AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

President Trump signed another executive order yesterday. He signed it away from TV cameras and without so much as a single tweet. He’s directed federal agencies to strengthen work requirements for a range of public assistance programs. NPR’s Brakkton Booker reports.

BRAKKTON BOOKER, BYLINE: Advocates for the poor say most people who receive federal public assistance already work. Folks like Kristen Arant – she’s a single mother who lives in Ohio with her 11-year-old boy. She receives Medicaid and holds a job as a waitress with no benefits while going to school.

KRISTEN ARANT: I don’t have food stamps. I have to go to work, or I don’t have money. All I have is Medicaid. And I need to keep my Medicaid, or I won’t be able to stay healthy and go to work.

BOOKER: Arant says getting that job was hard. She’s recovering from heroin addiction and has a criminal record.

ARANT: Employers are not very quick to work with people who have to go report to probation and parole once a week.

BOOKER: It’s unclear how the Trump administration’s push to strengthen work requirements might affect her. But she says it would be difficult for her to work more. And she worries if she can’t work, she could lose her Medicaid.

ARANT: Thinking about being a full-time college student, caregiving for my son and having to do that with the absence of healthcare – as a person who experiences chronic pain, that thought is gut-wrenchingly terrifying.

BOOKER: The Trump administration basically says it’s spending too much money on low-income assistance, $700 billion just last year. It points to an unemployment rate that’s hovering just above 4 percent as evidence that the economy is strong. Ben Carson is the secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

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BEN CARSON: I think there is a large general sentiment in this country that when jobs are available, work-able people should take those jobs.

BOOKER: Carson says even those who have to sacrifice to hold down a job will find it beneficial in the long run.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

CARSON: It is quite apparent in looking at evidence from the past that when work-able individuals are provided the opportunity to work, they tend to require much less in the way of public assistance and tend to continue on an upward trajectory.

BOOKER: Trump is calling on Carson and the secretaries of Labor, Treasury, Agriculture and other agencies to take a fresh look at their public assistance programs. There are already work requirements for most programs, things like SNAP or food stamps, housing assistance and cash welfare. But millions are granted exemptions because they are caring for a relative or enrolled in job training. The administration wants agencies to review who gets those exemptions. Critics, though, say imposing tougher mandates just doesn’t work. The real problem, they say, is that many poor people do have jobs, but the wages aren’t enough to survive on.

REBECCA VALLAS: Pushing for work requirements is at the core of the Republican strategy to reinforce myths about poverty in America.

BOOKER: Rebecca Vallas is with the progressive-leaning Center for American Progress. She says the administration is painting a negative image of the poor.

VALLAS: That the poor are some stagnant group of people who just don’t want to work, that anyone who wants a well-paying job can just snap her fingers and make one appear, and that having a job is all it takes not to be poor.

BOOKER: Trump’s executive order gives agencies 90 days to come up with specifics on how they will strengthen work requirements. Brakkton Booker, NPR News, Washington.

(SOUNDBITE OF ROBOTAKI FT. CLAIRE RIDGELY’S “MONKEY BARS”)

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EPA fires staffer who approved report downplaying threats to Scott Pruitt

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President Trump is defending Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt who is under fire for allegedly spending a lot of taxpayer money.
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A career staffer at the Environmental Protection Agency who approved an internal report on threats against Scott Pruitt was removed Tuesday amid criticism of the high level of security spending by the agency’s administrator. 

Mario Caraballo, the former deputy associate administrator of the EPA’s Office of Homeland Security, had signed off on a Feb. 14 security assessment that said, “EPA Intelligence has not identified any specific, credible, direct threat to the EPA administrator.”

Caraballo was fired shortly after Senate Democrats cited the assessment as evidence that the $3 million reportedly spent on Pruitt’s security in response to perceived death threats was unwarranted. 

The EPA said the timing was a coincidence. An unnamed source told Politico that the EPA claimed Caraballo was fired in relation to a decade-old issue for a previous military job he held. 

“I am not aware of any connection between the personnel matter and the document mentioned in media reports,” EPA official Donna Vizian said in a statement. 

Democrats on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee wrote in a letter Tuesday that after reviewing the Feb. 14 security assessment and other documents they found the purported threats against Pruitt consisted of public protests, criticism of Pruitt’s policies and other activities protected by the First Amendment.

More: Ex-EPA chief Whitman says no need for Scott Pruitt’s spending on security, travel

More: EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s ethical challenges piling up

In the letter, Sens. Tom Carper of Delaware and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island said the committee should “immediately initiate bipartisan oversight hearings into the extent and justification” of Pruitt’s security spending. Committee chairman John Barrasso, R-Wyo., denied the request and chastised the democratic senators for disclosing “law enforcement sensitive information.”

The Democratic senators called Caraballo’s firing “deeply troubling.”

“This development underscores the need for the Environment and Public Works Committee to conduct effective oversight of the EPA to answer the serious questions that have come to light in recent days concerning management and ethical conduct by the administrator and his staff,” Carper and Whitehouse said in a joint statement.

The Associated Press reported last week that Pruitt keeps a 20-member full-time security detail (three times the size of his predecessor) and he has used security concerns as a justification for his first-class travel. 

EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox has cited an “unprecedented” amount of death threats against Pruitt and his family as justification for the high levels of security. But, according to Carper and Whitehouse, the “threats” included “reports of non-violent protests” and “negative feedback about the Administrator’s actions.” 

More: Scott Pruitt critics ‘nitpick’ EPA administrator, GOP senator says

More: President Trump gives embattled EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt a thumbs up

For example, the senators said that among the threats against Pruitt listed in an Oct. 17 internal EPA memo were: 

• “A social media post in which an individual ‘stated he is not happy with some of the Administrator’s policies and wanted to express his displeasure.’” 
• A postcard saying, “Climate CHANGE IS REAL!!! We are watching you.” 
• An email saying, “Hi! I am considering dumping the old paint I just scraped off of my home outside your office door on Tuesday.” 

A nationwide search of state and federal court records by AP found no case where anyone has been arrested or charged with making violent threats against Pruitt.

The security spending is just one scandal plaguing President Trump’s beleaguered EPA head. Pruitt is the subject of at least five ongoing probes into spending and ethics issues by the agency’s watchdog and a House oversight committee is looking into his $50-a-night Capitol Hill condo rental from a fossil fuels lobbyist. 

Contributing: The Associated Press