Politics and views in the United States.

Trump threatens Russia with secondary sanctions, some of the president's allies want him to fire Federal Reserve chair, and farmers and doctors worry about impact of budget cuts on rural communities.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to 2025 Talks, where we're following our democracy in historic times.

I've been hearing so much talk.

It's all talk.

It's all talk and then missiles go into Kiev and kill 60 people.

It's got to stop.

President Donald Trump is giving Russian President Vladimir Putin 50 days to reach a ceasefire deal with Ukraine under threat of what Trump calls "biting tariffs."

Direct US trade with Russia's negligible.

So to have any effect, Trump's threatened 100 percent import tariffs would have to be secondary, imposed on people who themselves trade with Russia.

Trump also announced a weapons deal Sunday, providing NATO allies with munitions, including highly sought after Patriot air defense missiles.

The US will sell weapons to European allies who could send them to Ukraine.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte joined the president at the White House.

It might also mean that countries will move equipment fast into Ukraine and then the U.S. later backfilling it because speed is of the essence here."

Trump's 180 on Putin comes just five months after a public spat with Ukraine's president.

Some in the administration are calling on the president to fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell, citing cost overruns and renovation of the Fed headquarters.

Market watchers warn that could crash the market.

They also credit Powell with managing a soft landing, which no other central banker has ever done, bringing down surging inflation without causing unemployment to spike. rural physicians say they're alarmed by Medicaid cuts and the just signed budget law.

Small town Virginia doctor Sterling Ransom says without the coverage, his patients will put off preventative care and some will die.

They don't do their preventive health care services such as mammography.

They don't get their colonoscopies and it puts them at greater risk of developing a lot of chronic diseases, cancers, things like that, that we could have found earlier before they became a problem.

Researchers at the University of North Carolina found more than 300 rural hospitals nationwide would be at risk of closing without patients whose bills would be paid by the program.

Farmers also say they're worried about the $300 billion cut from food programs typically part of the farm bill.

And while Walter Schweitzer with the Montana Farmers Union says he likes changes to commodity price supports, he dislikes that the program is no longer going to be means tested.

Increasing the reference price is a good thing.

This is something Farmers Union has been advocating for.

But what concerns me is by eliminating the adjusted gross income cap means now bill The 28th qualifies for all of these subsidies.

Schweitzer also says delaying unpopular parts of the legislation from going into effect until after the midterms is a red flag.

Attorneys general from 24 states and the District of Columbia are suing the administration over $6.8 billion in education funding that the administration is withholding.

This comes as the Supreme Court has ruled the White House could move ahead with the firing of 1,400 Department of Education employees, essentially dismantling the agency.

I'm Zimone Perez for Pacifica Network and Public News Service.

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