Remember now next time you vote
To the Editor:
It has been hard to keep up with the news cycles during the first week of President Trump’s administration, but a few things deserve public ridicule. In his infinite wisdom, Trump pardoned and released about 1,500 January 6 criminal defendants into our communities to do violence and organize their militias.
These are people who violently tried to interfere with the 2020 election certification process (we all saw it on television). During his campaign, Trump told us he would do this, and enough of us apparently didn’t believe him — he won. Believe him.
Second, President Trump rescinded a number of orders President Biden put in place. That alone is no big deal — presidents do this, Democrat and Republican alike. However, Trump scrapped a Biden executive order that required Health and Human Services to consider new health care delivery and pricing models that would lower prescription drug costs. Trump clearly does not care that folks are having to make choices about buying food or buying drugs that might be life saving, like insulin. Fortunately, it would take an act of Congress to reverse Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act giving Medicare authority to negotiate prices of some prescription drugs (for example, insulin is capped at $35 under Medicare rules). By the way, Sen. Tillis and Sen. Budd (a congressman at the time) did not vote for that law. Our current congressional representative, Chuck Edwards, opposes the law as well.
Next, Trump lost all reason and ordered federal agencies to freeze payments of federal funding — primarily grants and loans. This would potentially harm veteran’s organizations and non-profit organizations, including Sylva’s Community Table, Center for Domestic Peace and Mountain Projects. Trump’s action was cruel and inexplicable. Fortunately, people were not asleep and public backlash and a lawsuit forced the administration to reverse its order.
Finally, the unqualified but newly confirmed Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, stripped Gen. Mark Milley’s (former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) security detail and then ordered an investigation into his conduct. No doubt this action was done at the behest of Trump, who said in 2023 that the general, a Trump critic, committed treason and should be put to death. What country do we live in! It’s worth noting that our senators, Tillis and Budd, both voted to confirm Mr. Hegseth. In fact, Sen. Tillis provided the deciding vote to, reneging on a prior promise to oppose the nomination. It will be good to remember this in 2026 — Tillis’ reelection year.
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Ann Fulton
Sylva
