A.N

Since taking office on January 20, President Donald Trump has targeted so-called "diversity, equity, and inclusion" programs, also known as DEI. According to a January 21 executive order, "critical and influential institutions of American society, including the Federal Government, major corporations, financial institutions, the medical industry, large commercial airlines, law enforcement agencies, and institutions of higher education have adopted and actively use dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences" under the guise of DEI. These programs, according to Trump and his administration, "undermine our national unity, as they deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system."

The executive order suggests there is pervasive discrimination against hard-working white men, who are being replaced by less-qualified women and minorities. This point was made explicitly last October by Darren Beattie, who was just hired for a senior State Department role by the Trump administration. "Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work," Beattie wrote in a post on X. "Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men."

Beattie was fired from his job at Duke University in 2018 for attending a white nationalist convention.

The executive order claims that corporate DEI programs constitute "illegal discrimination." The executive order mandates that each federal agency "shall identify up to nine potential civil compliance investigations" into large corporations or non-profit groups for implementing DEI programs.

This legal analysis is flawed. In Students for Fair Admissions, the Supreme Court ruled that race-based affirmative action programs in college admissions are illegal. But Students for Fair Admissions does not have any impact on corporations because affirmative action in employment situations, in almost all circumstances, is already illegal. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned the consideration of race in hiring. Corporate DEI programs involve "expanding outreach for new hires, creating employee resource groups for underrepresented workers, and reducing bias in hiring through such practices as 'blind' applications."

The push to eliminate DEI is effectively affirmative action for white men, eliminating programs that help corporations attract and retain qualified minorities and women.

Beyond the flawed legal analysis, however, is an empirical question: Is corporate America biased against white people? Are white people being shut out of desirable jobs to accommodate an influx of racial minorities? According to the latest data, the answer to these questions is an emphatic "no."

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Women and minorities are severely underrepresented in corporate America

The reality is, even with diversity efforts, women and minorities remain badly underrepresented in corporate America.

According to a 2024 report by McKinsey, women have made modest gains in the workplace over the last 10 years. But at the current rate of progress, McKinsey projected that it will take 22 years for white women and 48 years for women of color to attain the same level of representation in senior leadership roles as they have in the general population.

The number of women in executive positions has jumped from 17% in 2015 to 29% in 2024. While this is a significant gain, the report found that much of it was due to companies eliminating positions historically held by men and hiring women for new support roles in legal, HR, and IT departments. Companies cannot continue adding such positions indefinitely, so the gains women made are not sustainable. Additionally, the study found that women are less likely to get hired to entry-level positions than men and less likely to get their first promotion.

The representation of Black people in the workforce has seen little to no improvement since DEI initiatives gained traction in 2020, based on a Bloomberg analysis of data that 84 top U.S. companies provided to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2023.

The proportion of Black employees at these 84 companies reached a peak in 2021 at 17%, but has been on the decline since. Twenty-six percent of all jobs cut by these companies in 2023 were held by Black employees. Among the 84 companies, which are more diverse than the US workforce as a whole, the share of Black people in senior leadership roles decreased at more than half since 2020.

While white men saw their representation in executive positions and the workforce overall decrease, they are still overrepresented in higher paying positions, making up 46% of executive roles and 37% of managers, but less than a third of the workforce of the companies analyzed by Bloomberg.

While corporate boards have made some progress in increasing representation of women and minorities in recent years, the upward trend is slowing, according to a 2024 report by the Conference Board. Gender and racial diversity “reached record levels in 2024,” but “the proportion of new directors who are women or from non-White backgrounds has declined since a high in 2022.”

While women now make up 34% of directors in the S&P 500 and 29% in the Russell 3000, they are still vastly underrepresented, as women make up “47% of all U.S. employees” and 50.5% of the population. In 2024, women only made up 11% of board chairs in the S&P 500 and 8% in the Russell 3000.

In 2024, there were slightly more minority directors and board chairs compared to 2020. But the number of newly hired Black, LGBTQ, and non-white women directors fell since 2022. The number of new white directors significantly increased, reaching 69% in both indexes. The report notes that the decreasing trends may “signal some waning of momentum in corporate diversity initiatives amid heightened political and social scrutiny.”

At an open house in Fairbanks on Monday, Alaskan Congressman Nick Begich (R) told constituents that there was nothing he could do to stop agency budget cuts being implemented by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Elon Musk.

During the meeting, Begich was confronted by constituents laid off from federal jobs, a major source of employment for the state. "I was fired," one said. "Now I have no choice but to leave that community and probably leave Alaska, and so I just don't understand how these budget cuts are helpful to any Alaskans or their communities. And I'm just wondering what you plan to do about this."

Begich said he was "not in a position to approve or deny the cuts."

It was a remarkable statement from the freshman Congressman, sworn into office in January. The Constitution vests the "power of the purse" with Congress — not an unelected billionaire appointed to a position in the executive branch.

Popular Information obtained the audio recordings of the town hall from a constituent who attended the meeting. The audio was provided on the condition of anonymity because the constituent is not a public figure.

The indiscriminate budget cuts could hit Alaska especially hard because the state has a high concentration of federal workers. There are about 15,000 federal employees in Alaska, and about 1,200 are "probationary," which generally means they have less than one year of service in their current position. If all probationary employees were fired, it would cost the state about $88 million in lost wages. Many federal workers are located in rural areas where there are few opportunities for alternative employment.

Alaskans cut from the National Park Service include "biologists, field technicians, logistics specialists, a superintendent, an archeologist and a pilot." Alaska is home to many Federal Aviation Administration employees, some of whom have lost their jobs. At least 30 Alaskans who work for the U.S. Forest Service, which plays a critical role in preventing wildfires, were also let go.

In another exchange, Begich said he found out about budget cuts impacting Alaska "on Twitter" and "had no idea these things were going on" in advance. Begich claimed that the same situation was true "under Biden," but did not provide any examples. He also did not mention that he was not a member of Congress during Biden's presidency.

The notion that Begich has no information about DOGE's activities is notable since Begich is a member of the Congressional DOGE Caucus.

In lieu of taking action, another constituent asks Begich if he would "publicly commit to denouncing the cuts" that impact Alaska and "commit to saying this is wrong." Begich refused.

"I'm not going to denounce all cuts. We have to cut. We're 125% debt to GDP ratio as a nation," Begich said. But the federal workforce accounts for about 6% of the federal budget. House Republicans just advanced a budget projected to increase the deficit by $4 trillion over ten years.

Instead, he told constituents who lost their jobs to "put together some materials for me" about their specific situation that he could review. "If there's something that I think we can do, then I will do it," Begich offered.

Begich's office did not respond to a request for comment.

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Begich is a huge Musk fan

Begich told his constituents that he was concerned about the impact of Musk-directed cuts on Alaskans and wished he had more advance notice. But on X, he has repeatedly celebrated Musk's work with DOGE. On February 2, Begich praised DOGE's work ethic, saying the group had a "grindset."

On February 11, Begich suggested, without evidence, that DOGE had uncovered illegal activity in the federal government.

On Monday, the same day he met with his constituents in Fairbanks, Begich promoted Musk's false claim that millions of people over 100 years old were receiving Social Security benefits. The numbers in Musk's posts represented people in the Social Security database — not people who were receiving payments. And Social Security automatically suspends benefits for anyone with an age of 115 or older.

Although this claim has been repeatedly debunked, Begich has not corrected or removed his claim. In an interview with Alaska News Source, Begich called Musk "an efficiency expert."

On February 26, President Trump issued an executive order expanding the power of the United States DOGE Service (DOGE), the government initiative controlled by Elon Musk. The purpose of the order is to limit any spending not specifically approved by one of Musk's associates working for DOGE.

One provision of the February 26 executive order that has received little attention is a 30-day freeze of all government credit cards. The credit card freeze has brought critical research, including research about cures and treatments for cancer and Alzheimer's, to a halt, according to an NIH source with direct knowledge.

The credit card freeze allows for "operations or other critical services as determined by the Agency Head, and subject to such additional individualized or categorical exceptions as the Agency Head, in consultation with the agency’s DOGE Team Lead, deems appropriate." But, according to the NIH source, there has been no categorical exception for the intramural research being done on NIH's Bethesda campus and other locations. The result is that most of this scientific research has stopped.

Musk has angrily rejected claims that DOGE or the Trump administration have hindered funding for cancer research. "The White House can lie all they want about how they're not stopping cancer research," the NIH source said, "but they're stopping cancer research on [NIH's] Bethesda campus."

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The NIH's intramural program, the term for research that occurs directly on NIH's campus rather than at academic institutions funded by NIH grants, has played a central role in key cancer breakthroughs for decades. The NIH's intramural program has been responsible for "combination chemotherapy for lymphoma and leukemia," the development of vaccines that prevent cancer, and immunotherapy. Much of this work is detailed in The Empire of All Maladies, a Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Siddhartha Mukherjee, which was turned into a documentary by Ken Burns.

This work has saved lives. NIH work on combination chemotherapy, for example, boosted survival rates for Hodgkin's lymphoma from 0% to 70%. Similarly, the NIH's intramural team developed a four-drug treatment that increased the survival rate for children diagnosed with leukemia from effectively 0% to nearly 90%. NIH researchers identified the particles in human papillomavirus (HPV) that cause cancer. The resulting vaccine has shown to be 100% effective in preventing HPV16 and HPV18, the two deadliest forms of the virus. In the coming decades, this work will prevent millions of people from developing cancer and save millions of lives.

More recently, an NIH intramural study demonstrated how an "experimental form of immunotherapy that uses an individual’s own tumor-fighting immune cells could potentially be used to treat people with metastatic breast cancer." After receiving the treatment, one woman saw "her tumors [shrink] completely" and she remained "cancer free more than five years later."

The NIH intramural program plays a unique role that cannot be duplicated elsewhere because of the presence of an on-campus clinical center. This allows researchers to test cutting-edge care in a controlled hospital setting on volunteer patients who are not responding to established protocols. People come from all over the world to the NIH Clinical Center to receive advanced and experimental treatments.

Some of the most advanced research on Alzheimer’s disease, which impacts over 6.7 million people in the U.S., occurs on campus at NIH. For example, NIH researchers published a paper last year suggesting that "interventions to slow hearing loss may slow cognitive decline." Other NIH research is exploring whether gene therapy could prevent the development of Alzheimer's.

How does freezing credit cards stop scientific research conducted at NIH?

Studying how cells from a cancer or Alzheimer's patient, for example, are influenced by a particular drug requires special "media," a term for a nutrient-rich liquid that provides fuel for cell cultures. To perform this work, you need to buy the media, and it needs to arrive at the appropriate time. If you don't have the media, the cells die and the experiment is ruined. Scientists are no longer able to use credit cards to purchase the media, and as a result, this kind of research cannot continue.

Another example is that the NIH builds specialized equipment to conduct cutting-edge research. Some scientists, for example, build advanced microscopes. But now, if a part breaks, these microscopes cannot be fixed because the replacement parts cannot be ordered. Ongoing scientific research requires a constant replenishment of supplies, which cannot happen while the credit card freeze is in effect.

There are numerous other ongoing small purchases that are necessary to keep scientific research going. Prior to the freeze, almost all of these purchases, which typically cost $50,000 or less, were made by government credit card.

The exception process, which per the terms of the executive order, must be approved by the agency head on a case-by-case basis, is far too cumbersome and time-consuming for the research to continue. The executive order appears to require a DOGE representative to approve each exception. Further, agency leadership appears to be under instructions to approve as little spending as possible.

The reality, according to the NIH source, is that most labs "are not able to buy anything."

The NIH did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The world found out shortly before 2 p.m. eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen.

I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44 a.m. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing.

This is going to require some explaining.

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The story technically begins shortly after the Hamas invasion of southern Israel, in October 2023. The Houthis—an Iran-backed terrorist organization whose motto is “God is great, death to America, death to Israel, curse on the Jews, victory to Islam”—soon launched attacks on Israel and on international shipping, creating havoc for global trade. Throughout 2024, the Biden administration was ineffective in countering these Houthi attacks; the incoming Trump administration promised a tougher response.

This is where Pete Hegseth and I come in.

On Tuesday, March 11, I received a connection request on Signal from a user identified as Michael Waltz. Signal is an open-source encrypted messaging service popular with journalists and others who seek more privacy than other text-messaging services are capable of delivering. I assumed that the Michael Waltz in question was President Donald Trump’s national security adviser. I did not assume, however, that the request was from the actual Michael Waltz. I have met him in the past, and though I didn’t find it particularly strange that he might be reaching out to me, I did think it somewhat unusual, given the Trump administration’s contentious relationship with journalists—and Trump’s periodic fixation on me specifically. It immediately crossed my mind that someone could be masquerading as Waltz in order to somehow entrap me. It is not at all uncommon these days for nefarious actors to try to induce journalists to share information that could be used against them.

I accepted the connection request, hoping that this was the actual national security adviser, and that he wanted to chat about Ukraine, or Iran, or some other important matter.

Two days later—Thursday—at 4:28 p.m., I received a notice that I was to be included in a Signal chat group. It was called the “Houthi PC small group.”

A message to the group, from “Michael Waltz,” read as follows: “Team – establishing a principles [sic] group for coordination on Houthis, particularly for over the next 72 hours. My deputy Alex Wong is pulling together a tiger team at deputies/agency Chief of Staff level following up from the meeting in the Sit Room this morning for action items and will be sending that out later this evening.”

The message continued, “Pls provide the best staff POC from your team for us to coordinate with over the next couple days and over the weekend. Thx.”

[Read: Here are the attack plans that Trump’s advisers shared on Signal]

The term principals committee generally refers to a group of the senior-most national-security officials, including the secretaries of defense, state, and the treasury, as well as the director of the CIA. It should go without saying—but I’ll say it anyway—that I have never been invited to a White House principals-committee meeting, and that, in my many years of reporting on national-security matters, I had never heard of one being convened over a commercial messaging app.

One minute later, a person identified only as “MAR”—the secretary of state is Marco Antonio Rubio—wrote, “Mike Needham for State,” apparently designating the current counselor of the State Department as his representative. At that same moment, a Signal user identified as “JD Vance” wrote, “Andy baker for VP.” One minute after that, “TG” (presumably Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, or someone masquerading as her) wrote, “Joe Kent for DNI.” Nine minutes later, “Scott B”—apparently Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, or someone spoofing his identity, wrote, “Dan Katz for Treasury.” At 4:53 p.m., a user called “Pete Hegseth” wrote, “Dan Caldwell for DoD.” And at 6:34 p.m., “Brian” wrote “Brian McCormack for NSC.” One more person responded: “John Ratcliffe” wrote at 5:24 p.m. with the name of a CIA official to be included in the group. I am not publishing that name, because that person is an active intelligence officer.

The principals had apparently assembled. In all, 18 individuals were listed as members of this group, including various National Security Council officials; Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s Middle East and Ukraine negotiator; Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff; and someone identified only as “S M,” which I took to stand for Stephen Miller. I appeared on my own screen only as “JG.”

That was the end of the Thursday text chain.

After receiving the Waltz text related to the “Houthi PC small group,” I consulted a number of colleagues. We discussed the possibility that these texts were part of a disinformation campaign, initiated by either a foreign intelligence service or, more likely, a media-gadfly organization, the sort of group that attempts to place journalists in embarrassing positions, and sometimes succeeds. I had very strong doubts that this text group was real, because I could not believe that the national-security leadership of the United States would communicate on Signal about imminent war plans. I also could not believe that the national security adviser to the president would be so reckless as to include the editor in chief of The Atlantic in such discussions with senior U.S. officials, up to and including the vice president.

The next day, things got even stranger.

At 8:05 a.m. on Friday, March 14, “Michael Waltz” texted the group: “Team, you should have a statement of conclusions with taskings per the Presidents guidance this morning in your high side inboxes.” (High side, in government parlance, refers to classified computer and communications systems.) “State and DOD, we developed suggested notification lists for regional Allies and partners. Joint Staff is sending this am a more specific sequence of events in the coming days and we will work w DOD to ensure COS, OVP and POTUS are briefed.”

At this point, a fascinating policy discussion commenced. The account labeled “JD Vance” responded at 8:16: “Team, I am out for the day doing an economic event in Michigan. But I think we are making a mistake.” (Vance was indeed in Michigan that day.) The Vance account goes on to state, “3 percent of US trade runs through the suez. 40 percent of European trade does. There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary. The strongest reason to do this is, as POTUS said, to send a message.”

The Vance account then goes on to make a noteworthy statement, considering that the vice president has not deviated publicly from Trump’s position on virtually any issue. “I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now. There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices. I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself. But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.”

A person identified in Signal as “Joe Kent” (Trump’s nominee to run the National Counterterrorism Center is named Joe Kent) wrote at 8:22, “There is nothing time sensitive driving the time line. We’ll have the exact same options in a month.”

Then, at 8:26 a.m., a message landed in my Signal app from the user “John Ratcliffe.” The message contained information that might be interpreted as related to actual and current intelligence operations.

At 8:27, a message arrived from the “Pete Hegseth” account. “VP: I understand your concerns – and fully support you raising w/ POTUS. Important considerations, most of which are tough to know how they play out (economy, Ukraine peace, Gaza, etc). I think messaging is going to be tough no matter what – nobody knows who the Houthis are – which is why we would need to stay focused on: 1) Biden failed & 2) Iran funded.”

The Hegseth message goes on to state, “Waiting a few weeks or a month does not fundamentally change the calculus. 2 immediate risks on waiting: 1) this leaks, and we look indecisive; 2) Israel takes an action first – or Gaza cease fire falls apart – and we don’t get to start this on our own terms. We can manage both. We are prepared to execute, and if I had final go or no go vote, I believe we should. This [is] not about the Houthis. I see it as two things: 1) Restoring Freedom of Navigation, a core national interest; and 2) Reestablish deterrence, which Biden cratered. But, we can easily pause. And if we do, I will do all we can to enforce 100% OPSEC”—operations security. “I welcome other thoughts.”

A few minutes later, the “Michael Waltz” account posted a lengthy note about trade figures, and the limited capabilities of European navies. “Whether it’s now or several weeks from now, it will have to be the United States that reopens these shipping lanes. Per the president’s request we are working with DOD and State to determine how to compile the cost associated and levy them on the Europeans.”

The account identified as “JD Vance” addressed a message at 8:45 to @Pete Hegseth: “if you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again.” (The administration has argued that America’s European allies benefit economically from the U.S. Navy’s protection of international shipping lanes.)

The user identified as Hegseth responded three minutes later: “VP: I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC. But Mike is correct, we are the only ones on the planet (on our side of the ledger) who can do this. Nobody else even close. Question is timing. I feel like now is as good a time as any, given POTUS directive to reopen shipping lanes. I think we should go; but POTUS still retains 24 hours of decision space.”

At this point, the previously silent “S M” joined the conversation. “As I heard it, the president was clear: green light, but we soon make clear to Egypt and Europe what we expect in return. We also need to figure out how to enforce such a requirement. EG, if Europe doesn’t remunerate, then what? If the US successfully restores freedom of navigation at great cost there needs to be some further economic gain extracted in return.”

That message from “S M”—presumably President Trump’s confidant Stephen Miller, the deputy White House chief of staff, or someone playing Stephen Miller—effectively shut down the conversation. The last text of the day came from “Pete Hegseth,” who wrote at 9:46 a.m., “Agree.”

After reading this chain, I recognized that this conversation possessed a high degree of verisimilitude. The texts, in their word choice and arguments, sounded as if they were written by the people who purportedly sent them, or by a particularly adept AI text generator. I was still concerned that this could be a disinformation operation, or a simulation of some sort. And I remained mystified that no one in the group seemed to have noticed my presence. But if it was a hoax, the quality of mimicry and the level of foreign-policy insight were impressive.

It was the next morning, Saturday, March 15, when this story became truly bizarre.

At 11:44 a.m., the account labeled “Pete Hegseth” posted in Signal a “TEAM UPDATE.” I will not quote from this update, or from certain other subsequent texts. The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command’s area of responsibility. What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.

The only person to reply to the update from Hegseth was the person identified as the vice president. “I will say a prayer for victory,” Vance wrote. (Two other users subsequently added prayer emoji.)

According to the lengthy Hegseth text, the first detonations in Yemen would be felt two hours hence, at 1:45 p.m. eastern time. So I waited in my car in a supermarket parking lot. If this Signal chat was real, I reasoned, Houthi targets would soon be bombed. At about 1:55, I checked X and searched Yemen. Explosions were then being heard across Sanaa, the capital city.

I went back to the Signal channel. At 1:48, “Michael Waltz” had provided the group an update. Again, I won’t quote from this text, except to note that he described the operation as an “amazing job.” A few minutes later, “John Ratcliffe” wrote, “A good start.” Not long after, Waltz responded with three emoji: a fist, an American flag, and fire. Others soon joined in, including “MAR,” who wrote, “Good Job Pete and your team!!,” and “Susie Wiles,” who texted, “Kudos to all – most particularly those in theater and CENTCOM! Really great. God bless.” “Steve Witkoff” responded with five emoji: two hands-praying, a flexed bicep, and two American flags. “TG” responded, “Great work and effects!” The after-action discussion included assessments of damage done, including the likely death of a specific individual. The Houthi-run Yemeni health ministry reported that at least 53 people were killed in the strikes, a number that has not been independently verified.

On Sunday, Waltz appeared on ABC’s This Week and contrasted the strikes with the Biden administration’s more hesitant approach. “These were not kind of pinprick, back-and-forth—what ultimately proved to be feckless attacks,” he said. “This was an overwhelming response that actually targeted multiple Houthi leaders and took them out.”

The Signal chat group, I concluded, was almost certainly real. Having come to this realization, one that seemed nearly impossible only hours before, I removed myself from the Signal group, understanding that this would trigger an automatic notification to the group’s creator, “Michael Waltz,” that I had left. No one in the chat had seemed to notice that I was there. And I received no subsequent questions about why I left—or, more to the point, who I was.

Earlier today, I emailed Waltz and sent him a message on his Signal account. I also wrote to Pete Hegseth, John Ratcliffe, Tulsi Gabbard, and other officials. In an email, I outlined some of my questions: Is the “Houthi PC small group” a genuine Signal thread? Did they know that I was included in this group? Was I (on the off chance) included on purpose? If not, who did they think I was? Did anyone realize who I was when I was added, or when I removed myself from the group? Do senior Trump-administration officials use Signal regularly for sensitive discussions? Do the officials believe that the use of such a channel could endanger American personnel?

Brian Hughes, the spokesman for the National Security Council, responded two hours later, confirming the veracity of the Signal group. “This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” Hughes wrote. “The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to troops or national security.”  

William Martin, a spokesperson for Vance, said that despite the impression created by the texts, the vice president is fully aligned with the president. “The Vice President’s first priority is always making sure that the President’s advisers are adequately briefing him on the substance of their internal deliberations,” he said. “Vice President Vance unequivocally supports this administration’s foreign policy. The President and the Vice President have had subsequent conversations about this matter and are in complete agreement.”

I have never seen a breach quite like this. It is not uncommon for national-security officials to communicate on Signal. But the app is used primarily for meeting planning and other logistical matters—not for detailed and highly confidential discussions of a pending military action. And, of course, I’ve never heard of an instance in which a journalist has been invited to such a discussion.

[Read: A conversation with Jeffrey Goldberg about his extraordinary scoop]

Conceivably, Waltz, by coordinating a national-security-related action over Signal, may have violated several provisions of the Espionage Act, which governs the handling of “national defense” information, according to several national-security lawyers interviewed by my colleague Shane Harris for this story. Harris asked them to consider a hypothetical scenario in which a senior U.S. official creates a Signal thread for the express purpose of sharing information with Cabinet officials about an active military operation. He did not show them the actual Signal messages or tell them specifically what had occurred.

All of these lawyers said that a U.S. official should not establish a Signal thread in the first place. Information about an active operation would presumably fit the law’s definition of “national defense” information. The Signal app is not approved by the government for sharing classified information. The government has its own systems for that purpose. If officials want to discuss military activity, they should go into a specially designed space known as a sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF—most Cabinet-level national-security officials have one installed in their home—or communicate only on approved government equipment, the lawyers said. Normally, cellphones are not permitted inside a SCIF, which suggests that as these officials were sharing information about an active military operation, they could have been moving around in public. Had they lost their phones, or had they been stolen, the potential risk to national security would have been severe.

Hegseth, Ratcliffe, and other Cabinet-level officials presumably would have the authority to declassify information, and several of the national-security lawyers noted that the hypothetical officials on the Signal chain might claim that they had declassified the information they shared. But this argument rings hollow, they cautioned, because Signal is not an authorized venue for sharing information of such a sensitive nature, regardless of whether it has been stamped “top secret” or not.

There was another potential problem: Waltz set some of the messages in the Signal group to disappear after one week, and some after four. That raises questions about whether the officials may have violated federal records law: Text messages about official acts are considered records that should be preserved.

“Under the records laws applicable to the White House and federal agencies, all government employees are prohibited from using electronic-messaging applications such as Signal for official business, unless those messages are promptly forwarded or copied to an official government account,” Jason R. Baron, a professor at the University of Maryland and the former director of litigation at the National Archives and Records Administration, told Harris.

“Intentional violations of these requirements are a basis for disciplinary action. Additionally, agencies such as the Department of Defense restrict electronic messaging containing classified information to classified government networks and/or networks with government-approved encrypted features,” Baron said.

Several former U.S. officials told Harris and me that they had used Signal to share unclassified information and to discuss routine matters, particularly when traveling overseas without access to U.S. government systems. But they knew never to share classified or sensitive information on the app, because their phones could have been hacked by a foreign intelligence service, which would have been able to read the messages on the devices. It is worth noting that Donald Trump, as a candidate for president (and as president), repeatedly and vociferously demanded that Hillary Clinton be imprisoned for using a private email server for official business when she was secretary of state. (It is also worth noting that Trump was indicted in 2023 for mishandling classified documents, but the charges were dropped after his election.)

Waltz and the other Cabinet-level officials were already potentially violating government policy and the law simply by texting one another about the operation. But when Waltz added a journalist—presumably by mistake—to his principals committee, he created new security and legal issues. Now the group was transmitting information to someone not authorized to receive it. That is the classic definition of a leak, even if it was unintentional, and even if the recipient of the leak did not actually believe it was a leak until Yemen came under American attack.  

All along, members of the Signal group were aware of the need for secrecy and operations security. In his text detailing aspects of the forthcoming attack on Houthi targets, Hegseth wrote to the group—which, at the time, included me—“We are currently clean on OPSEC.”

Shane Harris contributed reporting.

Abigail Hawkes earnestly dreams of disappearing. The teenage protagonist of Emily St. James’s new novel, Woodworking, can’t wait for the day when she can slip out of Mitchell, South Dakota, and make it to a big city like Chicago; once there, she imagines, she’ll shed her past and start over, and no one will know she’s transgender. Abigail has seen this vanishing act referred to as “woodworking” on the internet—picking up stakes, passing for cis, and fading into the woodwork. For now, Abigail is a pariah in her town and her school, facing discrimination both inane (locker vandalism, unsympathetic teachers) and terrifying (physical threats, a targeted bathroom ban). She’s been kicked out of her family home and is living with her sister. It was “a whole thing,” she says in a moment of profound understatement—a situation “so ridiculous” that she laughed in the face of her violent father. Yet beneath her adolescent bravado, she’s so unhappy that she’s willing to jettison her entire life thus far to get away from prejudice.

The anonymous woman who brought up woodworking online was warning readers like Abigail against it: “It destroys you. You can’t pretend you’re not who you are.” Abigail isn’t moved by this argument. She is open about being trans only because she’s been forced to be; she sees her public transition simply as a necessary first step toward the life she wants. But, as she quickly learns, no one gets to just come out once and be done with the whole mess. Many LGBTQ people face a lifetime of moments that require them to weigh honesty against safety—and transgender Americans are especially vulnerable in 2025, under an administration that has declared they don’t exist and demanded their disappearance from the military, schools, bathrooms, and public life writ large. Woodworking is set in the fall of 2016, just before Donald Trump’s first presidential victory, but its concerns are extremely of the moment. Yet the novel doesn’t feel prescriptive, because St. James explores momentous personal decisions dramatically rather than dogmatically, making clear through a variety of perspectives that there are no obvious choices—only trade-offs.

Queer life is often described with the binary metaphor of the closet: You’re in or you’re out, your identity hidden or declared. But that’s insufficient for many people, including Abigail. She’s already sacrificed security, rejecting her parents’ offer to take her back in as long as she pretends to be their son again. She won’t renounce her gender—but she’s all right with the idea of keeping her history secret. In Woodworking, St. James demolishes the simplistic closet concept, revealing lives that are marked by many transitions, and that pass through any number of gradations within the continuum of showing up, hiding, slipping under the radar, or openly demanding respect. Abigail will soon learn she’s not the only trans woman in Mitchell—and that the people around her will each decide on a different path.

The first person we meet is not Abigail but an English teacher who supervises Abigail’s time in detention (for calling her classmates “fascist cunts”). Everyone knows this teacher as the jovial, mustached Mr. Skyberg, whose first name appears in the novel only as a blank gray box. But the teacher quickly reveals something to the student that no one else on Earth knows: Skyberg is trans, too, and her chosen name is Erica. Erica is struggling: She’s divorced, in large part because she emotionally retreated from her ex-wife, Constance. Her only maybe-friend is her community-theater buddy Brooke Daniels, a member of Mitchell’s most powerful conservative Christian family. Erica believes it’s too late to transition and live as a woman, and definitely too late to woodwork. From her moderately safe hiding place, she feels as though she sees the world through a thick film (an effect St. James amplifies by narrating Erica’s chapters in the third person and Abigail’s in the first). Erica’s old name sounds “enveloped in fog” whenever someone says it aloud to her.

[Adam Serwer: The attack on trans rights won’t end there]

And yet she shares herself with Abigail because the thrill of being seen is intoxicating. Abigail claims to be put off by Erica’s sudden confession, but she is also genuinely glad to no longer be alone. The two form a strange, cross-generational friendship. The teacher has more life experience, but Abigail becomes, at 17, her mentor and mother figure, bringing Erica to a trans support group and complimenting the nail polish she’s been brave enough to wear in public. They discuss Erica’s work on a local production of Our Town that stars Constance, which is drawing the exes together. They talk about Abigail’s romance with Caleb Daniels, Brooke’s son, who initially hides their relationship out of shame and fear.

But by the middle of the novel, an unresolvable tension arises between Abigail and Erica. The former feels unsupported by her friend, left to weather transphobia on her own when someone else could be standing beside her. And Erica deeply envies Abigail’s open future, when her own feels so foreclosed. She is terrified that someone’s going to figure out her secret, and maintaining it requires more than silence: She knows that insufficiently masculine behavior courts rumors and harassment, and she has to actively pretend to be a different person to protect her relationships, her job, and her safety. Eventually, she panics, overwhelmed by the hazards ahead of her. “She had given it a try, and it had gone poorly, and now she was going to give up,” Erica thinks, looking at herself in the mirror. “There was power in knowing the obvious and choosing to ignore it.” She slams the door of self-knowledge behind her, losing Abigail’s friendship as she does.

St. James makes both choices seem reasonable, but irreconcilable—only to break the stalemate with a late revelation. Another woman in their town is also trans, but she woodworked years ago, and made decisions very different from either of theirs. She’s wedged so deeply into her conservative milieu that she now supports anti-trans candidates and causes. She has traded authenticity for stability, given up her old family for a new one, and made an uneasy peace with her own hypocrisy. Where another novel might conclude with either her downfall or her redemption, Woodworking chooses neither. Instead, the woman is left to live with the life she’s made, just as she has every day for decades.

Despite the precariousness of coming out, only one path really feels viable for the two main characters. Abigail realizes she can’t leave other trans women behind: “We’re all we’ve got,” she recognizes. “We have to take care of each other.” And Erica decides she must find a way to live, not just survive. One crucial scene midway through the story illustrates the pressure that’s been building up inside her and the benefit of letting it out. After deciding to deny her transness (which in turn alienates Abigail), Erica is miserable and exhausted. Remembering other people in her life who were punished for stepping outside gendered boxes, she weeps at the ways she’s contorted herself in order to stay locked inside her own. Then she sees Constance, and in a desperate flash, the words tumble out of her.

[Read: How gay culture helped everyone come out of the closet]

Why only then, years after they first met, after college, after their marriage and divorce, does Erica share her secret? Because she is done running, St. James suggests; because she wants to be seen the way Abigail is seen, at least by the person who’s come closest to knowing her. After that moment, Erica isn’t “out”—she’ll still need to tell her boss, her family, and her neighbors, or else let the rumor mill do its work. She’ll want to change her hair, her clothes, her grooming; she’ll have to deal with the guesses and questions of strangers; people will likely misgender her or misunderstand her, and they have the potential to do much worse. But during this quick, unrehearsed grasp at connection, readers see clearly why the rewards of that recognition are far higher than its cost.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has scrapped privacy provisions which otherwise protected people from surveillance based on sexual orientation or gender identity alone, Bloomberg reported last week.

The updated policy manual “removes references to those characteristics in sections that set guardrails on gathering intelligence,” according to the report. “The revisions follow President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 directive to scrap policies and protections focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion across federal agencies.”

The policy now reads: “[Office of Intelligence and Analysis] Personnel are prohibited from engaging in intelligence activities based solely on an individual’s or group’s race, ethnicity, sex, religion, country of birth, nationality, or disability.” Notably absent is mention of similar protections for the LGBTQ community.

The handbook formerly included sexual orientation and gender identity in this list, which would protect some members of the LGBTQ community from targeted surveillance that would infringe upon their constitutional rights.

The DHS did not reply to a request for comment from Erin in the Morning.

“Intelligence activities” is a loosely defined term to describe any kind of information collection and analysis that the government could use to take action. In theory, this serves to uphold the rule of law and public safety. In practice, “intelligence activities” often violate the civil liberties of marginalized groups and stymie political dissent.

Don Bell, policy counsel at the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), said the renewed policy is alarming, especially within the larger trends of government attacks on the LGBTQ community. This past week alone, about 100 LGBTQ intelligence officials were fired across agencies, as Erin in the Morning previously reported,

“Whenever you remove protections, it increases the risk to disfavored communities, and really Bell told Erin in the Morning. “If you’re able to violate the civil rights and liberties of one community or one individual, then there's no limit to it.”

In 2023, POGO senior investigator René Kladzyk released an extensive report on the ways LGBTQ people are uniquely vulnerable to surveillance. Health care records, DMV documents, social media, internet search histories, and geolocation data from cell phones are just a few tools that law enforcement has used or attempted to use to target marginalized populations.

In Florida, for example, Governor Ron DeSantis forced universities to disclose the records of trans patients. In Texas, the state’s Department of Public Safety was ordered to compile a list of people who had recently changed their gender markers on their driver’s license.

Kladzyk’s investigation also found that facial recognition software had been used overseas to flag women for targeted ad campaigns — technology that could just as easily be used by schools, medical institutions, law enforcement, and everyday citizens who seek to root out trans people. (Studies have shown facial recognition software often triggers false flags for trans people and people of color.)

Bell warned that identities can be “weaponized” and then “criminalized.” After the 9/11 attacks, law enforcement began spying on mosques and targeting Muslim people and spaces for increased surveillance. Officials said such racial profiling was justified because it was in the name of stopping terrorism. But studies show that racial or religious profiling is not an effective tool for combating terrorism.

The surveillance of LGBTQ communities goes back decades, when (allegedly) queer people were purged from government positions as part of the Lavender Scare. Today, some states are returning to this dark era of history. The past few years have ushered in an uptick of efforts to criminalize queerness through legislation that punishes gender-affirming parents, doctors and educators, as well as policies such as drag bans.

“When the government gets to decide what is right and what is wrong, then you don't necessarily need to be doing anything in order to become the target of surveillance,” Bell said. Even when policies are in place to ban profiling, it often does not stop the practice.

However, there are steps everyone can take to combat mass surveillance. The Electronic Frontier Foundation offers a surveillance self-defense toolkit on their website. The guidelines can help you secure your communications through encrypted messaging apps, lock down social media accounts, and protect your biometric data. It also has specialized toolkits for LGBTQ youth, journalists, and protesters.

Republicans called it the “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act.” Democrats dubbed it “The GOP Child Predator Empowerment Act”. The Senate clerk said it didn’t have the votes.

With that, Senate Democrats have once again staved off federal legislation that would effectively ban trans women in women’s sports.

The vote was split exactly on party lines following its passage in the majority-Republican House in January. Democratic Senators Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Peter Welch of Vermont, as well as Republicans Shelly Moore Capito of West Virginia and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, did not vote for reasons unknown.

There was little debate on the Senate floor. Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, a Democrat, said she opposed the bill because it was a states’ rights issue, not a federal one.

Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama spent nearly twenty minutes espousing anti-trans rhetoric, including flat-out falsehoods.

For example, he falsely asserted that male boxers had competed in the women’s category during the Paris 2024 Olympics, with the implication being the boxers are trans. But the boxers in question are not male, nor are they trans.

Nonetheless, two athletes — assigned female at birth — faced an extensive harassment campaign at the hands of anti-trans extremists, including J.K. Rowling and Elon Musk, who promoted the false assertion that these Olympians were secretly trans women.

One of them, Algeria’s Imane Khelif, is now suing both Rowling and Musk under France’s anti-cyberbullying laws.

Evidently, Tuberville also cannot discern between trans men and trans women. He railed against (unverified) claims that some states have women's teams that are “all boys.”

“We have women's teams in some states participating on the high school level that are all transgender boys,” Tuberville said. His bill makes no mention of trans boys or men; it exclusively targets trans women.

The failed legislation reflects a wider effort to disallow trans women (or, like Khelif, anyone suspected of being a trans woman) from women’s sports and spaces. States and sports leagues across the country have begun enacting similar policies.

President Donald Trump attempted to establish a federal ban of this nature via an executive order during his first few days.

In a statement to the press, the American Civil Liberties Union praised those who voted against the policy. “As anyone paying attention to the actions of the Trump administration can tell you, this bill is simply one part of a sweeping effort to push transgender people out of public life altogether,” said Mike Zamore, National Director of Policy and Government Affairs. “We need more attention on actually ensuring fair and equal opportunity for all girls and women, not inflicting invasive and humiliating checks and bullying on kids to serve adults’ political purposes. We are thankful to the senators who rejected this ugly effort to codify discrimination within a historic civil rights law, and we will always fight for the freedom of all young people to be themselves at school, including on the playing field.”

Correction note: A previous version of this story listed Senator Elisa Slotkin’s state as Minnesota, but it is in fact Michigan. The story has been corrected to note this.

Anyone who has read reports in the Associated Press, the New York Times, CBS News, CNN, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, NBC News, or Axios would be under the impression that the Trump administration has offered 2 million federal workers a "buyout" offer — eight months of pay in return for a voluntary resignation.

People who rely on television news were also told that federal workers were offered a buyout.

This is also the preferred narrative of the White House. In a statement, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that, under the policy, federal employees who "don’t want to work in the office and contribute to making America great again… are free to choose a different line of work, and the Trump Administration will provide a very generous payout of 8 months."

The problem with this narrative — and the media coverage — is that it is false.

A "buyout" is when an employer agrees to pay an employee a lump sum, often equivalent to the employee's salary for a particular length of time, in exchange for their voluntary resignation. After agreeing to the buyout offer, the employee receives the money, and their obligations to the employer end.

The Trump administration is proposing something very different.

Under the terms of the agreement, which is posted to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) website, employees agree to resign effective September 30, 2025. Until that date, they remain employees of the federal government but are "exempted from all applicable in-person work requirements." This, of course, is only a valuable concession if an employee is still working. The agreement is called a "deferred resignation," not a "buyout."

The agreement states that, after accepting the deferred resignation offer, "my employing agency will likely make adjustments in response to my resignation including moving, eliminating, consolidating, reassigning my position and tasks, reducing my official duties, and/or placing me on paid administrative leave until my resignation date." Administrative leave allows an employee to collect their salary while not working. But, as the agreement makes clear, that is not guaranteed. There will "likely" be changes to an employee’s official duties, according to the agreement. But they are still an employee of the federal government and are obligated to continue to fulfill whatever responsibilities are assigned to them.

An OPM memo, dated January 28, 2025, states that employees who accept the deferred resignation agreement "should promptly have their duties reassigned or eliminated and be placed on paid administrative leave." What constitutes a "prompt" placement onto paid administrative leave is not defined and will be up to each agency to determine. Further, the agency does not have to "promptly" place an employee on administrative leave if "the agency head determines that it is necessary for the employee to be actively engaged in transitioning job duties." An OPM fact sheet says federal employees who accept the "deferred registration" are not expected to work "except in rare cases determined by your agency."

This is where the policy completely falls apart. It assumes that, for many federal employees, their duties can simply be eliminated or assigned to some other federal employee who is not busy. But there is no basis for this assumption.

The policy appears to be written by allies of Trump, including Elon Musk, who have little to no experience in the federal government. The subject line of the email, "A fork in the road," was the same subject line Musk used when he encouraged Twitter employees to resign. After mass resignations, Musk realized that a bunch of the people who left were performing essential functions and tried to rehire them. "There's no question that some of the people who were let go probably shouldn't have been let go," Musk said.

On X, Musk falsely described the deferred resignation agreement as a "severance offer."

Musk also claimed on X that "[t]hose deciding to take the deferred resignation deal can do anything they want for the next 8 months and are not required to work at all whatsoever." But this is contradicted by the documents distributed by OPM, including the email, the memo, and the fact sheet.

Yesterday, the deferred resignation offer went out to 2 million federal employees, many of whom have decades of experience and are performing tasks that are essential to the functioning of their agencies. It was not targeted at individuals the Trump administration — or anyone else — believes are performing unnecessary or duplicative work. Federal employees who accept this deal do not get a buyout. They are simply gambling that their bosses place them on administrative leave. But there are no guarantees.

Federal employees could find that they agreed to resign in exchange for eight more months of working from home. Even that may not be a real benefit since many federal employees are members of unions that have contractual rights to work from home.

The Trump administration did not offer an actual eight-month buyout since such a proposal would be prohibited by law. As the American Prospect notes, federal law caps payments to incentivize voluntary resignation at $25,000, which is a lot less than most federal employees make in eight months. As a result, the deferred resignation program itself could be deemed illegal if it is viewed as a violation of the Chief Human Capital Officers Act of 2002, which established the cap.

Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) urged federal employees not to accept the offer, saying it was a trap. "The president has tried to terrorize you for about a week, and then gives you a little sweetheart offer if you resign in the next week," Kaine said on the floor of the Senate. "Don’t be fooled! …If you accept that offer and resign, he’ll stiff you.… That promise is worth nothing."

Last week, we started a new publication, Musk Watch. NPR covered our launch HERE. It features accountability journalism focused on one of the most powerful humans in history. It is free to sign up, so we hope you’ll give it a try and let us know what you think.

Subscribe to Musk Watch

On Thursday, multiple school systems and representatives issued statements rejecting Trump’s executive order that directs schools to discriminate against transgender students or face legal consequences. The order, released Wednesday, labels transgender identity as an “anti-American ideology” and mandates discrimination in bathrooms and locker rooms while threatening teachers with criminal charges for supporting trans students’ social transitions. In response, school officials across the country are making it clear: they will not comply, and they remain committed to protecting the rights of their transgender students.

On Thursday, Julie Yang, President of the Montgomery County Board of Education in Maryland, issued a forceful response to Trump’s executive order in a mass email to families. Representing a school district of 160,000 students, Yang affirmed that Montgomery County would continue to recognize gender identity as a protected characteristic. “We stand by our community and school system values, which include learning, relationships, respect, excellence, and equity. They guide us every day and anchor us when navigating difficult times. We intend to use all legal means necessary to uphold them… We are committed to maintaining local authority over our curriculum, teaching, and learning. And we will fiercely support our teachers and staff as they implement our curriculum and policies.”

Harrisonburg City Public Schools Superintendent Michael Richards also issued a strong response to Trump’s executive order. The district was one of three specifically named in the order for its policies supporting transgender students. In his statement, Richards pushed back forcefully, saying, “The claims in their statement are false. We do not have a policy that violates anyone’s rights or indoctrinates children. What we do have is a culture of respect—one that honors the dignity and diversity of all students, families, and educators.”

San Francisco Unified School District also responded to Trump’s executive order, affirming that it would continue to embrace its diversity as a core strength. “This includes our district’s trans-identified students and all of our LGBTQ+ students and families,” the statement read. The district made clear that its core values would not change, emphasizing its commitment to supporting all students’ rights, including “addressing students using the name and pronoun that reflects who they are” and “providing access to school activities, spaces such as locker rooms and restrooms, and gender-neutral dress codes that fit with their gender identity.”

Superintendent John Thein, in an email to parents of the St. Paul Public Schools district, reaffirmed the district’s commitment to “respect, affirm, and welcome all students, staff, and family members.” He emphasized that the district would continue supporting students regardless of their minority status, explicitly including gender identity and sexual orientation. Thein closed the message with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr., underscoring the district’s stance on equity and inclusion.

Columbus City Public Schools in Ohio— a state that had already heavily targeted transgender students before Trump’s executive orders— delivered its own fierce message of resistance. In an interview with the Columbus Dispatch, Michael Cole, president of the school district, called Trump’s order a challenge and defiantly stated, “Bring it on.” He emphasized that the district has a “strong infrastructure in place” to support its students. Meanwhile, Scott DiMauro, president of the Ohio Education Association, condemned the order as an attempt to “instill fear and sow division in a way that is intended to try to stop educators from teaching the truth.”

As Trump’s executive orders take effect, the greatest immediate threat isn’t their legality—it’s premature compliance before they can be challenged in court. Most of these orders function more as legal intimidation tactics than enforceable law, relying on the chilling effect of DOJ threats to pressure hospitals, teachers, and institutions into abandoning transgender people before the legal process even begins. But resistance is already mounting. These school districts, and others, recognize the stakes and are refusing to fold, standing firm in their commitment to protect transgender students—students who lack the institutional power to fight back on their own against an administration determined to erase them.

On Tuesday, Trump signed a sweeping executive order attempting to ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth nationwide—an unprecedented move to dictate medical policy by executive fiat. The order marks one of the most aggressive federal attacks on transgender rights to date, something many anticipated but nonetheless feared. It follows two other executive orders issued within days: one erasing legal recognition of transgender people, including on identification documents like passports, and another branding transgender service members as "dishonorable" in an effort to justify their removal from the military. Together, these actions signal a full-scale federal assault on transgender existence.

The executive order wields every available lever of federal power—and even some Trump may not legally control—to attempt a nationwide ban on gender-affirming care for transgender people under the age of 19. Notably, this includes legal adults who are 18 years old. While such a sweeping move lacks legislative backing, Trump relies on dubious reinterpretations of existing laws to justify parts of the order while outright bypassing constitutional limits in others. The success of this effort will largely depend on enforcement and whether hospitals preemptively comply, something advocates are already warning medical institutions against.

This analysis will break down the order section by section, outlining what it does and how it attempts to do it:

The first section, the policy and purpose section, frames gender-affirming care as “maiming” and claims that transgender youth will “soon regret” transitioning. This rhetoric, while inflammatory, is misleading—though the section emphasizes surgical transition, such procedures are exceedingly rare for transgender youth. In reality, the vast majority of transgender minors who receive medical care start with reversible puberty blockers, followed by hormone therapy if they, their families, and their medical providers determine it is in their best interest. Chest masculinization surgery is only performed in exceptional cases for older transgender youth with significant medical indications. Far from causing harm, this care often prevents the need for more invasive procedures later in life, as it mitigates irreversible physical changes caused by undergoing the wrong puberty.

Also misleading is the claim that transgender youth will “soon regret” transitioning. Research overwhelmingly shows that detransition and regret are exceedingly rare. A recent study found that for those who transition as minors, the vast majority remain satisfied with their decision 6-10 years later, with only 3% discontinuing hormone therapy. This aligns with the reality that transgender youth face extensive waiting periods and rigorous evaluations before receiving medical care. Even the Cass Review in England—frequently cited by those seeking to ban transgender healthcare—identified less than 10 cases of detransition among a sample of 3,000 individuals who were either on waiting lists or had received care.

Despite this evidence, the executive order uses these misleading claims to justify sweeping nationwide crackdowns on transgender healthcare.

Section two is a straightforward definitions section, but it includes a few critical elements worth noting. First, it defines “children” as individuals under the age of 19, effectively extending the ban to legal adults who are 18. It is unclear whether this is an intentional move to test the legal boundaries of restricting adult medical autonomy, but it sets a concerning precedent. Second, it defines gender-affirming care as “chemical and surgical mutilation,” a deliberately inflammatory choice of words. This definition becomes particularly significant in later sections, where the administration attempts to leverage existing federal laws—such as those prohibiting female genital mutilation (FGM)—to criminalize transgender healthcare.

Section three is a policy that rescinds all policies that reply on WPATH guidance. Notably, this is one of a few sections that do not have age limits, which means it likely will apply to adult care as well. This may seem like a small change, but WPATH guidance helps determine things like private insurance healthcare coverage, federal health insurance coverage, guidelines for time off after gender affirming surgeries, and more. It also helps inform notices put out by various federal agencies speaking of transgender healthcare issues.

The more troubling aspect of this section is its directive for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to publish a review of literature on transgender care. Similar tactics have been used in other governments to justify bans on gender-affirming care, with some success in restricting both youth and adult access. In the United Kingdom, this approach led to the Cass Review—a deeply flawed and politically motivated report conducted by individuals with extensive ties to SPLC-designated anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups. In Florida, a state medical board stacked with similarly biased members produced a report purposefully manipulated and used to justify banning care, though it was widely criticized by medical professionals.

While Florida’s efforts were largely dismissed as bad science, the Cass Review gained initial traction before major medical institutions condemned its findings. The greatest danger of a federally commissioned review by HHS lies not in its scientific credibility—given that its conclusions are clearly preordained to justify a ban—but in how the media will cover it. If journalists treat the document as a legitimate scientific endeavor rather than an exercise in political theater, it could lend undeserved credibility to an attack on transgender healthcare.

Section four is a more consequential part of this executive order. It seeks to hold research and education grants hostage for major medical schools, research hospitals, and teaching hospitals, effectively coercing them into ceasing gender-affirming care for transgender youth. This would impact some of the largest hospitals in the country, many of which serve sizable transgender populations. The move echoes an earlier budget standoff in which Republicans declared trans youth care their “hill we die on” and nearly defunded children’s hospitals simply for offering such care. Now, Trump appears to be using the same tactic to force compliance with his broader effort to eliminate gender-affirming care for minors.

Section five contains the bulk of the means of this executive order. It directs the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to take regulatory actions against gender-affirming care, citing several laws and policies that could be weaponized to enact a ban. These range from withholding Medicaid funding from providers or hospital systems that offer such care to enforcing “clinical abuse” and “inappropriate use” regulations in ways that could criminalize treatment. The order also references vague oversight powers and “safety” memoranda, leaving the extent of enforcement open-ended. Ultimately, it delegates authority to the HHS secretary to determine how best to use these mechanisms to eliminate gender-affirming care for trans youth—broadly empowering the agency to implement sweeping restrictions with minimal legislative input.

Sections six and seven focus on banning insurance coverage for gender-affirming care. Section six targets TRICARE, effectively cutting off access to care for the children of military families. Section seven extends similar exclusions to the family members of all federal employees, barring coverage for trans youth under federal health insurance plans. Notably, multiple courts have already ruled that such exclusions are unconstitutional, setting up an inevitable legal battle over these provisions.

Section eight is arguably the most alarming, as it explicitly weaponizes the Department of Justice against transgender youth, their families, and their medical providers. The order defines gender-affirming care as “mutilation” and then exploits that definition to claim that female genital mutilation (FGM) laws apply to transgender care. It directs the DOJ to enforce these laws against providers and calls on state attorneys general to do the same.

The section further extends its reach by instructing federal agencies to investigate and take action against doctors and even pharmaceutical companies that manufacture medications used in gender-affirming care. While states like Texas and Missouri have attempted similar crackdowns using consumer protection laws, these efforts have been considered fringe and largely unsuccessful. However, if the full weight of the federal government is brought to bear—particularly through consumer protection laws that are then used to classify trans healthcare as “deceptive”—it could severely disrupt access to care nationwide. Notably, the provisions in parts a-c of this section contain no age limit, meaning they could be used to target care for adults as well as minors.

Lastly, the order directly targets transgender youth in transgender sanctuary states. Over the past three years, multiple states have enacted laws to protect families fleeing from states that have banned gender-affirming care. This executive order explicitly directs the Department of Justice to prioritize action against those states, signaling a federal crackdown on legal protections that were designed to shield trans youth from hostile policies in their home states.

The final section states that this will have a 60 day timeline for the first progress marker in implementation.

The executive order is sweeping in scope and will almost certainly face multiple legal challenges across the United States. Many of its provisions are likely unconstitutional, but the administration’s strategy—weaponizing dubious interpretations of existing laws to achieve its ends—will make the legal battle complex. This mirrors Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s attempt to use child abuse laws against the parents of transgender youth. The broad and erratic nature of the order will make it difficult for legal challenges to keep pace with the administration’s attempts to “flood the zone” with overlapping and unconstitutional actions.

The greatest danger of this order is not simply its illegality, but its ability to force institutions into compliance before courts can intervene. Hospital systems, fearing federal retaliation, may drop gender-affirming care preemptively, creating a chilling effect even in states that have legal protections for transgender people. Its true effectiveness will depend not just on court challenges, but on the willingness of blue states to resist, ensuring their hospitals continue providing care and standing firm against federal pressure. This will be a test not just of the legal system, but of the resolve of the medical community, state governments, and ordinary citizens to protect transgender youth in an era of escalating attacks.

The American populism of the late 19th century was a rebellion of working people against financial elites; the American populism of this century is one of financial elites feigning rebellion while crushing the vulnerable. This is why, just a few short days into his presidency, Donald Trump is already making good on his promise to persecute trans people zealously. On Monday, Trump issued an executive order purging trans service members from the military on the grounds that “expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service,” a statement belied by the thousands serving honorably until they were singled out for discrimination by their commander in chief. A day later, Trump issued a second executive order that could make gender-affirming care for young people unavailable in most of the country.

The damage wrought by legitimizing this form of discrimination will not be limited to the trans community. Laws and legal rulings that undermine trans rights may soon be used to restrict the rights of other, less marginal groups. Anyone naive enough to think that the government can deny fundamental rights to one group without putting another’s at risk is in for some nasty surprises. That much became clear during oral arguments at the Supreme Court in December over Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors.

At issue in the case, United States v. Skrmetti, is whether Tennessee’s ban on medical treatments for gender dysphoria—the medical diagnosis for someone who believes their gender does not match their biological sex—unconstitutionally discriminates on the basis of sex. The Tennessee bill declares that “this state has a legitimate, substantial, and compelling interest in encouraging minors to appreciate their sex,” and therefore in preventing medical treatments that “encourage minors to become disdainful of their sex.” Implicit in this is the belief that if you don’t “appreciate your sex,” then the state should force you to. Beyond the legal jargon and pretext, the underlying conflict here is between conservatives who have concluded that trans identity is a social contagion to be eradicated and that using state power for this cause is legitimate, and their opponents, who believe that trans people are entitled to equal protection under the law.

[Read: The push for puberty blockers got ahead of the research]

Crucially, the law bans treatments—such as hormones and puberty blockers—only for the purpose of a minor’s gender transition; they remain legal to prescribe for any other reason. The law bans treatments that enable “a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex.” Because those same medications are available as long as they are not used for gender-affirming care, lawyers for the Biden administration argued that the ban constitutes discrimination on the basis of sex. The Biden administration’s position was that this kind of care can be regulated—then–Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar cited as a legitimate example a West Virginia law that requires two physicians to sign off—but that the regulation cannot be discriminatory. Not all measures that distinguish on the basis of sex are unconstitutional—see, for instance, sex-specific bathrooms—but they are subject to greater legal scrutiny; Tennessee is denying that it is engaging in discrimination, and thus not subject to that level of scrutiny.

One might question why this case matters if you are not yourself trans or do not have a loved one who is. The number of trans people is objectively small—less than a fraction of 1 percent of the population. A recent JAMA Pediatrics study found that fewer than 0.1 percent of young people with private insurance received hormone treatments or puberty blockers during a five-year period—a limited number of patients overall, but one for whom the stakes are very high. The outcome of this case has much broader implications than it might appear, because if a state can, as Prelogar put it, force people to “look and live like boys and girls,” subject to the government’s definition of what that means, then a lot more people might be affected. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed out during oral argument, for many years, some states prevented women from becoming butchers or lawyers. Women could not have their own credit cards or bank accounts until the 1970s. If it’s not unconstitutional sex discrimination for the government to say that people cannot behave “inconsistent with their sex,” well now you’re really talking about a lot of people—a lot more people than the rather tiny population included in the category of “they/them” that the Trump campaign was hoping you feel disgust and contempt for.

Much depends on the nature of the justices’ ultimate decision and how far-reaching it is. The conservative movement’s mobilization against trans rights, however, is just one step in a wider rolling-back of other antidiscrimination protections. Conservatives have consciously targeted a diminutive, politically powerless segment of the population, trying to strip them of their constitutional rights, and then used those legal precedents to undermine laws that prevent discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation, and other characteristics. The trick was making Americans think that only the rights of trans people are on the chopping block, that “they/them” could be persecuted without consequences for “you.” As Frederick Douglass once said, “Slavery lives in this country not because of any paper Constitution, but in the moral blindness of the American people, who persuade themselves that they are safe, though the rights of others may be struck down.”

“One of the things that’s worth emphasizing is that for the people who brought the case, the movement that’s behind this litigation, there have long been anxieties about sex-discrimination jurisprudence, period,” Mary Ziegler, a professor at UC Davis School of Law, told me. “So if that’s the agenda that’s driving the litigation, and the Court is embracing the arguments behind that agenda, you have to wonder if this isn’t the end of the road.”

The harm to antidiscrimination law more broadly could be immense. Many of the rationales offered by the conservative justices during oral argument echo the reasoning of those opposed to bans on racial discrimination. If they regain legitimacy, they could later be used to weaken other laws that protect Americans from bigotry.

[Read: Anti-trans discrimination is sex discrimination]

For example, defenders of Tennessee’s ban have said that it does not discriminate based on sex, because it prohibits gender-affirming care to both boys and girls—a point Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett raised during oral argument. Similar assertions were made in defense of interracial-marriage bans, which prevented both Black and white people from marrying their chosen spouses. “If we’re reinstating the equal-application theory … that was a theory that was used historically to uphold and justify race-based distinctions,” Melissa Murray, a law professor at NYU, told me. “I don’t know how you can wall off sex discrimination from race discrimination if you’re reviving this equal-treatment claim.”

Kavanaugh suggested that because the case involved medical science, the Court should just leave it to the “democratic process,” an approach that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson pointedly observed would have prevented the Court from striking down bans on interracial marriage, because at the time, Virginia had argued that the “science” regarding interracial marriage “was substantially in doubt,” and therefore banning it should be up to the voters. The point of equal protection is to prevent fundamental rights from being subject to mere popularity contests—especially when, as Justice Sotomayor pointed out, the population at risk is so few as to be politically powerless.

The Trump administration’s early actions make clear that exploiting voters’ fears about trans people was part of a larger plan to undermine antidiscrimination protections for many other people, even as they intend to make the lives of millions of others—including many of Trump’s own supporters—much worse. Among the first actions taken by the administration was the repeal of the Lyndon B. Johnson–era directive ordering federal contractors to avoid discriminating on the basis of race, as well as subsequent orders barring discrimination on the basis of gender. The administration has also frozen all new cases in the civil-rights division of the Justice Department. Trump has also ended all federal-government diversity efforts and intends to fire employees involved in them. The administration’s executive order on DEI also threatens to sue companies for having diversity programs, a threat that will encourage companies to resegregate to avoid being accused of anti-white discrimination. Trump has shut down the White House’s Spanish-language website, ended refugee- and humanitarian-parole programs, and unconstitutionally attempted to nullify birthright citizenship.   

[Read: Trump targets his own government]

Even before Trump took office, Republican-controlled states passed laws that curtail women’s rights to free speech, privacy, and movement on the grounds that those restrictions are necessary to ban abortion—something that, as Justice Samuel Alito took pains to reiterate during oral argument in Skrmetti, neither he nor his colleagues in the conservative movement regard as sex-based discrimination.

This agenda has, by the Republicans’ own account, been partly enabled by their success at demonizing transgender people in the November election. Trans people are a group few in number and marginalized enough that there is little political cost at the moment to persecuting them as Republicans have, or blaming them for their political misfortunes and abandoning them as Democrats have following their electoral loss. One transgender congressional representative was enough for Republicans to demand that all of the Capitol’s bathrooms be restricted by “biological sex.” The tiny percentage of trans children receiving care is justification to ban them from accessing treatment they seek. A defense-funding bill passed with limited Democratic support and signed by President Joe Biden will ban gender-affirming care for the children of service members—for those with trans children, their reward for serving their country is that their children will be discriminated against. If they are stationed in states like Texas, which has no less than 15 military installations, they will have few options, if any, for care outside the military system.

[Read: The Democrats need an honest conversation on gender identity]

This is shameless bullying, but then, the president is himself a bully of the highest order, and presidents are moral exemplars, for better and worse. It is not necessary for one to approve of gender-affirming care in order to respect people’s right to make their own decisions about what medical care is best for them and their families, or to oppose this kind of outright, ideologically motivated state persecution.

Over the past century, many groups have successfully sought to have their rights recognized, winning, at least on paper, the same rights as white, Christian, heterosexual men. The right-wing project today, which Trumpist justices support, is to reestablish by state force the hierarchies of race, gender, and religion they deem moral and foundational. Whether that’s forcing LGBTQ people back into the closet, compelling women to remain in loveless marriages, or confining Black and Hispanic people to the drudgery of—as Trump once put it—“Black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs” in which they are meant to toil, the purpose of this ideological project is the same: to put the broader mass of people back in their “proper places.” To those who see the world this way, freedom means the freedom of the majority to oppress the minority. Attacking trans people first was simply their plan for getting the American people on board with taking many other freedoms away.

The National Defense Authorization Act, which enacts the first federal anti-LGBTQ+ law in over a decade and targets the trans kids of military service members with bans on coverage of their gender affirming care, just passed with 81 Democratic votes. This bill and the votes of several Democrats are seen as a severe betrayal of transgender constituents.

The provision in this bill is similar to a version of earlier proposals introduced in the Senate version of the bill prior to the election. Those Senate provisions not only targeted transgender youth but also sought to restrict gender-affirming surgeries for transgender adults in the military. Now, passed by the House, it is expected that this policy will severely disrupt the lives of transgender family of service members, stripping transgender family members of vital healthcare coverage.

Erin In The Morning has made the decision to publish each of the names of Democrats who voted for this bill. If you see your representative on this list, you can contact them to let them know how you feel by entering your address and looking up their information here. The source for the full list can be found at the roll call vote.

With no further wait, here is the list of Democrats that voted for the NDAA:

From the state of Alabama

• Sewell (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Alaska

• Peltola (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Arizona

• Gallego (Democrat) votes Yea

• Stanton (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of California

• Aguilar (Democrat) votes Yea

• Carbajal (Democrat) votes Yea

• Costa (Democrat) votes Yea

• Eshoo (Democrat) votes Yea

• Harder (Democrat) votes Yea

• Levin (Democrat) votes Yea

• Lieu (Democrat) votes Yea

• Lofgren (Democrat) votes Yea

• Panetta (Democrat) votes Yea

• Peters (Democrat) votes Yea

• Ruiz (Democrat) votes Yea

• Thompson (Democrat) votes Yea

• Torres (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Colorado

• Caraveo (Democrat) votes Yea

• Crow (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Connecticut

• Courtney (Democrat) votes Yea

• DeLauro (Democrat) votes Yea

• Hayes (Democrat) votes Yea

• Himes (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Florida

• Castor (Democrat) votes Yea

• Cherfilus-McCormick (Democrat) votes Yea

• Frankel, Lois (Democrat) votes Yea

• Moskowitz (Democrat) votes Yea

• Soto (Democrat) votes Yea

• Wilson (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Georgia

• Bishop (Democrat) votes Yea

• McBath (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Hawaii

• Case (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Illinois

• Budzinski (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Indiana

• Mrvan (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Maine

• Golden (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Maryland

• Hoyer (Democrat) votes Yea

• Ivey (Democrat) votes Yea

• Mfume (Democrat) votes Yea

• Ruppersberger (Democrat) votes Yea

• Trone (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Michigan

• Scholten (Democrat) votes Yea

• Slotkin (Democrat) votes Yea

• Thanedar (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Minnesota

• Phillips (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Mississippi

• Thompson (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Nevada

• Horsford (Democrat) votes Yea

• Lee (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of New Hampshire

• Pappas (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of New Jersey

• Gottheimer (Democrat) votes Yea

• Sherrill (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of New Mexico

• Vasquez (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of New York

• Jeffries (Democrat) votes Yea

• Kennedy (Democrat) votes Yea

• Meeks (Democrat) votes Yea

• Morelle (Democrat) votes Yea

• Ryan (Democrat) votes Yea

• Suozzi (Democrat) votes Yea

• Tonko (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of North Carolina

• Davis (Democrat) votes Yea

• Jackson (Democrat) votes Yea

• Manning (Democrat) votes Yea

• Nickel (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Ohio

• Kaptur (Democrat) votes Yea

• Landsman (Democrat) votes Yea

• Sykes (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Pennsylvania

• Cartwright (Democrat) votes Yea

• Dean (Democrat) votes Yea

• Houlahan (Democrat) votes Yea

• Wild (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Rhode Island

• Magaziner (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of South Carolina

• Clyburn (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Texas

• Allred (Democrat) votes Yea

• Cuellar (Democrat) votes Yea

• Escobar (Democrat) votes Yea

• Gonzalez, V. (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Virginia

• McClellan (Democrat) votes Yea

• Scott (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Washington

• Larsen (Democrat) votes Yea

• Perez (Democrat) votes Yea

• Schrier (Democrat) votes Yea

• Strickland (Democrat) votes Yea

On Wednesday, the United States Senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), including an amendment that removes healthcare coverage for gender-affirming care for transgender family members of armed service personnel. Its passage marks the first anti-LGBTQ+ provision passed by Congress in years, signaling potential trouble for transgender people facing future legislative attacks from Congress.

In a last-minute effort to block these provisions from becoming law, Senator Tammy Baldwin, joined by 20 other Democrats, introduced an amendment to strip the controversial language targeting transgender youth. Despite controlling the Senate, Democratic leadership refused to allow a vote on the amendment, potentially to avoid forcing senators to publicly take a stance on transgender rights. Instead, they expedited the bill to final passage, where 37 Democratic senators voted in favor of the NDAA with the anti-trans provision intact.

EITM is releasing the full list of Democratic senators who voted for the bill. If you see your Senator on this list, you can contact them to let them know how you feel by entering your address and looking up their information here. The source for the full list can be found at the roll call vote.

From the state of Arizona

• Kelly (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of California

• Padilla (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Colorado

• Bennet (Democrat) votes Yea

• Hickenlooper (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Connecticut

• Blumenthal (Democrat) votes Yea

• Murphy (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Delaware

• Carper (Democrat) votes Yea

• Coons (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Georgia

• Ossoff (Democrat) votes Yea

• Warnock (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Hawaii

• Hirono (Democrat) votes Yea

• Schatz (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Illinois

• Duckworth (Democrat) votes Yea

• Durbin (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Maryland

• Cardin (Democrat) votes Yea

• Van Hollen (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Michigan

• Peters (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Minnesota

• Klobuchar (Democrat) votes Yea

• Smith (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Montana

• Tester (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Nevada

• Cortez Masto (Democrat) votes Yea

• Rosen (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of New Hampshire

• Hassan (Democrat) votes Yea

• Shaheen (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of New Mexico

• Heinrich (Democrat) votes Yea

• Luján (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of New York

• Gillibrand (Democrat) votes Yea

• Schumer (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Ohio

• Brown (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Pennsylvania

• Casey (Democrat) votes Yea

• Fetterman (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Rhode Island

• Reed (Democrat) votes Yea

• Whitehouse (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Virginia

• Kaine (Democrat) votes Yea

• Warner (Democrat) votes Yea

From the state of Washington

• Cantwell (Democrat) votes Yea

• Murray (Democrat) votes Yea

In recent weeks, anxiety has grown among transgender advocates over a potential shift within the Democratic Party. Following the 2024 election, a handful of Democratic representatives signaled a willingness to capitulate on transgender issues, a concern amplified by the swift passage of a military spending bill that included a provision targeting the transgender children of military service members—legislation that garnered significant Democratic support. With more anti-trans bills expected to surface in the coming months, fears of Democratic defections came to a head this weekend when New Jersey Democratic State Senate Deputy Majority Leader Paul Sarlo, in a stunning departure from party norms, referred to transgender women as men and endorsed banning them from participating in women’s sports during an interview with Steve Adubato on PBS.

“When asked the question, should men who... or people who were previously men or born as a man… who transitions to be a woman, that they should not compete in women’s sports, why is that a controversial issue that so many of your Democratic colleagues couldn’t give a straight answer to… no, we should protect women in sports and women should compete against women… that is some radical position?” the host, Steve Adubato, asked of the Senator.

Senator Sarlo responded, “The Democratic Party failed miserably. It’s very simple, males shouldn’t be participating in women’s sports, whether it’s at the rec level, the high school level, the collegiate level, period. That’s the end.”

Adubato followed up, “Alright, but I will say this. Some of your colleagues on the far… the progressive wing of the party are not only uncomfortable saying that, they will not say that.”

Sarlo interjected, “I’m not afraid to say it. I feel strongly about that, and I think if we just talked a little bit more straight up, have a little more practical common sense, we could have done better at the polls. Hey, elections have consequences.”

You can watch the exchange here:

Senator Sarlo’s remarks arrive at a time when the Democratic Party is facing internal soul-searching over its stance on transgender rights. Last month, a military funding bill included an anti-trans provision barring Tricare from covering gender-affirming care for the transgender children of servicemembers. That bill passed the House with the support of 81 Democrats. In the Senate, Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) led an effort to strip the anti-trans provision through an amendment, but only 24 Senate Democrats co-sponsored it. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) ultimately requested the amendment be withdrawn, avoiding a full Senate vote and preventing Democrats from having to go on the record regarding their support for transgender youth.

The party will face a tougher reckoning in 2025, as Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has named a transgender sports ban as the top legislative priority. The privileged bill, set to be heard on Tuesday, will compel Democrats to take a clear stance on transgender rights: stand firm in support or capitulate, betraying their trans constituents who overwhelmingly vote Democratic. The bill could be blocked in the Senate if Republicans fail to secure seven Democratic votes to break a filibuster. However, sources tell Erin In The Morning that the vote is expected to be razor-thin, with enough Democrats potentially willing to bargain away transgender rights, putting the outcome in serious question.

Though Sarlo frames a trans sports ban as “common sense,” its implementation reveals a far more indiscriminate reality. While most discussions center on high-profile cases in sports like swimming, trans sports bans operate as a blunt instrument, impacting a wide range of activities where the concept of athletic advantage is irrelevant. Transgender individuals could be banned from participating in darts, pool, fishing, and dancing—activities where gender offers no competitive edge. Even chess is not spared; international controversy erupted when FIDE, the global chess organization, ruled that transgender women could not compete in women’s chess leagues, showcasing the absurdity and overreach of such policies.

For transgender activists and Democrats supporting transgender rights, leaders like Senator Sarlo represent a significant threat to LGBTQ+ people. History shows that targeting transgender sports is often the first domino in a larger torrent of anti-trans legislation. These attacks rarely stop at sports; they tend to spiderweb into every aspect of transgender people’s lives, from healthcare to legal recognition to public accommodations. For those in New Jersey, contacting your Democratic Senator or Representative is crucial. You can enter your address on Datamade here to make your voice heard and let them know where you stand.

On Monday, Donald Trump announced his selection for Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights: Harmeet Dhillon, a far-right California lawyer with a track record that could pose significant threats to transgender Americans. Dhillon, known for her staunch opposition to LGBTQ+ rights, has represented Chloe Cole, a prominent anti-trans detransitioner who has called puberty blockers a “gateway drug” and testified in favor of numerous state-level trans bans. Cole’s lawsuit against Kaiser Permanente is just one example of Dhillon’s alignment with far-right anti-trans movement. With the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division at her disposal, Dhillon’s appointment signals an alarming shift that could make life increasingly difficult for transgender people nationwide, including those who have sought refuge in blue states to escape anti-trans legislation.

Harmeet Dhillon's most prominent work includes founding the Center for American Liberty, a legal organization that focuses heavily on anti-transgender cases in blue states. The organization's "featured cases" section highlights several lawsuits, such as Chloe Cole's case against Kaiser Permanente; a lawsuit challenging a Colorado school's use of a transgender student's preferred name; a case against a California school district seeking to implement policies that would forcibly out transgender students; and a lawsuit against Vermont for denying a foster care license to a family unwilling to comply with nondiscrimination policies regarding transgender youth. With Dhillon's potential new role at the Department of Justice, these cases may gain renewed significance, as she is given the ability to leverage the department's power against states that protect their transgender residents.

The attorney herself has openly advocated for overturning blue-state laws that protect transgender individuals. For instance, in response to Maine’s designation as a refuge for trans people fleeing anti-trans crackdowns in red states, Dhillon claimed such a law would be unconstitutional. Safe-state laws like Maine’s have grown increasingly common, explicitly preventing care provided within the state from being subpoenaed by out-of-state actors seeking to prosecute individuals under laws that do not apply in blue states. These laws safeguard residents from interstate legal attacks over actions such as traveling to access gender-affirming care, abortions, or other reproductive healthcare. As of December, 17 states have enacted “shield laws” designed to protect their transgender residents from these efforts to eliminate access to care, even in jurisdictions where bans do not exist.

Such laws have taken on heightened importance this year as officials like Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton attempt to access medical records of transgender individuals across state lines. Paxton issued subpoenas to healthcare providers in states as far away as Georgia and Washington, seeking information on transgender patients from Texas who received gender-affirming care. In Washington, a robust shield law effectively blocked his out-of-state legal efforts.

Dhillon has repeatedly expressed extreme anti-transgender views on social media, often engaging with and praising the Libs of TikTok account—an account whose posts frequently precede bomb threats targeting schools and hospitals. In one such post, Dhillon commented on a school in Idaho respecting a transgender student, stating, “We are talking IDAHO, folks. Not coastal California. I’m telling you this predatory gender madness is everywhere!” In another post, she responded to Glenn Beck by calling gender transition a lie, writing, “Make it unsafe for American doctors to destroy young American lives through the lie of sex change aka ‘gender transition.’ Expand the statutes of limitation. Make insurance paying for these procedures also pay for detransition. Make it stop.” In that interview, Dhillon doubled down, declaring that hospitals providing gender-affirming care must be “made unsafe” to do so.

If Dhillon is confirmed, she will have an array of tools at her disposal to reshape the legal landscape for transgender people. She could direct the Department of Justice to intervene in lawsuits against hospitals or states that provide protections for transgender residents. Schools that affirm transgender students could become targets of federal scrutiny. Existing civil rights laws might even be reinterpreted under her guidance to mandate discrimination against transgender people rather than shield them from it. Dhillon has previously expressed support for such interpretations, stating, “Title IX was passed by Congress to protect women’s rights, not the rights of men pretending to be women in sports and equal treatment in our educational institutions.”

The position must be confirmed by the Senate. To contact your senator to speak about the pick you can use Datamade’s lookup to find the correct contact information.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s latest spin on MAGA, “Make frying oil tallow again,” is surprisingly straightforward for a man who has spent decades downplaying his most controversial opinions. Last month, Kennedy argued in an Instagram post that Americans were healthier when restaurants such as McDonald’s cooked fries in beef tallow—that is, cow fat—instead of seed oils, a catchall term for common vegetable-derived oils including corn, canola, and sunflower. Americans, he wrote, are “being unknowingly poisoned” by seed oils; in his view, we’d all be better off cooking with solid fats such as tallow, butter, and lard. In a video that Kennedy posted on Thanksgiving, he deep-fries a whole turkey in beef tallow and says, “This is how we cook the MAHA way.”

Cardiologists shuddered at the thought. Conventional medical guidance has long recommended the reverse: less solid fat, more plant oils. But in recent years, a fringe theory has gained prominence for arguing that seed oils are toxic, put into food by a nefarious elite—including Big Pharma, the FDA, and food manufacturers—to keep Americans unhealthy and dependent. Most nutrition scientists squarely dismiss this idea as a conspiracy theory. But the movement probes some unresolved, fundamental questions about nutrition. Are saturated fatty acids—the kind in animal fat—actually dangerous? And are polyunsaturated ones—found in plant-derived oils—really all that great for your heart? The fact that these debates remain unsettled does not validate Kennedy’s view on fats, which represents a complete reversal of conventional health beliefs. But it does leave plenty of room for his philosophy to proliferate.

When McDonald’s started using beef tallow in the 1950s, relatively little was known about the relationship between fat and heart health. Tallow was used because it was cheap and tasty. Previous animal studies had already hinted at a link between fat intake and heart disease. Subsequent research on humans pegged the correlation to saturated fat, which comes from animals and is typically solid at room temperature. In contrast, polyunsaturated fat, which is derived from plants and is generally liquid at room temperature, was found to reduce levels of the “bad” LDL cholesterol associated with increased risk of heart disease. By the 1970s, a large body of research had demonstrated that the typical American diet, high in saturated fat and cholesterol, was associated with a high risk of heart disease. The first U.S. dietary guidelines, released in 1980, recommended reducing total fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol. (They also advocated for eating more carbohydrates, which backfired.) In 1988, a Nebraska-based businessman launched a passionate nationwide crusade calling on McDonald’s to end its use of tallow and stop its “poisoning of America.” (This rhetoric, like Kennedy’s, is an exaggeration, but at least it was rooted in reality.) In 1990, McDonald’s switched to 100 percent vegetable oil, as did chains such as Wendy’s and Burger King.

[Read: Americans have lost the plot on cooking oil]

The shift from saturated to polyunsaturated fats—not just in restaurants but in home kitchens—corresponded with major health gains in the United States. In 1962, Americans began to consume more vegetable fats, largely in the form of margarine; four years later, cardiovascular deaths began a decades-long decline. From 1940 to 1996, deaths from heart disease fell by 56 percent, and they continued falling through 2013, albeit at a lower rate. Although the decline can be partly attributed to factors such as better blood-pressure control and lower rates of smoking, “the increase in polyunsaturated fat is probably one of the primary factors, if not the primary factor, in dramatically reducing heart-disease death” as well as lowering the risk of diabetes, dementia, and total mortality, Walter Willett, a Harvard professor of nutrition and epidemiology, told me.

The research has continued to bear out the dangers of saturated fats—and, crucially, the benefits of replacing them with polyunsaturated ones. The most recent version of the U.S. dietary guidelines caps saturated fat intake at roughly 20 grams a day. Federal guidance holds that “the best way to protect your health is not just to limit saturated fat—it’s to replace it with healthier unsaturated fats.” That is to say, no one should be replacing their seed oils with beef tallow.

The arguments in favor of saturated fats can largely be split into three categories. The first questions the validity of the research that established the harms of saturated fats. Two commonly cited meta-analyses—studies of existing studies—published in 2010 and 2014 concluded that the evidence for consuming less saturated fat and more polyunsaturated fat was inconclusive. Both stoked fiery debates and rigorous scrutiny. A correction to the 2014 study essentially nullified its findings. Neither study accounted for what people ate in place of saturated fat. More to the point, the authors of these studies questioned the existing consensus on dietary fats—but did not call for the total elimination of seed oils from the American diet.

[Read: The vindication of cheese, butter, and full-fat milk]

The second category alleges the harms of seed oil. Some tallow truthers claim that consuming too much omega-6, a polyunsaturated fatty acid commonly found in seed oils, allows it to outcompete its more healthful cousin, omega-3, which is found in nuts and fish. But, according to Willett, the body’s regulatory mechanisms prevent such imbalances, and viewing individual fatty acids as competitors is “an extreme oversimplification of what actually goes on in our metabolic system.” The physician Catherine Shanahan’s book Dark Calories, an exhaustive account of the arguments against seed oil, posits that polyunsaturated seed oils promote oxidative stress, which drives all disease. When I asked Shanahan, popularly known as Dr. Cate, why this was not reflected in the existing scientific literature, she questioned its credibility. “They haven’t seen all the data,” she told me. “They’ve only seen what we’ve been fed.” Another popular wellness influencer known as Carnivore Aurelius, who advocates for an all-meat diet, has claimed without evidence that seed oils are “toxic sludge” that disrupts the functioning of mitochondria.

The third category, which is perhaps the most puzzling, comprises a bona fide enthusiasm for tallow—which, to be fair, makes a delicious french fry. Tallow, according to certain corners of the internet, can drive weight loss, boost the immune system, and improve cognition. (No substantial evidence exists to support any of these claims.) Americans aren’t just eating beef tallow—they’re also smearing it on their faces as a supposedly natural alternative to conventional moisturizer, despite a lack of scientific evidence, and, sometimes, the faint smell of cow.

The crux of the anti-seed-oil, pro-tallow position is a belief that the medical consensus on dietary fats is compromised by financial interests—of the seed-oil and medical industries, of universities, of the government. Suspicion of corporate interests is central to Kennedy’s views on health in general. His campaign to “Make America healthy again” is rooted in stamping out corruption in government health agencies. As I wrote previously, this anti-establishment attitude resonates throughout the wellness space: among seed-oil truthers, sure, but also proponents of raw milk, carnivorism, and alternative nutrition in general. Arguments for these dietary choices have been endlessly debunked by mainstream scientists and journalists. But such corrections will hold little sway over people who fundamentally distrust the data they are based on.

[Read: ‘Make America Healthy Again’ sounds good until you start asking questions]

For Kennedy and his supporters, the science isn’t really the point—bucking convention is. Rejecting the consensus about saturated fats makes a political statement. (As a bonus, it creates a market for Make Frying Oil Tallow Again crop tops, trucker caps, and dog bandanas.) But as far as scientists can tell, it’s not going to make anyone healthier. Between potatoes deep-fried in tallow or in seed oils, the latter is “for sure better,” Willett said. Still, no matter your political stance, no french fry is ever going to be healthy.

In states across the country, educational officials are seeking to incorporate Christianity into public school curriculums. While understanding religion is part of a well-rounded education, these efforts have been controversial because they emphasize Christianity over other faiths and give young students the impression that theological concepts are facts. Parents, including many Christians, are concerned that these lessons are less about educating students than indoctrinating them.

In Texas, for example, the state school board voted on Tuesday to preliminarily approve a new curriculum that introduces students to Jesus and Christianity, beginning in kindergarten. The K-5 curriculum created by the state, known as Bluebonnet, has been derided by religious studies experts and others. These critics say "the curriculum’s lessons allude to Christianity more than any other religion, which… could lead to the bullying and isolation of non-Christian students, undermine church-state separation and grant the state far-reaching control over how children learn about religion."

The Bluebonnet curriculum, for example, teaches kindergarten students about the biblical story of Genesis and how it has inspired various works of art. Students are asked "to identify the order of creation." Four-year-olds may come away from the lesson believing that it is a fact that God created the world in six days.

A fifth-grade lesson about Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper contains "a lengthy quote from the Gospel of of Matthew" and asks students to consider "how the disciples may have felt upon hearing Jesus telling them about his betrayal and death.” Another section of the fifth-grade curriculum emphasized that pre-Civil War abolitionists “relied on a deep Christian faith” without mentioning that many Southerners justified slavery on biblical grounds.

While other religions are mentioned periodically, a review of the Bluebonnet curriculum by the Texas Freedom Network, an organization that promotes religious freedom, found it "verges on Christian proselytism insofar as its extensive, lopsided coverage of Christianity and the Bible suggests that this is the only religious tradition of any importance." 

While the Bluebonnet curriculum is optional, Texas schools that adopt it receive an additional $60 per student. So, there is a substantial financial incentive to substitute existing lessons for the new Christianity-heavy curriculum.

The curriculum received preliminary approval by the Texas State Board of Education on a vote of 8-7. Three Republicans joined four Democrats in opposing the curriculum. That narrow margin was only secured because Governor Greg Abbott (R) hand-selected a Republican, Leslie Recine, to fill a seat vacated by a Democrat who won election to the Texas House. Recine was installed days before the general election. The voters elected Democrat Tiffany Clark to a full term. The final vote will be this Friday, before Clark takes office.

What is happening in Texas is not an anomaly. There are several other states actively integrating Christianity into public school curriculums.  

Oklahoma school superintendent mandates public schools "incorporate the Bible" 

In June, Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters (R) announced a state requirement for public schools “to incorporate the Bible, which includes the Ten Commandments, as an instructional support into the curriculum” in grades five through 12.

Following the announcement, multiple schools said they would not comply and two lawsuits were filed against Walters. In October, a group of parents, teachers, and ministers represented by the Oklahoma ACLU and other civil rights groups filed a lawsuit with the Oklahoma Supreme Court seeking to halt Walters’ order and stop him from spending $3 million on Bibles for use in public schools. 

The lawsuit mentions that Walters’ original proposal required that the Bibles also contain the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the Pledge of Allegiance. One of the only eligible Bibles under this requirement is a $60 edition known as the “Trump Bible” that has been endorsed by the president-elect. The state Department of Education later changed the requirements and postponed the search for a supplier after public backlash. 

On the day the lawsuit was filed, Walters wrote on X that he would “never back down to the woke mob,” arguing that “understanding how the Bible has impacted our nation … was the norm in America until the 1960s and its removal has coincided with a precipitous decline in American schools.” 

Last week, Walters sent an email to school officials instructing them to show a video announcing his new Office of Religious Liberty and Patriotism to all students. “For too long in this country, we’ve seen the radical left attack individuals' religious liberty in our schools,” Walters says in the video. “We’ve also seen patriotism mocked, and a hatred for this country pushed by woke teachers unions.” Walters ends with a prayer for “President Donald Trump and his team as they continue to bring about change to the country.” Multiple school superintendents stated that they would not show the video to students. 

The state Department of Education also announced last week that it had purchased over 500 bibles for AP Government classrooms across Oklahoma. In a video, Walters touts Oklahoma for being “the first state to bring the Bible back to the classroom.” In the video, Walters holds up what appears to be a “Trump Bible” and says that Bibles “just like this” will be available in classrooms. According to a spokesperson for Walters, the purchase of 500 Trump Bibles cost $25,000, the Oklahoman reported.

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Louisiana mandates every classroom display the Ten Commandments

This year, the Louisiana legislature passed a law requiring "public schools to display the Ten Commandments in all classrooms beginning in 2025." It is the first state to impose such a requirement in 40 years. Trump called the requirement "desperately needed." 

Last week, a federal judge disagreed, finding the law unconstitutional. Judge John deGravelles found that the law is "not neutral toward religion" and "coercive to students." He wrote that "for all practical purposes, they [students] cannot opt out of viewing the Ten Commandments when they are displayed in every classroom, every day of the year, every year of their education." It is likely the beginning of a long legal battle that could end up in the Supreme Court. 

Similar bills have been introduced in Arizona, Georgia, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, and West Virginia.

The other night, a friend came over. A dear friend. A friend who has helped me out when I’ve been sick, and who brought over takeout when I had just given birth. Still, before he arrived, I vacuumed.

I thought about this while reading the Gender Equity Policy Institute’s recent report on gender and domestic labor. The study finds that mothers spend twice as much time as fathers “on the essential and unpaid work” of taking care of kids and the home, and that women spend more time on this than men, regardless of parental and relationship status. “Simply being a woman” is the instrumental variable, the study concludes.

The time gaps are large for all women, and especially large for certain subgroups. Moms with a high-school education or less spend 19 hours a week on cleaning and child care, versus seven hours for dads with a comparable education. Latina mothers devote 26 hours a week to chores and kids, Latino dads less than a third of that time.

Remarkably, having a male domestic partner means more work for women, not less. Married women spend more time on housework than single women; married men spend roughly the same amount as single men. Women’s lower wages and higher propensity to take part-time jobs explain some of the difference: To maximize the household’s total income, the person earning more does less around the house. But other studies have found that women who earn as much as or more than their male partner still devote more time to domestic care. Queer relationships, unsurprisingly, tend to be more equitable.

Perhaps most enraging: The gender divide results in women having fewer hours than men to devote to socializing, exercising, going out, or practicing a hobby. No wonder women tend to experience more stress and burnout.

A generation after the publication of Arlie Russell Hochschild’s The Second Shift, a lot has changed, and nothing has changed. Women are much more likely to work outside the home, but the distribution of work within the home has not become commensurately equitable. Surveys show that women are not exactly happy with the situation. What would it take for things to be different?

It was once thought that technology was part of the answer. Decades of labor-saving innovations cut the hours Americans spent on chores. A dishwasher saves a household an estimated 200 hours a year, a laundry machine three-plus hours of backbreaking work per load. Yet even as technology improved, homes got bigger, filled with more items to care for. As my colleague Derek Thompson has noted, standards of cleanliness have risen over time too: “Automatic washers and dryers raised our expectations for clean clothes and encouraged people to go out and buy new shirts and pants; housewives therefore had more loads of laundry to wash, dry, and fold.”

You see this tidiness treadmill on TikTok and Instagram: People recommend how to wash your walls, “refresh” your furniture season by season, and organize everything in your pantry in clear acrylic bins. This labor isn’t time-saving; it is never-ending.

The Gender Equity Policy Institute suggests, well, policy changes, including “use it or lose it” parental-leave programs for new fathers, caregiving credits for the Social Security system, and expanded early-child-care programs. But the report acknowledges that the unhappy divide is cultural, and requires cultural shifts as well.

Caretaking is a central way that women perform their gender. The advertising of domestic goods and cleaning products remains intently focused on women. The majority of children still grow up watching their mother do more housework than their father. The gender chore gap shows up in children as young as 8.

Men doing more housework is an obvious solution, but not one that I am particularly hopeful about. Virtually every woman I know who is unhappy with her household division of labor has tried and failed to get her male partner to pick up the slack. The belief that men care less about having a messy home is pervasive, and supported by at least some evidence. In one anthropological study, researchers had people give them a video tour of their house. Mothers almost unanimously apologized for the rooms not being tidier. “Fathers in their home tours would walk in the same rooms their wives had come through and often made no mention whatsoever of the messiness,” UCLA’s Jeanne Arnold reported. “This was pretty astonishing.”

Perhaps the problem is women, and the remedy is for women to do less housework and tolerate a consequentially messier home. “The tidiness level of a home is a matter of simple preference with no right or wrong,” my colleague Jonathan Chait has written, offering an “easy answer” to the chore wars. “My wife and I happily learned to converge on each other’s level of tidiness. We settled—fairly, I think—on a home that’s neater than I’d prefer to keep it, but less neat than she would.”

Yet men are perfectly capable of recognizing a mess when it is not theirs. The sociologists Sarah Thébaud, Leah Ruppanner, and Sabino Kornrich asked people to look at photographs of an open-plan living room and kitchen; half saw a living space cluttered with dishes and laundry, and the other half saw a tidy area. The participants rated how clean the room was on a 100-point scale, and said how urgent they thought it was for the owner to take care of it. Men and women had essentially the same ratings of how clean the space was and how important tidying up was.

In a second experiment, the same researchers told study participants that the photos were taken by someone looking to rent out their place on an Airbnb-type site. Some participants viewed rooms hosted by “Jennifer,” some by “John.” The participants thought that Jennifer’s clean space was less tidy than John’s, and were more judgmental in their assessments of the female host.

Women internalize this kind of judgment, making the individual desire to keep things clean inextricable from the social expectation to do so. Women are critiqued for having pans in the sink and grime on the countertops in a way that men aren’t. Women’s cortisol levels go up when their space is messy in a way that men’s cortisol levels don’t. Asking women to clean less means asking women to accept more criticism, to buck their culture, to put aside their desire for a socially desirable space. At the same time, men internalize the message that an untidy home is not their responsibility.

The best path forward might be for men and women to applaud messy, normal, mismatched, lived-in spaces. We should recognize that multinational conglomerates are in the business of devising problems that need solutions, which are conveniently available at Walmart and Target; we should admit that everything done in front of a camera is a performance, not reality; we should acknowledge that being welcomed into someone’s house is a gift of connection, not an invitation to judge. Easy enough for me to say. I am one of the millions of us who cannot seem to put down the vacuum, even if I do not want to pick it up.

Secretary of Defense is one of the most complex and consequential positions on earth. The person in that position is responsible for overseeing the world's largest bureaucracy, the Department of Defense, with over 2.6 million employees and a budget of over $840 billion. The Secretary of Defense is tasked with managing this massive institution to ensure the short-term and long-term security of the United States. 

On Wednesday, President-elect Donald Trump nominated Pete Hegseth, the weekend co-host of Fox & Friends, to be the next Secretary of Defense. 

Hegseth is a military veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and received a Bronze Star and other commendations. He also served in the National Guard. But the largest organization that Hegseth has previously run is Concerned Veterans for America, a Koch-funded right-wing advocacy organization, where he served as Executive Director from 2012 to 2016. Concerned Veterans for America had a few dozen employees and a budget of around $15 million during his tenure. In that role, Hegseth hired his younger brother, who had just graduated college, to a well-compensated media relations position at the CVA. Hegseth founded a small PAC in his native Minnesota to support conservative candidates. It managed to raise about $15,000 over several years. One-third of the raised funds were "spent on two Christmas parties and reimbursements to Hegseth."

Even Trump's most loyal supporters acknowledge Hegseth's lack of relevant experience. Steve Bannon, Trump's chief strategist during his first term, said that Hegseth has "never run a big organization" and is "kind of a madman." 

But while Hegseth has limited management experience, he has spent many years in the public eye and has a long record of punditry. Here are 13 things everyone should know about the man Trump wants to put in charge of the nation's military.

Hegseth says women should not be in combat roles

"I'm straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles," Hegseth said in a media interview on November 10, 2024. According to Hegseth, "[e]verything about men and women serving together makes the situation more complicated, and complication in combat, means casualties are worse." 

"Dads push us to take risks. Moms put the training wheels on our bikes,” Hegseth wrote in his 2024 book The War on Warriors. “We need moms. But not in the military, and especially not in combat units.”

"There aren't enough lesbians in San Francisco to staff the 82nd Airborne like you need, you need the boys in Kentucky and Texas and North Carolina and Wisconsin," Hegseth said in a podcast earlier this year. 

Women have formally been allowed to serve in combat roles since 2013 and have been involved in combat operations for decades. Even the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page suggested Hegseth's position is misguided because "women have shown they can perform well in many roles" in the military. 

Hegseth paid a woman who accused him of rape to sign an NDA

A woman reportedly alleged that she was raped by Hegseth during an October 2017 conference for the California Federation of Republican Women in Monterey, California. The woman reported the incident to the Monterey police, which investigated the incident but did not file charges. Hegseth, through an attorney, claims that the encounter was consensual.  

According to the Washington Post, however, Hegseth paid the woman an undisclosed sum to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Asked whether Hegseth had paid the woman to sign an NDA, Hegseth's attorney said, "there’s no other skeletons to come out."

A friend of the woman wrote a four-page memo to the Trump transition team detailing the incident and suggested that the woman was not fully conscious when she was with Hegseth. According to the memo, the woman "didn’t remember anything until she was in Hegseth’s hotel room and then stumbling to find her hotel room." She then went to the emergency room where "she received a rape-kit examination that 'was positive for semen.'" 

Hegseth's lawyer volunteered that Hegseth was “visibly intoxicated” at the time of the incident and, according to the lawyer, the alleged victim had "been the aggressor."

Hegseth published a column in college that claimed having sex with an unconscious woman is not rape

While he was a student at Princeton in 2002, Hegseth was the publisher of the Princeton Tory, a right-wing student newspaper. In the September 2002 edition of the publication, flagged for Popular Information by Will Davis of Arc Initiatives, Hegseth published a column that claimed having intercourse with an unconscious woman was not rape. The columnist claimed that rape required both the failure to consent and "duress," and women who are passed out cannot experience "duress": 

[A] bemusing yet mandatory orientation program, revolved entirely around whether an instance of sexual intercourse constituted “rape.” The actual instance portrayed in the skit was in fact not a clear case of rape – at least not in my home state. (In short, though intercourse was not consented to, there was no duress because the girl drank herself into unconsciousness. Both criteria must be satisfied for rape. Unfortunately, the panelists never cited any legal definition of rape.) Yet the panel – all females in the session I attended – claimed that rape it was.

In an introductory note to students in the September edition, Hegseth wrote that he hoped the Princeton Tory would "help shape the way you view the world." 

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Hegseth is a serial philanderer, making him a target for blackmail 

Hegseth has been married three times. He divorced his first wife in 2009, and according to court records, the marriage dissolved because of Hegseth’s “infidelity.” In August 2017, "while married to his second wife, Hegseth had a daughter with a Fox News producer, a woman with whom he had been having an affair." Hegseth's second wife "filed for divorce in September — a month after the child was born." While many people get married and divorced multiple times, the nature of Hegseth's conduct may make him a target for "blackmail and espionage."  

Hegseth criticized injured veterans who receive government assistance

In an April 5, 2019, appearance on Fox News, Hegseth criticized veterans who receive government assistance for injuries sustained during their service. Hegseth bemoaned that "vets groups… encourage vets to apply for every government benefit they can ever get after they leave the service." He argued that, absent a chronic condition, accepting benefits violates "the ethos of service" because it makes veterans "dependent" on the government. 

Hegseth praised “waterboarding," blasted the Geneva Conventions

In an April 2016 speech to the Conservative Forum, Hegseth said that “waterboarding,” a form of torture, was an effective “interrogation technique.” Hegseth said that military leaders “taking waterboarding off the table” was “absolutely a mistake.” He also mocked leaders who claimed that it was “inhumane.” 

In addition to being illegal, waterboarding and other forms of torture have been shown to elicit unreliable information from detainees. 

Further, Hegseth has been critical of the Geneva Conventions, which provide for the humane treatment of prisoners of war.

Hegseth dismissed moral concerns about the use of nuclear weapons

"They won. Who cares," Hegseth wrote in The War on Warriors about the Americans who dropped nuclear bombs on Japan in World War II. 

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Hegseth pushed Trump to pardon service members convicted of war crimes

Beginning in 2019, Hegseth advocated for Trump to issue pardons to members of the military who had been convicted of war crimes. Hegseth called for Trump to pardon Army Lieutenant Clint Lorance, who "had been convicted by a military court in 2013 for the murder of two Afghan men during a military operation in 2012 in which he ordered his soldiers to open fire on a group of unarmed Afghan civilians he suspected of being insurgents." Lorance served six years of a 19-year sentence before receiving a pardon by Trump in 2019. 

Hegseth said the United Nations should be shut down

In a May 28, 2020, video, Hegseth said the United Nations should be eliminated:

Stop debating about, like, do we do a little bit less at the U.N.? No. Just get rid of the U.N. Just get rid of it. It is a poisoned body, it is an anti-American, anti-Israel, antisemitic institution that's now bonds together to gang up on us, to gang up on the West. And what use does it have?

Hegseth has a tattoo associated with white nationalists

Hegseth has a tattoo on his bicep that says "Deus Vult," Latin for "God wills it."

The phrase, which has its roots in the First Crusade, has been appropriated as a rallying cry for white supremacists. The tattoo, according to the Associated Press, resulted in Hegseth being "pulled by his District of Columbia National Guard unit from guarding Joe Biden’s January 2021 inauguration" because he was viewed as a possible "insider threat." Hegseth acknowledged he was excluded, but claimed it was because he had tattoos with Christian imagery. 

Hegseth is a member of a Christian supremacist church

Hegseth is a member of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC). Doug Wilson, CREC’s founder, openly ascribes to Christian nationalism, wrote a book praising the antebellum South as an idyllic multiracial Christian society, and said that women should not have the right to vote. Wilson and his wife have written books implying that rape within marriage is impossible and several women in Wilson’s Moscow, Idaho church community have accused him of protecting their abusers.

Hegseth has been reported to be in good standing with the church. He is also involved with the Association of Classical Christian Schools, a Christian private school network co-founded by Wilson. His children attend a school in the network and he co-authored a book in 2022 with the network’s president, David Goodwin, about how such schools can save kids from leftist indoctrination in “government schools” and elite universities. Hegseth has degrees from Princeton and Harvard.

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Hegseth said rising Muslim birth rates were causing "a slow motion 9/11"

Hegseth is a frequent promoter of Islamophobic rhetoric, and has repeatedly warned about Muslim “birth-rates.” On Fox & Friends Sunday in 2018, Hegseth said that France was experiencing “a slow-motion 9/11” because “Muslims are having 2.6 kids, whereas French-born folks are having 1.6 kids.” 

In his book American Crusade, Hegseth makes similar claims, writing that Europe is being “invaded” both “culturally and demographically” by Muslims, lamenting that "in 2019, the most popular name in England for newborn boys was Muhammad.” Hegseth claims that this is also happening in America, but that “we are behind the trends of Europe,” due to our “traditional Christian fabric.”

Hegseth promoted editorial comparing same-sex marriage to bestiality 

In September 2002, during Hegseth’s tenure as publisher, the Princeton Tory published an unsigned opinion that compared same-sex marriage to incest and beastiality. The piece denounced the New York Times’ decision to publish same-sex marriage announcements, arguing, “At what point does the paper deem a ‘relationship’ unfit for publication? What if we ‘loved’ our sister and wanted to marry her? Or maybe two women at the same time? A 13-year-old? The family dog?” In October 2002, a piece in the Princeton Tory stated that “boys can wear bras and girls can wear ties until we’re blue in the face, but it won’t change the reality that the homosexual lifestyle is abnormal and immoral.”

In The War on Warriors, Hegseth continued to push anti-LGBTQ beliefs, complaining about “ads promoting diversity in the military to ‘trannies and lesbians’” arguing that they were dissuading the “young, patriotic, Christian men who have traditionally filled our ranks.”

On Wednesday, Ohio’s legislature became the first in the country to pass an anti-transgender law post-2024 election. The bill, SB104, originally aimed to help dual-enrolled high school students earn college credits, but a provision was added to bar transgender people from using bathrooms aligned with their gender identity on college campuses. Now, Ohio’s legislature has passed the bill on the first day of a lame-duck session. With this move, Ohio joins a small number of states in passing a transgender bathroom ban that includes adults—following a $215 million anti-trans ad campaign, many of whose ads ran heavily in the state, targeting transgender rights.

The bill declares that “no institution of higher education shall knowingly permit” transgender people to use bathrooms aligned with their gender identity. Originally passed in June, the bill’s future looked uncertain leading up to the 2024 election. But after the election, primary sponsor Adam Bird signaled that targeting trans and queer communities would be a top priority for Ohio’s legislature, calling for state investigations into official diversity initiatives and drag shows. Now, his bill is set to be one of the nation’s most restrictive toward transgender people.

While most states with bathroom bans restrict them to grade school settings, only nine states currently bar transgender adults from some public bathrooms—Alabama, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, Texas (Odessa), Utah, and now Ohio will become the tenth. Notably, this ban extends to private colleges as well as public ones, making it one of the first adult bathroom bans in the U.S. to apply to private institutions.

Maria Bruno of No Extremism Ohio noted in a Twitter post, “Ohio Senate Repubs just passed a bill that requires all Ohio schools, public and private, including PRIVATE COLLEGES to adopt & enforce an anti-trans bathroom policy. [It] includes schools like CCAD & Antioch, private colleges [with] a majority LGBTQ student body.”

Indeed, the bill would apply to colleges like Antioch, of which 82% of students identify as LGBTQ+ and 16% identify as transgender. Some private colleges are known for being safe spaces for LGBTQ+ people, and thus attract a student body that seeks them for safety. Now, even private colleges like Antioch will be forced to ban transgender girls from girls restrooms in the state of Ohio.

Kaleidoscope youth center, an LGBTQ+ youth advocacy group, called the bill’s passage undemocratic and malicious, stating, “We are extremely disgusted by the passage of Senate bill 104. The “Protect All Students Act” being added to the unrelated topic of the College Credit Plus Program is a demonstration of underhanded and dishonest leadership. The bathroom ban’s maliciously expedited and undemocratic movement through the legislature lacks transparency. This policy is not only dangerous and unnecessary, it is a blatant display of discrimination,” and followed up with a call for Ohio voters to contact Governor Mike DeWine’s office.

Anti-trans bathroom bans, gender-affirming care bans, and similar restrictions have a profound impact on young people’s mental health. A CDC study found that 25% of young transgender people attempted suicide in the past year. Another study, published in Nature Human Behavior, showed that such laws can lead to an up to 72% increase in suicide attempt rates. Following the recent election, LGBTQ+ crisis hotlines reported a 700% surge in calls as transgender individuals brace for harsh crackdowns in the aftermath of the election. Ohio’s latest legislation has brought those fears to reality.

Many transgender people are watching closely to see what their state legislatures will do next. Ohio could be an early indicator of what to expect from Republican-controlled states emboldened by what they interpret as a mandate to target transgender rights through laws that restrict public life. With several state prefiling deadlines approaching, the coming weeks will reveal more about what the landscape holds for transgender people at the state level. This latest Ohio bill now heads to Governor DeWine’s desk—though he has vetoed anti-trans bills in the past, those vetoes were ultimately overridden.

In the aftermath of the 2024 election results, a handful of political pundits and two Democratic members of Congress have pointed fingers at transgender people, blaming them for Kamala Harris’s loss in the presidential race. While few voices are echoing these claims, prominent publications like The Atlantic and The New York Times have amplified these sentiments to millions of readers, despite limited evidence linking transgender issues to Democratic losses. Now, Sarah McBride, the first transgender Democratic congressperson in U.S. history, is pushing back.

During a press conference held by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which represents over 100 progressive members of Congress, caucus chair Pramila Jayapal was asked, “Some have blamed that voters in your party have leaned too far into culture war issues, transgender issues… how should your party respond to that?” In response, Jayapal turned to other caucus members present, prompting Sarah McBride to step forward and deliver a sharp rebuke of those claims.

“Let’s be clear,” McBride started. “The party that was focused on culture wars… the party that was focused on trans people… was the Republican Party. It was Donald Trump. It was the hundred million, two hundred million dollars they spent on television ads. But I want to be clear: I do not believe, from what I’ve seen from the voters in Delaware, that the voters in my state were responding to those attacks… We were seeing those ads that Donald Trump clearly prioritized… What I was hearing from voters across the state of Delaware was not the ads that Donald Trump was putting on the air. What I was hearing from folks was the need to build an economy for everyone… What I was hearing was that the American dream is increasingly unaffordable and inaccessible. What I was hearing was that we need to guarantee affordable healthcare, housing, and childcare for every person in this state and country.”

She then added, “I did not run on my identity, but my identity was not a secret. In a state where two-thirds of the voters are in the Philadelphia media market, with a trans candidate statewide, that candidate had the highest percentage of any Democrat running for statewide office in Delaware this cycle,” she said, referring to herself. Indeed, McBride received the highest statewide vote in Delaware, securing 57.9% compared to Harris’s 56.6%. McBride also recorded more votes than the Democratic candidate in 2020 and 2022.

You can watch the exchange here:

Sarah McBride has made history as the first transgender congresswoman elected to public office. Now, she’s stepping into a Republican-controlled Congress where her identity may be a flashpoint. She’ll need to navigate everything from traditional Congressional dress codes to high-profile antagonists like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has openly mocked McBride by using her former name and pronouns. In a House now led by Speaker Mike Johnson—an ex-Alliance Defending Freedom attorney that has pushed bills to restrict transgender people from the military, sports, and public life—the treatment McBride receives will be closely watched.

McBride’s remarks follow statements from two Democratic representatives who blamed the party’s stance on transgender inclusion—particularly in sports and prisons—as a major factor in its electoral losses. While most data showing that anti-transgender ads were not the reason Democrats lost, one much-criticized post-election poll, using a unique (and, some convincingly argue, flawed) methodology, suggested that voters felt Kamala Harris was “focused more on cultural issues like transgender issues than on helping the middle class.” This is despite Harris’s deliberate avoidance of the topic; she did not include a transgender speaker at the DNC and rarely, if ever, mentioned transgender issues. As Parker Molloy noted, “Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party as a whole barely even touched on trans rights during their campaign. They sidestepped any ‘trans rights’ messaging entirely. In fact, they barely acknowledged trans people’s existence at all.”

Some political pundits have echoed those concerns, though they tend to be people who have continually pushed against transgender inclusion and support. Political pundits like Helen Lewis at the Atlantic, who previously claimed that the left is “fighting a war on saying the word Women,” and Matthew Yglesias, who has supported anti-trans medical worker Jamie Reed, who shared private details of her clinic’s transgender youth patients with the media, many of which were later debunked as lies. Now, such writers are finding new life, encouraging the Democratic Party to throw transgender people out as some sort of sacrifice in the hopes of chasing a few votes, something Molloy notes in her piece would be a losing move, stating, “By conceding ground on trans rights, Democrats would effectively abandon their core values—and for what?… Voters who will choose Republican over Republican-lite seven days a week?”

Meanwhile, there are prominent examples of Democrats who have supported transgender rights and seen success, such as Montana’s transgender representative Zooey Zephyr and her fellow House Democrats, who made historic gains in this election. In Montana, Democrats picked up nine House seats—their largest increase in 30 years—in the very chamber where Zephyr was censured. Reflecting on these wins, Zephyr stated in a press release, “When Democrats are unwavering in our values, we are rewarded at the ballot box.”

As explanations for Harris’s 2024 loss continue to surface, the Democratic Party has not yet fractured over transgender rights. The two representatives who scapegoated transgender people after the election have faced intense backlash, including from organizations like the Young Democrats of America. Meanwhile, transgender lawmakers like McBride and Zephyr offer a blueprint for the future, urging Democrats to stand firm on their values and work to improve the lives of all constituents without sacrificing vulnerable minorities. The question now is whether the Democratic Party will embrace this vision, or reject it in an attempt to court right-wing voters.

Disclosure: The writer of this article is happily engaged to be married to Zooey Zephyr.

Donald Trump and the Republican Party promised unprecedented crackdowns on transgender rights, immigration, and reproductive healthcare leading up to their 2024 victory. Now, California Governor Gavin Newsom is the first Democratic leader to push back, calling a special session of the state legislature to protect these rights and defend against an emboldened, incoming Trump administration. Newsom’s directive is clear: safeguard reproductive healthcare, support immigrants, and shield LGBTQ+ people from what is viewed as existential threats to civil rights and democratic norms. As a journalist who has covered legislative attacks on the transgender community for years, I see this as a pivotal moment that will demand creative solutions, political will, and a clear message that Democrats are committed to protecting marginalized communities in their darkest hour. Here is what he can do.

The Republican Party has signaled that one of its likely first moves will be to cut federal funding for gender-affirming care through a process modeled after the Hyde Amendment, which blocks federal dollars from being used for abortion services. This framework could be repurposed to ban all federal funding for anything related to trans or queer people. Such an amendment would be particularly disruptive for transgender individuals, who often need frequent access to the healthcare system for transition-related medical care. Without federal support, the costs of essential treatments, such as puberty blockers for youth and gender-affirming surgeries for adults, would become prohibitive for many. This approach could even fully defund hospitals that provide this care—a similar Republican-backed amendment only narrowly failed in the past due to a Democratic-controlled Senate.

To counter this threat, California could enact legislation to fill the funding gaps where federal dollars fall short. In a minimally restrictive scenario, the state would need only to subsidize transgender healthcare coverage for essential medications and surgeries, which would represent a minuscule fraction of California’s healthcare spending. In a more restrictive assault from the federal government, California might need to cover hospital funding itself if Trump’s administration withdraws federal support for facilities that provide gender-affirming care. Alternatively, the state could set up state-funded, smaller clinics that directly provide gender affirming care in order to remove the target from hospitals receiving federal funding.

Another looming threat is the Trump administration’s anticipated move to outlaw gender-affirming care for transgender youth through federal legislation, potentially criminalizing the use of medications sourced from out of state—a restriction similar to JD Vance’s gender-affirming care ban bill from his time in the Senate. To counter this, California could adopt strategies it and other states are already using to protect access to abortion medication, such as Mifepristone. In preparation for federal restrictions on Mifepristone, California has already stockpiled 250,000 doses of the drug. A similar approach could be applied here: by stockpiling puberty blockers and hormone therapies like estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone, California could protect its doctors and patients from restrictive federal legislation.

Schools could also face defunding through federal legislation if they support transgender youth, allow them to use bathrooms aligned with their gender identity, or permit participation in sports. California may need to step in to protect these schools, providing funding to replace any federal dollars withdrawn and resisting attempts to enforce discriminatory mandates from the president. The state could also promote high-capacity, all-gender restrooms with fully enclosed stalls to circumvent potential federal bathroom regulations.

One potential tactic the Trump administration could employ against transgender people is using Real ID requirements to mandate that states enforce gender markers matching individuals' sex assigned at birth, effectively forcing every transgender person to carry an incorrect gender marker that outs them with each use. California could counter this by extending the expiration period for driver’s licenses, giving transgender individuals a longer time before needing to update their licenses.

California should also be mindful of a new tactic targeting transgender individuals. Anti-trans organizations like Genspect are advocating for the use of the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP)—typically used to track opioids and other controlled substances—to identify transgender patients, with information then shared across state lines. Currently, Louisiana is using PDMP data to track mifepristone prescriptions, and there is evidence that officials, such as Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas, are employing it to target transgender individuals. California should act swiftly to protect access to abortion medications, hormone therapy, and puberty blockers by restricting out-of-state access to its PDMP data for these medications.

Lastly, regardless of California’s protections for transgender individuals, these measures can only be fully realized if the state actively supports those fleeing unsafe states. To truly be a safe haven, California should establish programs for affordable housing, relocation assistance, and employment opportunities for transgender residents and their families seeking refuge under the state’s protective laws amidst federal threats.

California has a unique opportunity to set the blueprint for other states in resisting a Trump administration determined to erase those who don’t fit into Project 2025’s narrow vision of America. These threats are immediate; anti-LGBTQ+ policies could emerge even before Trump takes office, with December’s budget process poised to push such measures under the threat of a government shutdown. To truly protect transgender residents—and all marginalized communities—California and like-minded states must act quickly, crafting bold, creative legislation and policies to counter federal crackdowns and defend the values of inclusion and safety for everyone.

Social media has been flooded today with stories of Trump voters who are shocked to learn that tariffs will raise consumer prices as reporters are covering that information. Daniel Laguna of LevelUp warned that Trump’s proposed 60% tariff on Chinese imports could raise the costs of gaming consoles by 40%, so that a PS5 Pro gaming system would cost up to $1,000. One of the old justifications for tariffs was that they would bring factories home, but when the $3 billion shoe company Steve Madden announced yesterday it would reduce its imports from China by half to avoid Trump-promised tariffs, it said it will shift production not to the U.S., but to Cambodia, Vietnam, Mexico, and Brazil. 

There are also stories that voters who chose Trump to lower household expenses are unhappy to discover that their undocumented relatives are in danger of deportation. When CNN’s Dana Bash asked Indiana Republican senator-elect Jim Banks if undocumented immigrants who had been here for a long time and integrated into the community would be deported, Banks answered that deportation should include “every illegal in this country that we can find.” Yesterday a Trump-appointed federal judge struck down a policy established by the Biden administration that was designed to create an easier path to citizenship for about half a million undocumented immigrants who are married to U.S. citizens. 

Meanwhile, Trump’s advisors told Jim VandeHei and MIke Allen of Axios that Trump wasted valuable time at the beginning of his first term and that they will not make that mistake again. They plan to hit the ground running with tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, deregulation, and increased gas and oil production. Trump is looking to fill the top ranks of the government with “billionaires, former CEOs, tech leaders and loyalists.” 

After the election, the wealth of Trump-backer Elon Musk jumped about $13 billion, making him worth $300 billion. Musk, who has been in frequent contact with Russian president Vladimir Putin, joined a phone call today between President-elect Trump and Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky. 

In Salon today, Amanda Marcotte noted that in states all across the country where voters backed Trump, they also voted for abortion rights, higher minimum wage, paid sick and family leave, and even to ban employers from forcing their employees to sit through right-wing or anti-union meetings. She points out that 12% of voters in Missouri voted both for abortion rights and for Trump.

Marcotte recalled that Catherine Rampell and Youyou Zhou of the Washington Post showed before the election that voters overwhelmingly preferred Harris’s policies to Trump’s if they didn’t know which candidate proposed them.  An Ipsos/Reuters poll from October showed that voters who were misinformed about immigration, crime, and the economy tended to vote Republican, while those who knew the facts preferred Democrats. Many Americans turn for information to social media or to friends and family who traffic in conspiracy theories. As Angelo Carusone of Media Matters put it: “We have a country that is pickled in right-wing misinformation and rage.” 

In The New Republic today, Michael Tomasky reinforced that voters chose Trump in 2024 not because of the economy or inflation, or anything else, but because of how they perceived those issues—which is not the same thing. Right-wing media “fed their audiences a diet of slanted and distorted information that made it possible for Trump to win,” Tomasky wrote. Right-wing media has overtaken legacy media to set the country’s political agenda not only because it’s bigger, but because it speaks with one voice, “and that voice says Democrats and liberals are treasonous elitists who hate you, and Republicans and conservatives love God and country and are your last line of defense against your son coming home from school your daughter.”

Tomasky noted how the work of Matthew Gertz of Media Matters shows that nearly all the crazy memes that became central campaign issues—the pet-eating story, for example, or the idea that the booming economy was terrible—came from right-wing media. In those circles, Vice President Kamala Harris was a stupid, crazed extremist who orchestrated a coup against President Joe Biden and doesn’t care about ordinary Americans, while Trump is under assault and has been for years, and he’s “doing it all for you.”

Investigative reporter Miranda Green outlined how “pink slime” newspapers, which are AI generated from right-wing sites, turned voters to Trump in key swing state counties. Republican strategist Sarah Longwell, who studies focus groups, told NPR, “When I ask voters in focus groups if they think Donald Trump is an authoritarian, the #1 response by far is, ‘What is an authoritarian?’” 

In a social media post, Marcotte wrote: “A lot of voters are profoundly ignorant. More so than in the past.” That jumped out to me because there was, indeed, an earlier period in our history when voters were “pickled in right-wing misinformation and rage.”

In the 1850s, white southern leaders made sure that voters did not have access to news that came from outside the American South, and instead steeped them in white supremacist information. They stopped the mail from carrying abolitionist pamphlets, destroyed presses of antislavery newspapers, and drove antislavery southerners out of their region.

Elite enslavers had reason to be concerned about the survival of their system of human enslavement. The land boom of the 1840s, when removal of Indigenous peoples had opened up rich new lands for settlement, had priced many white men out of the market. They had become economically unstable, roving around the country working for wages or stealing to survive. And they deeply resented the fabulously wealthy enslavers who they knew looked down on them. 

In 1857, North Carolinian Hinton Rowan Helper wrote a book attacking enslavement. No friend to his Black neighbors, Helper was a virulent white supremacist. But in The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It, he used modern statistics to prove that slavery destroyed economic opportunity for white men, and assailed “the illbreeding and ruffianism of the slaveholding officials.” He noted that voters in the South who did not own slaves outnumbered by far those who did. "Give us fair play, secure to us the right of discussion, the freedom of speech, and we will settle the difficulty at the ballot-box,” he wrote.

In the North the book sold like hotcakes—142,000 copies by fall 1860. But southern leaders banned the book, and burned it, too. They arrested men for selling it and accused northerners of making war on the South. Politicians, newspaper editors, and ministers reinforced white supremacy, warned that the end of slavery would mean race war, and preached that enslavement was God’s law.

When northern voters elected Abraham Lincoln in November 1860 on a platform of containing enslavement in the South, where the sapped soil would soon cut into production, southern leaders decided—usually without the input of voters—to secede from the Union. As leaders promised either that there wouldn’t be a fight, or that if a fight happened it would be quick and painless, poor southern whites rallied to the cause of creating a nation based on white supremacy, reassured by South Carolina senator James Chesnut’s vow that he would personally drink all the blood shed in any threatened civil war. 

When Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter in April 1861, poor white men set out for what they had come to believe was an imperative cause to protect their families and their way of life. By 1862 their enthusiasm had waned, and leaders passed a conscription law. That law permitted wealthy men to hire a substitute and exempted one man to oversee every 20 enslaved men, providing another way for rich men to keep their sons out of danger. Soldiers complained it was a “rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.” 

By 1865 the Civil War had killed or wounded 483,026 men out of a southern white population of about five and a half million people. U.S. armies had pushed families off their lands, and wartime inflation drove ordinary people to starvation. By 1865, wives wrote to their soldier husbands to come home or there would be no one left to come home to. 

Even those poor white men who survived the war could not rebuild into prosperity. The war took from the South its monopoly of global cotton production, locking poor southerners into profound poverty from which they would not begin to recover until the 1930s, when the New Deal began to pour federal money into the region.

Today, when I received a slew of messages gloating that Trump had won the election and that Republican voters had owned the libs, I could not help but think of that earlier era when ordinary white men sold generations of economic aspirations for white supremacy and bragging rights. 

—

Notes:

https://www.axios.com/2024/11/07/trump-elon-musk-business-tax-cuts

https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2024/11/08/tesla-hits-1-trillion-market-cap-musk-becomes-300-billion-man-after-trump-win/

https://newrepublic.com/post/188197/trump-media-information-landscape-fox

https://www.salon.com/2024/11/08/americas-political-discordance-the-want-progressivism/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2024/trump-harris-policy-quiz/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/08/biden-citizenship-deportation-program

https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/08/economy/steve-madden-china-trump-tariffs

https://www.levelup.com/en/news/810189/Console-prices-could-skyrocket-by-40-due-to-Donald-Trumps-victory-tariffs-could-make-a-PS5-Pro-cost-up-to-1000-USD-experts-say

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/11/08/elon-musk-trump-zelensky-call/

Mitchell Snay, The Gospel of Disunion: Religion and Separatism in the Antebellum South (University of North Carolina Press, 1993).

Keri Leigh Merritt, Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South (Cambridge University Press: 2017).

https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/facts.htm

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/twenty-negro-law

https://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/helper/helper.html

Bluesky: 

https://bsky.app/profile/knilirabaj.bsky.social/post/3lahdyeatut2z

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This morning began with a CNN headline story by fact checker Daniel Dale, titled “Six days of Trump lies about the Hurricane Helene response.” Dale noted that Republican nominee for president Donald Trump has been one of the chief sources of the disinformation that has badly hampered recovery efforts. 

Trump has claimed that the federal government is ignoring the storm’s victims, especially ones in Republican areas, and that the government is handing out only $750 in aid (in fact, the initial emergency payment for food and groceries is $750, but there are multiple grants available for home rebuilding up to a total of $42,500, the upper limit set by Congress). He has also claimed—falsely—that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is out of money to help because the administration spent all its money on Ukraine and undocumented immigrants.

Trump’s lies are not errors. They are part of a well-documented strategy to overturn democracy by using modern media to create a false political world. Voters begin to base their political decisions on that fake image, rather than on reality, and are manipulated into giving up control of their government to an authoritarian. 

Russian political theorists who were key to the rise of Russian president Vladimir Putin after the collapse of the Soviet Union called this manipulation “political technology.”

They developed a series of techniques to pervert democracy through this virtual political reality. They blackmailed opponents, abused state power to help favored candidates, sponsored “double” candidates with names similar to those of opponents in order to split the opposition vote and thus open the way for their own candidates, created false parties to further splinter the opposition, and, finally, created a false narrative around an election or other event that enabled them to control public debate.

Essentially, they perverted democracy, turning it from the concept of voters choosing their leaders into the concept of voters rubber-stamping the leaders they had been manipulated into backing.

This system made sense in former Soviet republics, where it enabled leaders to avoid the censorship that voters would recoil from by instead creating a firehose of news until people became overwhelmed by the task of trying to figure out what was real and simply tuned out. 

But it has also worked in the United States, where right-wing leaders have used it to divide the American people and spread disinformation. While “misinformation” is simply false information—which we all spread innocently and correct with accurate information—“disinformation” is a deliberate lie to convince people of things that are not true. 

Before the 2016 presidential election, Russian operatives working for Putin set out to tear the U.S. apart and thus undermine the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) they see as stopping the resurrection of Imperial Russia. They called for provoking “instability and separatism within the borders of the United States... encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts,... [and] support[ing] isolationist tendencies in American politics.” 

But they were not the only ones operating in this disinformation sphere. In 2014, then–Breitbart chief executive Steve Bannon explained to a right-wing Catholic group meeting at the Vatican that he believed traditional western civilization was fighting a war for survival. To win, current western-style civilizations must be completely reconfigured to put a few wealthy white Christian male leaders in charge to direct and protect subordinates. 

In that year, Bannon set out to dismantle the administrative state that was leveling the playing field among Americans and push Christian nationalism. With the help of funding from Republican megadonors Robert and Rebecca Mercer, he launched Cambridge Analytica, a company designed to develop profiles of individuals that would enable advertisers to group them for targeted advertising. Before the 2016 election, the company captured information from the Facebook profiles of more than 50 million users without their permission or knowledge, enabling it to flood the platform with targeted disinformation. 

Bannon became the chief executive officer of Trump’s 2016 campaign. He then served as chief strategist and senior counselor for the first eight months of Trump’s term, during which he worked to put MAGAs in power across the administration and across the country.

“The Democrats don’t matter,” Bannon told a reporter in 2018. “The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with sh*t.” Keeping listeners constantly trying to defend what is real from what is not destroys their ability to make sense of the world. Many people turn to a strongman who promises to create order. Others will get so exhausted they simply give up. As scholar of totalitarianism Hannah Arendt noted, authoritarians use this technique to destabilize a population.

Trump’s administration began with a foundational lie about the size of the crowd at his inauguration. Recent challenges to that assertion from Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Barack Obama rankled as badly as they did for Trump because that lie allowed Trump to define the public conversation. Forcing his supporters to commit to a lie that was demonstrably untrue locked them into accepting others throughout his presidency, for backing away would become harder and harder with each lie they accepted. 

Challenging that lie, as Harris and Obama did, challenged all those that came afterward, including the lie that Trump had been the true winner of the 2020 presidential election. Thanks to the October 2 filing by special counsel Jack Smith, we know that Trump was in almost daily communication with Bannon as he pushed that lie. 

Scholars of authoritarianism call a lie of such magnitude a “Big Lie,” a key propaganda tool associated with Nazi Germany. It is a lie so huge that no one can believe it is false. If leaders repeat it enough times, refusing to admit that it is a lie, people come to think it is the truth because surely no one would make up anything so outrageous.

In his autobiography Mein Kampf, or “My Struggle,” Adolf Hitler wrote that people were more likely to believe a giant lie than a little one because they were willing to tell small lies in their own lives but “would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.” Since they could not conceive of telling “colossal untruths…they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.” He went on: “Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation.”

The U.S. Office of Strategic Services had picked up on Hitler’s manipulation of his followers when it described Hitler’s psychological profile. It said, “His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.”

The MAGA movement is now based in the Big Lie. Its leaders refuse to admit that Trump lost the 2020 election. Trump’s running mate, Ohio senator J.D. Vance, two days ago actually said Trump won, and as media figures more frequently ask the question of MAGA lawmakers, they continue to dodge it, as Arkansas senator Tom Cotton did today on NBC’s Meet the Press, and as House speaker Mike Johnson did on ABC News’s “This Week.”

Now, though, their lies about the federal response to Hurricane Helene show that they are completely committed to disinformation. As Will Bunch noted today in the Philadelphia Inquirer, when Vance lied again at the vice presidential debate about the legal status of the Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, and complained when moderator Margaret Brennan corrected him, he gave up the whole game. “Margaret,” Vance said, “the rules were that you guys weren’t going to fact-check.” He continued to argue until the moderators cut his microphone. 

Bunch points out that MAGA Republicans insist on the right to lie, considering any fact-checking “censorship,” a position to which Vance pivoted when Minnesota governor Tim Walz asked him if Trump won the 2020 election.   

Just as Russian political theorists advocated to overturn democracy, MAGA Republicans have created an alternative political reality, aided in large part by the disinformation spread on social media by X owner and Trump supporter Elon Musk. 

They continue to be aided by foreign operatives, as well. This morning, on CBS’s Face the Nation, Senate Intelligence Committee member Mark Kelly (D-AZ) warned, on the basis of information he has heard from the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the National Security Agency, that Russia, Iran, and China are generating about 20% to 30% of the political content and comments on social media.

But the largest purveyors of disinformation are homegrown.

Perhaps, though, the very real, immediate damage MAGA’s disinformation about Hurricane Helene is causing might finally be a step too far. In what is at least a muted rebuke to Trump, Republican governors across the damaged area have stepped up to praise President Joe Biden and the federal response to the disaster. 

—

Notes:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/06/politics/fact-check-trump-helene-response-north-carolina/index.html

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/interview/gleb-pavlovsky/

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/lesterfeder/this-is-how-steve-bannon-sees-the-entire-world#.nbJrrXK8gx

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/virtual-politics-and-the-corruption-post-soviet-democracy

https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/02/08/514102356/steve-bannon-aligns-with-vatican-hardliners-who-oppose-pope-francis

John B. Dunlop, “Aleksandr Dugin's Foundations of Geopolitics,” paper available at https://stanford.io/3wTNlEx.

Quoted from “Joseph Goebbels: On the ‘Big Lie,’” Jewish Virtual Library, https://bit.ly/2PlQmdI.

Office of Strategic Services, A Psychological Analysis of Adolph Hitler: His Life and Legend, Walter C. Langer, CIA-RPDP78-02646R000600240001-5, Washington, D.C., August 24, 1999, p. 38. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP78-02646R000600240001-5.pdf

​​https://www.yahoo.com/news/vance-says-trump-won-2020-192218871.html

https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/10/01/vance-walz-vp-debate-tonight/moderators-fact-check-00182066

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/gop-disinformation-trump-vance-20241006.html#loaded

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/16/media/steve-bannon-reliable-sources/index.html

https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2024/10/gov.uscourts.dcd_.258148.252.0.pdf

https://gazette.com/news/wex/helene-makes-unlikely-friends-of-republican-swing-state-governors-and-biden/article_b2814791-6ca3-5d89-9a3f-35ab3c135c4a.html

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4870818-barack-obama-donald-trump-new-kamala-harris-campaign-ad/

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/10/harris-trump-crowd-size-debate-00178116

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/06/mike-johnson-donald-trump-election/

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This past spring, a man in Washington State worried that his marriage was on the verge of collapse. “I am depressed and going a little crazy, still love her and want to win her back,” he typed into ChatGPT. With the chatbot’s help, he wanted to write a letter protesting her decision to file for divorce and post it to their bedroom door. “Emphasize my deep guilt, shame, and remorse for not nurturing and being a better husband, father, and provider,” he wrote. In another message, he asked ChatGPT to write his wife a poem “so epic that it could make her change her mind but not cheesy or over the top.”

The man’s chat history was included in the WildChat data set, a collection of 1 million ChatGPT conversations gathered consensually by researchers to document how people are interacting with the popular chatbot. Some conversations are filled with requests for marketing copy and homework help. Others might make you feel as if you’re gazing into the living rooms of unwitting strangers. Here, the most intimate details of people’s lives are on full display: A school case manager reveals details of specific students’ learning disabilities, a minor frets over possible legal charges, a girl laments the sound of her own laugh.

People share personal information about themselves all the time online, whether in Google searches (“best couples therapists”) or Amazon orders (“pregnancy test”). But chatbots are uniquely good at getting us to reveal details about ourselves. Common usages, such as asking for personal advice and résumé help, can expose more about a user “than they ever would have to any individual website previously,” Peter Henderson, a computer scientist at Princeton, told me in an email. For AI companies, your secrets might turn out to be a gold mine.

Would you want someone to know everything you’ve Googled this month? Probably not. But whereas most Google queries are only a few words long, chatbot conversations can stretch on, sometimes for hours, each message rich with data. And with a traditional search engine, a query that’s too specific won’t yield many results. By contrast, the more information a user includes in any one prompt to a chatbot, the better the answer they will receive. As a result, alongside text, people are uploading sensitive documents, such as medical reports, and screenshots of text conversations with their ex. With chatbots, as with search engines, it’s difficult to verify how perfectly each interaction represents a user’s real life. The man in Washington might have just been messing around with ChatGPT.

But on the whole, users are disclosing real things about themselves, and AI companies are taking note. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently told my colleague Charlie Warzel that he has been “positively surprised about how willing people are to share very personal details with an LLM.” In some cases, he added, users may even feel more comfortable talking with AI than they would with a friend. There’s a clear reason for this: Computers, unlike humans, don’t judge. When people converse with one another, we engage in “impression management,” says Jonathan Gratch, a professor of computer science and psychology at the University of Southern California—we intentionally regulate our behavior to hide weaknesses. People “don’t see the machine as sort of socially evaluating them in the same way that a person might,” he told me.

Of course, OpenAI and its peers promise to keep your conversations secure. But on today’s internet, privacy is an illusion. AI is no exception. This past summer, a bug in ChatGPT’s Mac-desktop app failed to encrypt user conversations and briefly exposed chat logs to bad actors. Last month, a security researcher shared a vulnerability that could have allowed attackers to inject spyware into ChatGPT in order to extract conversations. (OpenAI has fixed both issues.)

Chatlogs could also provide evidence in criminal investigations, just as material from platforms such as Facebook and Google Search long have. The FBI tried to discern the motive of the Donald Trump–rally shooter by looking through his search history. When former  Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey was charged with accepting gold bars from associates of the Egyptian government, his search history was a major piece of evidence that led to his conviction earlier this year. (“How much is one kilo of gold worth,” he had searched.) Chatbots are still new enough that they haven’t widely yielded evidence in lawsuits, but they might provide a much richer source of information for law enforcement, Henderson said.

AI systems also present new risks. Chatbot conversations are commonly retained by the companies that develop them and are then used to train AI models. Something you reveal to an AI tool in confidence could theoretically later be regurgitated to future users. Part of The New York Times’ lawsuit against OpenAI hinges on the claim that GPT-4 memorized passages from Times stories and then relayed them verbatim. As a result of this concern over memorization, many companies have banned ChatGPT and other bots in order to prevent corporate secrets from leaking. (The Atlantic recently entered into a corporate partnership with OpenAI.)

Of course, these are all edge cases. The man who asked ChatGPT to save his marriage probably doesn’t have to worry about his chat history appearing in court; nor are his requests for “epic” poetry likely to show up alongside his name to other users. Still, AI companies are quietly accumulating tremendous amounts of chat logs, and their data policies generally let them do what they want. That may mean—what else?—ads. So far, many AI start-ups, including OpenAI and Anthropic, have been reluctant to embrace advertising. But these companies are under great pressure to prove that the many billions in AI investment will pay off. It’s hard to imagine that generative AI might “somehow circumvent the ad-monetization scheme,” Rishi Bommasani, an AI researcher at Stanford, told me.

In the short term, that could mean that sensitive chat-log data is used to generate targeted ads much like the ones that already litter the internet. In September 2023, Snapchat, which is used by a majority of American teens, announced that it would be using content from conversations with My AI, its in-app chatbot, to personalize ads. If you ask My AI, “Who makes the best electric guitar?,” you might see a response accompanied by a sponsored link to Fender’s website.

If that sounds familiar, it should. Early versions of AI advertising may continue to look much like the sponsored links that sometimes accompany Google Search results. But because generative AI has access to such intimate information, ads could take on completely new forms. Gratch doesn’t think technology companies have figured out how best to mine user-chat data. “But it’s there on their servers,” he told me. “They’ll figure it out some day.” After all, for a large technology company, even a 1 percent difference in a user’s willingness to click on an advertisement translates into a lot of money.

People’s readiness to offer up personal details to chatbots can also reveal aspects of users’ self-image and how susceptible they are to what Gratch called “influence tactics.” In a recent evaluation, OpenAI examined how effectively its latest series of models could manipulate an older model, GPT-4o, into making a payment in a simulated game. Before safety mitigations, one of the new models was able to successfully con the older one more than 25 percent of the time. If the new models can sway GPT-4, they might also be able to sway humans. An AI company blindly optimizing for advertising revenue could encourage a chatbot to manipulatively act on private information.

The potential value of chat data could also lead companies outside the technology industry to double down on chatbot development, Nick Martin, a co-founder of the AI start-up Direqt, told me. Trader Joe’s could offer a chatbot that assists users with meal planning, or Peloton could create a bot designed to offer insights on fitness. These conversational interfaces might encourage users to reveal more about their nutrition or fitness goals than they otherwise would. Instead of companies inferring information about users from messy data trails, users are telling them their secrets outright.

For now, the most dystopian of these scenarios are largely hypothetical. A company like OpenAI, with a reputation to protect, surely isn’t going to engineer its chatbots to swindle a divorced man in distress. Nor does this mean you should quit telling ChatGPT your secrets. In the mental calculus of daily life, the marginal benefit of getting AI to assist with a stalled visa application or a complicated insurance claim may outweigh the accompanying privacy concerns. This dynamic is at play across much of the ad-supported web. The arc of the internet bends toward advertising, and AI may be no exception.

It’s easy to get swept up in all the breathless language about the world-changing potential of AI, a technology that Google’s CEO has described as “more profound than fire.” That people are willing to so easily offer up such intimate details about their life is a testament to the AI’s allure. But chatbots may become the latest innovation in a long lineage of advertising technology designed to extract as much information from you as possible. In this way, they are not a radical departure from the present consumer internet, but an aggressive continuation of it. Online, your secrets are always for sale.

Last night, at about 11:10 local time, Hurricane Helene made landfall in the Big Bend area of Florida, where the state’s panhandle curves down toward the peninsula. It was classified as a Category 4 storm when it hit, bringing winds of 140 miles per hour (225 km per hour). The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane wind scale, developed in 1971 by civil engineer Herbert Saffir and meteorologist Robert Simpson, divides storms according to sustained wind intensity in an attempt to explain storms on a scale similar to the Richter scale for earthquakes. 

The Saffir-Simpson scale defines a Category 4 hurricane as one that brings catastrophic damage. According to the National Weather Service, which was established in 1870 to give notice of “the approach and force of storms,” and is now part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a Category 4 hurricane has winds of 134–156 miles (209–251 km) per hour. “Well-built framed homes can sustain severe damage with loss of most of the roof structure and/or some exterior walls. Most trees will be snapped or uprooted and power poles downed. Fallen trees and power poles will isolate residential areas. Power outages will last weeks to possibly months. Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks or months.” 

Hurricane Helene hit with a 15-foot (4.6 meter) storm surge and left a path of destruction across Florida before moving up into Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and Kentucky with torrential rain, flash floods, high winds, and tornadoes. A record level of more than eleven inches of rain fell in Atlanta, Georgia. At least 45 people have died in the path of the storm, and more than 4.5 million homes and businesses across ten states are without power. The roads in western North Carolina are closed. Moody’s Analytics said it expects the storm to leave $15 to $26 billion in property damage.

Officials from NOAA, the scientific and regulatory agency that forecasts weather and monitors conditions in the oceans and skies, predict that record-warm ocean temperatures this year will produce more storms than usual. NOAA hurricane scientist Jeff Masters noted that Helene’s landfall “gives the U.S. a record eight Cat 4 or Cat 5 Atlantic hurricane landfalls in the past eight years (2017–2024), seven of them being continental U.S. landfalls. That’s as many Cat 4 and 5 landfalls as occurred in the prior 57 years.”

President Joe Biden approved emergency declarations for Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina before Helene made landfall. Tennessee governor Bill Lee, a Republican, did not ask for such a declaration until this evening, instead proclaiming September 27 a “voluntary Day of Prayer and Fasting.” Observers pointed out that with people stuck on a hospital roof in the midst of catastrophic flooding in his state, maybe an emergency declaration would be more on point. 

After a state or a tribal government asks for federal help, an emergency declaration enables the federal government to provide funds to supplement local and state emergency efforts, as well as to deploy the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to help save lives, protect property, and protect health and safety. Before Helene made landfall, the federal government placed personnel and resources across the region, ready to help with search and rescue, restore power, and provide food and water and emergency generators. 

The federal government sent 1,500 federal personnel to the region, as well as about 8,000 members of the U.S. Coast Guard and teams from the Army Corps of Engineers to provide emergency power. It provided two health and medical task forces to help local hospitals and critical care facilities, and sent in more than 2.7 million meals, 1.6 million liters of water, 50,000 tarps, 10,000 cots, 20,000 blankets, 70,000 gallons of diesel fuel, and 40,000 gallons of gasoline to provide supplies for those hit by the catastrophe. 

FEMA was created in 1979 after the National Governors Association asked President Jimmy Carter to centralize federal emergency management functions. That centralization recognized the need for coordination as people across the country responded to a disaster in any one part of it. When a devastating fire ripped through Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the day after Christmas in 1802, Congress agreed to send aid to the town, but volunteers organized by local and state governments and funded by wealthy community members provided most of the response and recovery efforts for the many disasters of the 1800s. 

When a deadly hurricane wiped out Galveston, Texas, in 1900, killing at least 6,000 residents and destroying most of the city’s buildings, the inept machine government proved unable to manage the donations pouring in from across the country to help survivors. Six years later, when an earthquake badly damaged San Francisco and ensuing fires from broken gas lines engulfed the city in flames, the interim fire chief—who took over when the fire chief was gravely injured—called in federal troops to patrol the streets and guard buildings. More than 4,000 Army troops also fed, sheltered, and clothed displaced city residents. 

When the Mississippi River flooded in 1927, sending up to 30 feet (9 meters) of  water across ten states, including Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, killing about 500 people and displacing hundreds of thousands more, President Calvin Coolidge appointed Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover to coordinate the federal disaster response and pull together the many private-sector interests eager to help out under federal organization. This marked the first time the federal government took charge after a disaster. 

In 1950, Congress authorized federal response to disasters when it passed the Federal Disaster Assistance Program. In response to the many disasters of the 1960s—the 1964 Alaska Earthquake, Hurricane Betsy in 1965, and Hurricane Camille in 1969—the Department of Housing and Urban Development established a way to provide housing for disaster survivors. Congress provided guaranteed flood insurance to homeowners, and in 1970 it also authorized federal loans and federal funding for those affected by disasters. 

When he signed the Disaster Relief Act of 1970, Republican president Richard Nixon said: “I am pleased with this bill which responds to a vital need of the American people. The bill demonstrates that the Federal Government in cooperation with State and local authorities is capable of providing compassionate assistance to the innocent victims of natural disasters.”

Four years later, Congress established the process for a presidential disaster declaration. By then, more than 100 different federal departments and agencies had a role in responding to disasters, and the attempts of state, tribal, and local governments to interface with them created confusion. So the National Governors Association asked President Carter to streamline the process. In Executive Order 12127 he brought order to the system with the creation of FEMA.

In 2003, after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S., the George W. Bush administration brought FEMA into its newly-created Department of Homeland Security, along with 21 other agencies, wrapping natural disasters together with terrorist attacks as matters of national security. After 2005’s Hurricane Katrina required the largest disaster response in U.S. history, FEMA’s inadequate response prompted a 2006 reform act that distinguished responding to natural disasters from responding to terrorist attacks. In 2018, another reform focused on funding for disaster mitigation before the crisis hits.  

The federal government’s efficient organization of responses to natural disasters illustrates that as citizens of a republic, we are part of a larger community that responds to our needs in times of crisis.

But that system is currently under attack. Project 2025, a playbook for the next Republican administration, authored by allies of the right-wing Heritage Foundation and closely associated with Republican presidential candidate Trump and vice presidential candidate Ohio senator J.D. Vance, calls for slashing FEMA’s budget and returning disaster responses to states and localities. 

Project 2025 also calls for dismantling the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and either eliminating its functions, sending them to other agencies, privatizing them, or putting them under the control of states and territories. It complains that NOAA, whose duties include issuing hurricane warnings, is “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity.” 

—

Notes:

https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/2024-09-26-hurricane-helene-forecast-landfall-florida-southeast

https://vlab.noaa.gov/web/nws-heritage/-/the-national-weather-service-at-150-a-brief-history

https://www.weather.gov/mfl/saffirsimpson

https://apnews.com/article/hurricanes-busy-season-warm-water-la-nina-0fe7c4cb0367e8b56ac63ff663839df0

https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-helene-florida-georgia-carolina-e5769b56dea81e40fae2161ad1b4e75d

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/09/27/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administrations-life-saving-and-life-sustaining-response-efforts-to-hurricane-helene/

https://www.cnn.com/weather/live-news/hurricane-helene-florida-georgia-09-27-24/index.html

https://www.texasalmanac.com/articles/galvestons-great-hurricane

https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/executive-order/12127.html

https://www.fema.gov/about/history

https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/uploads/Post_Katrina_Emergency_Management_Reform_Act_pdf.pdf

https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-09-59r

https://ncdp.columbia.edu/ncdp-perspectives/hurricane-katrina-19-years-later-with-policies/

https://www.yahoo.com/news/tropical-storm-helene-live-updates-095823596.html

https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf (pp. 134, 153–154, 664, 674–676)

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/fema/

https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/publication-one_english_2010.pdf

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/statement-signing-the-disaster-relief-act-1970

https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2024/project-2025-get-rid-noaa-national-weather-service/

https://www.commerce.gov/tags/national-hurricane-center

https://archive.epa.gov/ocir/leglibrary/pdf/created.pdf

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Updated at 3:20 p.m. ET on September 18, 2024

Some tragedies are impossible to prevent, or even to predict. The death of Amber Nicole Thurman was not. She was perhaps the first woman killed by the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

In June 2022, the Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization removed the constitutional right to an abortion guaranteed by Roe. As a result, individual states reverted to their own laws. In Georgia, where Thurman lived, abortions became illegal from the time when a “detectable human heartbeat” was present—around six weeks into pregnancy. The law came into effect in late July of that year, at the same time that Thurman, a 28-year-old medical assistant, discovered that she was six weeks pregnant with twins.

Thanks to ProPublica, which obtained Thurman’s medical records with her family’s permission, we can see what happened next. She already had a 6-year-old son, and decided that she could not raise two more children. But she couldn’t get a termination in her home state. And so she scheduled a surgical abortion in North Carolina, took a day off work, hired a babysitter, borrowed a relative’s car on a false pretext, and got up at 4 a.m. to drive four hours with a friend to the clinic. But they hit traffic, and Thurman missed her appointment. The clinic could not give her another time slot, because so many women from out of state, also facing tough new laws, were booked on that day.

So Thurman was offered abortion pills instead. These are widely used and overwhelmingly safe and effective for early pregnancies. In less than 5 percent of cases, though, women need another dose, or a procedure called a dilation and curettage (D&C), to empty the uterus completely. In countries and states where abortion is legal, this is a simple and routine procedure that carries little risk.

But not in Georgia. Back home, Thurman’s bleeding would not stop. She went to the hospital at 6:51 p.m. on August 18, and medical examinations showed all the classic signs that her abortion was incomplete, and that the tissue remaining inside her was poisoning her blood. But doctors did not give her a D&C. Nor did they do so the next morning, as her condition continued to worsen. When she was finally taken to the operating theater, at 2 p.m., her condition was so bad that doctors started to remove her bowel and uterus.

But it was too late. Thurman’s heart stopped on the operating table.

Her mother was waiting outside. She had no idea, ProPublica reported, that her daughter’s condition had been life-threatening. She hadn’t understood why Amber had said to her, on the way into surgery, “Promise me you’ll take care of my son.”

Two years after Thurman’s death, Georgia’s official maternal-mortality review committee has concluded that it was preventable, and that she would have had a “good chance” of surviving if she’d been given a D&C earlier. Former President Donald Trump, who appointed half of the six-justice majority in Dobbs, keeps claiming that “everybody wanted” Roe to be overturned. But it isn’t true. “This young mother should be alive, raising her son, and pursuing her dream of attending nursing school,” the Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, noted in a statement responding to the ProPublica investigation.

[Read: Kamala Harris’s biggest advantage]

Thurman’s story plays out in every country where abortion is banned. Women still seek abortions, but now they do so in dangerous or unsafe conditions, or with inadequate medical supervision. They lie to their friends and family about where they are going, drive or fly for hours to seek care, and then return home, possibly bleeding heavily. Having to travel for an abortion raises the risks of the procedure enormously. Until abortion was legalized in Ireland and Northern Ireland in 2018, women went covertly to England. (Many still do because access remains limited.) Polish women travel to the Netherlands. In El Salvador, where anti-abortion laws are so strict that women have been jailed for natural miscarriages and premature births, the rich fly to Miami for terminations. Around the world, women denied access to abortion care seek do-it-yourself solutions. ProPublica reported today on a Georgia woman in this situation, Candi Miller, who died after procuring abortion pills online. The mother of three had an autoimmune disease and other medical conditions that substantially increased the health risks of pregnancy.

Add to those women the ones whose pregnancies fail naturally—as so many do. Laws threatening criminal penalties for abortion providers have made doctors and hospitals hesitant to perform procedures urgently needed by many women suffering miscarriages. In Poland, where abortion is illegal in almost all circumstances, the 33-year-old pharmacist Dorota Lalik died in 2023 after a Catholic hospital refused to offer her a D&C when her water broke at five months. Instead, she was advised to lie down with her legs up. She died of sepsis three days later—the same condition that killed Amber Thurman, and the same condition that killed 31-year-old Savita Halappanavar, the woman whose death from sepsis galvanized the campaign to legalize abortion in Ireland. For every death, there are dozens of near misses. On the first night of the Democratic National Convention, delegates heard from Amanda Zurawski, who started to miscarry at 18 weeks, after she had already begun to buy baby clothes. Because of the new laws in Texas, doctors waited until her temperature began to spike—an urgent sign of infection—before giving her the necessary drugs. “Women are bleeding out in parking lots, turned away from emergency rooms, losing their ability to ever have children again,” Harris noted in her statement. “Women are dying.”

Unfortunately, just as the contours of Thurman’s story are familiar, so will the response be. First comes denial: Before the law in Georgia passed, state lawyers referred to the idea that it would cause deaths as “hyperbolic fear-mongering.” Despite the state commission’s ruling that Thurman’s death was preventable, the Trump campaign has already argued that nothing in Georgia’s law stopped the D&C from happening earlier. “President Trump has always supported exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother, which Georgia’s law provides,” a spokesperson said. “With those exceptions in place, it’s unclear why doctors did not swiftly act to protect Amber Thurman’s life.”

Arguments like these are at best naive but more typically disingenuous. In Poland, a patients’-rights ombudsman concluded that Lalik should have been told that her life could have been saved by an abortion—but she wasn’t. In Ireland, Sabaratnam Arulkumaran, a medical professor who led the investigation into Halappanavar’s death, held the law responsible. He ruled that without the (now overturned) Irish amendment giving equal weight to the life of the mother and the fetus, doctors would have given Halappanavar the necessary drugs. “We would never have heard of her, and she would be alive today,” he added. The same is true for Thurman’s death.

America is a litigious country, and some of the most extreme anti-abortion legislation, such as Texas’s so-called bounty law, explicitly offers monetary rewards to private citizens if they successfully sue people who help a woman terminate a pregnancy. In this climate, doctors are naturally scared of legal action. My colleague Sarah Zhang recently reported from Idaho, which has strict abortion laws. She found that some ob-gyns are leaving the state because of the impossible choice they are asked to make—leave a woman to die, or risk their entire career to treat her. “I could not live with myself if something bad happened to somebody,” one doctor told Zhang. “But I also couldn’t live with myself if I went to prison and left my family and my small children behind.”

Once denial is no longer effective, then comes misdirection: Abortion drugs must be the real problem. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a governing blueprint for a second Trump term, calls for extra inspections and regulations of these drugs—far beyond what is normal for similar medications that are unrelated to abortion. As a stretch goal, Project 2025 would like the FDA to revoke its approval of these medications altogether. (Perhaps sensing its unpopularity, Trump has disowned Project 2025, but its contributors include many people in his previous administration and wider orbit.) But Thurman’s story is not about the danger of abortion pills. Her story is about the danger of women not receiving simple, routine follow-up care after taking these pills, because of political decisions made by the state.

It is not good enough, as Trump seems to think, to leave abortion laws to individual states. America cannot put itself in a situation where women have fewer rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in Georgia than they do in North Carolina. I was raised Catholic and understand the deep religious opposition that some people have to abortion. But none of these fetuses—not Amber Thurman’s, not Dorota Lalik’s, not Savita Halappanavar’s—could have been saved at the point the women sought emergency care. The three women could have been, however.

[Read: Stop soft-pedaling the GOP’s extreme positions]

Activists keep saying that abortion is on the ballot in November. In some places, this is literally true: Advocates and lawmakers in nearly a dozen states have proposed constitutional amendments or other measures to protect or restore abortion rights. Trump knows that draconian red-state laws are heavily unpopular, hence his tortured attempts to find a coherent position on an abortion-rights measure proposed in Florida, his adopted home state. His vice-presidential candidate, Senator J. D. Vance of Ohio, has also reversed his former zeal for abortion restrictions since the true effects—and unpopularity—of the Dobbs decision became apparent. In January 2022, before Roe was overturned, Vance said he “certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally” and also suggested that a “federal response” would be necessary in a hypothetical situation where “George Soros sends a 747 to Columbus to load up disproportionately black women to get them to go have abortions in California.” Now Vance says he is content to follow Trump’s position—although that does rather hinge on Vance, unlike the rest of us, knowing what it is.

I read the story of Amber Nicole Thurman’s death with a kind of cold rage. This did not need to happen. Without Dobbs, it would not have happened. And it will keep happening. Something has gone terribly wrong in America when people who define themselves as pro-life have sentenced a small boy to go to bed tonight, and every night, without his mother.

“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”
― Mary Oliver