://t.co/rOzWHkd5KU">pic.twitter.com/rOzWHkd5KU</a>
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) <a href="https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1912557979133485298?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 16, 2025</a></blockquote>
<p class="paragraph inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph" data-uri="cms.cnn.com/_components/paragraph/instances/cm9k7q43e00003b6ofcu5wxqc@published" data-editable="text" data-component-name="paragraph" data-article-gutter="true" data-analytics-observe="off">Dr. Walter Zahorodny, an associate professor at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, joined RFK at the presser and emphasized that the rise in autism cases cannot be attributed to better diagnosis alone.
<p class="paragraph inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph" data-uri="cms.cnn.com/_components/paragraph/instances/cm9k88o2p000v3b6odujp2jlu@published" data-editable="text" data-component-name="paragraph" data-article-gutter="true" data-analytics-observe="off">“I would urge everyone to consider the likelihood that autism – whether we call it an epidemic, a tsunami or a surge of autism – is a real thing that we don’t understand, and it must be triggered or caused by environmental or risk factors,” Zahorodny <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/16/health/rfk-autism-epidemic/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>. “We need to address this question seriously because, in my opinion, for the last 20 years, we’ve collected data but not made real progress in understanding what causes autism or how to effectively prevent it or treat it effectively.”
Last week, Kennedy <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rfk-jr-sets-tight-deadline-to-announce-cause-of-autism-epidemic?author=Amanda+Prestigiacomo&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=2&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=RFK+Jr.+Sets+Tight+Deadline+To+Announce+Cause+Of+Autism+Epidemic" target="_blank" rel="noopener">promised</a> to announce the specific causes of the epidemic by September.
“The autism rates have gone from 1 in 31 from 1 in 10,000 when I was a kid,” RFK said to President Donald Trump. “At your direction, we’ve launched a massive testing and research effort that’s going to involve hundreds of scientists from around the world.”
“By September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic and we will be able to eliminate those exposures,” he added.
The Autism Society of America <a href="https://autismsociety.org/statement-on-robert-f-kennedy-jr-s-comments-regarding-the-cause-of-autism-and-misleading-deadline/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">criticized</a> Kennedy over the announcement, calling it &#8220;harmful, misleading, and unrealistic.&#8221;
&#8220;Autism is a complex developmental disability shaped by genetic, biological, and environmental factors,&#8221; the organization said. &#8220;It is neither a chronic illness nor a contagion, that qualifies harmful language like &#8216;epidemic,&#8217; and to do so is both inaccurate and stigmatizing.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rfk-jr-sets-tight-deadline-to-announce-cause-of-autism-epidemic?author=Amanda+Prestigiacomo&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=2&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=RFK+Jr.+Sets+Tight+Deadline+To+Announce+Cause+Of+Autism+Epidemic" target="_blank" rel="noopener">RFK Jr. Sets Tight Deadline To Announce Cause Of Autism Epidemic</a>

RFK Jr

RFK Says ‘We Know’ Environmental Toxins Are Causing Autism Epidemic

Health Care

Toxin

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Thursday that his department will know what is causing the autism epidemic by September.
A CDC study from 2020 found that 1 in 36 children in the United States have been diagnosed with autism. Kennedy, while speaking to President Donald Trump about the announcement, said that now 1 in 31 children are diagnosed with the disorder.
&#8220;The latest rates, the autism rates have gone from 1 in 31 from 1 in 10,000 when I was a kid,&#8221; RFK said to Trump. &#8220;At your direction, we&#8217;ve launched a massive testing and research effort that&#8217;s going to involve hundreds of scientists from around the world.&#8221;
&#8220;By September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic and we will be able to eliminate those exposures,&#8221; he added.
Trump applauded Kennedy&#8217;s work and said &#8220;there will be no bigger news conference&#8221; when RFK reveals what&#8217;s behind the epidemic.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
🚨 BREAKING: HHS Secretary <a href="https://twitter.com/RobertKennedyJr?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RobertKennedyJr</a> declares that by September, the United States will uncover the cause of the autism epidemic and eliminate exposures:<a href="https://twitter.com/POTUS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@POTUS</a>: &#8220;Think of that, so it was 1 in 10,000 children had autism, and now it’s 1 in 31.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/Y81wxzOfF1">pic.twitter.com/Y81wxzOfF1</a>
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) <a href="https://twitter.com/TrumpWarRoom/status/1910386388148871559?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 10, 2025</a></blockquote>
Just last month, HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-cdc-plans-study-into-vaccines-autism-sources-say-2025-03-07/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> the department will leave “no stone unturned” while studying the rise in autism.
“As President Trump said in his Joint Address to Congress, the rate of autism in American children has skyrocketed,” he said. “CDC will leave no stone unturned in its mission to figure out what exactly is happening. The American people expect high quality research and transparency and that is what CDC is delivering.”
Numerous reports indicated that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was specifically studying if there is any link between vaccinations and the rise in autism.
National Institutes of Health (NIH) director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya has said he doesn’t believe there is a link between vaccines and the rise in autism, but would back “a broad scientific agenda” looking into the matter.
“I don’t generally believe there is a link, based on my reading of the literature. But we do have a sharp rise in autism rates, and I don’t think any scientist really knows the cause of it,” Bhattacharya said during a confirmation hearing. “I would support a broad scientific agenda based on data to get an answer to that.”
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/kennedys-cdc-to-reportedly-study-potential-link-between-vaccines-and-autism" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kennedy’s CDC To Reportedly Study Potential Link Between Vaccines And Autism</a>

RFK Jr. Sets Tight Deadline To Announce Cause Of Autism Epidemic

Kansas Governor Laura Kelly asked the federal government to let her state prohibit food stamps from being spent on soda and candy — then reversed course and vetoed a bill passed by the legislature to cut back on taxpayer-subsidized junk food.
The Democrat&#8217;s abrupt flip-flop is the latest example of strange behavior following a lobbying campaign by the soda and candy industries aimed at countering bipartisan support for reforming food stamps to reduce obesity-related health issues among the poor.
In March, the Kansas <a href="https://kslegislature.gov/li/b2025_26/measures/vote_view/je_20250219114953_198904/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">legislature</a> <a href="https://kslegislature.gov/li/b2025_26/measures/vote_view/je_20250319154637_587964/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">passed</a> a bill <a href="https://kslegislature.gov/li/b2025_26/measures/documents/sb79_enrolled.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">instructing</a> “The secretary for children and families&#8221; to &#8220;request a waiver from the United States Department of Agriculture to exclude candy and soft drinks from the definition of eligible foods &#8230;&#8221;
On April 2 — before the bill had been signed, and, therefore, before she was required to — Kelly requested such a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25893168-snap-waiver/#document/p1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">waiver</a>, a copy of which was obtained by The Daily Wire. The waiver asked the federal government for permission to “exclude all candy and soda beverages (also known as soft drinks) from the definition of eligible foods under 7 CFR 271.2 for purchase with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.” 
The waiver argued that Kansas has an epidemic of ailments associated with obesity, like diabetes and heart disease.
“Current estimates rank Kansas 12th in the nation for obesity prevalence, with 34.4% of adults,” it said. “The primary goals of the SNAP program are to alleviate hunger and improve the nutrition and health of low-income individuals… Allowing the purchase of sugar sweetened soda beverages and candy with minimal nutritional value with federal dollars is harmful for low-income families, and it enables unhealthy nutritional habits. It also creates irresponsible spending of federal tax dollars and increased healthcare costs.”
The waiver, signed by Economic and Employment Services Director Carla Whiteside-Hicks, said that an Agriculture Department report found that in 2011, nearly $360 million in food stamp dollars were spent on soda, making it the second-most popular item, as well as $138 million on candy. 
But a day later, Kelly vetoed the bill, contradicting her own waiver’s arguments while echoing arguments from industry lobbyists that businesses would lose money if they can’t accept welfare dollars for soda and candy.
“This bill is simply wrong,&#8221; she <a href="https://www.governor.ks.gov/Home/Components/News/News/598/56#:~:text=The%20following%20veto%20message%20is%20from%20Governor%20Kelly%20regarding%20her%20veto%20of%20Senate%20Bill%2079%3A%C2%A0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a>. &#8220;Not only would it make it more difficult for Kansans to access the food they need to feed their families, it would also harm Kansas businesses.&#8221;
“The waiver required by this bill is confusing and will cause problems for our grocers and small businesses. Under the definition in that waiver, Kansas businesses would be mandated to stop accepting food assistance benefits for protein bars, trail mix, and other food products many would consider ‘healthy.’ Meanwhile, items like Twix, Kit Kat, and Twizzlers would still be eligible for purchase using food assistance benefits. It’s nonsensical,” the veto justification said.
The bill defined candy and soda using their existing definitions in Kansas state code, saying “candy is defined as a preparation of sugar, honey or other natural or artificial sweeteners in combination with chocolate, fruits, nuts or other ingredients or flavorings in the form of bars, drops or pieces. Candy does not include any preparation containing flour and shall require no refrigeration. Soft drink beverages are defined as nonalcoholic beverages that contain natural or artificial sweeteners. Soft drinks do not include beverages that contain milk or milk products, soy, rice or similar milk substitutes or beverages that are greater than 50% vegetable or fruit juice.”
Kelly left the door open to supporting policy changes that would go further, such as banning soda and candy across the entire nation.
“I support the idea that Kansans should eat healthier. However, changes to the SNAP food assistance program should be made at the federal level, not on a patchwork, state-by-state basis,” she said.
The vagaries and loopholes in defining what counts as soda and candy could also be alleviated with a stricter approach that lays out what can be bought with food stamps, rather than what can&#8217;t. SNAP could be limited to specifically-approved staples by mirroring or merging with another federal poverty program called Women, Infant, and Children (WIC). Or it could return to its roots and distribute <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/why-can-food-stamps-buy-junk-food-how-doge-could-save-billions-and-maha" target="_blank" rel="noopener">bulk commodities directly to families</a>, instead of giving them coupons to spend at corner stores. 
The Foundation for Government Accountability, a watchdog group, has suggested that donations and lobbying from interests that profit off of creating and treating obesity may have played a role in a series of reversals and uncharacteristic positions taken in the debate about soda and food stamps.
The American Heart Association (AHA) shocked Texas legislators last month by testifying against a similar bill there, even though its research shows that soda and candy are bad for the heart, and even though the Texas Medical Association testified in support of the bill. The AHA has taken money from PepsiCo and more than a million dollars each from Walmart, Pfizer, and Novo Nordisk, the maker of the obesity drug Ozempic. The AHA later <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/american-heart-association-retracts-food-stamp-soda-opposition?row=0&amp;elementPosition=6&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;author=Luke+Rosiak&amp;title=American+Heart+Association+Retracts+Opposition+To+Barring+Soda%2C+Candy+From+Food+Stamps&amp;category=News" target="_blank" rel="noopener">retracted</a> its testimony and said it does not oppose such bills.
“First, the American Heart Association flip-flopped and backed away from Big Soda in Texas; now it seems like Kansas’s Democratic Governor Laura Kelly is flip-flopping the other direction to support junk food on food stamps,&#8221; Foundation for Government Accountability spokesman Adam Gibbs told The Daily Wire. &#8220;There’s something about this taxpayer-funded soda ban that has certain people spinning in circles.&#8221;
&#8220;The Governor can’t decide who to back — her constituents or Big Soda,&#8221; he added.
Some conservative influencers said they were offered money to make social media posts spinning welfare for soda as conservative. The soda lobby is also <a href="https://yourcartyourchoice.com/oppose-restrictions-on-snap-benefits/?utm_source=x&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=social_x_social_20250312_E_no_1_" target="_blank" rel="noopener">promoting unusual op-eds in conservative media</a> that try to convince free-market conservatives to rally around taxpayer-funded junk food. Newsmax published one such piece, “Keep Bureaucrats’ Hands Out of American’s [sic] Grocery Carts – Please.” It was authored by Tom Giovanetti of the Institute for Policy Innovation, which, according to <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text_search?page=3&amp;q=%22Institute+for+Policy+Innovation%22" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tax records</a>, is funded by PhRMA, whose members profit from treating the unhealthy.
“Lawmakers must override the governor’s veto to ensure that the will of Kansans is delivered,&#8221; Gibbs said. &#8220;They can either stand with the MAHA moms who voted for President Trump in November—or they can fall in line with whatever political game Governor Kelly is playing this week.”
Kansas requires a two-thirds vote to override a veto. The Senate already has the votes, but the House would need about 18 members to switch positions.
Colorado and Arizona, two other states with Democrat governors, have received similar bills passed by their legislatures.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/food-stamps-accepted-at-thousands-of-liquor-and-tobacco-stores-contributing-to-healthcare-fiasco">Food Stamps Accepted At Thousands Of Liquor And Tobacco Stores, Contributing To Healthcare Fiasco</a>

spilled soda Stock photo

Kansas Governor Laura Kelly Flip-Flops On SNAP Soda Ban, Vetoes Bill

Kansas

USDA

Welfare

Republican West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey signed a &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/soda-lobby-group-american-beverage-denies-paying-influencers-to-fight-snap-restrictions" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Make America Healthy Again&#8221; bill</a> into law this week that bans a number of food dyes. He&#8217;s also challenging himself (with the help of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) and his constituents to get more exercise daily.
&#8220;I&#8217;m not pretending to be a fitness guru,&#8221; Morrisey said, following the bill signing. &#8220;But, I have asked Secretary Kennedy to be my personal trainer. He hasn&#8217;t said yes yet, but I think he&#8217;s sizing me up as a major renovation project.&#8221;
In the quest to get his state healthy, the governor offered a challenge for West Virginia residents to get out and walk at least one mile per day. &#8220;As governor, I understand that I need to do this, as well, and start shedding the pounds,&#8221; he said.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
A few minutes ago, I completed my second installment of the Mountaineer Mile. Over 10,000 steps so far today! Let’s make West Virginia Healthy Again!
<a href="https://t.co/rTcLS6tgC1">pic.twitter.com/rTcLS6tgC1</a>
— Patrick Morrisey (@MorriseyWV) <a href="https://twitter.com/MorriseyWV/status/1906115349654708452?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 29, 2025</a></blockquote>
In a post on X, Morrisey elaborated on the challenge, and how he&#8217;s personally participating. 
&#8220;Tonight, after our big event with HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., I finished my first installment of the Mountaineer mile — a new challenge for West Virginians to get out and walk at least a mile every day,&#8221; he wrote. &#8220;I know walking every day won’t be easy for everyone, including myself. But it’s worth the effort and will help all of us live longer and spend more time with our friends and family on things that matter.&#8221;
&#8220;In my life, I haven’t always made the right decisions in terms of food and exercise, but I am going to do my best now to improve and shed some pounds,&#8221; the governor added. &#8220;I took this photograph of the sunset on my walk in Shannondale. Have a great night!#MountaineerMile.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Tonight, after our big event with HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., I finished my first installment of the Mountaineer mile— a new challenge for West Virginians to get out and walk at least a mile every day.
I know walking every day won’t be easy for everyone, including… <a href="https://t.co/x849gu9RkJ">pic.twitter.com/x849gu9RkJ</a>
— Patrick Morrisey (@MorriseyWV) <a href="https://twitter.com/MorriseyWV/status/1905777190777876696?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 29, 2025</a></blockquote>
West Virginia is also moving forward to ask the federal government to allow the state to <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/west-virginia-morrisey-ban-food-dyes-schools-snap.html#:~:text=Governor%20Morrisey%20announced%20at%20the,SNAP%2C”%20Secretary%20Kennedy%20said." target="_blank" rel="noopener">restrict junk food and soda from food stamps</a>, also known as SNAP benefits.
Kennedy made comments about Morrisey&#8217;s weight and his health goals in light of the MAHA movement in West Virginia.
&#8220;You look like you ate Gov. Morrisey,&#8221; RFK recalled telling the governor. &#8220;There was a lot of talk about getting healthy again, and I&#8217;m very happy that he&#8217;s invited me to be his personal trainer. I&#8217;m gonna put him on a really rigorous regimen &#8212; we&#8217;re gonna put him on a carnivore diet.&#8221;
&#8220;Raise your hand if you want Gov. Morrisey to do a public weigh-in once a month,&#8221; Kennedy added. &#8220;And then when he&#8217;s lost 30 pounds, I&#8217;ll come back to this state and do a celebration in a public way, and with him.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
NEW: RFK Jr. tells West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey that he needs to lose 30 pounds to his face, calls on Morrisey to do a &#8220;public weigh-in&#8221; every month.
The Health Secretary is now fat-shaming people in public. Amazing.
&#8220;I said, &#8216;You look like you ate Governor Morrissey.'&#8221;… <a href="https://t.co/knJwos0paR">pic.twitter.com/knJwos0paR</a>
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) <a href="https://twitter.com/CollinRugg/status/1905678687770648720?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 28, 2025</a></blockquote>
Kennedy also strongly commended Morrisey in a statement. “West Virginia is leading the nation in passing a bill to clean up our food supply and submitting a waiver to remove soda from SNAP,” he <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/west-virginia-morrisey-ban-food-dyes-schools-snap.html#:~:text=Governor%20Morrisey%20announced%20at%20the,SNAP%2C”%20Secretary%20Kennedy%20said." target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>. &#8220;This state leadership adds leverage to the Trump administration’s drive to Make America Healthy Again.&#8221;
&#8220;I urge every Governor to follow West Virginia’s lead and submit a waiver to the USDA to remove soda from SNAP,&#8221; the secretary continued. &#8220;If there’s one thing we can agree on, it should be eliminating taxpayer-funded soda subsidies for lower income kids. I look forward to inviting every Governor who submits a waiver to come celebrate with me at the White House this fall. Thank you, Secretary Rollins for your leadership on this vital issue for children’s health.”

US-POLITICS-TRUMP-TAX REFORM

West Virginia Gov Signs MAHA Bill, Is Working With RFK To Lose Weight

West Virginia

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