Donald Trump and the Trump Administration

Trump’s War on Women Journalists Reveals His Fear of Truth

PUBLISHED 11/21/2025 by

There is a cold wind that blows every time Donald Trump opens his mouth to belittle a woman who dares to ask him a question. Last week, that wind swept through Air Force One when Bloomberg reporter Catherine Lucey pressed him on the Epstein files. A reasonable question in a democracy: If there’s nothing incriminating, why fight so hard to keep the documents sealed? Trump wheeled toward her, finger stabbing the air, and snarled, “Quiet! Quiet, piggy.”

Lucey returned two days later—undaunted. Her courage was met with more schoolyard taunts: “You are the worst … I don’t know why they even have you.”

That is the tell of a man losing control: a loud desperation masquerading as swagger. The sound of someone terrified that truth might be closing in.

And we will keep telling the truth about Trump, about Epstein, about the women and children harmed, exploited, dismissed, erased. We owe it to the victims who never got to ask their own questions.

A Century After the Eugenics Movement, the U.S. Is Again Barring Disabled Immigrants

PUBLISHED 11/20/2025 by

This month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio instructed visa officers to consider obesity and other chronic health conditions, such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes, as justification to deny people visas to the United States.

Many were outraged and shocked, observing the Trump administration’s new expansion of the “public charge” rule—directing visa officers to deny entry to people with disabilities, chronic illnesses or age-related conditions—as a modern revival of eugenic immigration policy designed to exclude, control and institutionalize disabled and marginalized people.

When Trump first took office in 2016, the Trump administration broadened the definition of public charge to include people who receive SNAP benefits, medicaid, housing assistance, childcare subsidies and more. This new rule was published in 2019 and went into effect in 2020 and early 2021; President Biden ended the use of this public charge rule definition in March 2021, returning it to the older but still restrictive version. Following Trump’s new rule, visa denials based on the “public charge” rule exploded during Trump’s first residency, rising from just over 1,000 denials in 2016 to over 20,000 in 2019, and it had disastrous effects.

As the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) found, broadening this public charge rule led many people to reduce or stop using benefits or services for themselves.

Virginia Giuffre’s Posthumous Memoir Is an Indictment of the Men and Institutions That Enabled Her Abuse

PUBLISHED 11/20/2025 by

I thought I was mentally prepared to read Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s posthumous book, Nobody’s Girl. I was wrong. If reading the book was gut-wrenching, I can’t imagine what it was like for her and other girls and women who experience the horrors of being trafficked.

In the final paragraph of the book, and perhaps in some of the final sentences she ever wrote, Giuffre tells that she will have achieved her goal with Nobody’s Girl if “just one person” is moved to create “a world in which predators are punished, not protected; victims are treated with compassion, not shamed; and powerful people face the same consequences as everybody else.”

Although she never lived to see this day, her book, her courage and her rage compel us to fight for this goal in the name of all victims and survivors of sex trafficking. 

Feminists vs. Authoritarians: Honoring Leaders Holding the Line

PUBLISHED 11/19/2025 by

Greetings from Los Angeles—on the heels of a very special evening to celebrate the heart and soul of the democracy movement. On Tuesday night, Ms. paid tribute at the Global Women’s Rights Awards to bold leaders operating at the intersection of media, the law and storytelling—recognizing these as the essential trifecta for toppling authoritarianism. And, importantly, for fueling a feminist future.

International Telehealth Provider ‘Women on Web’ Vows to Keep Abortion Pills Flowing to the U.S., No Matter What

PUBLISHED 11/17/2025 by

As Republicans push the FDA to restrict mifepristone, the international online abortion service Women on Web is reassuring Americans that they will continue to support access to abortion pills in all 50 states, no matter what. Women on Web has served over 130,000 people worldwide since 2005 and began serving the U.S. in July 2024.

Venny Ala-Siurua, executive director of Women on Web, was recently named to the Top 100 Canada’s Most Powerful Women by the Women’s Executive Network Academe. Ms. spoke with Ala-Siurua about how their service connects people with pills, how they’re removing medical gatekeeping, and how they’re defending abortion access against digital censorship.

“We’ve always focused on countries where there are high restrictions on abortion. Unfortunately, the situation in some of the states in the U.S. qualifies now. … Many pharmacies and providers have stepped up internationally to support the U.S. and found ways of dispensing and shipping medicines really, really fast. …

“We are receiving around 30 requests per day from people in the U.S., though that number can rise during major political moments—for example, when Trump was elected or took office. Our U.S. care seekers live primarily in states with abortion bans. Globally, we currently handle approximately 4,000 requests each month.”

Keeping Score: Democrats Dominate Key Elections; Federal Government Reopens After 43 Days; ICE Targets Childcare Centers

PUBLISHED 11/13/2025 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:
—Democratic candidates won elections across the country.
—At Crooked Con last week, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) laid out her priorities for when Democrats regain power in Congress: “We’ve got to fix the Voting Rights Act, we have to deal with the money in politics, we have to deal with the Supreme Court and we need immigration reform.”
—ICE targeted childcare workers and is accused of inhumane detention conditions.
—Nancy Pelosi announced her retirement in 2027.
—Trump’s approval ratings continue to fall, a year out from the 2026 midterms.
—Many popular lubricants aren’t safe for vaginal health.

… and more.

This FDA Decision Could Transform Menopause Care

PUBLISHED 11/12/2025 by and

On Monday, Nov. 10, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that the Food and Drug Administration would eliminate the “boxed labeling” requirement for estrogen products.

The “black box warning,” as it’s commonly called, is part of the fallout from a press conference that occurred more than 20 years ago, announcing the findings of the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI). It’s also been the subject of a half-century-long push and pull with the federal government.

Make no mistake, this has been a longstanding demand—it’s neither new nor MAHA-driven. Doctors and scientists have made the case for its removal since the start to no avail, arguing the data from the WHI—the largest, most expensive, and only randomized placebo-controlled study of post-menopausal women—never supported putting it there in the first place.

The FDA’s reversal of the labeling requirement is a major win for evidence-based medicine. Now it’s up to us to responsibly inform women of their choices.

The Politics of ‘Audit’: How Texas Is Using Bureaucracy to Erase Gender Studies

PUBLISHED 11/11/2025 by , , and | UPDATED 11/14/2025 at 10:27 A.M. PT

Professor Melissa McCoul was dismissed in September after teaching LGBTQ+ themes in her children’s literature course at Texas A&M. Just this week, a faculty council determined McCoul’s firing violated her academic freedom.

But politicians and activists who oppose what they call “woke gender ideology,” are galvanized and doubling down, using this Texas A&M case to push for curricular reviews aimed at eliminating women’s, gender and sexuality studies from public colleges and universities across Texas.

Framed as bureaucratic oversight, conservatives seek to eliminate gender studies and related fields through procedural mechanisms that evade public scrutiny. The assaults on gender studies in Texas are not just a local issue; they are a national bellwether. They signal a coordinated effect to dismantle feminist and queer inquiry and remind us that silence, in the face of repression, is complicity.

A Hunger for Justice: Why SNAP Cuts Are a Feminist Public Health Issue

PUBLISHED 11/7/2025 by

When policy proposals like The One Big Beautiful Bill Act and the Trump administration’s recent attempt to partially suspend food-stamp payments threaten the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), we must acknowledge that these decisions are not about fiscal responsibility. They are an ideological manifestation of historical racism and sexism that inevitably punishes Black and brown families and undermines the stability of our entire society.

In fact, SNAP recipients are 45 percent less likely to experience food insecurity, demonstrating that SNAP is one of the most effective anti-poverty programs we have in the U.S.