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Rights & Justice
Public Health Experts Point to Trump Aid Cuts as WHO Declares Emergency Over Ebola Outbreak in DRC, Uganda
"Before the second Trump administration, USAID would have been on the ground," said one public health expert.
May 17, 2026
The World Health Organization's official designation of an Ebola virus outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda as a public health emergency of international concern on Sunday came just a day after the world learned that the disease was spreading at all—a highly unusual chain of events, public health experts said, and one that suggested the virus has been circulating for weeks without the outbreak being detected.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Sunday that eight laboratory-confirmed cases, 246 suspected cases, and 80 suspected deaths had been reported in at least three health zones across Ituri Province in the DRC. In Kampala, the densely populated capital of neighboring Uganda, two lab-confirmed cases and one death were reported within 24 hours of each other.
The victims in Kampala had no apparent link to one another; both had recently traveled from Congo.
The confirmed cases in Congo include some that have been reported in Kinshasa, the capital. The fact that the disease has been able to spread to two large cities with international airports, and the "clusters of deaths across the province of Ituri" point to "a potentially much larger outbreak than what is currently being detected and reported, with significant local and regional risk of spread," said WHO.
"At least four deaths among healthcare workers in a clinical context suggestive of viral haemorrhagic fever have been reported from the affected area, raising concerns regarding healthcare-associated transmission, gaps in infection prevention and control measures, and the potential for amplification within health facilities," the agency said.
Dr. Ashish Jha, who served as the White House Covid-19 response coordinator, said the numbers being reported could make the outbreak "one of the 10 biggest Ebola outbreaks in history."
"We're just hearing about this now? That makes no sense. Those numbers take weeks to accumulate," said Jha, adding that the fact that suspected cases have been detected in capital cities as well as Bunia, the provincial capital of Ituri, "matters enormously for spread."
Tedros emphasized that the outbreak is considered "extraordinary" because there is no approved vaccine or therapeutics for Ebola caused by the Bundibugyo virus, as this strain is. WHO sent a team to investigate in Ituri after first being notified of suspected Ebola cases on May 5, but initial samples tested negative, as available field equipment was only able to detect the Zaire strain of the disease.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and global partners "need to surge resources in," Jha said. "A slow response creates unnecessary risks to people everywhere."
WHO, which President Donald Trump withdrew the US from last year, said the public health emergency designation was made to ramp up surveillance and infection prevention in the countries where the outbreak is occurring, enhance preparedness in bordering countries, and spread awareness in the international community.
The Ebola outbreak is the second to hit Uganda since Trump slashed foreign assistance funding, including by dismantling the US Agency for International Development. Earlier this month, CNN reported that the administration plans to divert $2 billion in global health program funding to cover the cost of closing USAID.
US foreign spending dropped by 56.9% after Trump shut down the agency as well as smaller aid programs and pushed Congress to rescind previously approved foreign assistance. USAID played a critical role in responding to the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
In March 2025, when an Ebola outbreak was reported in Uganda, US officials warned that Trump's actions on foreign assistance at that point, including the termination of USAID grants, was impeding the Ugandan government's ability to procure lab supplies, diagnostic equipment, and protective gear for medical workers.
Dr. Herbert Luswata, president of the Uganda Medical Association, told The New York Times at the time that the country's ability to respond to Ebola was notably different than it had been during a previous outbreak in 2022, when dozens of medical workers volunteered to help treat patients.
The lack of funds and protective equipment had "left many afraid to help this time," the Times reported.
“With no USAID money and CDC expertise, it was like Uganda was left to die," Luswata told the Times.
Dr. Craig Spencer, an emergency medicine physician who survived Ebola in 2014, told CBS Saturday that "before the second Trump administration, USAID would have been on the ground" to respond to the current outbreak.
"The CDC would have been on the ground at a moment's notice, maybe even before a moment's notice, of a new outbreak of Ebola because we were in a bunch of countries," said Spencer. "We created relationships beforehand."
Last year, Trump megadonor Elon Musk, who was then leading efforts to slash government spending at the Department of Government Efficiency, said DOGE had "accidentally" canceled US support for Ebola prevention but claimed the funding had been "restored...and there was no interruption.”
But a number of Ebola-related contracts were in fact cut, accounting for $1.6 million out of $2.2 million that had previously gone toward the prevention efforts.
In recent weeks, public health experts have also warned that Trump's cuts to the CDC and other public health programs have left the US ill-prepared to respond to the hantavirus outbreak that originated on a cruise ship.
Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International and former leader on USAID's Covid-19 and disaster relief response work, said the current Ebola outbreak is "very worrying" and appeared to be the result of a "massive surveillance failure."
"It is really unusual for an Ebola outbreak to get to this scale before being detected; particularly in DRC, which has a lot of Ebola experience," said Konyndyk.
"I can't help but wonder," said Konyndyk, "if the drawdown of USAID and CDC health interventions by DOGE undermined some of the surveillance and detection initiatives that might have helped to catch this earlier."
WHO emphasized that the current crisis in DRC and Uganda requires "international coordination and cooperation to understand the extent of the outbreak, to coordinate surveillance, prevention, and response efforts, to scale up and strengthen operations and ensure ability to implement control measures."
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In Alabama, Organizers Declare 'Day One' of Mass Mobilization to Stop GOP Attacks on Voting Rights
Labor rights and voting rights groups were among those who gathered in Selma and Montgomery, Alabama for the All Roads Lead to the South Day of Action.
May 16, 2026
This is a developing story... Please check back for possible updates...
In a show of resistance to the US Supreme Court's dismantling of the Voting Rights Act and Republicans' efforts to redraw congressional districts across southern states in a bid to retain power despite their party's unpopular agenda, labor and voting rights groups were among those that arrived in Montgomery, Alabama Saturday for "Day One" of a mass mobilization against GOP lawmakers who they said are intent on "resurrecting Jim Crow."
While groups including the Movement for Black Lives and National Jobs With Justice boarded buses in Atlanta Saturday morning to join more than 250 organizations at a rally at the Alabama State Capitol, other organizers began the "All Roads Lead to the South" National Day of Action with a march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama—the same site of the historic 1965 voting rights march that became known as Bloody Sunday.
"We started here because we wanted to stand on sacred ground and consecrate ourselves," said organizer LaTosha Brown, co-founder of the group Black Voters Matter. "You cannot fight hate with hate, you have to stand in the spirit of love, and so look around—this is what love looks like."We’re joining the All Roads Lead to the South coalition in Alabama today to show that We the People will not allow a Jim Crow 2.0.
Today’s march is a powerful reminder: courage and community are how we will get through this.
WATCH: https://t.co/9Z5DOblam1
— Democracy Forward (@DemocracyFwd) May 16, 2026
The march and rally were organized in response to a ramp-up of efforts by the Republican Party and right-wing courts, including the far-right majority on the US Supreme Court, to redraw electoral maps in states including Louisiana, Alabama, and Tennessee.
The mass mobilization was organized after the Supreme Court handed down its ruling in Louisiana v. Callais last month, effectively eviscerating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which has held that voters of color have the right to legally challenge racially discriminatory congressional maps.
The Supreme Court this week allowed Alabama to revert back to an electoral map with just one majority-Black district out of seven, despite that fact that 26% of Alabama residents are Black.
Tennessee Republicans also adopted a new electoral map that splits up the state's only majority-Black district, and the Missouri Supreme Court approved a congressional map that targets the state's 5th District, represented by Rep. Emanuel Cleaver.
Arriving in Montgomery, Tennessee state Rep. Justin Jones (D-52) said voters across the South need "a united front... to take on this new Confederacy... We know what the intent of these governors and state lawmakers are, to dismantle every gain made during the civil rights movement and dismantle the crown jewel of the civil rights movement, which was the Voting Rights Act."
Rep. @brotherjones_ in Montgomery: “We’re here united to take on this new confederacy, 60 years after the Selma March… because we know their intent is to dismantle everything gained during the civil rights movement.” pic.twitter.com/op87I4g8hT
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) May 16, 2026
"Our parents and grandparents marched, organized, bled, and won," said organizers ahead of the rally. "The Voting Rights Act was theirs. The fight to keep it is ours. Right now, state by state, that law is being dismantled. We know that we cannot fight the same battles the same way. New times demand new tactics—economic pressure, political organizing, community action, culture, and faith. But we know what we know: Organizing works. And we have unfinished business."
At the rally, US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) emphasized the need for solidarity from across the US, with supporters of voting rights mobilizing in states near and far from the South—the current center of the GOP's attacks.
"They think they can draw us out of power. They do not know the sleeping giant they just awakened," said Ocasio-Cortez. "When Black Americans have the right to vote and that vote is protected, our schools get funded. When voting rights are protected, healthcare gets expanded. When voting rights are protected, our country moves forward. And Montgomery, that's what they're actually afraid of."
AOC: “It is time for the North to pull up to the South and let them know exactly what they have uncorked with this injustice. They think they can draw us out of power. They do not know the sleeping giant they just awakened. What they thought was the final blow is actually just… pic.twitter.com/kQvixR2Olv
— Marco Foster (@MarcoFoster_) May 16, 2026
Erica Smiley, executive director of Jobs With Justice, said labor groups joined the mass mobilization because "the bridges we have to cross are not only in Selma."
"Jim Crow didn't just come for the ballot. It came for anyone who tried to organize and have a voice," said Smiley. "Efforts to rollback equality and democracy are happening in the occupied cities, shop floors, and now the halls of the Capitol across the country."
Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.) called for the rally to mark the beginning of a "Freedom Summer," with rallies at "every State House" in the country to pressure state legislators to end the GOP gerrymandering efforts, which President Donald Trump has explicitly called for.
"Let's declare a Freedom Summer and go to every courthouse this summer, to tell those legislators, 'We will not go back,'" said Sewell.
Dozens of satellite events were also taking place across the US on Saturday.
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Critics Warn Polis Commuting Sentence of Tina Peters Sends 'Dangerous Message' Before Midterms
"Reducing her sentence sends the wrong message to those seeking to undermine trust in our elections, and it will do nothing to deter Donald Trump's illegal attacks on Colorado," said US Sen. John Hickenlooper.
May 15, 2026
Top Colorado Democrats and democracy advocates were among those expressing concern on Friday after Democratic Gov. Jared Polis commuted the sentence of Tina Peters, a former county clerk and 2020 election denier backed by President Donald Trump.
"Today, Gov. Polis delivered a victory to every person urging President Trump to seize control of elections in 2026," said Aly Belknap, executive director of the advocacy group Common Cause Colorado, in a statement. "By commuting Tina Peters' sentence, Gov. Polis dealt a massive blow to Colorado's ability to run its own elections and uphold its own judicial system."
"This decision sends a dangerous message that Colorado will tolerate criminal meddling in election systems and equipment when it is done to make a political statement," Belknap warned. "Authoritarians create martyrs out of people like Tina Peters to fuel outrage, mobilize supporters, and excuse lawbreaking in service of their agenda."
"But authoritarians cannot dismantle democracy on their own. They need powerful people to give them consent. Today, Gov. Polis gave President Trump that consent. This is a shameful day for Colorado," she added. "Gov. Polis' decision undermines election security, weakens accountability, and permanently stains his legacy."
Since returning to office last year, Trump has pardoned his supporters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, fought for access to state voter rolls, said that Republicans "ought to nationalize the voting" in direct defiance of the Constitution, generated fear that he'll have federal agents surround polling sites in November, and even repeatedly suggested that the 2026 elections shouldn't be held at all.
Trump also gave Peters a symbolic federal pardon and pressured Polis—who is term-limited and set to leave office next January—to act on her case. The president was not able to free Peters from her nine-year sentence himself because a jury convicted her of state felonies and misdemeanors for her role in breaching election equipment in 2021.
After the governor's decision, which was announced alongside dozens of other pardons and commutations, and sets up Peters to be released from prison on June 1, the president wrote on his Truth Social platform, "FREE TINA!"
Peters also turned to social media on Friday, thanking Polis, apologizing for her "mistakes," and writing that "upon release, I plan to do my best through legal means to support election integrity and, based on my own personal experiences, to elevate the cause of prison reform."
In an interview with The New York Times, Polis denied trying to placate the president by freeing the former clerk. He said that "she committed a crime; she deserves to be a convicted felon," but "she was given an unusually harsh sentence."
As the newspaper detailed:
The governor's decision came after Mr. Trump cut hundreds of millions of dollars in federal money for Colorado, moved to dismantle a leading climate and weather research center in Boulder, rejected disaster relief for rural counties in the state that had been hammered by floods and fire, and vetoed an urgently needed water pipeline for rural Colorado.
In the interview, Mr. Polis pointed out that Mr. Trump had other grievances against Colorado, such as its mail-in voting system, and said he was not making his commutation decision with the expectation that Mr. Trump would undo his actions against Colorado.
"That's not something I ever considered," he said.
Meanwhile, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold declared that "this clemency grant to Tina Peters is an affront to our democracy, the people of Colorado, and election officials across the country. The governor's actions today will validate and embolden the election denial movement, and leave a dark, dangerous imprint on American democracy for years to come."
US Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) said that "Tina Peters is guilty as sin and a disgrace to Colorado. She tried to undermine Colorado's free and fair election system. When she was caught red-handed, she was prosecuted by a Republican district attorney and rightfully convicted by a jury of her peers. Reducing her sentence sends the wrong message to those seeking to undermine trust in our elections, and it will do nothing to deter Donald Trump's illegal attacks on Colorado. I strongly disagree with this decision."
Fellow US Senate Democrat Michael Bennet, who is running for governor, was similarly critical, saying: "I vehemently disagree with Gov. Polis' decision to commute Tina Peters' sentence. She broke the law, undermined our elections, and was convicted by a jury of her peers. With Trump continuing to attack Colorado, we must stand strong for our institutions and the rule of law."
David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, told Democracy Docket that "it's unfortunate to see the governor of Colorado succumbing to the bullying tactics of election conspiracy theorists. He has thrown state and county election officials, Republicans and Democrats, under the bus after they resisted the corruption Ms. Peters engaged in and withstood attacks for many years as a result."
Even another former Republican clerk—Matt Crane, who's now executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association—sounded the alarm, arguing that "Tina Peters' actions have made life harder, not only for election officials here in Colorado, but make no mistake, for election officials all across the country. Her conduct became a rallying point for election conspiracy movements that fueled hostility and distrust towards the very people responsible for administering free and fair elections."
"Rather than standing with public service servants and defending one of our nation’s most cherished rights, the right to vote, Gov. Polis is bending the knee to the same political forces and conspiracy movements that are actively undermining confidence in our democratic institutions," Crane said. "That choice carries consequences far beyond this single case."
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'Reporting Isn't Treason': Trump Rant at Journalists Sparks Alarm
"No American should be comfortable with the president of the United States accusing a reporter of treason for critical reporting."
May 15, 2026
President Donald Trump on Friday sparked alarm among press freedom advocates when he accused New York Times reported David Sanger of committing "treason" for portraying his illegal war with Iran in a negative light.
Speaking with journalists aboard Air Force One on his flight home from China, Trump was asked by Sanger about his failure to accomplish political changes in Iran that he swore to achieve when he launched the war without congressional authorization in late February.
"I had a total military victory," Trump replied. "But the fake news, guys like you, write incorrectly. You're a fake guy, and guys like you write incorrectly. We had a total military victory. We knocked out their entire navy, we knocked out their entire air force, we knocked out all their anti-aircraft weaponry."
Trump to NYT's David Sanger: "I had a total military victory. But the fake news, guys like you, write incorrectly. You're a fake guy. We had a total military victory. I actually think it's sort of treasonous what you write. You should be ashamed of yourself. I actually think it's… pic.twitter.com/QK421YHKtq
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 15, 2026
Despite this purported "total victory," however, Iran still controls the Strait of Hormuz and has prevented commercial vessels from traveling through it for the last two months.
After attacking the Times' reporting about the Iran War, the president pivoted to impugning Sanger's patriotism.
"I actually think it's sort of treasonous what you write," the president said. "You and The New York Times, and CNN, I would say, are the worst... You should be ashamed of yourself. I actually think it's treason."
The Times on Tuesday reported that the Trump administration’s “public portrayal of a shattered Iranian military is sharply at odds with what US intelligence agencies are telling policymakers behind closed doors, according to classified assessments from early this month that show Iran has regained access to most of its missile sites, launchers, and underground facilities.”
Hours after the president's tirade against Sanger—which echoed Trump's previous remarks about media coverage of the war—New York Times spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander released a statement defending its reporting on the Iran war.
"Reporting isn't treason," Stadtlander said. "It's foundational to a free press and the work that America's founders wrote the First Amendment to protect. That includes making clear when the claims of government officials and the reality of their actions don't line up... We will continue this important, constitutionally protected work."
Trump's treason accusation also drew a rebuke from Will Creeley, legal director of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, who said that "no American should be comfortable with the president of the United States accusing a reporter of treason for critical reporting."
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof argued that Trump's attack on Sanger was really a sign of weakness given the failures of his military campaign against Iran.
"President Trump unloading on David Sander reflects a combination of anxiety, insecurity, and desperation about the Iran War," Kristof wrote. "David is the dean of national security reporters: experienced, meticulous, and fair. Blaming the messenger underscores that the reality itself is pretty bad."
Kristof's sentiment was echoed by former ABC News journalist Terry Moran, who wrote that he can't "understand how anyone can see Trump here and not see weakness."
Former Republican Illinois Congressman Joe Walsh said Trump's interaction with Sanger exposed him as "the biggest fucking crybaby in all of human history."
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