Food assistance enrollment and new requirements
Bird cites a reported decline of more than 5 million people in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program since January 2025. He also questions whether families outside SNAP have bought less food, or lower-quality food, because of policies he blames for inflation.
The Food Research & Action Center's SNAP Participation Dashboard puts July 2026 enrollment at 36,087,667. The dashboard, compiled from USDA data and revised Sept. 22, reports a decline of about 6.3 million since Trump took office in January 2025. Participation was down about 5.5 million from July 2025, when the H.R. 1 budget reconciliation law was enacted.
A separate analysis published by The Conversation on Oct. 5 estimated that 1.5 million children had lost SNAP benefits. Using June 2026 figures, it reported enrollment of 36.4 million, nearly 13% below the roughly 42 million recorded in 2025.
The Conversation also outlined the July 2025 law's work requirements. Recipients subject to those rules can receive benefits for only up to three months unless they spend at least 80 hours a month working, training or volunteering. The upper age limit is rising from 54 to 64, and the requirements now cover parents whose children are ages 14 through 17.
States also took on a larger share of SNAP administration costs on Oct. 1, 2026: 75%, compared with 50% previously. According to The Conversation, the federal government estimates that the change will add roughly $17 billion to state and local government costs over five years.
Foreign aid cuts and children abroad
Bird's warning that USAID cuts could cause 14 million deaths echoes a projection in a July 2025 study published in The Lancet. Researchers, including those at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, projected more than 14 million additional deaths across all ages by 2030 if the funding cuts took effect as modeled. About 4.5 million of those projected deaths were among children younger than 5.
The study also estimated that USAID funding had prevented about 91 million deaths from 2001 through 2021, including 30 million among children under 5. Those historical estimates and future projections are distinct from a count of deaths already caused by the cuts.
Beyond foreign aid, Bird asks how Trump's threats to seize Canada or abandon NATO affected children in Canada and Europe. He also recalls Trump's repeated promises during 2023 and 2024 to end the Ukraine war quickly, including within 24 hours, and asks how many Ukrainian and Russian children, siblings and parents have been injured or killed since January 2025.
Vaccine changes were halted by a court
Bird's broader criticism includes Trump's handling of COVID-19 and his education, health insurance and vaccine policies. On childhood vaccination, a Congressional Research Service report describes a January 2026 schedule change that was subsequently blocked.
The CDC approved the revised schedule without following its usual Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices process. Six vaccines were moved from recommendations for all children to recommendations based on risk or shared clinical decision-making; the changes included hepatitis A, meningitis ACWY, RSV, rotavirus and influenza. The recommended number of HPV doses was reduced to one.
The revision retained 11 "consensus" vaccines recommended by 20 peer developed nations. On March 16, 2026, a federal district court stayed the new schedule, restoring the version in place as of May 2025.
Tariff estimates and the letter's wider criticism
Bird argues that Trump's tariffs have hurt tens of millions of parents across more than 100 countries. A separate U.S.-focused analysis by The Budget Lab at Yale, published Sept. 9, 2025, projected that the administration's 2025 tariffs would push about 875,000 additional Americans into poverty in 2026 under the Official Poverty Measure. That estimate included about 375,000 children.
Using the Supplemental Poverty Measure, the Yale analysis projected about 650,000 additional people in poverty, including about 150,000 children. These figures are forecasts for the United States, not observed outcomes or estimates for the countries covered by Bird's broader claim.
Bird also attributes harm to tens of millions of children to Trump's pollution and climate policies across both presidential terms, describing both past and future effects. Citing a global population of slightly more than 8 billion, including slightly more than 2 billion children, he concludes with a moral appeal: He asks readers to consider a child they cherish before voting for someone who supports a president he characterizes as deliberately harming more than 100 million children.
