26 April 2026, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)
America’s elected President, Donald Trump, succinctly stated, on April 1st, his priorities as the U.S. President:
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We can’t take care of daycare. We’re a big country.
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We have 50 states. We have all these other people.
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We’re fighting wars.
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We can’t take care of daycare.
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You’ve got to let a state take care of daycare.
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Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things.
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They can do it on a state basis.
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You can’t do it on a federal.
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We have to take care of one thing, military protection.
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He wants the states, already overburdened, to handle not only what they already are funding in these matters, but the whole thing.
For the context of that statement by Trump, here is the actual passage from his one hour and three minute-long Easter Lunch speech — the only transcript of this speech that has been published. This transcript was published by the Capitol Hill newspaper, Roll Call. (The White House, whitehouse.gov, publishes most of Trump’s speeches, but chose not to publish this one.):
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(part of their series: https://rollcall.com/factbase/trump/transcripts)
“Remarks: Donald Trump Addresses an Easter Lunch at the White House - April 1, 2026”
Full Transcript
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Donald Trump 00:18:08-00:18:28 (19 sec)
And I actually said to them -- I said to Russell [Vought, OMB Director], don’t send any money for daycare because the United States can’t take care of daycare, that has to be up to a state. We can’t take care of daycare we’re a big country we’ve got 50 states. We have all these other people we’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of daycare.
Donald Trump 00:18:28-00:18:46 (19 sec)
You got to let a state take care of daycare, and they should pay for it, too. They should pay, they have to raise their taxes, but they should pay for it and we could lower our taxes a little bit to them to make up for it, but it’s not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things.
Donald Trump 00:18:46-00:19:15 (29 sec)
They can do it on a state basis, you can’t do it on a federal -- we have to take care of one thing, military protection, we have to guard the country. But all these little things, all these little scams that have taken place, all you have to -- you have to let states take care of them, Russell, and you, have to do it. Linda McMahon [Trump’s Secetry of the Education Department], she’s done such a great job.
Donald Trump 00:19:15-00:19:40 (25 sec)
She’s moved education back to the states. And you know what? You need Congressional approval. I said don’t worry about it, just do it, she did it. [Laughter] They’re largely back in the states, we have all these buildings, empty education buildings. Where is Linda? She’s not here, right? But I’ll tell you, let her know I said it. She’s done it. She’s -- she’s a sleeper.
Donald Trump 00:19:40-00:20:17 (37 sec)
She was such a great person when she was at small business, Kelly. She did a great job before Kelly was doing a fantastic job but Linda was great and then I said, don’t worry about it, just move it back, and she’s moving it back to the states where it belongs. Education belongs in the state where the parents can help and they love their children, as opposed to some bureaucrat sitting in Washington that doesn’t know where Iowa is. When you go back, let Iowa run, and let all of these states, Indiana, let them run their education 100 percent.
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And here are the U.S. public’s priorities, as I had summarized them on April 16th, from the only scientific national poll that was done of the public’s budget priorities prior to Congress’s passing into law the President’s “Big and Beautiful Bill” to fund the U.S. Government for the next 12 months:
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On February 14th, the AP had headlined “Where US adults think the government is spending too much, according to AP-NORC polling”, and listed in rank-order according to the opposite (“spending too little”) the following 8 Government functions: 1. Social Security; 2. Medicare; 3. Education; 4. Assistance to the poor; 5. Medicaid; 6. Border security; 7. Federal law enforcement; 8. The Military. That’s right: the American public (and by an overwhelming margin) are THE LEAST SUPPORTIVE of spending more money on the military, and the MOST SUPPORTIVE of spending more money on Social Security, Medicare, Education, Assistance to the poor, and Medicaid (the five functions the Republican Party has always been the most vocal to call “waste, fraud, and abuse” and try to cut). Meanwhile, The Military, which actually receives 53% (and in the latest year far more than that) of the money that the Congress allocates each year and gets signed into law by the President, keeps getting, each year, over 50% of the annually appropriated federal funds.
On March 5th, the Jeff-Bezos-owned Washington Post headlined “GOP must cut Medicaid or Medicare to achieve budget goals, CBO finds: The nonpartisan bookkeeper said there’s no other way to cut $1.5 trillion from the budget over the next decade.” Though the CBO is ‘nonpartisan’ as between the Democratic and Republican Parties, it is (since both are) entirely beholden to America’s billionaires; and, so, that term [“nonpartisan”] there is deceptive. What that ‘news’-report is reporting is that the sense of Congress (even including Democrats there) is that a way needs to be found to cut $1.5T from ‘Medicare or Medicaid” (which, since only Medicaid, health care to the poor, is ‘discretionary’, Medicare is not) means cutting Medicaid over the next ten years.
On March 8th, ABC News and Yahoo News headlined “DOGE is searching through Social Security payments looking for fraud”. They’re not looking for fraud by the billionaires — including tax-fraud (which might be costing the Government hundreds of billions per year). And they are not looking for it in the only federal Department that has never been audited: the ‘Defense’ Department.
So, it is blatantly obvious that America’s ‘electoral democracy’ doesn’t represent the American people; it represents ONLY America’s billionaires. It’s no democracy. It’s an aristocracy
On April 8th, I headlined “Does every democracy corruptly degenerate into control by the richest?”, and I concluded that the answer is definitely yes. Electoral means will reliably degenerate into aristocracy, NOT be a democracy — not be a Government that serves the interests and priorities of the public. I recommended there the alternative means to achieve a democracy — a democracy that will STAY a democracy (WITHOUT any elections by the public — there would be no more political campaigns, but it would be a real democracy).
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And here is yet more from Trump’s April 1st Easter Lunch Speech:
Donald Trump 00:23:50-00:24:26 (36 sec)
It’s been amazing. During each day of Holy Week, Christians remember the events of 2,000 years ago that forever changed the world. On Palm Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem as crowds welcomed him with praise, honoring him as king. They call me king now, do you believe it? [Laughter] No, king. I’m such a king I can’t get a ballroom approved.
Donald Trump 00:24:26-00:24:49 (23 sec)
[Laughter] It’s pretty amazing, right? I’m a king. If I was a king, we’d be doing a lot more. I’m doing a lot, but I could be doing a lot more if I was a king. Yet he had not come to take a throne but to carry a cross. Not only to reign, but to save. And Thursday, the disciples gathered with Jesus as their teacher and stood in fear as he was arrested and betrayed.
Donald Trump 00:24:49-00:25:09 (20 sec)
He was really betrayed. We know the feeling. Many of the people in this room know that feeling. Many of the people in this room went through hell. On Good Friday, the son of God was nailed to the cross, crucified, and he died for all of us. It was a day of darkness, but it wasn’t the end. By any means, it was not the end.
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Perhaps he’s influenced by such biblical passages as, in Matthew 13:12, “Jesus” directly instructs his disciples, that, in the Kingdom of Heaven, “The person who has something will be given still more until he has more than enough, but the person who has nothing will find even that taken away from him,” and, in Mathew 25:29-30, “Jesus” tells a parable of the Kingdom of Heaven, where “To every person who has something, even more will be given, until he possesses more than enough, but the person who has nothing will find even that taken away from him, and unproductive slaves will be thrown outside into the darkness, where there is want and weeping.”
And here is an example on April 24th of Trump’s trying to cut benefits to the poor even more than even the rest of his own Party want to do:
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https://rollcall.com/2026/04/24/lawmakers-buck-calls-to-defund-low-income-heating-program/
“Lawmakers buck calls to defund low-income heating program”
Bipartisan concerns raised over Trump’s budget blueprint
24 April2026
Lawmakers buck calls to defund low-income heating program
Bipartisan concerns raised over Trump’s budget blueprint
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifies before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Wednesday. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
By Ariel Cohen
Posted April 24, 2026 at 4:33pm
Lawmakers are signaling they’ll reject a Trump administration request to eliminate funding for a program that provides heating and cooling assistance to low-income Americans, one of the few on-topic issues repeatedly raised during hearings on the Health and Human Services Department budget.
The administration’s fiscal 2027 budget request for the HHS proposes zeroing out the $4 billion funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program received in the current fiscal year. The White House argues the program is unnecessary because many states have policies preventing utility disconnection for low-income households, characterizing the program “a pass-through benefiting utility companies” with a history of integrity concerns — something that lawmakers and advocates dispute.
During HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s budget hearings over the past week, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, and in both chambers, chastised the administration for again proposing cuts.
“It’s particularly painful for working people and low-income people who don’t have access, as they did before, to health care, access this winter to heating assistance. And I don’t think that’s the same problem they’re seeing down in Mar-a-Lago,” Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said Tuesday at the Senate Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee.
This is the sixth Trump budget that has sought to eliminate funding for LIHEAP. Congress has rejected these requests, including the current Republican majority, which funded the program at $4.13 billion, a $20 million increase, for fiscal 2026.
An estimated 5.9 million households nationwide receive heating and cooling assistance based on income, family size and availability, according to HHS. As energy costs increase across the country — home heating oil prices have risen more than 40 percent in some areas this year — lawmakers say a growing number of their constituents need the help.
Kennedy repeatedly told lawmakers he supports the mission of the program, adding that one of his brothers “is the biggest supplier to home heating and oil to poor people in New England,” referring to Joseph P. Kennedy II, who founded the nonprofit Citizens Energy Corp. that provides the commodity to low-income and elderly families.
But Kennedy said Trump is facing a $39 trillion national debt.
“He’s got to cut somewhere,” he said. “Everywhere they cut is painful.”
Funding delays
The administration has found other ways to weaken the program despite Congress appropriating the funds, lawmakers say.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, noted during a Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee budget hearing on Wednesday that HHS eliminated all staff assigned to administer LIHEAP in April 2025. The responsibility now rests on a single staffer. She asked Kennedy to ensure adequate staffing going forward.
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Right now, Trump’s proposed 2027 federal budget includes an increase in the War Department’s budget of $500 billion, raising that Department’s budget to $1.5 trillion for 2027. The 2026 Pentagon spending (significantly higher even than Biden’s), by contrast, was $900B, + Supplementals of $60B for Ukraine (gifted by Biden), + another 14B for Israel (gifted by Biden), + another $20B for other Supplementals, totaling to $990B. All of non-‘Defense’ (non-aggression) together was $900B. Trump now proposes, for 2027, $1.5T for “War” and $810B for everything else. However, around 40% of all actual U.S. military spending is done outside of the War (former (‘Defense’) Department (Pentagon), by the Homeland Security, Energy, Veterans Affairs, Treasury, and other Departments, so as to under-report the actual costs of America’s military; and, therefore, Trump is actually proposing $1.5T War, and around $0.5T for everything else.
Ever since the Soviet Union ended in 1991, the Aerospace & Defense sector of the U.S. stock market as been by far the most profitable of all sectors (its customers are the U.S. Government and its colonies or ‘allies’); this has carried right up to the present; and therefore American Presidents, serving the country’s billionaires (who donate most of the political money) give an increasing share of the federal budget pie to them, and less and less of it goes to the public — services that the general population benefit from or that especially the poor (what Trump calls (losers”) need.
This is the reason why Trump’s priorities are like the public’s turned upside-down.
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.
Each and every state is capable and has the Authority to manage its own affairs. Every American has a duty to determine when the government has become unmanageable and to correct it. The federal government is completely unacceptable, unnecessary and out of control . Via their state, county, and city Americans need to Declare Our Independence. Nullify and negate the entirety of the this national embarrassment and revert to Independent states or coalition of states. It is our duty to the next generation not to deliver them into slavery and despotism, with forever wars and poverty.