President Donald Trump on Monday signed a sweeping executive order setting a 30-day deadline for drugmakers to electively lower the cost of prescription drugs in the U.S. or face new limits down the road over what the government will pay.
The order calls on the Department of Health and Human Services, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to broker new price tags for drugs over the next month. If deals are not reached, Kennedy will be tasked with developing a new rule that ties the price the U.S. pays for medications to lower prices paid by other countries.
We’re going to equalize, Trump said during a Monday morning press conference. We’re all going to pay the same. We’re going to pay what Europe pays.
It’s unclear whatif anyimpact the Republican president’s executive order will have on millions of Americans who have private health insurance. The federal government has the most power to shape the price it pays for drugs covered by Medicare and Medicaid.
Trump promised newbut uncertainsavings on drug prices, just hours after the Republican-led House released its new plan to trim $880 billion from Medicaid.
Taxpayers spend hundreds of billions of dollars on prescription drugs, injectables, transfusions, and other medications every year through Medicare, which covers nearly 70 million older Americans. Medicaid, which provides nearly-free health care for almost 80 million poor and disabled people in the U.S. also spends tens of billions of dollars each year for drugs.
Top U.S. drugmakers say Trump’s order is bad for patients
The nation’s pharmaceutical lobby, which represents the top U.S. drugmakers, immediately pushed back against Trump’s order, calling it a bad deal for American patients. Drugmakers have long argued that any threats to their profits could impact the research they do to develop new drugs.
Importing foreign prices from socialist countries would be a bad deal for American patients and workers,” Stephen J. Ubl, president and CEO of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), said in a statement. “It would mean less treatments and cures and would jeopardize the hundreds of billions our member companies are planning to invest in America.”
Trump’s so-called most favored nation approach to Medicare drug pricing has been controversial since he first tried to implement it during his first term. He signed a similar executive order in the final weeks of his presidency, which called for the U.S. to only pay a lower price that other countries pay for some drugssuch as injectables or cancer drugs given through infusionsadministered in a doctor’s office.
That narrow executive order faced hurdles, with a court order that blocked the rule from going into effect under President Joe Biden’s administration. The pharmaceutical industry argued that Trumps 2020 attempt would give foreign governments the upper hand in deciding the value of medicines in the U.S.
Trump says other countries are to blame
Trump repeatedly defended pharmaceutical companies, instead blaming other countries for the high price Americans pay for drugs, during a wide-ranging speech at the White House on Monday. The president was flanked by Kennedy, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr. Marty Makary, and National Institutes of Health director Jay Bhattacharya.
Trump did, however, threaten the companies with federal investigations into their practices and opening up the U.S. drug market to bring in more imported medications from other countries.
The pharmaceutical companies make most of their profits from America, Trump said. Thats not a good thing.
Trump played up the announcement over the weekend, boasting in one post that his plan could save TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS.”
But on Monday, the White House offered no specifics for how much money the administration anticipates it could save.
The health department’s top leaders will be meeting with drug company executives over the next 30 days to offer new prices on drugs that are based off what other countries pay, Oz said on Monday.
Americans are unlikely to see immediate savings
Americans are unlikely to see relief on rising drug costs quickly because of the order, said Rachel Sachs, a health law expert at Washington University.
It really does seem the plan is to ask manufacturers to voluntarily lower their prices to some point, which is not known, Sachs said. If they do not lower their prices to the desired point, HHS shall take other actions with a very long timeline, some of which could potentially, years in the future, lower drug prices.
The health department has the most authority to change the prices of drugs covered by Medicare and Medicaid because it can set regulations. Even still, the agency’s power to do so is limited. Congress just approved in 2022 a new law that allows Medicare to negotiate the price it pays for a handful of prescription drugs starting in 2026. Before the law, Medicare paid what the drug companies charged. Drug companies unsuccessfully sued over the implementation of the law.
The price that millions of Americans covered by private insurance pay for drugs is even harder for the agency to manipulate.
The U.S. routinely outspends other nations on drug prices, compared with other large and wealthy countries, a problem that has long drawn the ire of both major political parties. But a lasting fix has never cleared Congress.
Trump came into his first term accusing pharmaceutical companies of getting away with murder and complaining that other countries whose governments set drug prices were taking advantage of Americans.
Trump says he’ll do the right thing
Ahead of the announcement, Trump puffed up his rhetoric toward the industry again on social media, writing that the Pharmaceutical/Drug Companies would say, for years, that it was Research and Development Costs, and that all of these costs were, and would be, for no reason whatsoever, borne by the suckers of America, ALONE.
Referring to drug companies powerful lobbying efforts, he said that campaign contributions can do wonders, but not with me, and not with the Reublican Party.
We are going to do the right thing, he wrote.
Several pharmaceutical companies gained ground in the stock market on Monday morning. Merck, a company that made $64.2 billion last year with the help of its cancer treatment Keytruda, jumped 3.9%. Pharma giant Pfizer, which notched $63.6 billion in revenue in 2024, rose 2.5%, while Gilead Sciences rose 5.8%.
Amanda Seitz and Seung Min Kim, Associated Press
Associated Press writers Will Weissert in Washington and Damian Troise in New York contributed to this report.
Disneys 1951 animated film Alice in Wonderland taught audiences that you can learn a lot of things from the flowers. But the movie never mentioned the full moon named after those springtime sensations. According to the Old Farmers Almanac, a celestial phenomenon called the flower moon occurs today, and despite being micro, it is still a sight to behold.
Lets take a deeper look into what all these names mean, and when you can see this “full flower micromoon.”
Why is the May full moon tonight called the ‘Flower Moon’?
The Old Farmers Almanac shares popular names given to each months full moons. Many of these monikers are based in Native American tradition. May is most commonly referred to as the flower moon, thanks to the Algonquin people. The name comes from the fact that many flowers begin to bloom in May, thanks in part to all the April showers.
Eighteenth-century American explorer Jonathan Carver used a similar name in his 1798 publication, Travels Through the Interior Parts of North America. He dubbed the orb month of flowers, after living among the Dakota people. American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau references this name in his writings as well.
Other tribes monikers celebrated other spring seasonal delights. The Cree preferred “budding moon” and “leaf budding moon,” while the Oglala used “moon of the shedding ponies.” Similarly, the Dakota and Lakota people also utilized the name “planting moon.”
The Flower Moon tonight is also a micromoon
The flower moon is also the third and final micromoon of 2025. A micromoon occurs when the moon becomes full during apogee, which is a fancy NASA word describing the moon at its farthest point away from Earth.
Mays full moon will be smaller and dimmer as a result, but it’s still an impressive satellite. (Just like humans, the orb cant always give 100%!)
When is the best time to see the full Flower Moon tonight?
While May’s moon reaches peak illumination today at 12:56 p.m. ET, it will appear full for a couple of nights.
This gives you enough time to bask in its glory, and maybe even accept a proposal of marriage. Ancient folklore states that love is intensified during this time, because as the moon regulates the tides, it may also impact the water in human bodies. In a similar vein, if you need an excuse not to do laundry, clothes washed during this period are said not to last long.
Looking up and ahead
After you go for love (or the longevity of your clothes) with this flower micromoon, the rest of 2025 still has plenty in store. Coming attractions include three back-to-back supermoons beginning in October, to finish out the year strongly.
But before we get there, next month’s “strawberry moon” celebrates the time when the sweet fruit is ripe and ready to pick. Stay tuned for more to come on these nighttime displays.
Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter.
In 2005, the median U.S. homeowner lived and owned their primary home for 6.5 years. In 2024, the median U.S. homeowner lived and owned their primary home for 11.8 years. Thats according to Redfins latest analysis.
That means the typical U.S. home today has been owned by the same person for nearly twice as long as in 2005resulting in less turnover in the housing market. That affects the entire ecosystem. For some millennials and Gen Xers, it could mean staying longer in their starter homes as they struggle to find a move-up property in their desired location. And for first-time buyers, especially Gen Z, the lack of turnover means fewer entry-level homes coming up for sale.
After climbing every year between 2005 and 2020, U.S. homeowner tenure has come down a bit due to the increase in home sales during the pandemic housing boom. However, given spiked mortgage rates and low existing home sales, tenure rates could start going higher again.
“Moving forward, we expect homeowner tenure to stay flat or increase slightly for the foreseeable future,” wrote Redfin researchers. “Existing-home sales hit a 15-year low last year, with many homeowners locked in by low mortgage rates, and while sales should pick up a bit this year, itll be more of a trickle than a flood.”
Why did U.S. homeowner tenure increase so much between 2005 and 2020? Redfin says, in part, its because so many baby boomers choose to “age in place.”
“Older Americans are hanging onto their homes because theyre financially incentivized to do so. Most (54%) baby boomers who own homes own them free and clear, with no outstanding mortgage. For that group, the median monthly cost of owning a homewhich includes insurance and property taxes, among other thingsis just over $600 (similar to the monthly cost for other generations with no outstanding mortgage, but other generations are far less likely to own homes free and clear), wrote Redfin researchers.
In addition to “aging in place,” the Redfin report also cites state-level tax policies that encourage homeowners not to move as part of the reason for increased homeowner tenures. Most notably, Proposition 13 in California limits property tax increases for homeowners, thus encouraging them not to sell.
Theres also the fact that older Americans have higher homeownership rates, and over the past few decades, the composition of the U.S. population has shifted older as the giant baby boomer generation has aged and birth rates have declined. That has put upward pressure on homeowner tenure.
What has this meant for homebuyers and the industry? The increase in average homeowner tenure over the two past decades has subdued turnover, limiting the purchasing opportunities for certain properties and holding back existing home sales.
The U.S. federal disaster agency FEMA has sharply reduced training for state and local emergency managers ahead of the start of the hurricane season on June 1, according to current and former officials, memos seen by Reuters, and three sources familiar with the situation.
The training cutbacks could leave storm-prone communities less prepared to handle the often devastating aftermath of hurricanes, the sources and some of the current and former officials warned.
Leading forecasters predict a busier-than-average Atlantic hurricane season this year, with 17 named tropical storms, including nine hurricanes.
If state directors and local emergency managers are not briefed on the federal government’s latest tools and resources, it will impact their ability to prepare for and warn communities of impending storms, said Deanne Criswell, who headed FEMA during President Joe Biden’s administration.
Some 2,000 FEMA employees – or about a third of full-time staff – have been fired or accepted incentives to quit since President Donald Trump took office in January and declared that the agency should be abolished and its functions handed over to the states.
Last week, Trump fired FEMA’s acting chief, Cameron Hamilton, a day after Hamilton told lawmakers that the agency should be preserved.
Hamilton’s successor, David Richardson, told FEMA employees on Friday that he would “run right over” any staff opposed to his implementation of Trump’s vision for a smaller agency.
Online training
FEMA’s National Hurricane Program and the National Hurricane Center typically conduct in-person workshops and presentations for state and local emergency officials each spring to help them prepare for hurricane season.
These training sessions are used to share the latest data on hurricane modeling, build relationships between local, state and FEMA officials to improve coordination on disaster preparedness and relief, and review evacuation routes and other planning measures.
Relationship building is critical for coordination in the event of a storm, according to three emergency managers and experts. Some planned hurricane training sessions and workshops have been moved online.
FEMA, which is overseen by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, confirmed the training cutbacks in a statement to Reuters.
“At the direction of President Trump and Secretary Noem, we’re done offering duplicate trainings that promote waste, fraud and abuse and that are not a good use of American taxpayers,” the statement said.
“The National Hurricane Program continues to deliver readiness trainings ahead of the 2025 Hurricane Season to emergency managers nationwide with virtual trainings.”
Steve Still, the emergency manager for New Hanover County, a hurricane hotspot on North Carolina’s Atlantic Coast, said online training, while useful, was less effective than in-person events.
“If there’s any practical applications or exercises, you need in-person training,” Still said.
Despite the reduced training, emergency management officials in North Carolina and Louisiana – states regularly battered by hurricanes – told Reuters they have FEMA-certified trainers on staff who can lead in-person disaster training.
“FEMA courses have continued as planned in the state without issue,” said Justin J. Graney, a spokesman for North Carolina Emergency Management.
Travel restrictions
Since February 5, FEMA staff have been barred from travel unrelated to disaster deployment and other limited purposes. Since early March, staff must have their speaking engagements and presentation materials approved by the Office of External Affairs and Office of Chief Counsel, according to two internal memos seen by Reuters.
Few speaking requests have been approved, leading the National Hurricane Program to cancel some trainings for emergency managers in storm-prone areas or move them online, according to a source familiar with the situation.
Organizers of April’s National Hurricane Conference in New Orleans canceled several FEMA-led sessions – including one aimed at helping emergency managers make evacuation decisions during hurricanes – after FEMA staff dropped out due to the travel restrictions, said John Wilson, chairman of the conference.
Wilson said the director of the National Hurricane Center usually speaks at the conference about lessons learned from past hurricane season and shares forecasting model updates, but did not this year.
“It was kind of bizarre to have a National Hurricane Conference without the National Hurricane Center director opening it up,” Wilson said.
NHC Director Michael Brennan said in a statement that he did not attend the conference due to travel restrictions but noted that the center recently organized a virtual course with 500 participants. He said the NHC’s “dialogue with partners continues and remains unchanged.”
Concerns
Lynn Budd, president of the National Emergency Management Association, an organization of state emergency managers, and director of the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security, said states need more time and resources if they are expected to make up for cuts to FEMA staff and activities.
“There is room to reduce the footprint of FEMA in their regular deployment activities, but there is also expertise provided by FEMA for state and local jurisdictions that the states simply dont have at this time,” Budd said.
NEMA would not comment specifically on the reduced trainings.
The lack of training sessions at disaster preparedness conferences leaves state and local emergency managers more vulnerable to inaccurate or inadequate advice ahead of the storm season, said Bryan Koon, the former head of Floridas Division of Emergency Management who now heads a disaster preparedness consultancy.
“These conferences are really important, because lots of FEMA trainings are normally done at them,” Koon said. “Thats one of the critical things new information is released to state and local emergency managers.”
If local emergency managers are not trained in new forecasting models, for example, then there might be critical information the public won’t get ahead of a hurricane, Koon said.
Leah Douglas, Nathan Layne, Nichola Groom and Tim Reid, Reuters
The rideshare market has reached a crossroads. Autonomous vehicles are on the rise, driver unrest is mounting, and customers are questioning everything from pricing to trust and safety. In the midst of it all, Lyft is mounting a comeback. CEO David Risher, who came into the role at Lyft two years ago, is taking a birds-eye view on the operation and pushing to reposition the company squarely against their competitor, Uberwith faster execution, bold new programs, and Lyfts biggest international acquisition to date.
This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by the former editor-in-chief of Fast Company Bob Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with todays top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode.
[A recent letter you wrote to shareholders] includes this phrase “falcon mode,” which has also sparked a bunch of interest. I wanted to ask you to explain, what is falcon mode?
So falcons fly thousands of feet in the air. But of course, they can’t stay up there always because theyve got to eat. So falcons have adapted to become extremely perceptive at seeing very small things on the ground and then being able to dive down very, very quickly, grab the mouse or whatever it is, and then go back up to cruising altitude.
I use that kind of figurative language to help my team actually understand my job, which is to try to stay up at the high level. I mean, a CEO doesn’t hopefully need to be in the details every single day, but I have never found a successful CEO, and I’ve worked for some very successful CEOs, I’m very lucky in that way, who doesn’t also judiciously decide when to come down and to go really, really deep into the things, to get to the point where you’re literally saying, “You know what, I think this language on the screen isn’t quite doing the job,” as an example.
How much of that is about you identifying something that’s strategic that you could have seen at 30,000 feet that maybe others are missing versus pointing to your team that this is the way you want them to act?
I think if you never do it yourself, if all you’re doing is telling your team, “Go look at this, go look at this, go look at this, go look at this,” I think the chance of you having good intuition on that, where to actually go deep, is low. But then on the other hand, hopefully they see you doing it, and they become comfortable themselves.
And again, I want to make a distinction: you haven’t mentioned the word micromanagement, but that’s a word that sometimes people say, “Well, doesn’t that sound like micromanagement?” And for me, the distinction I make is I try, again, sometimes unsuccessfully to be clear, but I try not to use it as a way to propose answers. Of course, sometimes I do. I’m a human being, I have ideas, but I try more to use it as a way to understand a problem space better.
A story I tell in the letter is you can understand the issue of surge pricing at a generic level. People don’t like prices that are unpredictable, and that gives you a certain amount of insight. But when I drove and I picked up a woman named Anne, and she said, “Sometimes the price is 20, sometimes it’s 30, sometimes it’s 40. When it’s 20, I take a Lyft. When it’s 40, I drive myself, but I’m really annoyed. I get up at six in the morning, just check the price every single morning.” You have these conversations, and you get so much more empathy and understanding for the contours of that problem and why it matters so much at an individual level.
And then you can go back to your team and say, “You know what, guys, I know we’ve been talking about trying to get rid of surge pricing or at least some of it for a while. Let me give you some examples that I’ve picked up by going deep that maybe help us understand both why this is a big problem for people and maybe understand, as I say, the contours of this space a little bit better as a result.”
And so this is why you get on the road and you drive a Lyft every six weeks for a day, so you’re close to the experience of both sides of your marketplace, the driver and the rider.
It’s exactly it. And it’s so interesting. I actually took my first drive, I think it was a week before I joined even. So it’s been a little bit over two years now. And at first what I really thought it was going to be is really understanding the driver app and the driver experience. And I learned a lot, but what it’s really taught me is how the rider experiences the ride. And it’s so different to look at the data versus talk to the riders and ask them, “Why did you choose Lyft today versus the other guys? What are some of the perceptions you have?”
And sometimes people talk about a credit card deal we have with Chase Sapphire Reserve, and sometimes people will talk about a bad experience they had on the other guys. Sometimes they’ll talk about how they think they like our values better or they like Women+ Connect, which is a service we have. So you get a sense of both sides of the marketplace, and it’s quite efficient. I mean, it’s only two or three hours, and gosh, you can learn a lot in two or three hours if you really, really focus on them.
You have more riders than ever, you have more drivers than ever, but you’re still far behind Uber, which has 75% of the market or something. I mean, we’ve heard a lot about the streaming wars in TV, and there’s arguably a ridesharing war going on. Do you have to beat Uber to become like Netflix in streaming, or is it just about staying competitive? You don’t have to be Netflix. If you can be BritBox, and that’s you, that’s okay.
So a couple of things I think about that, every year just in the U.S., so we’re not even talking about overseas, just in the U.S., people take about 160 billion rides in their own car, 160 billion. So every single one of those rides, they’re getting behind the wheel, their stress level is probably going up a little bit, hopefully they’re not texting, but they’re certainly tempted to text every time they come to a stoplight, they’re road rage sometimes, frustrated. At the very least, they’re not able to do very much else with their life, and then they got to park, and then they got to pay for parking, and all these different things.
So there are a lot of times where, you know what, it’s actually kind of nice to have someone else pick you up. You can do the texting, you can sit back, you can make a phone call if you want to, you can put on your makeup if you’re a woman, whatever it is, guy too, whoever. So the point is it’s a better experience, and we want to do it so reliably and at such a high service level that we move from, call it, 800 million rides a year, which is about what we do, to a billion to two billion to three billion to four billion.
So do I have to compete with someone else to do that? Not really. Now, we have to compete with private cars, and to a certain extent, with people staying at home on their couch. I mean, hose are things I have to compete with, but I don’t really need to dominate the other guy.
Now, having said that, there is another guy in the marketplace. Our share when I joined was about 26% share. Now it’s about 31% share. So we’ve made nice progress there, and that’s hard. I mean, every single point of share you get over a bigger competitor is quite hard.
I’ll give you two stats that I’m very proud of. One is we pick you up about 30 seconds faster than they do. Second is for our drivers, we have a 23-point advantage, 23-point advantage in preference of dual-appers, people who use both apps. Who would you prefer to drive for?
So I consider those to be very good leading early indicators that we’re doing some things well. The share thing is a little bit of a trailing indicator. It’s just an interesting little thing to look at. Leading indicator is more to people like you more, you get better service. And over time, that tends to grow a business quite nicely.
Now that the 100 men vs. one gorilla debate has been settled, a new question is circulating on social media: Who would win, 100 Americans or 100 Brits?
British creator @2mwad_ first posed the question on TikTok: I got a new one, 100 British people versus 100 Americans. One big room, no weapons, whos winning? The video has since gained over a million views, succeeding in uniting both nations against a common, historical rival.
@2mwad_ #fyp #2mwad original sound – 2mwad
The patriotism sparked in the comments section is truly something to behold. Our president is a felon who you think is winning, one American wrote. Do they have the Britain man? We have the Florida man, another added. A third chimed in, 100 British people vs one Waffle House shift.
But the Brits werent going down without a fight, and if theres one thing British people do best, its getting under Americans skin. British people 100%, one wrote. Dont get me started. I might start sounding patriotic, added another.
In a follow-up video, the creator made the hypothetical brawl more specific. He said the British side would include groups of 20 from Birmingham, London, Manchester, Nottingham, and Liverpool. For the Americans, the fighters would be drafted from Louisiana, L.A., New York, and Chicago. (For what its worth, as a Brit, my money is on the Americans.)
@2mwad_ #fyp #2mwad original sound – 2mwad
Theres something so uniquely special about being American because our country can be in complete shambles . . . but as soon as someone tries to attack America, we are all patriotic, said creator @adivunsolicited in a video with 1.2 million views. The only people Americans are scared or intimidated by are other Americans, he added.
TikTok creator Keara Sullivan posted her ideal American lineup: two people from Appalachia, two Floridians with criminal records, two blue-collar workers from Boston, one drunk Eagles fan born and raised in Philadelphia, and one Waffle House employee from any state.
On the British side, TikToker Max Baledge pushed back: Guys, you would not be allowed guns. Id like to see all of those people have a bare knuckle bash with someone from Newcastle.
One commenter replied: We already did thiswe celebrate it on July 4th.
If youre a frequent eye drop user, nows the time to check your medicine cabinet: The pharmaceutical lab BRS Analytical Service, LLC has issued a voluntary recall of five different ophthalmic solutions, including some eye drops and artificial tears, due to concerns that the products may be of unacceptable quality. Heres what to know:
What is the reason for the recall?
According to a notice published by the distributor AvKare, the recall was initiated when a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) audit found manufacturing cGMP deviations in the production of the five eye products. CGMP, or Current Good Manufacturing Practice, refers to the required manufacturing process guidelines set by the FDA for a certain item.
Per the AvKare notice, Health Hazard to the user is unknown, cGMP deviations may lead to products of unacceptable quality, and it is not possible to rule out patient risks resulting from use of these products.
Separately, an FDA enforcement report surrounding the five products notes that there was a lack of assurance of sterility found during the agency’s audit.
BRS Analytical Service voluntarily initiated the five recalls on April 23. On May 6, the FDA classified each as a Class II, meaning it is considered a situation in which exposure to the product may cause reversible adverse health consequences, or where the probability of serious health consequences is remote.
Which products are being recalled?
The recall encompasses five products, totaling over 75,000 cases of ophthalmic solution, shipped over a two-year period: May 26, 2023, to April 21, 2025.
The products include:
NDC# 50268-043-15 Artificial Tears Ophthalmic Solution; recall number D-0404-2025
NDC# 50268-066-15 Carboxymethylcellulose Sodium Ophthalmic Gel 1%; recall number D-0405-2025
NDC# 50268-068-15 Carboxymethylcellulose Sodium Ophthalmic Solution; recall number D-0406-2025
NDC# 50268-126-15 Lubricant Eye Drops Solution; recall number D-0407-2025
NDC# 50268-678-15 Polyvinyl Alcohol Ophthalmic Solution; recall number D-0408-2025
Detailed lots numbers and specific expiration dates can be found here.
Where were the products sold?
According to the FDA, the items were distributed nationwide in the U.S., though specific states and stores were not listed.
What should I do if I have one of the recalled products?
If you have a recalled eye solution, do not use it. Instead, AvKare requests that you follow the instructions listed in its notice to alert the company that you received the recalled product, and then ship the affected items back to its headquarters.
With any follow-up questions, AvKares customer service email is customerservice@avkare.com.
Rich Diviney spent 21 years as a Navy SEAL, leading and operating on missions around the globe. In that time, he completed multiple combat deployments and had the honor of serving as the Commanding Officer of a SEAL Command. One of his most pivotal roles was running a specialized Selection and Assessment program for one of the most elite SEAL units. He also spearheaded the SEALs Mind Gym to train soldiers minds to perform better under stress. Today, he teaches optimal performance to thousands of business, athletic, and military leaders.
Whats the big idea?
What makes someone able to thrive in conditions of extreme stress, challenge, and uncertainty? Why do some people falter when the pressure rises, while others step forward with clarity and strength? High performance under pressure isnt limited to Navy SEALs. Its not about being fearless or superhuman. Its about tapping into human capabilities that we all possesscapabilities that can be trained, honed, and applied in any environment.
Below, Rich shares five key insights from his new book, Masters of Uncertainty: The Navy SEAL Way to Turn Stress into Success for You and Your Team. Listen to the audio versionread by Rich himselfin the Next Big Idea App.
1. Uncertainty is the only certainty
On May 2, 2011, a SEAL team launched one of the most daring missions in modern history: the operation to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. They trained relentlessly. They built a replica of the compound. They rehearsed every move, down to the second.
The moment they got on target, everything changed. One of the helicopters crashed. Timelines shifted. Entry points failed. All that preparation didnt mean muchunless they could adapt.
That mission succeeded not because they had a perfect plan, but because they knew how to perform inside the chaos. Thats what Masters of Uncertainty is about.
Peak performance is a myth. It depends on perfect conditions, and life is rarely perfect. What matters more is optimal performance: showing up with the best you have in that moment, no matter what that best looks like.
In the book, I show you how to develop a fluid kind of performance that is resilient and real. Uncertainty isnt a curveball. Uncertainty is the game. Once you stop chasing perfection and start learning to thrive inside the unpredictable, you unlock your true edge.
2. The Mastering Uncertainty Method
High performers dont have superpowers. What they do have is a system that allows them to take the raw chaos of a moment and make it work in their favor. That system is what I call the Mastering Uncertainty Method. I built it by observing elite SEALs, world-class athletes, and business leaders who consistently perform under pressure. What I noticed was that they werent calm by accident. They practiced something specific, something trainable.
These steps are rooted in how humans are wired.
The first part of the methodMove Horizonsis what you do when the world is swirling. You anchor in the present and ask, What do I know? What can I control? Like George, an ultrarunner who started his journey at 450 pounds. Day one: he bought the shoes. Day two: he put them on. He moved horizonsone mailbox, one street corner at a timeuntil he ran a marathon.
Then theres Keep Going, learning to set meaningful goals that trigger the brains dopamine system. And Stay Cool, the art of modulating your stress response to stay focused and clear-headed. These steps are rooted in how humans are wired. Once you train them, youll discover you were built for uncertainty all along.
3. Attributes, Identity, and Purpose drive behavior
When everythings spinning, we like to believe well rise to our trainingto our values, our beliefs. But the truth is, we dont rise. We revert to our instincts and core wiring. Thats why understanding your Attributes, Identity, and Objectives is vital.
Ill never forget one SEAL candidate during assessment who, on paper, was a rock star. He was physically gifted, razor-sharp, and highly trained. But when things got murky and unpredictable, he couldnt make decisions. He lacked the attributes we couldnt teach: adaptability, resilience, situational humility. In that moment, it wasnt his skills that failed him. It was who he was underneath them.
This part of the book is about helping you discover who you are when things arent going according to planwhen the tools fall away and only instincts remain. Youll learn to identify the traits that drive you, reshape the beliefs that hold you back, and root everything in a sense of purpose that doesnt crack under pressure. In uncertainty, the person you are matters far more than the roles you play.
4. Dynamic Subordination and trust in teams
I love to ask teams, When the plan falls apart, who leads? Because in high-stakes environments, its not always the person with the rank. Its the person with the clarity.
We call that Dynamic Subordination. Its a principle we lived by in the SEAL Teams. Leadership flowed to the person with the most relevant expertise in the momentnot the most stripes on their sleeve. That only works in a culture built on trust.
Leadership flowed to the person with the most relevant expertise in the momentnot the most stripes on their sleeve.
I remember one mission where our comms guynormally the quietest person in the roomstepped up mid-operation and made a call that saved lives. He wasnt the senior guy. He wasnt the loudest. But he had the best information, and we trusted him enough to follow.
Most teams say they want adaptability, but they dont build the trust required to make it real. I teach how to build trust, implement dynamic subordination, and create a culture where leadership is a function of moment, not title.
When uncertainty hits, rigid hierarchy cracks. Trust flexes. Flex wins.
5. Stress as a performance enhancer
Most of us treat stress like the enemysomething to fight off, push down, or escape. But stress isnt the problem. Misused stress is.
Your stress responsewhat scientists call autonomic arousalis built to help you. It gives you energy, alertness, even clarity. Its what helped me stay sharp jumping out of planes, navigating combat zones, or stepping onto a keynote stage. The challenge is knowing when to turn the dial up and when to turn it down.
This chapter is about rewiring your relationship with stress. Ill teach you the same breathwork, visual cues, and mental framing used by elite performers. Once you stop fearing stress and start partnering with it, you unlock performance you didnt know was possible. Stress isnt the villain. Its the voltage. You just have to learn how to use it.
Uncertainty isnt ging anywhere. Its not something we can out-plan, out-muscle, or outrun. But we can learn to meet it with strength, clarity, and purpose. Whether youre leading a team, navigating change, or just trying to show up better in your life, the ability to move forward in the unknown is a trainable skill. One that starts with awareness, grows with intention, and gets stronger every time you choose to lean in rather than pull back. Learn to master the moment youre in. Thats where your power lives.
This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
Fashion designers from across North America are bringing together inspiration from their Indigenous heritage, culture and everyday lives to three days of runway modeling that started Friday in a leading creative hub and marketplace for Indigenous art.A fashion show affiliated with the century-old Santa Fe Indian Market is collaborating this year with a counterpart from Vancouver, Canada, in a spirit of Indigenous solidarity and artistic freedom. A second, independent runway show at a rail yard district in the city has nearly doubled the bustle of models, makeup and final fittings.Elements of Friday’s collections from six Native designers ran the gamut from silk parasols to a quilted hoodie, knee-high fur boots and suede leather earrings that dangled to the waist. Models on the Santa Fe catwalks include professionals, dancers and Indigenous celebrities from TV and the political sphere.Clothing and accessories rely on materials ranging from of wool trade cloth to animal hides, featuring traditional beadwork, ribbons and jewelry with some contemporary twists that include digitally rendered designs and urban Native American streetwear from Phoenix.“Native fashion, it’s telling a story about our understanding of who we are individually and then within our communities,” said Taos Pueblo fashion designer Patricia Michaels, of “Project Runway” reality TV fame. “You’re getting designers from North America that are here to express a lot of what inspires them from their own heritage and culture.”
Santa Fe style
The stand-alone spring fashion week for Indigenous design is a recent outgrowth of haute couture at the summer Santa Fe Indian Market, where teeming crowds flock to outdoor displays by individual sculptors, potters, jewelers and painters.Designer Sage Mountainflower remembers playing in the streets at Indian Market as a child in the 1980s while her artist parents sold paintings and beadwork. She forged a different career in environmental administration, but the world of high fashion called to her as she sewed tribal regalia for her children at home and, eventually, brought international recognition.At age 50, Mountainflower on Friday presented her “Taandi” collection the Tewa word for “Spring” grounded in satin and chiffon fabric that includes embroidery patterns that invoke her personal and family heritage at the Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo in the Upper Rio Grande Valley.“I pay attention to trends, but a lot of it’s just what I like,” said Mountainflower, who also traces her heritage to Taos Pueblo and the Navajo Nation. “This year it’s actually just looking at springtime and how it’s evolving. It’s going to be a colorful collection.”More than 20 designers are presenting at the invitation of the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts.Fashion plays a prominent part in Santa Fe’s renowned arts ecosystem, with Native American vendors each day selling jewelry in the central plaza, while the Institute for American Indian Arts delivers fashion-related college degrees in May.This week, a gala at the New Mexico governor’s mansion welcomed fashion designers to town, along with social mixers at local galleries and bookstores and plans for pop-up fashion stores to sell clothes fresh off the fashion runway.
International vision
A full-scale collaboration with Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week is bringing a northern, First Nations flair to the gathering this year with many designers crossing into the U.S. from Canada.Secwépemc artist and fashion designer Randi Nelson traveled to Santa Fe from the city of Whitehorse in the Canadian Yukon to present collections forged from fur and traditionally cured hides she uses primarily elk and caribou. The leather is tanned by hand without chemicals using inherited techniques and tools.“We’re all so different,” said Nelson, a member of the Bonaparte/St’uxwtéws First Nation who started her career in jewelry assembled from quills, shells and beads. “There’s not one pan-Indigenous theme or pan-Indigenous look. We’re all taking from our individual nations, our individual teachings, the things from our family, but then also recreating them in a new and modern way.”April Allen, an Inuk designer from the Nunatsiavut community on the Labrador coast of Canada, presented a mesh dress of blue water droplets. Her work delves into themes of nature and social advocacy for access to clean drinking water.Vocal music accompanied the collection layers of wordless, primal sound from musician and runway model Beatrice Deer, who is Inuit and Mohawk.
Urban Indian couture
Phoenix-based jeweler and designer Jeremy Donavan Arviso said the runway shows in Santa Fe are attempting to break out of the strictly Southwest fashion mold and become a global venue for Native design and collaboration. A panel discussion Thursday dwelled on the threat of new tariffs and prices for fashion supplies and tensions between disposable fast fashion and Indigenous ideals.Arviso is bringing a street-smart aesthetic to two shows at the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts runway and a warehouse venue organized by Amber-Dawn Bear Robe, from the Siksika Nation.“My work is definitely contemporary, I don’t choose a whole lot of ceremonial or ancestral practices in my work,” said Arviso, who is Diné, Hopi, Akimel O’odham and Tohono O’odham, and grew up in Phoenix. “I didn’t grow up like that. I grew up on the streets.”Arviso said his approach to fashion resembles music sampling by early rap musicians as he draws on themes from major fashion brands and elements of his own tribal cultures. He invited Toronto-based ballet dancer Madison Noon for a “beautiful and biting” performance to introduce his collection titled Vision Quest.Santa Fe runway models will include former U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland of Laguna Pueblo, adorned with clothing from Michaels and jewelry by Zuni Pueblo silversmith Veronica Poblano.
Morgan Lee, Associated Press
Republicans in Congress are expected this week to reveal whether they are willing to go ahead with President Donald Trump’s suggestion to raise taxes on the rich, which would break with decades of party orthodoxy.
After weeks of closed-door talks, the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee is due to unveil full details of tax-cut legislation that would be the centerpiece of a sweeping budget package that also would raise spending on the military and border security.
The legislation would build on a measure enacted during Trump’s first presidential term that lowered tax rates, especially for the wealthiest.
Late on Friday the panel made some details public, but without providing the outcome on the thorniest matters under debate within Republican ranks.
Still unknown is whether the legislation will deliver on Trump’s promises to discontinue taxes on tips, overtime pay and Social Security retirement benefits, and whether the bill would increase the deduction for state and local taxes. That is an issue particularly important to moderate Republicans, mainly in coastal states, as well as to Democrats.
Trump has indicated a willingness to raise taxes on the wealthiest in what would be a stark departure from a red line drawn by Republicans for many years.
These questions might be answered as soon as Tuesday, when the House committee plans to debate the complex legislation.
Republicans did unveil provisions for increasing the child tax credit to $2,500 through 2028, from $1,000. Trump’s presidential term ends on Jan. 20, 2029.
The House Republicans’ bill also would reduce some taxes for multinational companies and unincorporated businesses.
Republicans also have been at odds over spending cuts to safety-net programs mainly the Medicaid health insurance program for the poor and disabled to offset some of the costs.
Trump has privately urged House Speaker Mike Johnson to raise the tax rate on the wealthiest Americans, sources say, though publicly he has been more ambivalent. Some on the party’s right flank have come out in favor of it.
Johnson has told some Republicans that he might have to scale back the tax cut package by $500 million to $4 trillion.
House fiscal hawks are pushing for deep spending cuts of up to $2 trillion to allow for deeper tax cuts. But some moderates are resisting cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, the crucial food assistance program.
Democrats are warning that Republicans could put other social service programs on the chopping block.
Their legislation feeds corporate and wealthy individuals greed by abandoning vulnerable children, starving seniors, and cutting off families in need,” a group of Democratic senators said in a letter on Friday.
Republicans aim to extend Trump’s signature 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Some of its provisions are due to expire at the end of this year.
Hes wanting to help the blue-collar worker,” Representative Kevin Hern, a Republican tax writer from Oklahoma, said. So were going to make that happen.
“This is where the rubber hits the road for tax writers, who will be challenged to preserve President Trumps first-term legacy at a fiscal cost that is acceptable to the conference,” said Mimi Bair, a former Republican tax staffer now at McGuireWoods Consulting. “Were all eager to see the tax committee shed more light on how they will strike that balance.”
Meanwhile, a handful of Republicans from high-tax states like New York, New Jersey and California are pressing for a higher deduction amount for state and local taxes. The Ways and Means committee is expected to offer a $30,000 limit for these state and local taxes, up from the current $10,000, according to a Republican aide.
However, these Republican lawmakers have said that is not enough.
Either were going to have a bill that has a fix that assuages the concerns of constituents like mine, or we wont have a bill and the tax cuts will expire, Representative Nick LaLota, a New York Republican, told reporters last week.
That could sink the budget bill in the House, which Republicans control by a narrow 220-213 margin.
Bo Erickson, Reuters
