The Rachel Maddow Show
Donald Trump fired the man who likely saved his life; U.S. may never fully recover from Trump's cuts
Thu, 3 Apr 2025
Dr. David Kessler, former FDA commissioner and chief science officer of the White House Covid-19 Task Force, talks with Rachel Maddow about the devastating effects of Donald Trump's cuts to HHS, not only in dismantling important services, but compromising U.S. medical and scientific leadership to a degree that may not be recoverable for decades.
Why is Donald Trump imposing tariffs on small islands?
So are you tired of all the winning yet? Are you enjoying all of the greatness? May I introduce you to Takilao? Takilao is three teeny tiny islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. That's our best approximation on our mapping software here at MSNBC HQ. Takilao, again, about three, it's three islands. It's in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. About 1,500 people live there.
One of the three islands that makes up Takilao is apparently known for its famous swimming pigs. As for its economy, Takilao kind of doesn't register on any international scale of economic measures because Takilao doesn't really have much of an economy. It's basically subsistence, agriculture and fishing and, you know, enjoying the swimming pigs.
Donald Trump just imposed an across the board, no exceptions, 10 percent tariff on Takilao. Take that, Tokelau bandits. You will screw over the United States of America no longer. May I also introduce you to the Keeling Islands. Keeling Islands are roughly halfway between Australia and Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean. Keeling Islands is 27 islands, but 25 of them are uninhabited.
Several of those uninhabited islands have a real plastic trash problem, but that is not because anybody lives there, but because plastic trash from other countries makes its way across the Indian Ocean and washes up there. The two islands of the Keeling Islands that are inhabited, out of the 27 islands there, those two inhabited islands have a total population of 593 people.
Well, Donald Trump just declared trade war on the Keeling Islands. All 593 Keeling Islanders will now be hit with an American government 10 percent tariff that will apply to, you know, anything they might ever want to export here to us. You know, make it here, Keeling Islands, if you're going to make it. May I introduce you to Yanmeyan Island?
It is a volcano, a volcanic island, mostly covered in glaciers, hundreds of miles from anything else in the Arctic Ocean. Yanmeyan, I think that's how you say it. It does have an airstrip, but... Nobody lives there. Population zero humans, many polar bears. That said, rest assured, we, the American people, are now protected from the predatory economic piracy of that uninhabited island.
Thanks to our genius strongman ruler who has put the American government to work, Donald Trump has just slapped a 10% tariff on Yan Mayan Island just in case anyone ever moves up there and tries to screw us over with their Yan Mayan Island underpriced exports and stuff. On the other end of the world, there's Heard, H-E-A-R-D, Heard Island and also McDonald Island. They're in Antarctica.
They are only reachable by boat and it takes two weeks by sea to get there from Australia. Heard and what's the other one? McDonald Island. Sorry. Hurd and McDonald Island. I know I don't have to apologize. I'm not offending anybody. They're totally uninhabited. Both of them. They're also active volcanoes. So even if you wanted to move there, even the penguins might caution you. Right.
They're active volcanoes, one on each island on both Hurd and McDonald Islands. I will say those volcanoes and the penguins and seals who live there. they will never menace the American economy again as they have in the past by flooding us with their cheap exports of what, like fresh air, cool breezes, a waft of eau de penguin. I don't know. What do they send us?
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