Truth and Action Roundup 5.16.25

View this email in your browser Welcome to the Truth and Action Roundup, a reliable weekly source of information, inspiration, and action for the second Trump administration. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to continue receiving it. Today is Friday, May 16, and we’re continuing to monitor the ongoing changes wrought by the Trump administration. This week, we have updates on the budget reconciliation package with numbers attached. We highlight the size of cuts envisioned in the federal budget to programs such as SNAP and Medicaid, effects on the federal deficit, and more. What we want to encourage you to do as you take in these updates is to look beyond the numbers on a page and think instead of the people living in communities with real needs. Imagine how cuts to the programs they depend on will impact their lives. That, much more than the bottom line in dollars and cents, is why we’ll be spending the coming months relentlessly urging Congress to pass a moral budget and reject cuts that would be devastating to many of the most vulnerable people in our communities and nation. We hope you’ll join us in this critically important advocacy. — Rev. Adam Taylor and Rev. Moya Harris, Sojourners In the News Here’s what’s been happening this week: 1) The Trump administration’s efforts to challenge birthright citizenship came before the Supreme Court on Thursday. The court heard arguments regarding the numerous nationwide injunctions imposed by lower court judges to prevent the Trump administration from enforcing the executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship can remain in place. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution has this guarantee: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” 2) As congressional Republicans advance a giant budget reconciliation bill through the legislative process, the bill’s details paint an increasingly troubling picture: The House Agriculture Committee advanced $300 billion in cuts to SNAP (formerly called food stamps). More than 8.6 million people would go uninsured if its health portions become law, with cuts of at least $715 billion, with many analyses projecting even higher losses in coming years. The bill would add $2.5 trillion to the federal deficit over the next 10 years. A provision quietly added to the bill echoes the language of last year’s so-called “nonprofit killer” bill, giving the Treasury Department wide latitude to strip nonprofits of their tax status if the president declares that the organizations support terrorism without due process. 3) The Trump administration admitted a group of white Afrikaners from South Africa this week after declaring them refugees, stoking outrage and causing the Episcopal Church to refuse to resettle them and end its refugee resettlement partnership with the federal government altogether. Trump circumvented the standard process in declaring white Afrikaners to be refugees — a dubious claim — and has shut the process down for nearly all other refugees. 4) Donald Trump had an eventful trip to the Middle East this week. A few of the developments included: Plans to accept the gift of a $400 million airplane from Qatar to be used as Air Force One, raising more alarming questions about corruption. A deal to sell Saudi Arabia nearly $142 billion in weapons. The end of sanctions on Syria following the toppling of the Assad regime last fall and a meeting with the country’s new president, Ahmad al-Sharaa. 5) Trump and DeSantis allies in Florida are pushing for a MAGA ally to be the next president of the state’s only HBCU, Florida A&M University. The candidate, Marva Johnson, has previously been appointed to several boards by Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Gov. Rick Scott, and is being criticized by the Florida NAACP and prominent FAMU alumni as lacking in qualifications for the position. Take Action Tell Congress: it's time for moral courage! Send a message directly to your elected representatives demanding that they act now with moral courage to protect programs such as SNAP and Medicaid that help vulnerable populations and end the Trump administration’s abuses of power. Join us at the U.S. Capitol for a Pentecost witness for a moral budget! On June 10, we will gather for a public procession and vigil in defense of programs that protect society’s most vulnerable people. We will gather in partnership with many other national and local faith organizations. Take Action: Tell Congress to save Head Start! Our children are too important for political games. Help us tell Congress to do right by our communities. Demand full funding and critical staffing of Head Start now! What We’re Reading and Watching MAGA Christians Have a Right to Practice Their Faith — But So Do I | President Donald Trump's anti-Christian bias task force only recognizes one very narrow type of Christianity.(By Adam Russell Taylor) How Authoritarian Politics Took Over My Christian College | I spent more than a year investigating my alma mater, Cornerstone University. What I discovered explains the Right's strategy to transform the U.S. (By Josiah R. Daniels) Parents Clash Over Faith Values as SCOTUS Hears Case on LGBTQ+ Education |  An upcoming Supreme Court case about LGBTQ content in the classroom could transform the nation's separation between church and state. (By Jordan Owens) Deep Breaths  Who Belongs "Trump administration welcomes first batch of white Afrikaners while US cuts off refugee programmes to other countries." — Al Jazeera This subhead from Al Jazeera is deeply unsettling. It lays bare the reality of power deciding who gets in and who is left out. Who is deemed worthy and who is disposable? Who is granted refuge, and who is left to face violence, poverty, or death? This policy doesn’t just expose a preference — it exposes a system where whiteness grants entry and protection, while Black and brown bodies are criminalized, surveilled, and shut out. We are in a moment where lines are being drawn based on race, gender identity, and ideology. And these lines aren’t just political or social — they’re theological. William Augustus Jones Jr., in God in the Ghetto, reminds us that theology shapes how we see people and how we structure society. When lawmakers create policies that harm the vulnerable, it's often because their theology limits who they believe is redeemable. Their view of God allows them to strip others of dignity, humanity, and belonging. But I remain hopeful. I believe more people are holding to a theology that sees God as love and justice. That considers every human being as made in God’s image. And I see it showing up in acts of kindness, courage, and resistance. People are rising up. They are standing for immigrant rights, shielding the vulnerable with their bodies, saying, not on our watch. My plea is simple: let your theology be known — through your actions, your words, and your presence. If we claim to follow Jesus, then we must embody his love, his justice, his mercy. Be light. Be salt. See the divine in others. Be like Jesus, not the empire. ––Rev. Moya Harris, Director of Racial Justice, Sojourners The Truth and Action Roundup is compiled by Sojourners staff: President: Rev. Adam Russell Taylor Director of Racial Justice: Rev. Moya Harris Senior Research Associate: J.K. Granberg-Michaelson Senior Adviser and Director to the President’s Office: Elizabeth Denlinger Reaves Chief Program and Impact Officer: Bryan Epps Political Director: Chad V. Stanton Director of Congregational Outreach & Education: Rev. Andrea Saccoccio Mobilizing and Policy Assistant: Miriam Tellez Senior Director of Marketing: Sandra Sims Copyright © 2025 Sojourners. All rights reserved. Email: sojourners@sojo.net | Tel.: 202.328.8842