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For Immediate Release
January, 23 2025, 10:10pm EDT
Contact:
Natasha Blakely, natasha.blakely@sierraclub.org
Sierra Club Statement on Confirmation Hearing for Brooke Rollins' Nomination as Secretary of Agriculture
Today, the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry held hearings on the nomination of Brooke Rollins as Secretary of Agriculture. Rollins previously held roles as President Trump’s domestic policy chief during his first term and deputy general counsel for former Texas Gov. Rick Perry.
Rollins is one of the architects of President Trump’s tariff plan, has pushed heavily for mass deportation, and has publicly dismissed climate change concerns as hysteria.
In response, Athan Manuel, director of Sierra Club’s Lands Protection Program, released the following statement:
“Rather than installing someone with experience and background navigating agriculture and forestry issues, President Trump has chosen Brooke Rollins, whose background is in criminal law and has a history of defending fossil fuels in her policy roles. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is in need of strong leadership that can advocate for American farmers against large-scale corporate farm operations, support sustainable local agriculture to bolster food security in our communities, and preserve America’s federal forests as carbon sinks, which are one of the few proven ways to mitigate the impacts of fossil fuels and climate change.”
The Sierra Club is the most enduring and influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States. We amplify the power of our 3.8 million members and supporters to defend everyone's right to a healthy world.
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‘Alarming, Unacceptable’: Trump’s Iran War Has Unleashed an Attack on Healthcare Every Six Hours
"We cannot accept a world where those who save lives are targeted," said one humanitarian group.
Apr 01, 2026
The US-Israeli war on Iran and the resulting regional conflict have unleashed a wave of deadly attacks on healthcare workers and infrastructure across the Middle East, from paramedics in southern Lebanon to medical facilities and ambulances in Tehran.
The international humanitarian group Save the Children estimated on Tuesday that, since the US and Israel started bombing Iran on February 28, the Middle East has seen an average of one attack on healthcare every six hours. Overall, the World Health Organization (WHO) has recorded at least 120 attacks on healthcare since the start of the Iran war—86 in Lebanon, 28 in Iran, and six in Israel.
The head of the WHO said nine paramedics were killed in five separate Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon this past weekend.
"We cannot accept a world where those who save lives are targeted," Nora Ingdal, country director at Save the Children Lebanon, said Tuesday. "Governments have long championed international humanitarian law that protects aid and health workers, and now is the time to act to prevent continued harm in Lebanon and across the wider region."
Iranian officials have said that dozens of hospitals and other healthcare facilities are among the tens of thousands of civilian buildings damaged or destroyed by US-Israeli bombing over the past month, along with dozens of ambulances. Iran's Emergency Medical Services Organization said Tuesday that at least 24 of the nation's healthcare workers have been killed by US-Israeli attacks since late February.
In southern Lebanon, the Israeli assault has been devastating for the country's healthcare system and workers. According to Save the Children, at least 55 of the country's health facilities have been forced to close due to airstrikes and forced displacement orders from the Israeli government.
MedGlobal said Wednesday that Lebanon's "already fragile health system is buckling under relentless pressure" of "systematic and severe" attacks, which the group emphasized are violations of international law.
"Attacks on healthcare workers are not collateral damage. They are alarming, unacceptable violations of international law,” said Dr. Zaher Sahloul, president and co-founder of MedGlobal. “The international community cannot remain silent while Lebanon’s health system is targeted and dismantled—just at the moment when it is needed more than ever to save lives and help the vast numbers of internally displaced people."
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As Trump Threatens NATO Exit, Starmer to Host 35-Nation Talks on Strait of Hormuz—Without US
"The unspoken implication of the focus on diplomacy is that if Trump walks away without reopening the strait and without a deal with Iran, then Tehran holds the cards," said one observer.
Apr 01, 2026
As President Donald Trump lambasts European allies over their reluctance to be dragged into his illegal war of choice against Iran and reportedly mulls leaving the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced Wednesday that Britain will host talks involving 35 nations—but not the US—on reopening the Strait of Hormuz via diplomacy.
Starmer said the talks, a continuation of UK-French efforts to secure safe passage for ships in the key waterway—through which around a quarter of the world's oil transits—would bring together nations to "assess all viable diplomatic and political measures we can take to restore freedom of navigation, guarantee the safety of trapped ships and seafarers, and to resume the movement of vital commodities."
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said Wednesday that the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed to “enemies of this nation” and that the waterway is "firmly and dominantly" under its control, despite Trump's repeated claims that an end to the war is approaching.
Trump lashed out Tuesday at European leaders amid resistance tof the US-Israeli war on Iran, telling them to "go get your own oil" and calling them "cowards" who will "have to start learning how to fight" for themselves, because the US "won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us."
Trump's tirade came amid reports that France, Italy, and Spain have either banned US warplanes from their airspace or from using bases in their countries. Spain announced Monday that its airspace is off limits to US aircraft involved in the Iran war, which socialist Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and other officials in Madrid have condemned as illegal.
Italy also contends that the war on Iran is illegal and has denied US warplanes permission to land at the Sigonella air base in Sicily before heading to the Middle East, while France on Wednesday refuted claims by Trump that it is preventing US military planes from flying over its territory.
The Telegraph reported Wednesday that Trump is seriously considering withdrawing from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the alliance formed in 1949 to counter growing Soviet power in Europe, telling the British newspaper that NATO is "a paper tiger."
Secretary of State Marco Rubio also weighed in on the matter, telling Fox News host Sean Hannity Tuesday evening that "we’re going to have to reexamine the value of NATO."
“If now we have reached a point where the NATO alliance means that we can’t use those bases, that in fact we can no longer use those bases to defend America’s interests, then NATO is a one-way street,” he added.
It is unclear how Trump would attempt to quit the alliance, a move that would require the unlikely approval of Congress. In 2023, lawmakers passed legislation requiring their permission to leave NATO—a direct response to Trump's previous threats to do so.
Responding to Trump's NATO remarks, Starmer said during a Wednesday press conference that the UK remains "fully committed" to the pact.
“NATO is the single most effective military alliance the world has ever seen," the Labour leader asserted. “It has kept us safe for many decades."
"Whatever the pressure on me and others, whatever the noise, I'm going to act in the British national interest," Starmer continued. "And that's why I have been absolutely clear that this is not our war, and we're not going to get dragged into it. But I'm equally clear that when it comes to defense and security, and our economic future, we have to have closer ties with Europe."
Some critics have pushed back against Starmer's argument that it's not Britain's war, noting that his government is allowing US forces to use bases in the UK to launch attacks on Iran.
Leftist and anti-war critics have long argued that NATO—which was formed to counter a Soviet threat that ceased to exist 35 years ago—is unnecessary and helped provoke Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine. Proponents of the alliance say it is key to the unprecedented peace and prosperity enjoyed by most Europeans during the post-World War II era.
Responding to Starmer's remarks, UK Green Party leader Zack Polanski urged the prime minister to "show leadership" by ending all involvement in the Iran War and stopping the upcoming state visit to the United States by King Charles III, whose family, like the British state in general, has enriched itself through centuries of imperialism, slavery, and war.
“Starmer must end this involvement in Iran and stop the King's visit to the USA.”@zackpolanski.bsky.social calls on Starmer to show leadership - stop UK involvement in illegal wars, refuse concessions to Trump, and oppose normalising fascism through inappropriate state visits.
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— The Green Party of England & Wales (@greenparty.org.uk) April 1, 2026 at 7:00 AM
The NATO alliance has been tested before. France, Italy, and Spain denied US warplanes overflight privileges during then-President Ronald Reagan's 1986 bombing of Libya, and in 2003 a much deeper rift emerged over then-President George W. Bush's unprovoked US regime change war in Iraq. Some US allies—including the UK, Italy, and Spain—took part in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, while others, led by France, vehemently opposed the illegal war of choice.
Starmer's signaling of closer ties to Europe comes a decade after Britons voted to leave the European Union. There is considerable regret over the so-called Brexit, with more than 6 in 10 respondents to a September 2025 Best for Britain survey saying it was a mistake to leave the EU and just 11% calling the move a success.
The transatlantic tensions come as Trump claimed Wednesday on his Truth Social network that Iran "has just asked the United States of America for a CEASEFIRE!"
Echoing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's repeated assertion that the US is "negotiating with bombs," Trump added: "We will consider [a ceasefire] when Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear. Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!"
Nearly 2,000 Iranians have been killed over 33 days of US and Israeli bombing, according to officials there. On Friday, a coalition of human rights groups said that nearly 1,500 civilians, including 217 children, have been killed—many of them in the February 28 US cruise missile massacre at a girls' school in Minab that killed around 175 people.
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'America Deserves Better': Top Trump FEMA Official Continues to Claim He's Being Teleported By God
"With over 340 million people in this country, you’d think we could find people grounded in reality to run our government programs," said Sen. Mazie Hirono.
Apr 01, 2026
The man appointed by President Donald Trump to lead America's disaster recovery will not stop talking about teleportation. It's leading many people to question whether he's fit for the job.
Even before this past week, many concerns had already been raised about Gregg Phillips, who Trump tapped as associate administrator for the Office of Response and Recovery at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in December.
Phillips had no formal experience in disaster management prior to being given a senior role overseeing billions of dollars to help victims of floods, hurricanes, and wildfires.
But he did have qualifications that are evidently more important to the second Trump administration: a long history of echoing the president's baseless claims about election fraud, including that millions of noncitizens illegally voted in 2016 and that an elaborate operation involving ballot stuffing “mules” helped former President Joe Biden beat Trump in 2020.
Because Phillips was a presidential appointee, Congress was not given the opportunity to scrutinize these statements or others he's made, including his description of himself as a "very vocal opponent of FEMA," the very agency he was chosen to help lead. Nor did it have the opportunity to examine accusations that he directed millions in government contracts to his own personal businesses and associates while working in the Texas and Mississippi governments.
But months into his tenure, Phillips is finally getting some attention for comments he made on multiple podcasts, in which he claimed to have been involuntarily "teleported," including to a Waffle House in Georgia.
Phillips discussed the supernatural experience in a January 2025 episode of the podcast Onward, hosted by fellow election conspiracy theorist Catherine Engelbrecht. CNN first reported on the conversation earlier this month:
"I was with my boys one time and I was telling them I was gonna go to Waffle House and get Waffle House. And I ended up at a Waffle House—this was in Georgia—and I end up at a Waffle House like 50 miles away from where I was,” Phillips said...
"And they said, ‘Where are you?’ and I said, ‘A Waffle House.’ And, 'A Waffle House where?’ And I said, ‘Waffle House in Rome, Georgia.’ And they said, ‘That’s not possible, you just left here a moment ago.’ But it was possible. It was real.”
“Teleporting is no fun,” Phillips added. “It’s no fun because you don’t really know what you’re doing. You don’t really understand it, it’s scary, but yet um—but so real. And you know it’s happening but you can’t do anything about it, and so you just go, you just go with the ride. And wow, what, just an incredible adventure it all was.”
Phillips said this was not the only time he'd been teleported. In another case, he described his car being “lifted up” and dropped in a ditch outside a church in Albany, Georgia.
CNN reported on other controversial and violent statements made by Phillips as well, including one on the same podcast in which he said he'd like to "punch [Biden] in the mouth" and that he "deserves to die." In a 2024 Truth Social post, Phillips also urged listeners to learn how to shoot firearms and warned them that migrants were "coming here to kill you."
But it's his tales of teleportation that have drawn the greatest ridicule. And Phillips has only continued to double down, according to a report out Wednesday from CNN's KFile.
“Haters gonna hate,” Phillips wrote on Truth Social in a post that now appears to be deleted.
"I know what I’ve experienced, I know Who I serve," he continued, in a reply to one of his detractors on the right-wing social media site owned by Trump.
To another, he said: “I have no regrets for my words nor my faith in my Savior, Jesus Christ. The Bible has many examples of the power of God."
Given the enormity of FEMA's responsibility, especially with the climate crisis increasing the number of billion-dollar disasters in the US in recent years, Phillips' tenuous grasp on the fabric of reality has led some to worry that the agency is in suboptimal hands.
“With over 340 million people in this country, you’d think we could find people grounded in reality to run our government programs," said Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii). ”And yet, here’s another powerful official who exists on lies and conspiracy theories. America deserves better.“
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