Trump's Project 2025: Up Close and Personal-Chapter 11: Hurricane Trump
The Bill Press Pod
BP Pods
4.7 • 601 Ratings
🗓️ 13 May 2025
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Bill is back next week from his research and writing sabbatical. While he's gone, we decided it’s important to revisit the horrors we laid out in our Project 2025 podcast series, Trump's Project 2025: Up Close and Personal – and have the series author, pro-democracy advocate and the author of nine books, David Pepper, tie them to what’s actually happened so far. In Chapter 11, set in November in Tallahassee, fictional Florida, Governor Buck Bryce confidently addresses the press regarding Hurricane Timothy, initially predicted to be a manageable Category 1 storm. However, the hurricane unexpectedly strengthens to a devastating Category 4 upon landfall, causing widespread destruction and significant loss of life. The governor, previously assured by Washington that all preparations were sufficient, is confronted with the reality of inadequate storm forecasting due to recent cuts to federal meteorological services as proposed by Project 2025 and now DOGE following through.
As emergency response efforts falter, Bryce grapples with the new federal policies under Trump that make it difficult to declare emergencies and provide immediate assistance to affected businesses and citizens.(As is now actually happening: Under President Donald Trump, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has denied federal assistance for tornadoes in Arkansas, flooding in West Virginia and a windstorm in Washington state. It also has refused North Carolina’s request for extended relief funding in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. This fictional but predictive narrative highlights the consequences of disregarding climate science and federal data, resulting in death and destruction
As always, the series author, David Pepper updates on how what he predicted has come to pass.
We'd like to thank all the artists who volunteered their time to make this episode:
Mark Ruffalo who read the chapter and others who contributed character voices.
Sound design by Jonathan Moser.
Trump's Project 2025: Up Close and Personal is written by David Pepper and produced by Pepper, Melissa Jo Peltier and Jay Feldman and is a production of Ovington Avenue Productions and The Bill Press Pod.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, good friends, and welcome back to the Bill Press Pive. |
| 0:11.1 | As you surely know by now, I've been off on a research and writing sabbatical in Europe for the past few weeks, |
| 0:17.2 | and though I'm back next week, we still have two more chapters of our updated Trump's Project |
| 0:22.9 | 2025 up close and personal to go. |
| 0:26.6 | Today, Chapter 11, Hurricane Trump, our Project 2025 plan to gut extreme weather prediction |
| 0:34.3 | and response programs. |
| 0:36.2 | That's right. |
| 0:37.3 | Their plan was to break up and privatize |
| 0:40.2 | those government agencies that track the climate and the weather. Yeah, what could go wrong? |
| 0:47.2 | Well, they're not completely destroyed yet. The day's episode mirrors the recent extreme weather |
| 0:53.7 | events we saw in California and the Carolinas |
| 0:56.1 | and imagines what might happen in a world where the science of weather prediction has been |
| 1:01.3 | replaced by the politics of weather. |
| 1:05.1 | We meet the fictional governor of Florida, Buck Bryce, as he confronts Hurricane Timothy. |
| 1:12.7 | The great actor and pro-democracy advocate, Mark Ruffalo, reads the chapter. Chapter 11, November, Capital Monthly, Buck |
| 1:23.3 | Bryce by Calvin Stegman, Tallahassee, Florida. |
| 1:29.1 | Hurricanes weren't supposed to hit Florida in November, but with the Atlantic and |
| 1:33.5 | golf warmer than ever, that was changing. |
| 1:36.9 | Still, versus the peak of the hurricane season, at least November hurricanes were |
| 1:41.4 | smaller, inconveniences, as opposed to emergencies. |
| 1:46.4 | So with Hurricane Timothy churning northwest over the Straits of Florida, Governor Buck |
| 1:51.6 | Bryce stood confidently before the podium. |
... |
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