Trump, Kids, Cancer and a Chainsaw

By Steve Lee | Guest Contributor

The President, who regails himself as the leader of the “Pro-Family” party, has constantly been attacking them since the day he was sworn in. He’s fired thousands of breadwinners putting families in danger of foreclosure and potentially homelessness; he’s scared thousands of families into hiding out of fear of deportation (without due process); he’s cut back research funding for medical research, he’s threatened our first amendment rights to a free press, and he’s planning to dismantle the Department of Education that is responsible for educating our kids and mainstreaming those who are disabled. 

These are just a few of the hits on his America’s Top 40.

On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order ending “Birthright Citizenship,” a Constitutional right that any baby born in the United States is an American citizen. This order, if upheld by SCOTUS, will rewrite centuries of American legal precedent. It will also leave hundreds of thousands of kids born here without a legal nationality. A group of what some refer to as a “permanent underclass.” 

This class consists of approximately 500,000 kids, according to a group of Democratic attorneys general. These facts make it difficult to see any “Pro-Family” aspect of the current administration. An administration that lacks any degree of humility or humanity in so many of its policies. These policies essentially terrify families rather than protect and nurture them.

Already the world’s most powerful person and the richest man on earth, in their quest to display power, have cut a program that had cost nothing at all while developing more than 60 drugs for children to fight cancer and other rare life-threatening diseases. The “Give Kids a Chance Act” which passed Congress in 2011, didn’t cost taxpayers a dime, notes founder Nancy Goodman. 

The Act was up for renewal as part of the Continuing Resolution to fund the government from December 2024 until March 2025. Trump, Musk, and their lackeys trimmed the expansive document before Congress's approval with the Act left on the cutting room floor. The two leaders cut “free” funds for pediatric cancer research and treatment!

Let’s not forget about Trump and Musk’s additional efforts to dismantle federal research grants to find cures for cancer, Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementias, ALS, Diabetes, mental health disorders, opioid abuse, and genetic and rare diseases. Annually, since 2018, Congress has enacted a provision in its appropriations bill that expressly prohibits any Administration from modifying these parameters.

Regardless, Trump’s new policy to cap indirect costs for the National Institute of Health (NIH) at 15%, essentially cuts billions of dollars in funding for life-saving research and development to find cures. The NIH is the world’s leading medical research agency and largest funder of cancer research, providing approximately $8 billion per year just for cancer research. 

Trump. Musk and DOGE are expected to cut 1,200 jobs at NIH as part of the layoffs planned for the Health and Human Services Department. Across HHS, job loss is expected to exceed 20,000 or approximately 25% of its total workforce. Currently, there are over 7,000 active clinical trials taking place nationwide. Everyone is now in danger of being shelved a move that will cost lives.

Trump and Musk are in direct violation of the law, causing irreparable damage to critical research programs. According to the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee and Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Subcommittee, Rosa DeLauro, “The Trump Administration is attempting to steal critical funds promised to scientific research institutions funded by the NIH, despite explicit legal prohibition against this action.

”DeLauro added, “Based on legal statute, which is clear and unequivocal, Musk and the Trump Administration are prohibited from implementing its new policy to cut funding for biomedical research that was approved by Congress… President Trump is taking an axe to our efforts to find cures for diseases and disorders that are tearing apart families across the country.”

In 2017, during the first Trump Administration, he attempted to cut NIH research by approximately $6 billion or nearly 20%. This cut would have cut cancer research by nearly $1 billion and across-the-board cuts to every other area of life-saving research. Both Republicans and Democrats were in universal opposition to this defunding. Such defunding would have certainly put America on a path to decline.

One of the most significant issues, should Trump be allowed to cut funding and lay off researchers, is the real possibility of these top researchers leaving the US and offering their expertise to other countries, such as China or European countries that would be more than happy to be on the cutting edge of life-saving medical research, all to the United States detriment. The exodus has already begun, with several top scientists having moved their research to Canada.

Trump and Musk are also supporting funding cuts for free school lunches and defunding programs that make it easier for kids to be placed in foster care or permanent homes. The 20-plus state ban against abortion, one of Trump’s favorite topics, has led in some cases to forcing children to give birth to children.These above examples of concern establish that Trump is misguided in referring to himself as “Pro-Life.” He’s actually just “Anti-Choice.” A distinction, to be sure. He’s not so concerned about life and its quality as he is about restricting women’s rights.

One of Trump’s campaign promises, the disbandment of the Education Department, is underway. This requires an act of Congress to accomplish, but Trump proceeds as if he is our king. Regardless of how this issue is ultimately resolved, Trump is committed to a roughly 50% layoff of DE employees.

This will cut critical infrastructure supporting millions of public school students nationwide. This is likely to cause tremendous harm to marginalized groups, such as the disabled (approximately 15% of the student body) and students who learn English as their second language. Layoffs are likely to devastate special education programs nationwide.

Under the Heritage Foundation-backed Project 2025, the administration should dismantle the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and disseminate the funds to each state for their elected officials to determine how best to spend that state's allotment. This would mean no federal government oversight, and money could be distributed indiscriminately, perhaps by ZIP code. 

This would also make it more difficult for families to file complaints regarding rights violations. The DE abruptly paused investigations of approximately 12,000 complaints thay had pending when Trump’s term began. Any oversight would be handled by the DHHS, which was also decimated with 20,000 layoffs and lacking any institutional knowledge of special education issues. Critical healthcare for kids will likely disappear as well.

ICE and Border Patrol now have open access to our public schools and buses, thanks to a recent executive order. Keep in mind there are 600,000 undocumented kids in our public schools, a right insured in the 1982 US Supreme Court case Plyer v Doe. Despite this holding, Texas, Oklahoma and Tennessee have introduced bills to block undocumented kids from public schools. These recent challenges have caused dread and panic in immigrant families. School districts have noticed a sizable drop in school attendance due to fear of arrest and deportation. 

Trump consistently shows that he’s more adept at destroying things than building anything that could be considered as having a positive effect on the majority of Americans. He so easily demolishes lives, jobs, research, schools, families, friendships, wealth, information, trust, and peace. 

In return, he builds walls, camps, fear, disease, and lack of trust.