The Homefront Report: The Government Has Entered Its Zombie Phase

Trump threatens Oman, CDC programs go undead, and ABC fights the FCC.

Donald Trump promised Americans cheaper living and fewer foreign wars. Today, oil is trading above $91 a barrel, the war with Iran has outlived another attempt at diplomacy, and the president is threatening to bomb Oman, a longtime American partner that has spent years serving as a diplomatic bridge between Washington and Tehran.

The 60-day window for the United States and Iran to negotiate a final agreement expired Monday without one. Trump says Iran should surrender, no extension is planned, and if Oman interferes with his preferred outcome, America will “bomb the shit out of them.” Threatening to bomb the mediator is the international-relations equivalent of setting the instruction manual on fire because the cabinet won’t assemble itself.

This is particularly concerning because the Strait of Hormuz remains partially obstructed, roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil trade has been disrupted, and American families are paying more for fuel. Trump recently told voters that paying “a tiny little bit more” for gasoline was worthwhile, which is easier to say when the presidential motorcade is not stopping at Chevron on the way home.

Americans don’t appear convinced. Trump’s approval rating has fallen to 33 percent, the lowest of his presidency. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 80 percent of Americans, including 71 percent of Republicans, believe the war will continue for an extended period. Only one in five believes it has been worth it. Apparently, “I will end the wars” has completed its natural political evolution into “the war is good, gasoline is a luxury, and we may need to bomb the person trying to help us end the war.”

Meanwhile, on the actual Homefront, the sliding glass door is installed. It’s beautiful. It lets in light, opens the house to the backyard and has already inspired approximately 47 additional construction projects. There is also nothing quite like listening to two grown men discuss the possible reasons a door isn’t sliding correctly.

“I think it’s bulging in the middle,” one said.

“I think it’s sagging in the left corner,” the other replied.

At some point, I realized they were no longer diagnosing the door. They were describing every adult involved in home improvement. The beautiful new door currently opens onto a two-and-a-half-foot drop, so my husband has redirected his considerable planning abilities toward a deck. I must admit this is a worthy application of his time and genius. A deck has transitioned from extravagant home improvement to basic fall prevention. It may be hilarious to watch someone confidently walk through the new door and disappear, but it would probably hurt resale value.

My husband and brother can spend hours discussing measurements, materials and the structural implications of every available choice. Every project leads to another project, every improvement produces a mess approximately equal in size to the thing being improved, and every mess must be cleaned immediately so it doesn’t interfere with Ezra’s important crawling business, soon to become his important walking business.

Ezra is my favorite thing about life right now. Every morning, he yells from his crib. I walk out of our room and look down the hall. He sees my head peek around the corner. I stop. He stares at me, and we both smile. Then he throws his bottle on the floor.

When I reach him, he looks down at the bottle and then back at me with the weary patience of a supervisor whose employee has once again failed to read the memo.

“It’s right there, Mom.”

I retrieve the bottle, pick him up, and we snuggle on the way to his diaper change. It’s the same routine every morning, and it’s wonderful every single time. My daughter, meanwhile, is missing both her older brother and her best friend down the street, who is currently away on a trip. This means I have been designated resident snack maker, substitute big brother, emergency best friend and, when somebody scrapes a knee, occasionally, Mom.

She got to play with her two-year-old cousin yesterday and immediately slipped into her preferred role of tiny mother. She greatly enjoys playing mom. Whether her cousin experiences the arrangement with equal enthusiasm remains under review, but my daughter was in her element, directing activities and distributing care with the confidence of someone who has never once questioned whether she is in charge.

Then there’s me. My ADHD brain is currently touring every possible version of our future home. It visits cabinets, staircases, plant terrariums, rainforest bathrooms, charcoal pencil sketches and interior decorating. It never stays anywhere long. It’s less a renovation plan and more a whimsical architectural bus tour with no assigned route and several unscheduled stops.

Then I clean. I clean the living room until I notice a mess in the kitchen. I begin cleaning the kitchen until I remember I was cleaning the living room. On my way back, I notice something on the front porch. Then a child needs a snack. While preparing the snack, I discover a mess in the refrigerator. Eventually, the day ends and I realize I have walked several miles while completing approximately one-fifteenth of what I intended to accomplish. So we lay our heads down, accept the outcome and try again tomorrow.

My husband is practicing the same painful form of acceptance after discovering that black windows cost roughly three times as much as white windows. He had a vision. The vision encountered a price tag. Now he’s adjusting the plan.

This is what functioning adults do when reality refuses to cooperate. We gather information, we admit that the original plan is not working, we make corrections, but we don’t threaten to bomb the window manufacturer or accuse the sliding door of disloyalty. The Trump administration might consider trying it.

The Associated Press reports that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now home to numerous “zombie programs,” the term being used for programs that remain funded by Congress but are barely functioning because the administration eliminated, reassigned or placed on leave the people required to operate them.

These programs address Alzheimer’s disease, smoking, epilepsy, sickle cell disease, maternal health, tribal overdose prevention and drowning. Congress appropriated the money. The public-health needs still exist. The programs are legally alive, but the mass layoffs and attempted reorganization of the Department of Health and Human Services left them without enough people to do the work. The government is paying for public-health programs that can’t function because it removed the public-health workers. That isn’t efficiency. That’s buying a fire extinguisher, firing the fire department and announcing that taxpayers have been liberated from the burden of water.

Lawmakers are now pressing new CDC director Erica Schwartz to restore the programs. Some argue that allowing congressionally funded work to remain dormant could violate federal law. The administration has said chronic disease is one of its highest priorities, yet programs addressing Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, smoking and sickle cell disease have been left wandering the halls of government without sufficient staff, authority or access to brains. The zombie metaphor is almost too generous. Zombies, at least, remain highly motivated.

While the CDC struggles to find enough people to operate programs Congress already paid for, the Federal Communications Commission has somehow found the time and personnel to investigate television programming Trump doesn’t like. Disney and ABC filed a lawsuit Tuesday accusing the FCC of using its regulatory authority to punish the network for refusing to submit to the administration’s demands. The FCC ordered an early review of licenses for eight ABC stations, even though those licenses were not scheduled for renewal consideration until October 2028.

According to Reuters, the FCC hadn’t ordered such an early review in more than 50 years. The agency suddenly rediscovered this neglected regulatory power one day after Trump demanded that ABC fire Jimmy Kimmel. ABC argues that the review is intended to intimidate the network and interfere with its First Amendment rights.

Trump has repeatedly called for broadcasters to lose their licenses when their news coverage, comedy or questions offend him. The administration appears to believe that freedom of the press means journalists are free to say anything the president has approved in advance. The CDC can’t restart a smoking-prevention program that Congress funded, but the FCC can begin reviewing 2028 broadcast licenses in 2026. Priorities are a form of confession.

Here at home, when the door doesn’t slide properly, two men stand in front of it and debate whether it is bulging in the middle or sagging in the corner. Eventually, they inspect it, make an adjustment and try again. When black windows exceed the budget, my husband searches for another option. When my brain carries me through 15 different cleaning projects and allows me to complete one-fifteenth of them, I accept the day I had and begin again tomorrow.

We make mistakes, we miscalculate, we get distracted, and we discover that our plans cost three times more than expected or open onto a two-and-a-half-foot drop. Then we adjust. We don’t punish the tape measure for reporting the wrong number, threaten the person holding the level, or insist that the door is sliding beautifully while someone is trapped behind it. A functioning government should be capable of the same humility we expect from two exhausted homeowners standing in a pile of construction debris.

Look at the evidence, admit what isn’t working, fix the problem, and clean up the mess before someone gets hurt. And for the love of all things structurally sound, build the deck before somebody walks through the door.