The Daily 202: Trump supporters suffer unintended consequences of his policies

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The Daily 202: Trump supporters suffer unintended consequences of his policies

-- Ironically, gas prices might go up because Trump pulled out of the Iranian nuclear agreement last week. (Iran is the world’s fifth-biggest oil producer.)

-- The president’s decision to pull out of the Iran deal, and re-impose sanctions, will cost Boeing contracts worth as much as $20 billion to replenish Iran’s aging fleet of commercial planes. The Chicago-based aerospace giant downplayed the impact last week, noting that there’s already a backlog of orders for 737 aircraft so production won’t slow. But $20 billion in planes represents quite a lot of manufacturing work.

Those jobs will now go to other countries – specifically Russia. “Russian aircraft makers, who can skirt the U.S. sanctions, are already working on deals,” the Puget Sound Business Journal reports. “A Russian aircraft maker is exploring plans to make a modified version of its Sukhoi Superjet 100 regional airliner so Iranian airlines can buy the jet.”

WATCH WHAT THEY DO, NOT WHAT THEY SAY:

-- The White House and Scott Pruitt's EPA intervened to block the publication of a federal health study on a nationwide water-contamination crisis, after a White House official warned that its release would trigger a “public relations nightmare.” Politico’s Annie Snider reports on emails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act: “The intervention early this year — not previously disclosed — came as HHS' Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry was preparing to publish its assessment of a class of toxic chemicals that has contaminated water supplies near military bases, chemical plants and other sites from New York to Michigan to West Virginia. The study would show that the chemicals endanger human health at a far lower level than EPA has previously called safe ... ‘The public, media, and Congressional reaction to these numbers is going to be huge,’ [an unidentified White House] aide said in an email [to OMB's James Herz, who oversees environmental issues] ... The email added: ‘The impact to EPA and [the Defense Department] is going to be extremely painful.’ ... More than three months later, the draft study remains unpublished, and the HHS unit says it has no scheduled date to release it for public comment.”

-- Meanwhile, the White House recently canceled a NASA program aimed at monitoring levels of carbon dioxide and methane. (Science)

-- A $1 million contribution to Trump’s inaugural committee appears to have come from a group of conservative legal activists who have been in the driver's seat in picking Trump's judicial nominees. Robert Maguire reports for McClatchy: “The $1 million inaugural gift came from a Northern Virginia company called BH Group, LLC. Unlike other generous corporate inaugural donors ... BH Group was a cipher, and likely was set up solely to prevent disclosure of the actual donor's name. … While the source of the money used to make the gift was masked from the public, a trail of clues puts the contribution at the doorstep of some of the same actors — most notably Leonard Leo, an executive vice president at the conservative Federalist Society — who have helped promote Trump’s mission, and that of his White House counsel, Don McGahn, to fill judicial vacancies as quickly as he can with staunchly conservative, preferably young jurists.”

NO APOLOGY:

-- The White House once again declined to apologize for press aide Kelly Sadler’s nasty remark about Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). “I understand the focus on this issue, but it's going to be dealt with, and has been dealt with, internally,” deputy White House press secretary Raj Shah said. “I was told Kelly Sadler called the McCain family late last week and did apologize. Beyond that, I don't have any further comment.” (Callum Borchers)

-- McCain’s Republican colleagues are publicly pushing for a White House apology. Politico’s Burgess Everett and Eliana Johnson report: “‘Just out of common decency they should apologize. And the person who said it should apologize. It’s wrong,’ said Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) .... ‘Everything happens for a reason. And sometimes the reason is you’re stupid and made a bad decision,’ said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.). ‘She ought to apologize publicly. If it were my administration, and it’s not, I would also apologize on behalf of the administration.’”

-- New York Times, “Medical Mystery: Something Happened to U.S. Health Spending After 1980,” by Austin Frakt: “America was in the realm of other countries in per-capita health spending through about 1980. Then it diverged. It’s the same story with health spending as a fraction of gross domestic product. Likewise, life expectancy. In 1980, the U.S. was right in the middle of the pack of peer nations in life expectancy at birth. But by the mid-2000s, we were at the bottom of the pack.”