photo by: Creators Syndicate

Keith Raffel

New York courts have found President Donald J. Trump to be a felon and liar. Colorado courts found him to be an insurrectionist (even though the U.S. Supreme Court blocked attempts to take him off the ballot). I’d like to add one more accusation to his rap sheet: attempted murder.

Now, I don’t like to think of myself as an irrational extremist in making such a charge. Of course, I prefer to consider myself a historian and lawyer who comes to the conclusion based on facts and reasoning. Here is my logic in finding the 47th president of these United States has taken actions that will result in foreseeable deaths.

There’s a concept in the law known as “depraved heart murder.” The classic example is a shooter firing randomly into a crowd and killing a person. Cornell’s Legal Information Institute defines depraved heart murder as “killing someone in a way that demonstrates a callous disregard for the value of human life.” The Model Penal Code, adopted by many states, restates the concept by deeming it murder when a defendant kills with “extreme indifference to the value of human life.”

Isn’t that more or less what Trump is doing? Causing deaths with “callous disregard” and “extreme indifference” to human lives? Let me give you some examples.

In 2024, the United States spent roughly $12 billion, about 0.006% of the federal budget for the year, on health programs primarily aimed at poor countries. Trump ordered the cessation of the programs upon taking office. Their future is uncertain. According to modeling done by global health consultants at Avenir Health, a complete end to U.S. funding, not replaced by other sources, would lead to 25 million additional deaths in the next 15 years from AIDS, tuberculosis and other causes. Trump will not be found guilty of these deaths in a court of law but will nonetheless be morally guilty of millions of counts of depraved heart murder.

The coronavirus pandemic cost Trump the presidential election in 2020. Cuts in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are undermining the nation’s ability to counter the next deadly pandemic, whether that’s bird flu or another infectious threat. Trump appointee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is undercutting support for vaccines across the country. Already there have been at least two deaths from measles this year with more inevitable as the viciously infectious virus spreads among the unvaccinated.

The World Health Organization estimates that in the two decades between 2030 and 2050, climate change will cause “approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year, from undernutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress alone.” The Trump administration’s rollback of environmental regulations, retreat from support of clean power sources and advocacy of coal mining and oil drilling will inevitably increase that number.

News reports indicate the Trump administration intends to cut a quarter of the budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The National Weather Service, part of NOAA, has already curtailed launches of weather balloons required for accurate forecasting. The NOAA cuts are bound to affect its ability to provide life-saving information on impending floods, tornadoes and hurricanes.

Trump is attacking research at American institutions of higher learning. His most prominent target is Harvard, the nation’s oldest university. His administration has threatened to take away over $2 billion in federal grants from Harvard in coming years. In its suit to stop him from doing so, Harvard cites “the longstanding collaboration” between the university and federal government that “has enabled researchers at Harvard to develop novel drugs to fight Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, engineer nanofibers to protect servicemembers and first responders, support American astronauts in space, and design an artificial intelligence system that can be used to diagnose and treat cancer.”

Today, such federally funded work at Harvard is slowing or stopping. Professor David R. Walt has received an order to stop work on his research that could result in drugs to treat ALS ( aka Lou Gehrig’s disease). Research on how to stop future coronavirus epidemics and on a tuberculosis vaccine have also ceased. The next generation of scientists will suffer in their training on how to save lives. The effects of the Trump administration’s actions will resound through decades. (I myself am currently a resident scholar at Harvard but receive no federal funding for my work.)

Almost every week, Trump and his appointees take other steps that risk human lives such as reversing bans on toxic chemicals, sending innocent people to horrific foreign prisons, discussing war plans over unsecured channels and revoking security clearances from former officials.

Thousands and even millions of people will die from actions arising from Trump’s depraved heart. Trump will not face a jury for these deaths, as he did in the cases finding him a liar and fraudster. Instead, he must stand trial for them in the court of public opinion and in voting booths.

I believe we Americans are a good and compassionate people. I believe we should not, cannot, will not remain passive while a president with a depraved heart causes so many deaths.

— Keith Raffel is a syndicated columnist with Creators.