Politics and views in the United States.

Newly released Signalgate messages include highly classified data. Americans see legal political spending as corruption. Activists say cuts to Medicaid would hurt maternity care, and cuts and changed rules at Social Security are causing customer service problems.

TRANSCRIPT

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

Though not intended to be divulged, obviously that was a mistake and that shouldn't have happened and the White House is looking at it.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio denies that American lives were endangered by the information in a leaked signal group chat between him and other top administration officials.

But defense sources say the messages just fully published by The Atlantic show that Secretary Pete Hegseth disclosed highly classified military details before attacks on the Houthis of Yemen began, including real-time updates about the timing and the specific weapon.

A new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research is confirming that a large majority of Americans see legal political spending as corrupt.

Brandon Novick with the Center says the quarter billion dollars Elon Musk spent to help elect President Donald Trump was legalized by a 2010 Supreme Court decision, which builds on another one from the '70s.

But people still think it's wrong.

That decision was the root one that said money is speech and that people can infinitely spend in elections.

In Citizens United, basically the court said, based on this, we're saying corporations, not just individuals, can infinitely spend in elections.

Regina Davis Moss of the Black Women's Reproductive Justice Group in our own voice says real people will lose care if Congress makes deep Medicaid cuts.

These are real people.

These are not statistics.

These are lives.

The program covers more than four in 10 births nationally, and many struggling rural hospitals say they would close their maternity wards or go completely bankrupt without it.

Black women have much higher rates of preventable deaths during childbirth.

In Kentucky, doctors are calling on Governor Andy Beshear to veto an abortion bill, saying it'll complicate emergency care.

Tamara Weter with Planned Parenthood in the state says in an attempt to clarify a ban on the procedure, it will shift decision-making from the operating room to the courtroom.

House Bill 90 changes the definition of medical emergency in Kentucky law.

The current law gives providers the authority to make decisions in emergencies, but this bill would allow judges to decide whether care was truly necessary.

According to AARP, office closings and staffing cuts mean older Americans are struggling to deal with new Social Security rules.

Josh Askvik with AARP North Dakota says folks who used to fix things on the phone are having a hard time meeting a new requirement for in-person or online ID verification.

It would be possible that folks would have to drive three to four hours or more to get to a location, and that's a significant barrier.

President Trump says a new 25 percent tariff on all imported cars will take effect April 2nd.

He says the move will boost U.S. manufacturing, but automakers warn it could raise prices and disrupt cross-border supply chains.

The European Union and other trade partners are reviewing potential responses.

I'm Farah Siddiqui for Pacifica Network and Public News Service.

Find our trust indicators at publicnewsservice.org.