This is an adapted excerpt from the June 11 episode of “All In with Chris Hayes.”

Flesh-eating bugs are plaguing the country. For basically the first time in 60 years, screwworm flies are popping up in farms across the American Southwest. As of now, there are a handful of confirmed cases in Texas and New Mexico, but there will almost certainly be more.

Now, if you are not a cattle rancher, the possibility of flesh-eating screwworms terrorizing American farms was likely not on your radar. That’s because when the government is doing its job — when the obscure bureaucrats who work tirelessly throughout the continent to assess risk and mitigate harm are left unimpeded, as had been the case for decades — you don’t have to worry about it.

If you are not a cattle rancher, the possibility of flesh-eating screwworms terrorizing American farmers was likely not on your radar.

The screwworm is a great example. An infestation can be absolutely devastating not just for individual animals and farms, but for the entire agriculture industry. These are flesh-eating parasites that lay their eggs in open wounds in animals, often cattle. They spread rapidly and can eradicate an entire farm’s worth of livestock. Hundreds, even thousands of these maggots can gather in one wound, and the consequences are often fatal for any mammal.

It was a huge problem throughout the American Southwest in the early to mid-20th century. And after extensive research and cooperation between the government and ranchers, the U.S. Department of Agriculture came up with an ingenious solution to eradicate the screwworm. Basically, the USDA would sterilize the males and release them into affected areas, because if enough males couldn’t reproduce, the population would eventually die out.

Now, on its face that plan may sound silly. The government wanted to spend a bunch of money to study the sex lives of insects. No one knew if it was going to work when they started. And it was not lost on the USDA scientists that this was the kind of thing that right-wingers could pounce on. 

During a 2000 interview, Edward F. Knipling, a USDA researcher who helped devise the plan, spoke about the caution the agency practiced to avoid public scrutiny from those who would claim it was “wasting money.”

“Especially since this had to do with sexual behavior, we knew that if the media got ahold of that, they could make quite a deal out of this idea of controlling an insect by sterilizing the males and releasing them,” he continued. “So we didn’t say much about running this experiment.” 

Thankfully, Knipling was allowed to continue and even expand his work.

Through sterilization and strict monitoring, we had a bubble of safety from these pests that stretched all the way down to Panama. So the problem was eradicated from this country for more than half a century. 

Then Donald Trump became president for the second time, and he tasked Elon Musk with slashing the federal budget. Musk and his small gang of 20-somethings took their “chain saw” to the entire federal bureaucracy, cutting funds for programs like Ebola virus prevention and containment. (They had to undo that one.) 

When you think about it, screwworm eradication is precisely the kind of thing that conservatives, and Musk in particular, would try to gut. In fact, in June of last year, the right-wing outlet Newsmax called for him to kill this exact program: “A government agency spending $300 million in taxpayer dollars to produce sterilized flies sounds like a dream scenario for a DOGE team looking to cut waste, fraud and abuse.”

But really, the Trump administration had already taken its chain saw to the cause of eradicating flesh-eating parasites. A headline from March of last year from Agri-Pulse: “Screwworm monitoring among foreign aid programs killed by Trump.”

Beef prices are already through the roof, and if screwworms result in the culling of multiple cattle herds and supply dwindles, that will only get worse.

However, as it turns out, screwworm monitoring was not waste, or fraud, or abuse. It was a sensible, cost-effective program to treat a really serious problem. And the Trump administration gave up on it. We stopped coordinating with Central America to monitor the situation, even as the pests were inching closer to our southern border.

So now the flesh-eating bugs are terrorizing American farmers. But this isn’t just affecting them; it is going to be your problem, too. Beef prices are already through the roof, and if screwworms result in the culling of multiple cattle herds and supply dwindles, those high prices will only get worse. 

As The Atlantic pointed out, “The screwworm program costs $15 million a year, a small fraction of the estimated $796 million a year that it saves American farmers. (That estimate, from 1996, is equivalent to 1-point-3 billion in today’s dollars.)” That article was from 2020, so that number is probably closer to $1.7 billion now. Those costs will now be transferred to you at the grocery store.

Meanwhile, one of the districts where this is happening does not even have an advocate in Washington, D.C., because Texas Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales was forced to resign in disgrace earlier this year after it was revealed that he was having an affair with a staffer who later died by suicide. Gov. Gregg Abbott has yet to schedule a special election to replace him, so Gonzales’ former constituents are now stuck without a paddle. 

The wolves — or should I say the worms — are at the door for Texas farmers.

This is exactly the kind of problem that Knipling warned about. He said this project would be subject to undue scrutiny and cut by bad-faith actors. But Musk thought he knew better than the experts, and now it’s going to become your problem.

Allison Detzel contributed.

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This is an adapted excerpt from the June 10 episode of “All In with Chris Hayes.”

We are over 100 days into the war that Donald Trump started for no good reason, and he still has no good way out of the mess he created. 

On Thursday, the United States and Iran continued to trade strikes, with the president promising “bigger” and “more powerful” attacks to come. That comes after the downing of a U.S. Apache helicopter this week as the worst “ceasefire” in the history of war continues on and on with no magic Trump “deal” to end it in sight.

In between naps, getting booed at basketball games, pool renovations, and ballroom blueprints, Trump has managed to make everything more expensive.

Here at home, the consequences of this debacle are wearing on Americans. It’s clear they hold the president responsible, and we are starting to see how that is translating into election action across the country: Trump’s war and the resulting Trump economy are terrible politically for the president and Republicans.

Earlier this week, there was a lot of hand-wringing and some reasonable concern about Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner. The oyster farmer is not a perfect candidate, and he has got more baggage than a lot of Democrats would prefer. 

But he also has what voters clearly think is a strong message. Platner has centered his campaign around a narrative of personal redemption, as well as a posture of ironclad resistance toward the Trump administration.

And the material conditions up in Maine are not great. Trump’s Big Ugly Bill has been a nightmare for rural communities. Hospitals are closing left and right. His reckless war with Iran — plus his tariffs — have made everything more expensive, especially the price of gas, which is up dramatically from this time a year ago.

On Tuesday, the confluence of all of that paid off for Platner. After effectively running the state’s incumbent governor out of the race, he won an overwhelming victory in the state’s Democratic Senate primary.

Right now, with 94% of the vote in, he is sitting at about 72%. He earned more raw votes than the last Democratic challenger to Republican Sen. Susan Collins got in her primary.  And when all is said and done, he will likely have a larger margin of victory as well, against a better-known and better-funded opponent. 

The general election race against Collins will be tough. She is a shrewd and formidable campaigner with a history of overperforming in a blue state.

But the committee in charge of electing Republicans to the Senate has been very clear-eyed that it thinks Platner has a real shot at winning, writing in a memo Wednesday, “It is a fatal mistake to assume Platner is too damaged to win.”

Sure, some of that is fear-mongering to the base to help raise funds, but Republicans really are worried about Platner’s victory. Trump tore into the Democrat during an event in the Oval Office on Wednesday, calling him a “thug.”

Now, the idea of Trump weighing in on someone’s character is laughable. The man is a serial philanderer. Stormy Daniels testified, under oath, that he had an affair with her while his wife, Melania, was at home with their newborn child. Trump denies it, but you decide. His first wife accused him of raping her, and when he denied it, she disavowed her earlier accusations and tweaked her complaint by saying, “I felt violated.” Writer E. Jean Carroll came forward to say he raped her in a department store dressing room. Trump called her a liar, so she sued him for defamation, and after a full trial, won. He also bragged about groping women on a hot mic and has openly called them “pigs” and “dogs.”

And on Wednesday, The New York Times reported on the administration’s behind-the-scenes freakout over Trump’s lengthy relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, whose jet the president flew on at least eight times.

So nothing could be a bigger gift to Democrats than making this race a referendum on Trump’s character — except, maybe, making it a referendum on his economy.

Gas prices are through the roof, and many experts predict it will only get worse. Despite what all the push notifications would lead you to believe, there is no deal coming to end the war. It doesn’t seem like the Strait of Hormuz is going to reopen anytime soon. 

Those gas prices are causing a massive spike in inflation. On Wednesday, we found out that consumer prices rose 4.2% in May, the highest in three years.

I cannot say it enough: This was an entirely unforced error. Trump campaigned on lowering prices on Day 1. That is why he is the president right now. But in between naps, getting booed at basketball games, pool renovations and ballroom blueprints, he has managed to make everything more expensive. First, by implementing his illegal tariffs and then starting a war of choice with Israel against Iran. And rising gas prices alone have effectively wiped out any wage gains. 

However, according to Trump, everything is just fine. On Wednesday, he was asked if he was concerned about the state of the economy, and the president responded by telling reporters, “I love the inflation.”

That is Trump’s message to voters ahead of November and that is why Republicans are worried about not just Platner in Maine, but also Roy Cooper in North Carolina, Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Mary Peltola in Alaska and James Talarico in Texas.

Allison Detzel contributed.

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