Kim Kelly: Coal miners are dying, and Trump betrayed them
Since the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump and his acolytes, right-wing media, and coal industry barons and lobbyists have obsessively painted the picture of Trump as a friend to coal miners and the so-called “undisputed champion of beautiful clean coal.” But as labor journalist Kim Kelly reports at In These Times, “the simpering ’Trump digs coal’ image the administration seeks to project is vastly at odds with the actions it’s taken to limit miner protections, endanger their health, and exacerbate the black lung crisis consuming Central Appalachia.” In this episode of Working People, we speak with Kelly about the Trump administration’s latest betrayal of coal miners and their families and its underreported attack on the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission and abrupt, unprecedented firing of FMSHRC Commissioner Moshe Z. Marvit.
Additional links/info:
Kim Kelly website, X/Twitter page, TikTok, Bluesky page, and Instagram
Kim Kelly, In These Times, “Trump’s latest target: Coal miners’ safety”
Jordan Barab, Confined Space, “Friday night massacre at Mine Safety Review Commission”
Kim Kelly, In These Times, “The Trump administration ramps up its war on coal miners”
Kim Kelly, In These Times, “Trump to coal miners: Drop dead”
Featured Music:
Jules Taylor, Working People Theme Song
Credits:
Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Alright. Welcome everyone to Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today. Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and is brought to you in partnership with In These Times Magazine and the Real News Network. The show is produced by
‘A $1,700,000,000 fraud on the American taxpayer’: Trump to drop IRS suit in exchange for MAGA slush fund
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on May 15, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday accused US President Donald Trump of “orchestrating a $1,700,000,000 fraud on the American taxpayer to line the pockets of his MAGA political allies” amid new reporting on the terms Trump is seeking in talks to settle his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service.
ABC News reported late Thursday that Trump is expected to drop his lawsuit in the coming days “in exchange for the creation of a $1.7 billion fund to compensate allies who claim they were wrongfully targeted by the Biden administration.” The money would come from the Treasury Department’s Judgment Fund, which pays out court judgments and settlements against the federal government.
The president is also expected to receive a public apology from the IRS for the leak of his tax returns during his first White House term.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said in a statement that the reported settlement terms represent “another installment” in Trump’s “ongoing effort to turn the federal government into a personal cash machine for his unpopular extremist movement.”
“This is a massive and unprecedented presidential plunder of the American people,” said Raskin. “Worse still, this is only the beginning—a declaration that the prior payouts were just a down payment, and that he now intends to earmark billions more in taxpayer dollars for his political allies, sycophants, and private militia of unemployed insurrectionists.”
“The president has no authority to conjure up billion-dollar compensation schemes or raid the Judgment Fund, which exists to settle valid lawsuits. Trump is systematically converting neutral government mechanisms into a presidential slush fund to build
Trump doubles down, expresses indifference to Americans’ wartime struggles
It seemed like a straightforward question. During a Q&A with reporters last week, Donald Trump was asked, “When you’re negotiating with Iran, Mr. President, to what extent are American financial situations motivating you to make a deal?”
Without hesitating, the president replied, “Not even a little bit.” The Republican added that, as part of his focus on preventing Iran from having nuclear weapons, “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody.”
It was a brutal quote, not only because of its callousness, but because Trump has spent so much time proving the underlying point true. As my MS NOW colleague Zeeshan Aleem added, “The truth, in this case, is that Trump obviously doesn’t care about ordinary Americans’ financial well-being. It’s sticky not just because he said it, but because he has long been acting like it.”
As last week came to an end, the president sat down with Fox News’ Bret Baier, who offered his guest an opportunity to walk back the rhetoric. He did the opposite.
Trump on saying he doesn’t think about Americans’ financial situation: “It’s a perfect statement. I’ll make it again. Everybody agrees.”— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-05-15T22:24:51.064Z
“That’s a perfect statement; I’d make it again,” Trump said. He added, “Very simple, when people hear me say it, everybody agrees.”
As the interview progressed, the president went on to concede that he’s imposing “a little pain” on Americans (phrasing that echoed his rhetoric from last year about his tariffs agenda), though he insisted the “pain” is temporary and ultimately will be reversed after the war in Iran ends.
When Baier asked Trump to respond to the concerns of a retired
WH Adviser Says Americans’ Economic Anxiety Due to Fast Pace of “Good” Changes
An economic adviser to President Donald Trump has dismissed Americans’ worries over the state of the economy, claiming their concerns are a reaction to rapid movements by the administration rather than the rising consumer prices millions are having to deal with due to the president’s policies. In comments to CNBC earlier this week, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett claimed that…
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The war on our sight
An earlier version of this speech was delivered at the 2026 Izzy Awards ceremony at the Park Center for Independent Media in Ithaca, NY, on April 21, 2026.
Friends, colleagues, fellow human beings,
You don’t need to read Project Censored’s latest State of the Free Press report to know that the state of the free press in America is not good (but, obviously, you should still read the report).
And it’s not just President Trump, his administration, and the MAGA faithful repeatedly, publicly expressing their hatred and verbalizing threats towards journalists and media organizations that don’t tow the Supreme Leader’s line. It’s not just Trump and his cabinet bullying and berating journalists at press briefings, restricting their access, and trying to make them sign loyalty pledges.
It’s also Trump’s absurd and gangsterish lawsuits targeted at ABC News, which is owned by Disney, and CBS News, which is owned by Paramount, and the morally spineless, financially self-serving capitulation of these corporate cowards to Trump by settling, rather than fighting, those lawsuits—setting the precedent for more shakedowns.
It’s the multi-pronged attempt by the Trump administration and the ruling-class-serving authors and executors of Project 2025 to destroy the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which they succeeded in doing, and to defund and destroy PBS and NPR, which they are still trying to do now.
It’s the federal harassment, capture, imprisonment, and even deportation of journalists like Estefany Rodríguez, Mario Guevara, Sami Hamdi, and Georgia Fort. Even Don Lemon. Even Tufts grad student Rümeysa Öztürk, who was snatched off the street last year by plainclothes federal thugs for co-authoring an op-ed in her campus newspaper.
It’s the professional journalists, student journalists,