Friends,

How do we eat healthy in the Trump era?

First, toss your salad. So far in 2026, there’ve been nearly 30,000 suspected cases of cyclospora — the explosive diarrhea parasite — with two fatalities. It’s been linked to produce from Taylor Farms, which supplies grocery stores and restaurants across the country, often under alternative brand names.

Next, throw out jalapeños, dips, and eggs because of salmonella recalls.

Get rid of your blueberries because of E. coli.

Ditch those popsicles that might contain glass.

Chuck bread that might have nails in it.

And dump 30,000 pounds of beef recalled because Trump’s USDA failed to inspect it.

Trump claims grocery prices are coming down. I guess one way to bring them down is to leave us with nothing safe to buy.

All these recalls and illnesses aren’t a coincidence. They’re the result of incompetence and corruption within the Trump regime — and unchecked corporate power.

We saw the incompetence with funding cuts and the massive layoffs of public servants overseeing food safety.

Turns out Trump’s so-called “deep state” was protecting us from diarrhea and keeping our food safe.

Trump, RFK Jr., and Elon Musk cut the FDA’s staff by 20 percent and the CDC and USDA’s by 25 percent.

They dissolved a USDA advisory committee that existed to help prevent outbreaks like the ones we’re suffering. The USDA even CUT several cyclospora research projects — after the outbreak had already spread.

Under RFK Jr., the CDC’s FoodNet program is no longer required to monitor the cyclospora parasite and five other pathogens.

Most of the CDC labor researching and responding was let go as part of the DOGE cuts.

And they canceled more than $11 billion in state health grants, which could have helped address these crises.

The Trump team was too stupid to realize that cutting food safety programs and firing thousands of public servants would have consequences.

Then there’s the possible corruption.

Rather than protect the public from cyclospora, Trump met with Taylor Farms executives at the White House as they sought to delay the FDA’s announcement linking their lettuce to the outbreak. Since then, the FDA sent mixed messages on its initial findings even as cyclospora cases continued to rise. Why?

Perhaps because Taylor Farms’ parent company has donated more than $2 million to Republican PACs this election cycle, with nearly half of that going to Trump’s MAGA Inc.

The donation to MAGA Inc. came within a week of Trump’s FDA delaying a new food tracing requirement that could have helped prevent this summer’s outbreaks.

When excessive corporate power meets an incompetent and corrupt government, the result is a literal shitshow.

Now, if you’ll excuse me … I’ve got to run.

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Friends,

After living in the Golden State for over two decades, I understand the old saw that America is built on a tilt, and everything good or bad slides down from California. (Mark Twain said everything loose slides to California.)

Among the good is California voters’ support for what could be America’s (indeed, the world’s) first tax on billionaires — which will appear as Proposition 40 on California’s upcoming ballot. (Note to Californians: Propositions 41 and 42 are poison pills designed to negate Proposition 40.)

A majority of Californians are in favor of Proposition 40 (65 percent of the state’s Democrats back it).

On the bad side are the hundreds of millions of dollars spent by California’s billionaires against the proposal (including $187 million from just one of them, Google co-founder Sergey Brin) — along with the cowardice of most of the state’s political class in either saying nothing about the billionaire tax proposal or falling in line behind Governor Gavin Newsom in opposing it.

I’ve studied the proposal, and, while not perfect, I judge it a significant step in the right direction. It would be a one-time 5 percent tax on the assets of California’s billionaires, designed to reimburse the state for the healthcare money lost to it when Trump’s Big Ugly Bill cut Medicaid to help pay for a gigantic tax cut that went mainly to the richest Americans and biggest corporations.

The billionaire tax is fair. It won’t cause billionaires to abandon California (only a handful have left and, as I said, it’s a one-time tax that pertains only to wealth as of January 1, 2026). It’s carefully crafted. It was largely the brainchild of two of my brightest colleagues here at Berkeley, economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman. It’s been endorsed by six Nobel laureates.

So, why are so many of California’s politicians — all of them Democrats, including Newsom — opposed? Could it have anything to do with their dependence on campaign funding from the super-wealthy? I’m not entirely sure, but that possibility has occurred to me — which in itself is a good reason to support the measure.

Meanwhile, the piles of money put into TV ads against the measure — coming from billionaires, of course — combined with the political opposition from Newsom on down is beginning to to take a toll. Although a majority of Californians are still in favor, the margin is slipping.

I should hasten to add that one California politician strongly supporting the proposed billionaire tax is Ro Khanna. He represents Silicon Valley in Congress, which makes his support of it both politically risky and an admirable profile in political courage.

Ro Khanna is interested in becoming the Democrats’ candidate for president in 2028 — as, of course, is Gavin Newsom. Progressives around America should take note.

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