Donald Trump and the Trump Administration

From Minnesota to Puerto Rico: How We Survive Together

PUBLISHED 2/6/2026 by and

In each of our communities, every day seems to announce itself. Whistles and shouts for our neighbors punctuate each hour, as blades of helicopters and flight drills slice through the air into the night. Increased military and federal government presence is visible, splitting images between the corners of our everyday lives and active battlefields. 

We write from two different places, often discussing them separately. We do, however, live as part of the same story.

From Minnesota to Puerto Rico, our struggles are one and the same. So is our strength. We are still here—not because the system is working, but because we work for each other. Maybe this is finally how we usher in a new world order.

(This essay is part of a collection presented by Ms. and the Groundswell Fund highlighting the work of Groundswell partners advancing inclusive democracy.)

‘We Will Not Be Sidelined Again’: Survivors Respond After DOJ Releases Epstein Files With Unredacted Names and Personal Details

PUBLISHED 2/5/2026 by and

The Department of Justice has released more than 3 million pages of records related to Jeffrey Epstein. For decades, survivors have begged for answers and accountability. But they say the latest tranche of documents—many containing unredacted names, contact information and identifying details—have left them retraumatized, exposed and furious.

Some describe the release as careless. Others call it deliberate. Many say it confirms what they have long believed: that survivors are still not being centered, protected or heard.

Read survivors’ reactions, in their own words.

“My sister Maria Farmer filed a lawsuit against the government for negligence in this case, and really as I see it this is just further examples of that—of the ways that we have not been protected and that DOJ has not done their job.”

“I can’t help but wonder why the DOJ has once again failed us. Again. It feels like they’re ignoring our need for protection, especially when they’ve taken the time to redact the names of powerful individuals … but not ours. This double standard makes it even harder for us to trust them.”

Resistance, From the Red Carpet to the Courts: Grammy Winners Denounce ICE, Immigrant Families Challenge Trump’s Visa Ban

PUBLISHED 2/5/2026 by

In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in this biweekly roundup.

This week:
—For the first time, more Americans support than oppose abolishing ICE.
—Senate Democrats refused to pass a DHS bill that would fund ICE for this fiscal year. Instead they passed a two-week continuing resolution to give them time to negotiate reforms designed to prevent further brutality from ICE and CBP agents. 
—Artists use Grammy acceptance speeches to denounce Trump and ICE: “Our voices matter,” urged Billie Eilish. “We are humans and we are Americans,” said Bad Bunny.
—Organizations raise alarms about Grok AI spreading nonconsensual intimate images on Twitter.
—Virtual reality may be a tool to change opinions about catcalling.
—Access to IVF has led to more unmarried women in their 40s choosing to have babies.

… and more.

Trump-Era Federal Layoffs Hit Black Women Hardest

PUBLISHED 2/5/2026 by

There is a shift happening in the labor force that favors men in general, and white men in particular. And Black women—who historically have found more job security and upward mobility in federal employment—are now seeing those federal jobs slip away in record numbers.

“What we are seeing happening is a federal government that is intent on creating a DEI boogeyman to radically change how workplaces operate in ways that disadvantage women, people of color and LGBTQ workers,” says Gaylynn Burroughs, vice president for education and workplace justice at the National Women’s Law Center.

How Attacks on Immigrant Teens Helped Build the Post-Roe Playbook

PUBLISHED 2/5/2026 by

A conversation between legal scholar Shoshanna Ehrlich and Brigitte Amiri, deputy director of the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project.

“In the first Trump administration, we still had Roe. By losing that underlying constitutional right to abortion at the federal level, the door has been opened for the second Trump administration to both compound the attacks and move in new directions,” Amiri told Ms.

“We were screaming from the rooftops that they were coming after Roe, and abortion was going to be banned, and we were not believed. … As with all rights, they’re tenuous and you have to continue to fight to enforce them.

“It’s always the most marginalized, as we’ve been talking about. It’s the people who have the fewest resources, people who live in rural areas, young people, people without documentation, people with limited language skills. That is who will feel the brunt the hardest of these policies.”

Abortion Clinics Left Unprotected as DOJ Weaponizes FACE Act Against Journalists and Peaceful Protesters

PUBLISHED 2/3/2026 by

As unbelievable as it sounds, President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice has deployed the FACE Act—not against antiabortion extremists who invade clinics and terrorize patients, but against journalists documenting political protests and peaceful activists decrying the killing of Renee Good by federal ICE agents.

The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances and Places of Religious Worship (FACE) Act, a law designed primarily to protect abortion providers, clinic staff and patients, is being perverted by the DOJ as part of its broader effort to deny freedom of the press and undermine the rule of law.

The DOJ has criminally charged nine people, including two journalists, under the FACE Act for entering a church to speak out against a pastor who is reportedly the acting field director for ICE in Minneapolis. The high-profile and highly unusual arrests of journalist and former CNN anchor Don Lemon and independent Minneapolis journalist Georgia Fort, along with several peaceful activists, underscore the Trump administration’s latest attack on the rule of law, freedom of speech, and the right to assembly.

The Trump administration purposefully ignored clinic invasions and blockades by antiabortion extremist groups in 2025—all while reproductive health clinic staff and patients have experienced a dramatic surge in threats and violence.

Serious Work Begins to Create a Treaty on Crimes Against Humanity

PUBLISHED 2/3/2026 by and

Afghanistan. Myanmar. Syria. The Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Over the last 80 years, there has rarely been a situation of atrocity that has not been marked by the commission of crimes against humanity. These crimes, defined by their widespread or systematic nature, target civilians and devastate societies.

Yet, while the international community has created legal regimes to address war crimes and genocide, we lack a global legal architecture for the prevention, suppression and punishment of crimes against humanity, leaving millions across the globe at risk and justice elusive for survivors.

The start of negotiations for such a treaty is not just overdue; it is of historic importance. Late last month, the United Nations General Assembly launched a four-year process to prepare for and negotiate a new global treaty to prevent and punish crimes against humanity by 2028. If it is crafted with ambition and resolve, it can be a game-changer for international accountability, strengthen the rules-based order and offer hope and justice to victims and survivors.

War on Women Report: Meta Removes Abortion-Related Accounts; Louisiana Tries to Extradite California Abortion Provider; Fatal ICE Shootings

PUBLISHED 1/30/2026 by

MAGA Republicans are back in the White House, and Project 2025 is their guide—the right-wing plan to turn back the clock on women’s rights, remove abortion access, and force women into roles as wives and mothers in the “ideal, natural family structure.” We know an empowered female electorate is essential to democracy. That’s why day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.

Since our last report:
—Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman has tried to remove pro-abortion ads from Mayday Health, an organization that shares information about abortion pills, birth control and gender-affirming care.
—The FDA withdrew a rule requiring cosmetics companies to test their products made with talc for asbestos, alarming public health advocates.
—Two Pennsylvania hospitals told the state they may not provide emergency contraception to sexual assault survivors because of religious objections.
—Some good news out of Wyoming: The state’s supreme court started the new year by striking down Wyoming’s two abortion bans.

… and more.

Misogyny Isn’t Just About Women—and the Killing of Alex Pretti Proves It

PUBLISHED 1/29/2026 by

The Trump administration has made misogyny a governing principle, deploying it not only to control women but to enforce a rigid hierarchy of power that punishes anyone who disrupts it. The killing of Alex Pretti makes that unmistakably clear.

Pretti—a 37-year-old ICU nurse—was not threatening law enforcement. He was doing what the administration endlessly romanticizes and selectively rewards: stepping in to protect a woman who was being shoved and pepper-sprayed by federal agents. For that, he was tackled, disarmed and shot 10 times. The violence that ended his life did not contradict the administration’s worldview—it followed it to its logical conclusion.

Misogyny functions as a system, not a personality trait. It relies on domination masquerading as protection, and it turns lethal when its myths are exposed. Pretti shattered two of them at once: the fantasy of the “good guy with a gun” and the claim that this administration acts as a protector of women. His calm, visible effort to shield someone else left no room for reinterpretation, only denial. When authoritarian power cannot reconcile what we have seen with what it insists we believe, it chooses force. We know what happened in Minneapolis. We know who tried to protect whom. And we should be clear about what kind of politics requires us to look away.

Federal Civil Rights Protections for Students Are Being Hollowed Out

PUBLISHED 1/28/2026 by

At least 25,000 unresolved civil rights complaints involving race, gender and disability discrimination are currently stalled as the Trump administration moves to dismantle the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights—leaving students in K-12 schools and colleges with few viable paths to federal protection.

At the same time, new Title IX guidance has shifted federal priorities away from survivors of sexual violence and toward expanded due-process protections for the accused—further eroding accountability in school environments already struggling to respond to gender-based harm.

Taken together, these changes represent a sweeping redefinition of equal access to education—one that disproportionately harms women, students of color, disabled students and survivors of sexual assault.

Last semester, after I published a piece in Ms. critiquing Charlie Kirk and violent masculinity, South Carolina politicians—including Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and Rep. Ralph Norman—publicly suggested I should be fired. In a climate where ideologically driven attacks on funding and governance threaten the very survival of colleges and universities, I ultimately resigned my full professorship. The message from state lawmakers was unmistakable: Even private institutions are no longer insulated from direct government interference, regardless of stated commitments to academic freedom.