Politics and views in the United States

Democratic Senators introduce legislation blocking President Trump's anti-weaponization fund. Michigan considers a series of voting rights bills and farmers are upset about the House's proposed Farm Bill.

Transcript

Welcome to 2026 Talks, where we're following our democracy in historic times.

Between his son's cryptocurrency scams, between him literally offering pay-for-play deals for the ballroom, this president is marching us through unprecedented corruption and milking the cow that is the U.S. government every single day.

Michigan Senator Elise Slotkin is sponsoring legislation to stop what Democrats like her are calling President Donald Trump's slush fund.

Numerous congressional Republicans have signaled opposition to $1.8 billion for so-called anti-weaponization payments, which could go to allies of the president who claim they've been unfairly prosecuted.

Democrats say they intend to force a vote on it under Senate rules, allowing them to put up any amendment to a reconciliation bill, including one now under debate to fund Trump's immigration agenda until 2029.

The administration has refused to rule out payments to January 6th insurrectionists, which may violate the 14th Amendment.

Vice President J.D. Vance says recently pardoned former election clerk Tina Peters could be compensated.

The election denier was convicted of illegally allowing tampering with voting machines and sentenced to eight and a half years before Colorado Governor Jared Polis commuted her sentence.

The Senate may soon take up the House version of the badly overdue farm bill.

Some farmers say it has provisions favoring corporate ag over smaller operations, like overriding state laws encouraging farmers to raise healthier animals and ask for higher prices.

Farm Action Executive Director Angela Huffman says, The so-called Save Our Bacon provision favors international producers, like Chinese-owned Smithfield Farms over independent farms.

Until Congress really deals with monopoly power, farmers are going to keep being told to get bigger or get out, take on more debt, accept worse prices, and consumers will pay the price for it.

Michigan lawmakers are considering a package of bills designed to strengthen voter protections ahead of the midterms.

The Michigan Voting Rights Act includes safeguards against racial discrimination, increased language assistance, more disability accommodations, and new partisan election research and training.

State Senator Darren Camilleri says since Michigan is a key battleground, lawmakers must be vigilant.

Our job as policymakers is to ensure that our elections are free, fair, and accessible to everyone, that undue advantages and disadvantages are prohibited, and that the outcome of our elections is decided by voters on an equal playing field.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid is finalizing new Medicaid work requirements, generally 80 hours a month of employment or half-time in school or job training.

Critics argue almost all the folks in the program who can work already are and say the red tape is designed to cut costs by pushing out people who qualify.

Cynthia Cox with health care group KFF says this comes as last year's megabill caused ACA premiums to rise nearly 60 percent, with deductibles up to an average of more than $1,000 per person.

And she says financial aid for the premiums of many middle income families were eliminated.

How much they paid was capped at a certain percent of their income, but now they no longer have that cap anymore.

So for some of those people, they could be seeing a $10,000 a year increase in their insurance costs.

I'm Edwin J. Viera for Pacifica Network and Public News Service.

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