Cancer Patients Sacrificed On Trump’s Altar Forty percent of Americans will face cancer. Instead of protecting us, Trump wages war on science itself, gutting research and gambling with every heartbeat, every family, every future. MeidasTouch Network and Michael Cohen Sep 16 Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash Every one of us, bar none, knows someone who has been stolen from us by cancer. The curse spares no one. I’ve watched it hollow out children who never got to play ball in the park, teenagers who never got to feel their first kiss, young parents who never saw their kids graduate, and elders who deserved the dignity of growing old but were instead chewed apart by a disease that has no conscience. Cancer doesn’t care about your politics, your bank account, your religion, or the color of your skin. It doesn’t discriminate. It devours. And yet, here we are in America, in 2025, watching the Trump administration take a sledgehammer to the very system we’ve spent decades building to fight this killer. Who asked for this? Who benefits from it? Why is this happening? Let’s back up for a second. More than 50 years ago, America declared war on cancer. At the time, there was naive optimism; the belief that beating cancer would be as straightforward as splitting the atom or putting a man on the moon. But cancer, it turns out, isn’t a singular enemy. It’s thousands of enemies, each mutation a different battlefield. There was no miracle cure, no single silver bullet. What we got instead was decades of hard-fought, incremental progress. And you know what? That progress saved lives. In the 1970s, if you were diagnosed with cancer, you had barely a coin-flip’s chance of making it five years. Today, because of sustained investment, because of government funding, because we decided as a society that this was a war worth fighting, the survival rate has risen from 49 percent to 68 percent. Every $326 spent by our government on cancer research has bought one additional year of human life. Think about that: a single year, for the cost of a one-night standard hotel room. That’s not abstract. That’s mothers, fathers, children, and friends. That’s birthdays celebrated, graduations attended, weddings danced at. That is the one thing — no matter who you are — you just can’t buy. That’s time. But now, in the span of a few months, this administration has gutted the system. Hundreds of millions in grants: gone. Payments for research contracts: suspended. Federal employees who ensured life-saving discoveries reached patients: terminated. And in the coldest, most callous move of all, the Trump administration’s proposed budget slashes the National Cancer Institute’s funding by 37 percent. Thirty-seven percent. Let that number sink in. From $7.2 billion to $4.5 billion — the smallest budget in more than three decades once you adjust for inflation. And I’m left asking again: Who the hell asked for this? Did you go into the voting booth thinking, “Yes — I want to cut cancer research by a third”? Did anyone? Show me the town hall where families stood up and demanded: Defund the labs. Fire the scientists. Mass Cancer Now. Slow down the progress on the disease that kills one in three of us. It didn’t happen. Because this isn’t democracy at work. This isn’t some groundswell of public opinion. This is cruelty dressed up as fiscal policy. The White House tells us this is about rooting out so-called “politically driven DEI initiatives.” That’s the excuse. But let’s not kid ourselves. This isn’t trimming fat; it’s amputating muscle, tendon, and bone. It’s a deliberate and conscious effort to dismantle one of the most successful scientific enterprises America has ever built. An enterprise that has saved millions of lives, generated billions in economic return, and kept this country at the forefront of medical innovation. So, who benefits? That’s the ugliest question of all. Not patients. Not families. Not the oncologists fighting in hospitals every day. No, the winners here are short-term political optics, culture-war ideologues, and the billionaire class that’s always eager to watch public institutions fail so private industry can swoop in, charge ten times more, and profit off our grief. But here’s the reality: cancer doesn’t care about your ideology. It doesn’t pause to ask if you pulled the lever for a Republican or a Democrat. It doesn’t salute the flag before it metastasizes. It doesn’t read your bank statement before it takes your child. It is universal. It is relentless. And what we are witnessing right now is not just defunding; it is betrayal. A betrayal of the scientists who’ve dedicated their lives to inching us closer to cures. A betrayal of families who live with the terror of a diagnosis. A betrayal of every American who believed — however naively — that our leaders would at least protect the fight against the one enemy we all share. This is the quiet violence of policy. You won’t see it splashed across a chyron the way you see a riot, or a war, or a mass shooting. But the body count will come. It will come in delayed treatments, in slowed research, in missed opportunities. It will come in the silences at dinner tables where laughter used to be. So I ask again: Who asked for this? Who benefits from this? Why is this happening? And when the cancer diagnosis comes, and it will — because for 40 percent of Americans it’s not a matter of if but when — will anyone still believe this was just about “cutting costs”? Or will they finally see it for what it is: a conscious choice to let disease win, to let the clock run out on human lives, to sacrifice progress for power. Because the truth is simple. We didn’t lose the war on cancer. We were winning. And now, by design, we’re surrendering. Meidas+ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. RIGHT NOW IS THE TIME FOR YOU TO JOIN THE FIGHT! SUBSCRIBE. READ. SHARE. RESTACK. Michael Cohen Principal of Crisis-X #1 and #8 NYT Bestseller Author Host of The Mea Culpa Podcast Co-Host of The Political Beatdown Former Personal Attorney To President Donald J. Trump Discharged Felon Yeah, I know; you’re tired. This shit is exhausting. Guess what? Me too. But I’ve spent the last 8 years throwing punches in the dark so truth could get a little daylight. And now I’m asking you to step into the ring with me. Because if you’re still reading this, you already get it: This isn’t just a newsletter. It’s a rally cry. A war drum. A line in the sand. We are not passive observers of the downfall. We are the resistance. We call out the liars. We drag corruption by the collar into the sunlight. We say the quiet parts out loud; and we don’t flinch. But here’s the truth: I can’t do this solo. Not anymore. The storm is already here. We are standing in it. And it’s wearing stars and stripes like camouflage, preaching “freedom” while it sells fascism at retail. So let me ask you: Are. You. In? Because this is not a scroll-and-forget read. This is a living, breathing, fire-breathing movement; and movements don’t move unless you do. We need to be louder than spin, tougher than propaganda, and impossible to gaslight. That takes more than clicks. More than likes. It takes skin in the game. So if you believe truth matters; if you're sick of the bullshit, if you’re ready to stop screaming into the algorithm and start pushing back with purpose, this is your next step. HERE’S HOW YOU PUT YOUR FOOT ON THE GAS: Become a paid subscriber. Fund fearless, unfiltered journalism that hits back. Share this with the loudest people you know; the ones who never sit down and shut up. Build the community. Amplify the message. Be the damn megaphone. And yeah; Founding Members? The first 240 of you will get a signed, numbered, limited-edition Substack version of Revenge. That’s not just a collector’s item. That’s receipts. Proof you didn’t sit this one out. But let’s be clear: This isn’t about a book. It’s about backbone. It’s about calling out the gaslighters and refusing to be played. It’s about locking arms and saying, "Not. On. Our. Watch." You want to make a difference? Then make it; right now. Because if we don’t fight for truth, no one will. But if we fight together? They can’t drown us out. Let’s be so loud, they wish we were just angry tweets. Let’s be unshakable. Unignorable. Un-fucking-breakable. Let’s go! Meidas+ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. A guest post by Michael Cohen Principal of Crisis-X #1 and #8 NYT Bestseller Author Host of The Mea Culpa Podcast Co-Host of The Political Beatdown Former Personal Attorney To President Donald J. Trump and Discharged Felon