Donica Brady lost her job after the Trump administration cut grant funding to bring solar power across the country, including to tribal nations. She picked up multiple jobs to make ends meet. That, in addition to caring for children, whittled down Brady’s free time. So she invited reporter Ilana Newman over when she found a quiet moment—while skinning a deer—to talk about what the loss of solar funding meant to her and her community. 

“When the opportunity came up to work and help us get something established…it was huge,” she said.

Brady was one of many Indigenous people working to build energy sovereignty for tribal nations—work that continues despite the administration clawing back federal funds. 

This week on Reveal, we’re diving into how small communities across the country are navigating the current administration’s policies and how they show up in everyone’s lives, no matter where you are in this country. We’ve partnered with The Daily Yonder to share a story about the solar energy hopes of tribal nations; The Tributary in Jacksonville, Florida, to learn how local and state DOGE are complicating efforts to run the city; and Idaho-based reporter Heath Druzin to hear how the Trump administration’s immigration policy is rupturing the state’s Republican Party.

Credits

Reporters: Trinity Webster-Bass, Heath Druzin, and Ilana Newman | Producers: Michael Montgomery and Nadia Hamdan | Editor: Taki Telonidis | Fact checker: Artis Curiskis | General counsel: Victoria Baranetsky | Production manager: Zulema Cobb | Digital producer: Artis Curiskis | Score and sound design: Jim Briggs and Fernando Arruda | Episode executive producer: Kate Howard | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Host: Al Letson | Special thanks: Jan Pytalski and Joel Cohen at The Daily Yonder, Nate Monroe and Deirdre Conner at The Tributary, and Murphy Woodhouse at Boise State Public Radio

Reporting for this episode was supported by the Knight Local Journalism Fund. 
Support for Reveal is provided by Reveal listeners, and the Reva and David Logan Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Park Foundation, The Schmidt Family Foundation, and the Hellman Foundation.

Transcript

Reveal transcripts are produced by a third-party transcription service and may contain errors. Please be aware that the official record for Reveal’s radio stories is the audio.

Al Letson:From the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, this is Reveal. I’m Al Letson. It’s been over a year now since Donald Trump began his second term. It started with a rush of announcements and executive orders to remake the country in his vision. And the news cycle has been nonstop ever since.  
 Ice raids, mass firings of federal workers, attacks on the press have dominated the headlines. But Trump’s policies are also more quietly shaping and dividing communities across the country. Today, we’re going to three different places to learn how the Trump administration’s agenda has changed things, sometimes in unexpected ways.  
 We start in my hometown, Jacksonville, Florida. All right, everybody. It is three o’clock. So we call to order the Tuesday, September 23rd meeting of the Jacksonville City Council.  
 The council is supposed to be approving a new city budget, something that’s usually pretty boring. The debate often centers around the basic needs of Jacksonville residents, things like public safety, housing, roads, and parks.  
 But the meeting goes a little sideways after Council Member Rory Diamond proposes a new amendment that seems to come out of nowhere.  
Rory Diamond:As a conscientious conservative and a pro-life city councilman, I want it in our budget as a matter of law that you can’t use my money for something I consider murder.  
Al Letson:Diamond wants to prohibit spending money on abortion. He also wants to crack down on immigration and block spending on DEI. But the thing is, not one cent of the city’s new budget has been allocated towards any of these issues.  
 So fellow Republican council member, Matt Carlucci, pushes back wondering why these issues are being brought up.  
Matt Carlucci:This is serious business. This is not the time to make a political statement. It’s time to balance the budget that has to do with dollars and cents, not try to make a stand on cultural war stuff. This is a budget, folks.  
Al Letson:It’s worth mentioning what Diamond is calling his proposed amendments, the Big Beautiful Budget. An obvious reference to President Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill and a statement about his priorities as a legislator.  
Rory Diamond:If you don’t like it, if it makes you uncomfortable, I’m sorry, but that’s what principle looks like. Sometimes it makes you uncomfortable.  
Al Letson:But the budget is not the only inspiration Diamond has taken from the Trump administration. He’s also an outspoken member of the Department of Government Efficiency. Not the one in Washington, but the one in Duval County.  
 Yes, my hometown of Jacksonville has its own DOGE. When people think of DOGE, they think of Elon Musk and is vowed to slash $1 trillion in waste, fraud, and abuse from the federal government. Only it didn’t come close to hitting those numbers, disbanded months before its year long charter and created a lot of chaos and disruption.  
 Still, 26 states created their own DOGE style departments. Here’s Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis, speaking last February.  
Ron Desantis:We are creating a state DOGE task force that will implement a multi-prong approach to eliminating bureaucratic bloat and modernizing-  
Al Letson:And since then, Trinity Webster-Bass has been following how this has all played out in Jacksonville for The Tributary, a local newsroom where I should mention I am a proud board member. Trinity, how you doing?  
Trinity Webster…:I’m doing great, Al. It’s a bright, sunny day here in Jacksonville.  
Al Letson:It’s always bright and sunny in Jacksonville. So, seeing that we are both from Jacksonville, or I should say we are both from Duval.  
Trinity Webster…:Yes, yes, yes, yes. Go Jags, go Jags.  
Al Letson:Go Jags. I think it’s a good idea to just set the stage here. So, how would you describe this place, its local politics before DOGE came to town?  
Trinity Webster…:I would describe Jacksonville as a largely purple city. And local politics were for the most part pretty straightforward. City council members have clashed across party lines and sometimes will make it pretty ugly, but recently what’s been playing out in the city is on another level.  
 Now it’s even Republicans versus DOGE Republicans. Or, the way that I think of it, old school versus new school. So, council meetings in the past typically lasted a few hours and everyone made it home for dinner.  
 But this year’s budget meeting, council members and Jack’s residents were debating up until four in the morning.  
Al Letson:Wow.  
Trinity Webster…:Yeah, we’ve watched things change dramatically. And I think that really started after President Trump took office and created the Department of Government Efficiency. And then Governor DeSantis did the same thing for Florida.  
Al Letson:Trinity, can you tell me what that actually looked like in practice?  
Trinity Webster…:So right away, DeSantis appoints this guy as his right-hand man, former state senator and conservative Republican, Blaze Ingoglia. And while he doesn’t actually have a ton of traditional financial experience, that didn’t stop Governor DeSantis from appointing him as the state’s chief financial officer.  
 Ingoglia established himself in Florida politics as someone who wants to shrink government and stop excessive spending. He even has a Super PAC called Government Gone Wild.  
 So, Ingoglia became the head of Florida DOGE and immediately traveled all across the state making big claims about what he sees as wasteful spending. He went to Orange County.  
Blaze Ingolia:So what is the city of Orlando’s wasteful and excessive spending number? $22,332,519.  
Trinity Webster…:Broward County.  
Blaze Ingolia:An extra $190 million in excessive wasteful spending.  
Al Letson:And don’t tell me. He came to Duval.  
Trinity Webster…:Yep, that’s exactly what he did. So on September 17th, just a week before the city council budget meeting, Ingoglia held a press conference here, too.  
Blaze Ingolia:The City of Jacksonville is overtaxing and overspending your money to the tune of almost $200 million.  
Al Letson:Okay. So that’s a huge and frankly unbelievable number. I mean, where are these numbers coming from? Have you been able to verify them?  
Trinity Webster…:The short answer is, no. He usually just has these press conferences during which he holds up these small placards that had the number written on it in big bold red lettering.  
Al Letson:But you’re saying that there are no PowerPoints, no graphs, no spreadsheets, nothing, just vibes.  
Trinity Webster…:Nothing. And I’ve made multiple requests to Ingoglia for this data. But I did manage to track him down at a press conference in Winter Park.  
 Trinity Webster Bass with The Tributary from Jacksonville, Florida. You claim that nearly $200 million have been-  
Blaze Ingolia:I don’t claim. I don’t.  
Trinity Webster…:$200 million have been overspent in Jacksonville, Florida, Duval County. Could you just break down that number for me and just kind of explain that?  
Blaze Ingolia:A lot of that is… So let me be glorious. When we talk about the excessive wasteful spending, we’re talking about the growth of government itself. Right?  
 Please don’t fall into the trap of what the local politicians are going to say and say, “Hey, give me a specific line item that you don’t like.” Because that’s a shell game. That is smoke and mirrors.  
 A lot of the waste is adding full-time employees and growing the government itself.  
Al Letson:So, what does he mean by that?  
Trinity Webster…:What I think Ingoglia is getting at here is the full lifecycle of a city employee. So their yearly salary, pensions, bonuses, benefits, et cetera. And how the cost of employees, he believes, are unnecessary could inflate a budget, but it’s really difficult to make that claim in our city without those audits.  
 And if this is mostly about bloat, a majority of the newest government jobs in Jacksonville are the ones Republicans, like Ingoglia, say they’re fighting to keep. Most of those people who have been added to our city government is actually police and fire.  
Al Letson:That’s not true. That is 100% not true. That is an absolute 100% fallacy.  
Trinity Webster…:But I have the numbers. Of the roughly 600 additional city employees hired since 2019, nearly all of those worked in public safety.  
Al Letson:I mean, as someone who has grown up in Jacksonville and reported here for many years, it seems impossible to cut $200 million from its budget without doing some serious damage to city services. I mean, that’s like nearly 10% of the budget.  
Trinity Webster…:Exactly. And even the five council members who make up Duval DOGE aren’t willing to go that far. They have estimated about $50 million in wasteful spending.  
Al Letson:So, what does Mayor Deegan have to say about all of this? Because this is her city and she’s the first Democrat to win the seat in about, what, 12 years?  
Trinity Webster…:Yeah. So Donna Deegan is a Jacksonville native and the first female mayor in the city’s history. She ran on a campaign of affordable housing, accessible healthcare, and improving the city’s infrastructure.  
 And she actually has a lot of support even among Republicans. Mayor Deegan argues her government’s budget is quite efficient and says she’s trying to cooperate with Ingoglia, but he’s not making it easy.  
Mayor Deegan:The CFO never would agree to meet with me. I asked to meet several times. His folks said he didn’t have time, but he had time for everybody else on his side of the aisle except for me.  
 So, when things like that happen, it immediately signals, “Okay, this is more political than I would like to see.”  
Trinity Webster…:I asked Ingoglia about this, too. Mayor Deegan said that she reached out to you and your team.  
Blaze Ingolia:Do you work for Mayor Deegan?  
Trinity Webster…:No, I don’t. No, I don’t. I’m just from Jacksonville, Florida.  
Blaze Ingolia:Well, if you would, I would be careful because once they get property tax reform, they might cut your job if you would.  
Al Letson:What does that even mean?  
Trinity Webster…:I honestly don’t know because I’m a reporter, not a city employee. Anyway, I tried again and he gave me an answer.  
Blaze Ingolia:There’s no conversation that I’m going to be able to have with Mayor Deegan unless they prove to me that they are going to stand on the side of taxpayers and against the side of bigger government. I don’t think it’s going to be much of a conversation.  
Trinity Webster…:But the thing is, Florida and Duval DOGE can’t get anything done without Mayor Deegan and her government. DOGE has no ability to change laws or budgets. It’s simply making recommendations and relying on city and county governments to implement them through things like a budget meeting.  
Al Letson:Right. That’s why Council Member Rory Diamond proposed that big beautiful amendment last September.  
Trinity Webster…:Correct. And Al, ironically, those big beautiful amendments weren’t even the biggest thing Diamond was pushing for. He’s been a huge advocate of significantly reducing property taxes, something Governor DeSantis has made a priority in the larger fight to shrink government.  
 And the city council did pass this property tax cut, but it was pretty tiny. It’ll save homeowners about $20 a year.  
Al Letson:$20?  
Trinity Webster…:Yeah. So, that’s why the majority of Jacksonville residents who spoke at that meeting felt it was performative. Ultimately, the city council didn’t slash the budget like DOGE wanted.  
 Instead, it passed a record budget of $2.2 billion, but it’s important to acknowledge that nearly 70% of the increase over the last year is driven by a salary and pension raise for first responders.  
Al Letson:So at this point, it seems like the local DOGE effort in Jacksonville didn’t amount to much besides politics.  
Trinity Webster…:Yeah, and that’s actually what Mayor Deegan told me. She believes people like Ingoglia and Council Member Diamond are bringing up these federal issues locally just to get the attention of their counterparts in Washington.  
Mayor Deegan:“Hey, look at me. I’m doing what you’re doing. Aren’t you proud of me?” Sort of thing. Because a lot of these folks have aspirations for a federal or state office, and that’s too bad.  
Al Letson:So, you’ve been trying to get ahold of official documents for months now about the so called wasteful spending Ingoglia keeps talking about. But just as we were getting ready to release this story, Florida DOGE shared a report with legislators. So what does it say about Duval?  
Trinity Webster…:Ingoglia’s $200 million number wasn’t even mentioned. But the report had a list of budget lines of about $95 million, like money to road projects and city employee overtime.  
 But, a lot of it, about a third, was deemed wasteful simply because the recipients support DEI. The biggest example of that had to do with police and fire pensions. $30 million of those pensions is managed by a company that supports DEI.  
 So, the report lists those $30 million adds wasteful spending, and it made recommendations to the legislature. The report suggested that Ingoglia should have even more power to audit local governments and that city employees should be required by oath to not discriminate, to undo what it called the damage done by DEI.  
 Whether they act on those recommendations, we’ll have to see.  
Al Letson:Well, Trinity, thanks so much for talking to me.  
Trinity Webster…:Thanks so much for having me.  
Al Letson:Trinity Webster-Bass is a reporting fellow at The Tributary in my home city of Jacksonville, Florida. Coming up, how Trump’s immigration policy is pitting Republican against Republican in one of the reddest states in the country. You’re listening to Reveal.        
Al Letson:From the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, this is Reveal. I’m Al Letson. This week, we’re talking about the trickle-down effect that the Trump administration’s policies are having at the community level. And next, we’re going to farm country. Now, during his presidential campaign, Donald Trump boasted that he’d have farmers’ backs.  
Donald Trump:You vote for me. I’m saving our farmers. Our farmers are going to do like they did four years ago. They did better than they’ve ever done.  
Al Letson:That message lands comfortably in a place like Idaho. It’s one of the most ag-reliant states in the country, but it also gets at the inherent conflict in Trump’s policies. Agriculture relies overwhelmingly on foreign born workers, many of them undocumented. And since Trump took office, authorities claimed to have deported more than 600,000 immigrants nationwide. That’s in addition to the nearly two million the administration says left voluntarily. Reporter Heath Druzin takes us to Idaho where Trump’s immigration policies have triggered a civil war in the state party.  
Heath Druzin:It’s harvest time in the tiny farming town of Roberts, Idaho. There are rolling tilled fields as far as the eye can see. Massive combines comb the dusty soil, racing to keep ahead of the first freeze of the fall. And considering we’re in Idaho, you might be able to guess what’s coming out of the ground.  
Stephanie Micke…:We’re probably in the 10 to 15,000 acre ranges of potatoes.  
Heath Druzin:Okay. And so how does that kind of stack up in Idaho?  
Stephanie Micke…:I would say we’re one of the larger growers in the state.  
Heath Druzin:That’s Stephanie Mickelsen. We’re on a dirt road in the middle of Mickelsen Farms, the spud operation she and her husband own. Once the combines yank the potatoes from the ground, they take them to giant storage rooms.  
Stephanie Micke…:These sellers hold 80,000 to 100,000 sacks of potatoes in them. You stack them 14 to 16 feet high depending upon the cellar and things.  
Heath Druzin:The potatoes ride a long conveyor belt from the combine to the growing mountain of tubers inside the cellar. Stephanie grabs a few to bring home.  
Stephanie Micke…:I’m getting me some potatoes. I keep telling my potato farmer husband I need him to bring me home potatoes right now, and a potato farmer’s wife could never get the potatoes. Just saying.  
Heath Druzin:But this story isn’t about her potatoes. It’s about her workers who have become pawns in a political game. Almost all of Stephanie’s farmhands are from Central America. The kind of workers being targeted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE. President Donald Trump’s immigration policies are red meat for his base, but they’re complicating business for farmers, many of whom are fellow conservatives like Stephanie. Because she isn’t just a potato grower. She’s also a Republican state representative and she was involved in national policy too as chair of the American Farm Bureau Labor Committee. But she’s increasingly being harmed by her own party’s immigration policies. In January of 2025, ICE agents raided her farm. They let away one of her longtime employees in handcuffs and deported him. Stephanie was away from the farm at the time, but she said her son watched it unfold.  
Stephanie Micke…:The guy comes out, tears coming down his face, watching him knowing that he will never come back in this country to ever see his children again. And that’s sad.  
Heath Druzin:Farmers and ranchers are typically a reliable voting block for the Republican Party, especially in ruby red, Idaho. But Trump’s immigration policies are pitting Republicans like Stephanie, who has much more moderate views on immigration, against far right colleagues in the legislature proudly cheering on ICE’s raids, including the raid on her own farm. Even before Trump started his second term, there were politicians in the Idaho state legislature calling for a crackdown on undocumented workers.  
Republican Repr…:They’re estimating over three million people coming across the border this year. That is a crime.  
Heath Druzin:That’s Republican Representative Josh Tanner in March 2024. Tanner supported a bill that would make it a state crime for undocumented immigrants to enter Idaho and allow local law enforcement to check people’s immigration status. Among Idaho’s two million inhabitants, about 40,000 are undocumented according to the Migration Policy Institute.  
Republican Repr…:If we cannot figure out a way to actually stem the illegal side, I don’t know what we’re doing because we’re now saying we’re not going to follow laws.  
Heath Druzin:After that, Stephanie Mickelsen rose from her desk on the House floor and made what ended up being a fateful speech.  
Stephanie Micke…:I think you need to remember that every food processor, probably in this state, from your small construction companies to your hospitality industries, somewhere in all of those industries that serve all of us. So if you guys think that you haven’t been touched by an illegal immigrant’s hands in some way, you’re kidding yourselves. So to take such a stand to beat up and denigrate a population that brings value-  
Representative …:I object, Mr. Speaker.  
Mr. Speaker:Yeah, Good Lady. Yeah, I think denigrate and stuff, I don’t think that’s intention of this bill, so continue Good Lady.  
Representative …:No one is denigrating a population.  
Stephanie Micke…:Okay, that’s fine. I’ll continue on.  
Representative …:Yeah, watch it.  
Mr. Speaker:Come on guys.  
Heath Druzin:That’s Republican Representative Heather Scott objecting and then telling Stephanie to watch it.  
Mr. Speaker:Good job 13.  
Speaker 8:Can she put the House at ease?  
Heath Druzin:With tempers flaring, the speaker stops the session. The bill passed. To be clear, Stephanie is no liberal. She’s anti-abortion, endorsed by the NRA, voted to prohibit diversity, equity, and inclusion policies in public universities, supported lowering income tax and voted for several anti-trans bills.  
Stephanie Micke…:Oh no, I’m conservative as they come and I believe in responsible government.  
Heath Druzin:And in years past, a farmer defending the humanity of farm workers might not have been such a big deal. But in the Trump era, it caught the attention of some far right GOP leaders. That included a guy named Ryan Spoon. He’s vice chairman of the GOP in Ada County, home to more than a quarter of the state’s population. And he’s made it his mission to rid the party of anyone he considers too moderate. Here’s Ryan explaining his purge of the county party on a podcast.  
Ryan Spoon:We can’t win on the front lines if we’ve got people undercutting us behind our back. And so that was, when I really got involved was late in 2022. And within less than a year, we chased off the RINOs that we’re running the show and we now have all conservatives in charge of the local party.  
Heath Druzin:Ryan singled out Stephanie as one of those RINOs, Republicans In Name Only. On the social media site X, he called her a plantation mistress and wrote, “We’re going to take your farm slaves away from you.” And almost as soon as Trump got back in office, Ryan turned his words into action. He reported Mickelsen Farms to ICE and bragged about it publicly. That’s right. The guy who sicked the feds on Stephanie is a fellow GOP official. Agents took away a worker who had entered legally, but had a three-year-old arrest for domestic violence and drug possession. His felony possession conviction was dismissed after completing probation. Nonetheless, he was deported to Mexico. For her part, Stephanie says she does not knowingly hire undocumented workers, but she says it’s nearly impossible to know if every worker document is authentic. Some on the far right celebrated the raid. Ryan Spoon even got free beer for a month from a local bar.  
 It’s all part of a larger push by hardliners to purify the party. Despite all his tough talk online, Ryan wouldn’t talk to me for this story. That was true of almost all of Stephanie Mickelsen’s most vocal detractors.  
Speaker 10:Hi, you’ve reached Glenneda Zuiderveld.  
Speaker 11:You have reached the office of Senator Brian.  
Speaker 12:You’ve reached Moon & Associate.  
Speaker 13:The person you’re trying to reach is not available.  
Speaker 14:Please leave me a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Thank you very much.  
Heath Druzin:Senator Brian Lenney, Senator Glenneda Zuiderveld, conservative activist Matt Edwards, and Idaho GOP Chairwoman Dorothy Moon. They’ve all sharply criticized Stephanie online, but wouldn’t talk to me. There was one person who agreed to talk. The bar owner who gave Ryan Spoon free beer for a month for calling ICE.  
Mark Fitzpatric…:My name’s Mark Fitzpatrick. I’m the owner of Old State Saloon here in Eagle, Idaho in the old Orville Jackson building.  
Heath Druzin:Mark thinks the raid on Stephanie’s farm wasn’t enough. He would like to see the state open an investigation into Stephanie and/or employment of an immigrant worker with a criminal record.  
Mark Fitzpatric…:We have a fair amount of people who misrepresent who they are, and my hope is that we are entering a period of time where these people will be exposed for who they are and they will not be reelected.  
Heath Druzin:Mark’s bar has become a gathering place for prominent far right figures from around the state since it opened in 2023. Regulars there include state legislators, activists, white supremacist podcasters, even nationally known conspiracy theorist, Ian Carroll.  
Mark Fitzpatric…:We have presenters come in that present on different topics and those topics could be controversial topics. We’ve had some that are on the 9-11 conspiracy and what happened there. We’ve had some on the Epstein files.  
Heath Druzin:But immigration is Mark’s driving issue. He offers free beer to anyone who gets an undocumented immigrant deported. He even dubbed December, Mary Snitchmas.  
Mark Fitzpatric…:Basically, every Monday during Snitchmas is Manly American Mondays. All American citizen males who support ICE get one free beer for simply walking in Old State Saloon on Monday.  
Heath Druzin:On a Tuesday, we meet Danielle Jo at the bar for an ICE-themed ladies night. Danielle has this pitch for why she should get a free beer.  
Danielle Jo:Well, I haven’t done anything personally to get someone deported, but I would tell them that I am in support of ICE and what they’re doing and that I think it’s imperative that people that are in this country illegally should get deported or should go back and get the opportunity to come in the right way.  
Heath Druzin:Mark says he does these promotions because he sees illegal immigration as an existential threat.  
Mark Fitzpatric…:We now have essentially allowed to enter our country a army of military-aged males that hate the United States of America.  
Heath Druzin:He offers no evidence for this supposed army. But there is evidence Trump’s immigration crackdown is affecting more than just farmers and politicians. An August report showed ICE arrests were up nearly 800% in Idaho over the year before.  
Speaker 17:[foreign language 00:11:42].  
Heath Druzin:That’s from a cell phone video of an October 19th raid on a horse track in Wilder, a town in the western part of the state. FBI and ICE agents, along with local police, detained men, women, and children, immigrants and citizens alike. Many were there with their families for a weekend get together. In the end, ICE took away more than 100 people suspected of being undocumented. It sent a chill through a heavily Latino part of Idaho.  
Estefania Mondr…:Folks that are undocumented are afraid. We’ve seen a widespread fear within our communities. Folks are hesitant to leave their home.  
Heath Druzin:Estefania Mondragon leads an immigrant advocacy group called PODER in Nampa, Idaho.  
Estefania Mondr…:The effects of that raid are still being felt. Dia de los Muertos happened right after that raid and there was a lot less events going on for that. So even it affected our ability to celebrate our own culture. And Wilder School District specifically, there was a lot of kids missing school because of the raid, as well as in Nampa and Caldwell.  
Heath Druzin:And as someone who moved to Idaho as a young child, Estefania says, she’s seen anti-immigrant policies change the way people treat her.  
Estefania Mondr…:Coming from a state like California, having people wave to you, that was new to us and just the nicest of people here in Nampa and just close-knit community that it was and even in schools readily felt welcomed. But yes, just overall, I’ve seen that those Idaho values have become more and more scarce and less people abide by that. I’m seeing just people being hateful.  
Heath Druzin:Stephanie Mickelsen sees that change in her community too. And she says it’s mostly people who don’t have much contact with immigrant workers and their families.  
Stephanie Micke…:Immigrants aren’t messing up the fabric of America. We’re all immigrants. And when you see what they value and how they’re willing to give their heart and souls to help you make a living, your appreciation and your understanding for an immigrant workforce completely changes versus somebody who has never had to really interact or deal with an immigrant workforce.  
Heath Druzin:Right now, in the middle of winter, there’s less work to be done around the farm, but Stephanie worries ICE raids will make it hard to find workers come spring.  
Stephanie Micke…:Even though they are legal and whatever, if they get word that there’s ICE agents out and about, then you’ll have people that won’t come for days on end to work.  
Daniel Sumner:You don’t have to raid a farm to destroy its labor force.  
Heath Druzin:Daniel Sumner is an agricultural economist at UC Davis.  
Daniel Sumner:You raid a farm 300 miles away in the Central Valley of California, and that news spreads like wildfires, and the next day, my farm 300 miles north, nobody shows up to work that day.  
Heath Druzin:And that’s just Trump’s immigration policies. Daniels’ farmers are also dealing with his tariffs, which Trump changes without warning. That’s raised the cost of equipment and closed off some foreign markets.  
Daniel Sumner:It’s a tough business with lots of uncertainty, and this is just one more thing on top of it that can screw you up when you do think you’re going to do okay. And they really can’t be secure when policy is shifting around like it is.  
Heath Druzin:Red states were some of the hardest hit. Ag reliant, Iowa and Nebraska saw their gross domestic products shrink by more than 6% in the first quarter of 2025. Idaho is bracing for a similar fallout and not just potato farmers.  
Jennifer Ellis:If you’re going to try and expand your numbers of your cow herd, I don’t see people being willing to do that now because it is so uncertain, and yet when you have mouths to feed, literally on the hoof mouths to feed, you don’t get to just ditch them.  
Heath Druzin:That’s Jennifer Ellis, a rancher and the former head of the Idaho Cattle Association. She says across ag, people are hesitant to invest in a future that’s so unpredictable. Until recently, Jennifer was a lifelong Republican. She now runs Take Back Idaho, an independent political organization trying to combat extremism in the state. She says Idaho Republicans used to have respect for agriculture and remembers when she saw that start to change.  
Jennifer Ellis:Well, in 2018, I saw this really weird thing happen at the GOP Convention of which I was a delegate. Lady stood up and said that in her mind, agriculture in Idaho was tantamount to organized crime.  
Heath Druzin:And the politics have only gotten more extreme. Jennifer says incidents like the raid on Mickelsen Farms, one Republican official targeting the livelihood of another have a chilling effect on recruiting qualified people to run for political office.  
Jennifer Ellis:And as someone who has cultivated candidates for years in this state, the number one thing that people are telling me is there is no way in hell I will subject myself or my family to that.  
Heath Druzin:Back in Mickelsen Farms, Stephanie says the raid on her operation made her reevaluate her decision to be in public life.  
Stephanie Micke…:For many, many weeks, especially during the last session, I really struggled. Do I continue to stay in the legislature and say nothing or do I finally find my voice and just have to be consistent with it and try to mitigate whatever damage they can continue to try and cause?  
Heath Druzin:Ultimately though, she decided she’s not backing down. She’ll face a GOP challenge from her right in the May primary.  
Stephanie Micke…:Somebody has to be willing to stand up and say, “We got to fix a problem.” And I think that’s kind of where we’ve always been as a family, as a business, that we’re one of those people that or groups that we recognize there’s a problem and needs to be fixed. Let’s sit down, roll up our sleeves and find some common ground and get it fixed.  
Heath Druzin:Whether or not she can find that common ground in an increasingly polarized landscape is an open question.  
Al Letson:That story was from Heath Druzin, a reporter based in Boise, Idaho. Up next, the Trump administration abruptly pulled funding for a program to bring solar power to native communities. Now, tribes are scrambling to make up the difference.  
Speaker 21:Each administration’s going to be different. Sometimes it may not suit us, but we just got to do what we got to do.  
Al Letson:You’re listening to Reveal.  
Al Letson:… From the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, this is Reveal. I’m Al Letson. On April 22nd, 2024, Earth Day, Joe Biden announced a program to bring solar energy to low income households across the US.  
Joe Biden:Today, Environmental Protection Agent will invest $7 billion from our Inflation Reduction Act with a new program called Solar for All.  
Al Letson:The program awarded grants to states, cities, tribal governments, and nonprofits to develop solar projects in disadvantaged communities to create jobs, reduce pollution, and cut soaring energy costs.  
Joe Biden:Millions of families will save over $350 million nationwide.  
Al Letson:The grants went out the door. People were hired, and solar panels had started to go up, but in August of 2025, the Trump administration announced it was ending solar for all, and instead, boosting investments in fossil fuels. EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, denounced the program as a boondoggle.  
Lee Zeldin:With clear language and intent from Congress in the one, big, beautiful bill, EPAs taking action to end this program for good.  
Al Letson:Eliminating solar for all was a blow to rural communities across the country, but it was especially disappointing for Native American tribes, which for decades have been trying to bring down the cost of electricity and become more energy independent. Reporter, Ilana Newman, from the Daily Yonder, a nonprofit newsroom that covers rural America, traveled to the Rocky Boys reservation in northern Montana, where some of the very first panels were installed under solar for all. She wanted to see how gutting the program affected the local tribe, the Chippewa Cree.  
 Ilana Newman:I drove here through winding valleys and over grassy hills, and now I’m in a small neighborhood. It smells like smoke from someone’s wood stove or a fire pit. The sun’s out. It’s pretty warm for the end of November.  
 I’m here with Joseph Eagleman. He’s in charge of the Chippewa Cree’s Energy Program, which implemented Solar for All here on the reservation.  
Joseph Eagleman:Usually most of us call these villages. This one’s called Queensville. I’d say, what? There’s probably about 30 homes over here in this area.  
Zane Patacsil:Yeah, roughly.  
Joseph Eagleman:And we’re looking south.  
 Ilana Newman:That other voice is Zane Patacsil. He lives nearby and Joseph hired him to help install a solar array that we’re walking up to. It’s at the home of a local elder.  
Joseph Eagleman:Prime Spot. There’s no trees blocking, but she gets as much benefit as she can with the fixed system.  
 Ilana Newman:So, we got 20 solar panels and-  
Joseph Eagleman:And then, there’s two batteries on the side of the house.  
 Ilana Newman:Getting solar panels like these is a big deal. This home is all electric, as are many others here. Rural areas like this often pay more for electricity, simply due to economies of scale. Houses are further apart, and the infrastructure that’s needed to reach each home just costs more to build and maintain. Rural electric co-ops are also less likely to have energy efficiency or weatherization programs, so energy bills can run as high as $800 a month, which is a lot for a community with a significant number of people living below the poverty line.  
Joseph Eagleman:There’s people that have multiple families in a single home, that have higher energy needs and costs, and with the local power provider increasing rates just recently, it’s unfortunate.  
 Ilana Newman:Solar for All could have changed that for a lot of families who otherwise could not afford to invest in solar. It would be life-changing for them to see their energy bills plummet or even disappear after receiving free solar panels through this program. Here in the Northern Plains, a coalition of 14 tribes was allocated $135 million. Joseph says the Chippewa Cree’s share of that money, $7.6 million, would have built close to 200 solar arrays on the reservation. A number of families were waiting in line, but the only panels that were completed before the funding was cut are the ones we are standing next to.  
 Tell me what it felt like when it was announced that the Solar for All Grant was cut.  
Joseph Eagleman:It was terrible. We were getting ready to really take off on it.  
Zane Patacsil:We were really excited.  
Joseph Eagleman:I think especially with us being able to show the community what was coming, and it’s like a gut punch, really.  
Zane Patacsil:To help 192 homes, that’s a tremendous help. Being energy independent is what we are striving for. That sovereignty that our people talk about is important to us.  
 Ilana Newman:That word, sovereignty, came up a lot in my conversations. Tribal sovereignty is not only about protecting culture and traditions. It’s about self-sufficiency, and it’s a legal status protected by the US Constitution. More than a century ago, tribes signed treaties giving up the right to their traditional homelands in exchange for the right to self-govern, but that’s easier said than done without the resources to support true independence, which have been systemically removed by the US government. Native Americans are more food insecure and rely on Medicaid at higher rates than their white counterparts. They also often have higher expenses for things, including electricity. For Zane, the solar program was a step towards self-sufficiency and a return to traditional values.  
Zane Patacsil:Coming from our people, the sun is part of our way of life.  
Cody Two Bears:Energy sovereignty really means not to have to outsource. My name is Cody Two Bears. I’m an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, founder and CEO of Indigenized Energy.  
 Ilana Newman:Indigenized Energy is the nonprofit behind the solar panels that I visited on the Rocky Boys Reservation. Until last August, it was working with the coalition of 14 tribes to implement solar for all.  
Cody Two Bears:My ultimate goal is to work myself out of a job. I want to build so much capacity into these tribes where they don’t need indigenized energy.  
 Ilana Newman:Cody says the idea for indigenized energy came from his experiences in 2016 during the protests over the Dakota access pipeline.  
Thomasine Woode…:Come on, guys. We got to stop this.  
 Ilana Newman:The movement opposing the pipeline brought thousands of people to the Standing Rock Reservation, fighting to protect clean water.  
Thomasine Woode…:Mni Wiconi. Mni Wiconi.  
 Ilana Newman:They’re chanting Mni Wiconi, which means “water is life.” At the time of the protests, Cody was on the tribal council for the Standing Rock Sioux. Although the pipeline was built, the whole situation got Cody thinking about the legacy of extraction on native land.  
Cody Two Bears:The more history I actually dug up around energy, this wasn’t the only time our people were affected. Our people have been affected many generations before me.  
 Ilana Newman:Cody’s right. There’s a long history of energy extraction on reservations, without many benefits flowing to tribal members. So, you can have people living very close to things like oil or national gas wells, who get no relief to their energy bills, and energy extraction often contaminates nearby water and soil. This history is what inspired indigenized energy.  
Cody Two Bears:We wanted the tribes to be self-determined in an energy way.  
 Ilana Newman:That energy independence has always been the goal. Indigenized energy was installing solar panels on reservations like the Northern Cheyenne, long before Solar for All began, so when the program was announced, it was a natural partnership. Indigenized energy was one of the first to get panels installed with Solar for All funding. Cody had no reason to think the progress would stop with Donald Trump. Like many presidents before him, Trump talks a lot about energy independence, so the cuts took Cody by surprise.  
Cody Two Bears:With the way that this administration has done that was really unacceptable and really was harmful to a lot of, not just tribal people that were looking forward to something that was promised to us and that was given to us, that was just taken away from us.  
 Ilana Newman:That sense of betrayal isn’t new to native communities, but the Kutz still disappointed many who hope for relief from high energy bills. Thomasine Woodenlegs lives on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Southeastern Montana.  
Thomasine Woode…:I’ve worked for the tribe my entire life since I was 14 years old, and I’ve always survived on my own, been a single parent most of my life, and there’s no retirement with the tribe. We just have to rely on our social security, and I’m afraid that’s not going to cover my heating costs.  
 Ilana Newman:What do you expect your social security to be?  
Thomasine Woode…:I’m thinking about maybe $2,200, maybe $2,400. What worries me about this house is, every winter, my electricity bill ranges anywhere from $400 to $500 a month.  
 Ilana Newman:In her modest house, Thomasine takes care of her two grandkids. She worries about leaving her family saddled with high energy costs when she passes down her property. Thomasine applied for solar panels multiple times through different grant programs, but is still waiting.  
Thomasine Woode…:Then, recently I heard that they weren’t going to get funded, and I was really, really disappointed because I was really looking forward to that.  
 Ilana Newman:I asked the EPA why they cut a program that was already proving itself useful to low income people. They declined an interview, but responded to a few written questions, saying, “The previous administration was more focused on throwing money out the door than spending hard-earned, American taxpayer dollars with integrity.” The Solar For All program was operating with layers and layers of pass throughs, each taking their own cut of the money. It’s true that there were pass throughs in the program, but that’s the way that grants like this often work, because local recipients don’t always have capacity to apply for and administer a program this large, but they usually know what communities need most.  
 Tribes were supposed to get $7.6 million each, leaving about $30 million for organizations like Indigenized Energy to hire people and run the program, but that all went away when Solar for All was defunded. Cody told me that Indigenous Energy laid off around half their staff. One of those people was Donica Brady, the coordinator for the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. Donica’s so busy with two jobs and her kids, the only time we could meet was at her house at nine o’clock at night. How are you?  
Donica Brady:I’m all right.  
 Ilana Newman:What was tonight?  
 When I get there, I realize she’s still multitasking, when she hands me a kitchen knife and asks if I want to help her skin a deer.  
 Look at that guy.  
Donica Brady:This is your turn.  
 Ilana Newman:So, we’re cutting.  
Donica Brady:Just cut straight down. A little bit meatier, and then just go straight down.  
 Ilana Newman:As we work on the deer, we talk about how frustrated she is. Not even about losing her job, but about the lost opportunity for her tribe. The Northern Cheyenne have very few jobs that aren’t working directly with the tribal or federal government or in energy, like the local coal plant. The community desperately needs economic development.  
Donica Brady:The opportunity to get solar, the opportunity for jobs, training, things like that, I still want to help. I still want to help. I want to see more jobs, more opportunities.  
 Ilana Newman:Donica tells me that Solar for All would have created at least five jobs on each of the 14 reservations. That might not sound like a lot, but in a place like this, hours away from the closest city, well paying jobs with training are a big deal.  
Donica Brady:When the opportunity came up to work and help us get something established, it was huge. People call it progress, but I see it as like going back to what we were taught, but in a new way.  
 Ilana Newman:By now, the skin is off the deer and Donica’s carving out the backstraps, a tender cut of meat right on the spine. She’s going to give it to her auntie.  
 Oh, yeah. That is a pretty piece of meat. You can Feel it.  
 There is some hope the Solar For All program could be restarted. Four different lawsuits have been filed in federal court against the Trump administration for ending the program.  
Speaker 10:Colorado is now joining more than 20 states ensuing the Trump administration over the cancellation-  
 Ilana Newman:The lawsuits claim that taking away already obligated funds is illegal, and terminating the grant program goes against the contract signed when the program was begun.  
Speaker 10:Democratic Attorney General Phil Weiser says EPA grants can only be taken back for fraud or waste.  
 Ilana Newman:All of the lawsuits are still active. One from Climate United will move into oral arguments in February. Another from a coalition of 22 states is seeking an injunction to keep the Solar for All funds available. Back on the reservations, electricity costs continue to rise, without much hope of relief. Hill Country Electric Co-op provides electricity for the Chippewa Cree tribe. They raised their rates in 2024 and will raise them again this year. This is happening for a lot of reasons, including inflation, but they also blamed lost revenue because of Solar for All, even though the program was ending. Joseph Eagleman with the Chippewa Cree says that’s all the more reason to push for new funding, to restart the tribal solar program, and build solar panels across Indian country.  
Joseph Eagleman:We’re still looking at other avenues. We’re not just giving up, so just got to look somewhere else.  
 Ilana Newman:Tell me more about, what are you thinking about moving forward?  
Joseph Eagleman:Looking not just at federal grants, but more philanthropy type.  
 Ilana Newman:How much money do you need to do those 200 homes?  
Joseph Eagleman:The Chippewa Creek Tribe share of the award around $7.6 million. We take it as it comes. Each administration’s going to be different. Sometimes it may not suit us, but we just got to do what we got to do.  
 Ilana Newman:Cody Two Bears feel similarly. Even after losing half its staff, solar projects continue at Indigenized Energy. It’s just going to take longer than expected without the $135 million from Solar for All. In fact, Cody says they’ve secured private funding and are ready to break ground on a project in Wisconsin on the Menominee Reservation. It was next in line when Solar for All was cut.  
Cody Two Bears:This would be the third one that we’re deploying through Menominee. And we also just got some funding that are approved for the Rosebud Sioux tribe, so even though the money is not there, we’re still finding alternative resources and funding to make these possible and make them feasible.  
 Ilana Newman:Part of tribal sovereignty is being able to fix your own problems. Almost everyone I spoke with echoed this sentiment. They said being sovereign means not waiting around to be taken care of by the federal government. It’s about getting things done when they need to be done.  
Al Letson:Alana Newman is a reporter for The Daily Yonder. This week’s show was produced by Michael Montgomery, Nadia Hamdan, and Heath Drusen. Taki Tel Anitas edited the show. Thanks to Jan Patalski and Joel Cohen from The Daily Yonder, Nate Monroe and DJ Connor from the tributary in Jacksonville, and Murphy Woodhouse from Boise State Public Radio. Special thanks to the Knight Local Journalism Fund for supporting the reporting for this hour. Kate Howard was the executive producer for this episode. Artist Chariskas is our fact-checker. Victoria Baranetsky is our general counsel. Our production manager is the great Tulamacab.  
 Score and sound design by the dynamic duo, Jay Breezy, Mr. Jim Briggs, and Fernando, my man, Yo Aruda. Our executive producer is Brett Myers. Our theme music is by Camarado Lightning. Support for reveals provided by the Reva and David Logan Foundation, the John D and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Park Foundation, the Schmidt Family Foundation, and the Hellman Foundation. Support for reveal is also provided by you, our listeners. We are a co-production of the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX. I’m Al Letson, and remember, there is always more to the story.  

Michael Montgomery is a senior reporter and producer for Reveal who leads major collaborations and reports on America’s penal system, human rights and international trade, and labor exploitation. Previously he held staff positions at American Public Media, CBS News, and the Daily Telegraph, where he was a Balkans correspondent. Michael is a longtime member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and a recipient of numerous national and international honors, among them Murrow, Peabody, IRE, duPont-Columbia, Third Coast, and Overseas Press Club awards. Contact him at mmontgomery@revealnews.org or @mdmontgomery.

Nadia Hamdan (she/her) is a reporter and producer for Reveal. She’s worked on a wide range of investigative stories covering elections, immigration, health care, gun violence, and more. Most notably, she co-reported and produced the historical investigation “40 Acres and a Lie,” exploring a reparation that wasn’t—and the wealth gap that remains. The project was a finalist for the 2025 Pulitzer Prize and the winner of an Edward R. Murrow Award, a duPont-Columbia Award and a National Magazine Award. Nadia also once conducted an entire interview while riding a mule. Reach her at nhamdan@cir.org or on Signal at nadiaCIR.42.

Victoria Baranetsky is general counsel at the Center for Investigative Reporting (d/b/a Foundation for National Progress), where she advises the organization on its full range of legal activities, including counseling reporters on newsroom matters (newsgathering, libel, privacy, subpoenas), advising the C-level on business matters, and providing legal support to the board. She has litigated on various issues on behalf of the organization, including arguing before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Prior to CIR, Victoria worked at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the Wikimedia Foundation, and the New York Times. She also clerked on the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals. She holds degrees from Columbia University, Columbia Journalism School, Harvard Law School, and Oxford University. She teaches at Berkeley Law School as an adjunct professor and is a fellow at Columbia’s Tow Center. She is barred in California, New York, and New Jersey.

Kate Howard is an editorial director at Reveal, based in Louisville, Kentucky. Previously, she was managing editor at the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting and spent nearly 14 years as a reporter before that. She is a member of the board of directors of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) and Louisville Public Media. Reach her at khoward@revealnews.org.

Fernando Arruda is a sound designer, engineer, and composer for Reveal. As a multi-instrumentalist, he contributes to the music, editing, and mixing of the weekly public radio show and podcast. He has held four O-1 visas for individuals with extraordinary abilities. His work has been recognized with Peabody, George Polk, duPont-Columbia, Edward R. Murrow, Gerald Loeb, Third Coast, and Association of Music Producers awards, as well as Emmy and Pulitzer nominations. Prior to joining Reveal, Arruda toured internationally as a DJ and taught music technology at Dubspot and ESRA International Film School. He also worked at Antfood, a creative audio studio for media and TV ads, as well as for clients such as Marvel, MasterClass, and Samsung. His credits also include NPR’s 51 Percent; WNYC’s Bad Feminist Happy Hour and its live broadcast of Orson Welles’ The Hitchhiker; Wondery’s Detective Trapp; and MSNBC’s Why Is This Happening?. Arruda releases experimental music under the alias FJAZZ and has performed with jazz, classical, and pop ensembles such as SFJazz Monday Night Band, Art&Sax quartet, Krychek, Dark Inc., and the New York Arabic Orchestra. He holds a master’s degree in film scoring and composition from NYU Steinhardt. Learn more about his work at FernandoArruda.info.

Jim Briggs III is a senior sound designer, engineer, and composer for Reveal. He joined the Center for Investigative Reporting in 2014. Jim and his team shape the sound of the weekly public radio show and podcast through original music, mixing, and editing. In a career devoted to elevating high-impact journalism, Jim’s work in radio, podcasting, and television has been recognized with Peabody, George Polk, duPont-Columbia, IRE, Gerald Loeb, and Third Coast awards, as well as a News and Documentary Emmy and the Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Sound. He has lent his ears to a range of podcasts and radio programs including Marketplace, Selected Shorts, Death, Sex & Money, The Longest Shortest Time, NPR’s Ask Me Another, Radiolab, Freakonomics Radio, WNYC’s live music performance show Soundcheck, and The 7 and Field Trip from the Washington Post. His film credits include PBS’s American Experience: Walt Whitman, the 2012 Tea Party documentary Town Hall, and The Supreme Court miniseries. Before that, he worked on albums with artists such as R.E.M., Paul Simon, and Kelly Clarkson at NYC’s legendary Hit Factory Recording Studios. Jim is based in western Massachusetts with his family, cats, and just enough musical instruments to do some damage.

Al Letson is the Peabody Award-winning host of Reveal. Born in New Jersey, he moved to Jacksonville, Florida, at age 11 and as a teenager began rapping and producing hip-hop records. By the early 1990s, he had fallen in love with the theater, becoming a local actor and playwright, and soon discovered slam poetry. His day job as a flight attendant allowed him to travel to cities around the country, where he competed in slam poetry contests while sleeping on friends’ couches. In 2000, Letson placed third in the National Poetry Slam and performed on Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry Jam, which led him to write and perform one-man shows and even introduce the 2006 NCAA Final Four on CBS.

In Letson’s travels around the country, he realized that the America he was seeing on the news was far different from the one he was experiencing up close. In 2007, he competed in the Public Radio Talent Quest, where he pitched a show called State of the Re:Union that reflected the conversations he was having throughout the US. The show ran for five seasons and won a Peabody Award in 2014. In 2015, Letson helped create and launch Reveal, the nation’s first weekly investigative radio show, which has won two duPont Awards and three Peabody Awards and been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize twice. He has also hosted the podcast Errthang; written and developed several TV shows with major networks, including AMC+’s Moonhaven and Apple TV+’s Monarch; and is currently writing a comic for DC Comics. (He loves comics.) When he’s not working, Letson’s often looking for an impossibly difficult meal to prepare or challenging anyone to name a better album than Mos Def’s Black on Both Sides.

Zulema Cobb is an operations and audio production associate for the Center for Investigative Reporting. She is originally from Los Angeles County, where she was raised until moving to Oregon. Her interest in the wellbeing of families and children inspired her to pursue family services at the University of Oregon. Her diverse background includes banking, affordable housing, health care, and education, where she helped develop a mentoring program for students. Cobb is passionate about animals and has fostered and rescued numerous dogs and cats. She frequently volunteers at animal shelters and overseas rescue missions. In her spare time, she channels her creative energy into photography, capturing memories for friends and family. Cobb is based in Tennessee, where she lives with her husband, three kids, three dogs, and cat.

Artis Curiskis is an assistant producer at the Center for Investigative Reporting. Previously, he was an editorial fellow at Mother Jones. Before that, he produced and reported the Peabody-nominated series The COVID Tracking Project podcast with Reveal and led data reporting efforts with The COVID Tracking Project at The Atlantic. He was also an artist-in-residence at UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art and a Thomas J. Watson fellow. You can reach him at acuriskis@revealnews.org.