On February 7, billionaire Elon Musk posted a message on his social media platform X: “CFPB RIP,” along with a tombstone emoji.

In the days that followed, the workings of the government’s financial industry watchdog created in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis essentially ground to a halt. 

More than a hundred and fifty employees were let go, with more layoffs expected. Donald Trump has explicitly said he wants to get rid of the agency. And when you try to access the CFPB’s website, you get an error message. 

So, can the Trump administration actually kill the CFPB? Mallory SoRelle says no. 

SoRelle is an assistant professor of public policy at Duke University and author of “Democracy Declined: The Failed Politics of Consumer Financial Protection.” She explains that only Congress can shutter the agency. But, she adds, the actions the Trump administration have taken so far are “fundamentally shifting the playing field in favor of the financial industry and away from consumer protection.”

SoRelle joins Diane on this week’s episode of On My Mind to talk about the history of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and what would happen if it went away. 

First it hit poultry farms, forcing farmers to cull millions of hens.  Egg prices jumped, and some grocery stores began to ration the number of cartons per customer. 

Next infections spread to dairy cows, stoking fears of a wider outbreak. 

Now, avian influenza has been detected in domesticated cats, and humans, with about seventy confirmed cases in in the U.S. 

Lena Sun is a staff writer for the Washington Post who covers public health and infectious disease. She’s been tracking the spread of bird flu over the last few years and says the experts she talks to are worried. “If the country doesn’t do more to get a handle on how the virus is spreading,” she says, “it will be harder and harder to figure out ways to contain it.”

Lena Sun joins Diane on this week’s episode of On My Mind. 

Earlier this month Donald Trump stood next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and announced that the United States would take over Gaza. The Palestinians who live there, he explained, would be sent to Jordan and Egypt. He went on to describe a vision of the war-torn land being transformed into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” 

Since then, Trump has stood by his comments about the U.S. taking ownership of Gaza, much to the shock of leaders around the world, and even those in his own party. 

This comes at a time when the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel is at risk of falling apart.

Aaron David Miller is a former State Department Middle East analyst and negotiator and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He says Trump’s proposal doesn’t need to be implemented to have an effect. “The idea alone has already undermined the Israel-Hamas agreement.”

Miller joins Diane on this week’s episode of On My Mind. 

Elon Musk and his team at DOGE have moved at a remarkable pace over the last two weeks, bringing slash and burn tactics to the federal government. 

Meanwhile, Donald Trump has signed more than fifty executive orders, the most in a president’s first hundred days in more than forty years. 

With Republicans holding power in both chambers of congress, there are seemingly few checks on the administration’s actions – even as questions remain about how lawful they are.

“The one venue that remains is the courts,” says Naftali Bendavid, senior national political correspondent for the Washington Post. He points out that we have already seen Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship put on hold, and Thursday afternoon a federal judge postponed the deadline for federal workers to take the administration’s “buyout” offer. 

Naftali Bendavid joins Diane on this week’s episode of On My Mind to talk about this week’s news and the resistance that is taking shape to counter the powers of the president. 

It has been ten days since Donald Trump was inaugurated for his second term as president. Since then, he has signed a flurry of executive orders, pardoned every January 6th defendant, pushed through controversial cabinet picks, and made moves to completely reshape the federal workforce. 

And by most accounts, the Democratic response has been ... tepid.

“Donald Trump is charting new ground for a president,” says Susan Glasser, staff writer at The New Yorker. “He is daring opponents: 'Come and get me!'"

So far, Glasser adds, nobody has taken him up on the dare. But this week’s federal funding debacle might have changed the equation and given Democrats an opening.

Glasser is also co-author of a book about Trump’s first four years in the White House titled The Divider, and says he seems poised to take advantage of this opportunity for a do-over. She joins Diane to talk about what we’ve seen from the new administration so far and what, if anything, Democrats can do to put a check on his power. 

Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde delivered a sermon at the National Cathedral on Tuesday in honor of Donald Trump’s inauguration. She ended with a direct address to the president.

“Let me make one final plea, ” she said. “In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.”

She went on to mention gay, lesbian and transgender children “in Democratic, Republican, and Independent families, some who fear for their lives.” She talked about families in the country without documentation who are terrified of being torn apart. 

In response, the president demanded an apology, claiming Budde brought politics into the church. But Bishop Budde says she stands by her words, and that reminding the country of our shared humanity is part of her duty as a member of the clergy.

Bishop Budde is Diane’s faith leader, and she joins her today to explain why she felt she had to speak up and why she feels no need to apologize.

What’s behind Donald Trump’s obsession with Greenland? 

Most of the island is covered in ice, less than sixty thousand people live there and, until recently, it was best known for snowy photos of polar bears. But climate change has changed the equation and thrust the island into the middle of global politics. 

Donald Trump has repeatedly said he’d like to buy the territory, and last week at a news conference he said that taking military action to acquire it was not off the table. 

Sherri Goodman is secretary general of the International Military Council on Climate and Security. She is also a senior fellow at the Wilson Center and author of a new book, “Threat Multiplier: Climate, Military Leadership, and the Fight for Global Security.” 

For the last year The Wall Street Journal has been investigating the Medicare Advantage program. It was originally created to make healthcare for seniors and the disabled more efficient. The idea was to outsource insurance to private companies to save taxpayer dollars -- and avoid providers gaming the system as they had in the traditional Medicare program.

“Some of those good intentions did not foresee how companies would respond to the financial incentives that had been created,” says Christopher Weaver, one of the Journal reporters who looked at the issue. He says companies have bilked the system for billions of dollars using tactics like over diagnosing patients. 

Christopher Weaver joins Diane on this episode of On My Mind to share the results of his investigation – and discuss the future of the Medicare Advantage program.

For more on The Wall Street Journal's series on the Medicare Advantage program: https://www.wsj.com/news/author/christopher-weaver

A note from Diane: Over the years I had the chance to interview President Jimmy Carter more than 10 times. We talked about his faith, his rural childhood, his triumphs and challenges as president, and his work as a global humanitarian after his years in the White House.

He was always kind, warm, gracious and thoughtful. But what made him such an interesting person to talk to was that he never stopped learning, never stopped evolving. You could see this in how he approached the issues he cared about: housing and homelessness, the peace process in the Middle East, and international health, to name a few.

Now, as we look back on his legacy, I wanted to share excerpts of our conversations with you.

You can find many of Diane's conversations with President Carter in their entirety here: https://wamu.org/series/diane-rehm-in-conversation-with-president-carter-through-the-years/

January 20 will mark the end of the presidency of Joe Biden. 

Biden came into office as the man who stopped Donald Trump, with promises of serving one term then passing the torch to the next generation. 

His administration led the country out of the Covid crisis and included some blockbuster legislative successes, as well as a great deal of partisan gridlock. But it might be his decision to run again that will come to define his legacy.

“He decided to seek a second term and that proved a perilous decision,” says Susan Page, Washington bureau chief at USA Today, pointing out that many Democrats blame him for Trump’s victory in November. 

And yet, she tells Diane on today’s episode of On My Mind, she considers Joe Biden to be a transformative president whose accomplishments could be felt for decades to come.