Trump Wants Black People Barred From Med School
Trump is erasing the money laundering database, DOJ is probing med schools over Black admissions, ICE is releasing detainees before they die to avoid reporting, and Air Force One is full of McDonald's
Good afternoon. I’m Ryan Rose, and this is AlterNet America.
The Treasury Department has announced it will destroy the government’s registry of shell company ownership that law enforcement uses to trace money laundering. The Justice Department has spent nearly a year probing over a dozen top medical schools to root out any policy that admits Black and Hispanic students. ICE has begun releasing dying detainees from custody so their deaths don’t have to be reported. And Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he’s seen “boxes and boxes” of McDonald’s food while traveling on Air Force One with Trump.
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Trump Is Destroying the Database That Tracks Dirty Money
Finally, a government database Trump wants to delete that isn’t voter rolls.
The Trump administration announced it’s destroying the federal registry of shell company ownership, which law enforcement relies on to investigate cases of money laundering and tax fraud. It was established under the Corporate Transparency Act, a bipartisan bill enacted in 2021 that requires anonymous shell companies to disclose basic ownership information to the government.
Marco Rubio, one of the bill’s most prominent proponents, hailed the measure as “the most meaningful anti-corruption and anti-money-laundering legislation in decades.” Apparently, this doesn’t count now that he’s Trump’s secretary of state.
The Trump administration has already suspended most of the reporting requirements, allowing about 99 percent of the businesses that were supposed to file reports to avoid doing so. That suspension was now rendered permanent with the latest rule, which also included a directive to destroy all previously collected information.
That means no future federal administration or local law enforcement agency will be able to access the data.
It’s not the first time the Trump administration has demonstrated such disregard for the rule of law: It recently put the enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act on hold, arguing that holding companies accountable for bribing foreign officials “could negatively impact U.S. companies competing in global markets.”
The DOJ Is Investigating Medical Schools for Admitting Black Students
In May, the Department of Justice claimed that Yale School of Medicine used race in admissions, alleging Black or Hispanic applicants had “a substantially higher likelihood” of admission than white or Asian ones with the same credentials.
To reach that conclusion, the department only looked at GPAs and standardized test scores, ignoring every other part of the application.
Yale is just one of over a dozen more medical schools having their admissions practices investigated. Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania have all received similar inquiries since the spring.
The DOJ is building these cases as if the playing field has always been level, but Black students were barred from most U.S. medical schools for over fifty years after the 1910 Flexner Report recommended that Black doctors treat only Black patients and study hygiene instead of surgery.
Enrollment of Black medical students fell nearly 12 percent in 2024. In other words, the Trump administration hit rock bottom and reached for their pickaxe.
ICE Is Releasing Dying Detainees so It Never Has to Report Their Deaths
Jose Chajon-Raxon was booked into the privately run Delaney Hall in New Jersey on July 18 and began having recurring seizures. He was released four days later and sent to the hospital, where he died shortly after.
Less than two weeks later, Edwin Lopez-Cornejo had a medical emergency after being denied prescription medication for over a month, was quickly released, and died.
Neither family was told their relative had been transferred until after he was dead. In both cases, ICE filed no report and refused for days to confirm their deaths, relenting only after sustained pressure from activists, lawmakers, and the families.
ICE ended the requirement that it report to Congress any death within 30 days of detention in June. Now staff no longer have to report a death at all, as long as the person is released before they die.
DHS has since rewritten the rules on when a member of Congress can inspect a facility. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and Rep. LaMonica McIver were both forced out when they visited Delaney for a routine check-in in May. Baraka was arrested for trespassing and the charges were quietly dropped, but McIver was indicted on three counts of assaulting federal officers and faces up to 17 years in prison for what body cam footage shows was incidental contact in a crowded hallway.
In 2025, 33 people are known to have died in ICE custody, more than during the entire Biden administration. There have already been 26 this year.
RFK Jr. Says Trump Eats McDonald’s on Air Force One to Avoid Food Poisoning
The president is afraid of food poisoning, which is understandable given what he’s done to the agencies that prevent it.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. revealed on the Net Positive podcast this week that when you board the president’s airplane, it’s “just boxes and boxes of McDonald’s.” He said Trump insists on eating from national fast food chains while traveling because he is afraid of getting food poisoning.
Kennedy’s official line is that Trump eats well most of the time. When asked whether he’d ever tried to correct Trump’s diet, Kennedy said, “I’m not like a scold.”
This is the same Kennedy who built his entire public brand on fermented foods, grass-fed meat, and telling Americans that what they eat is killing them. He credits his personal regimen with helping him lose 20 pounds in 30 days and has reportedly converted Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Vice President Vance to the program.
CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz has offered his own medical wisdom, telling Donald Trump Jr. in February that diet soda must kill cancer cells because it kills grass. These are the people deciding what’s in your kids’ school lunch.
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