Donald Trump and the Trump Administration

Feminists and Democracy Advocates Sound the Alarm on Todd Blanche: ‘He Is Trump’s Lawyer, Not America’s’

PUBLISHED 8/4/2026 by and | UPDATED 8/17/2026 at 11:53 A.M. PT

In a party line vote of 12-10, the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general on Wednesday; a full Senate vote is expected in the coming days. The vote prompted a wave of criticism from feminist leaders, democracy advocates and Democratic lawmakers, who warned President Donald Trump’s former personal defense attorney has repeatedly demonstrated his loyalty to the president over the Constitution, and could further erode the Justice Department’s independence at a pivotal moment for U.S. democracy, while also threatening access to reproductive healthcare.

“He is not America’s lawyer,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said on the Senate floor. “He is about to become Trump’s sword against his adversaries and shield against any scrutiny.”

“Our Republican colleagues see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said during debate.

As the Senate prepared to vote on Todd Blanche’s confirmation as attorney general, another major development emerged, adding fresh urgency to warnings from reproductive rights advocates: A new Politico report reveals Blanche privately pledged antiabortion leaders the DOJ would pursue a crackdown on medication abortion if confirmed with the goal of “the Dobbs decision [becoming] permanent in every single state.”

Who Will Train the Next Generation of Abortion Providers?

PUBLISHED 8/3/2026 by

Reproductive health clinics have been closing at alarming rates since the Supreme Court ended federal abortion protections in 2022. Every time a clinic closes, patients lose access to care, but that’s not all: Whole communities lose their comprehensive care providers for future generations.

As a nurse, doula and the executive director of the reproductive health clinical training and advocacy group Repro TLC, I’ve seen firsthand how abortion restrictions and clinic closures are shrinking the pipeline of trained providers. This is happening even in the states where access to abortion care remains fairly robust. 

The result is a workforce crisis in the medical field that extends far beyond abortion access and threatens the future of reproductive health in communities nationwide. 

Community-based reproductive health centers—clinics that operate independently of hospitals, major medical centers or Planned Parenthood affiliates—serve as a safety net for patients. They provide 58 percent of abortion care nationwide. 

They also provide crucial training infrastructure for future healthcare providers. Most medical and nursing education programs do not teach abortion care; providers who want to provide abortions to patients often have to find, coordinate and fund their own training opportunities at independent clinics—like a self-organized medical rotation. And as more of these independent clinics close, these training opportunities dwindle.

War on Women Report: Hegseth Blocks Promotions of Women in Navy; Trump Finally Pays E. Jean Carroll; Colorado Police Pray With Abortion Clinic Harassers

PUBLISHED 7/31/2026 by and

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:
—Celebrity women are 3.5 times more likely than men to be deepfaked.
—The Department of Health and Human Services abruptly canceled $68 million in federal grants under the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program.
—Planned Parenthood clinics regained access to millions of dollars in essential federal funding. The temporary ban was originally approved in July 2025 as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The denial of federal funding over the past year forced Planned Parenthood to close nearly 30 health centers nationwide, impacting roughly 40,000 patients. Despite regaining an estimated $800 million in annual federal funding, ongoing financial uncertainty at both the state and federal levels means the shuttered clinics will not reopen.
—Maine U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner has suspended his campaign after a former girlfriend accused him of raping her nearly five years ago.
—For the first time in a decade, no active-duty women naval officers will be promoted to admiral this year.
—Police officers in Boulder, Colo., were photographed pausing to pray with antiabortion protestors harassing the RISE Collective, an all-trimester abortion clinic, after concerned RISE Collective staff alerted the police of the protestors’ presence.
—Abortion-rights organizers in Idaho have been working to collect signatures for a proposed ballot measure that would restore abortion rights in the state, revoking Idaho’s total ban. On July 2, volunteers gathered in Boise to turn in over 110,000 signatures they collected for the initiative (called the Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act). About one-quarter are from registered Republicans, demonstrating support for abortion rights is widespread even in deep red states.

… and more.

As Thousands of Migrant Children Lose Legal Representation, Trump’s ‘Lost Children’ Myth Lives On

PUBLISHED 7/29/2026 by

The Trump administration’s ceaseless attacks on immigrant communities continue to bring tragedy and death to people who are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time: After ICE agents shot into the cars of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston and Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine, killing both men—neither of whom was even a target of that day’s raid—the Department of Homeland Security agreed to pause its use of traffic stops.

The pause lasted only a few hours: President Trump took to social media to rant against the DHS decision, and it was reversed—signaling that another round of violent deportation efforts are going to be pushed and applauded by this White House.  

Trump’s insistence that traffic stops by ICE agents are a vital mechanism for fighting crime shows how seamlessly he has blurred the lines between being in the country without authorization and committing crimes.

The same thing is happening in the world of unaccompanied children—and I suspect one of the next waves of deportation efforts will be aimed at the sponsors of those children. The Trump administration has spun an elaborate web of lies to paint parents and family members as criminals, participating in trafficking and child exploitation.  

Who’s Paying the Price for Trump’s Medicaid Cuts? Communities of Color and People Living With HIV.

PUBLISHED 7/29/2026 by

President Trump and his Republican backers have been determined to gut the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and expanded Medicaid coverage ever since his first term in office. This year he is finally getting his way, putting the health of tens of millions of Americans at risk.

It is racial minorities and the chronically ill who will be the most harmed.

A year ago, Congress passed the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, putting in place onerous new eligibility requirements for Medicaid coverage, including work requirements. Medicaid enrollees ages 19 to 64 must complete at least 80 hours a month of work, community service, job training or education to maintain coverage, unless they qualify for an exemption. All states must comply with the new rule by Jan. 1, 2027.

The combination of ACA cuts and new barriers to Medicaid enrollment will likely cause historic coverage losses across the United States for years to come, according to new research: Nearly 16 million people stand to lose coverage by 2034.

Todd Blanche Confirmed as Attorney General—Even as Epstein Files Scrutiny Deepens

PUBLISHED 7/29/2026 by | UPDATED 8/21/2026 at 9:49 A.M. PT

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche now appears to have the votes to win Senate confirmation after Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana announced Friday morning that he will support President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney to permanently lead the Justice Department.

Cassidy’s announcement came just hours after Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said she would oppose Blanche, joining Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and briefly putting his confirmation in serious jeopardy. With Republicans holding a 53-47 Senate majority and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) absent, Blanche could afford to lose only two Republican votes if Democrats remain united against him. Cassidy’s support appears to give Blanche exactly the margin he needs, barring another Republican defection.

Murkowski said Friday that she did not have confidence Blanche would serve as a check on the Trump administration, pointing to the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, its increasing politicization and the controversial $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” proposed to compensate Trump allies and Jan. 6 defendants.

Cassidy’s decision comes after Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) also agreed to support Blanche following written assurances from the Justice Department that the anti-weaponization fund had been eliminated and that sweeping tax protections included in a settlement involving Trump and his family were limited.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed cloture on Blanche’s nomination Wednesday, setting up a path toward a final confirmation vote as senators prepare to leave Washington for the August recess. As of Friday morning, the Senate’s published schedule did not specify a time for the Blanche vote.

Who Gets Remembered? The Fight to Put Women’s History on the National Mall

PUBLISHED 7/29/2026 by

America’s monuments tell us who matters. Yet on the National Mall, where presidents, generals and founding fathers dominate the landscape, women’s contributions remain strikingly absent.

The battle over a permanent Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum exposes how contested women’s place in our national story still is.

The museum’s new exhibit, Unhidden Heroines, uses augmented reality to offer a glimpse of what that story could look like—one in which women are no longer relegated to footnotes but recognized as central figures in shaping the nation.

The exhibit profiles five exceptional women whose substantial contributions to American history have been largely unrecognized or obscured in the historical record: Mary Katharine Goddard, the printer who published the first signed copy of the Declaration of Independence; Dr. Dorothy Height, a civil and women’s rights activist known as the “Godmother of the Civil Rights Movement”; Julia Ward Howe, creator of a rallying cry, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” for the Union cause during the Civil War; Elizebeth Smith Friedman, a cryptanalyst central to cracking Nazi code during World War II; and Polly Cooper, an Oneida woman pivotal to the success of Washington’s Continental Army.

Despite strong bipartisan support for the brick-and-mortar women’s museum project—and having raised tens of millions of dollars for its establishment—momentum for the public-private partnership suffered a setback on the Hill: The bill that would have finalized the museum’s location on the Mall was scuttled after Republicans added anti-trans language barring the depiction of “any biological male as a female” in its exhibits and giving President Trump control over selection of its location.  

It’s not the first time the administration has claimed to protect women’s rights while actually setting back their interests or causing them harm.

Domestic Violence Is a Men’s Issue

PUBLISHED 7/28/2026 by

Nearly one in two women has experienced domestic violence (DV) in their lifetime, yet accountability remains limited, as nearly half of survivors never report their abuse to law enforcement. Out of fear of retribution, survivors often minimize harm and shield their perpetrator’s behavior, shifting responsibility away from them: “That’s just how men are,” or “He didn’t mean it.” DV affects almost everyone—directly or indirectly. Nearly half of people know someone who has experienced it, through personal experience, witnessing it in childhood, seeing loved ones endure it or encountering it in public spaces. 

DV has taught me about silence. The silence of victims who feared retaliation or shame. The silence of witnesses like me who did not know how to intervene. And the silence of communities that preferred to avoid conflict and not to disrupt the image of a functional family. Silence does not protect anyone; it allows the harm to continue. 

In America, toxic masculinity thrives in that silence. It discourages men from seeking help, discourages women from speaking out and discourages bystanders from stepping in. Over time, domestic violence becomes predictable as patterns emerge—slammed doors, raised voices, a tension that fills rooms before anyone speaks.

Over time, beneath their rage, I’ve come to understand that many male abusers are suffering too or have suffered. The problem is, intimate partner violence will not end by ignoring men. This raises essential questions beyond how did we get here, in a nation that champions violence and spends more on its military than on education and social services. For example, who is intervening to address husbands and boyfriends who batter? What tools are needed to support men in building lives free from violence? Let’s be clear, addressing these challenging concerns will not only benefit men, but also their families and society more broadly. Families deserve to heal from domestic violence, and men should be part of that equation.   

A Jim Crow-Era Voter Suppression Tool Is Back: Mass Voter Challenges

PUBLISHED 7/27/2026 by

In March 2025, two members of the DOGE team communicated with a political advocacy group that was seeking to “find evidence of voter fraud and to overturn election results in certain States.” The group was trying to match Social Security records with copies of voter files that it had acquired. One of the DOGE team members even signed a “Voter Data Agreement” with the group. While it’s still unclear whether DOGE members shared any personal Social Security data, the revelation raised a scary prospect: The federal government might collaborate with election deniers seeking to block American voters from the ballot box.

Most states have laws that allow voters to challenge other voters’ eligibility. Baseless mass challenges to hundreds or thousands of voters at a time are a growing problem. They threaten voters. They swamp overburdened election officials with unnecessary work. And they fuel mistrust in our elections.

The Myth of the ‘Perfect Birth’: What America Gets Wrong About Pregnancy, Birth and Maternal Care

PUBLISHED 7/26/2026 by

Project 2026’s pronatalist vision insists that America needs more babies—but largely ignores the conditions that make pregnancy and childbirth unnecessarily dangerous in the first place. In this interview with Ms., The Perfect Birth Myth co-authors Avital Norman Nathman and Deborah Wage argue that improving maternal health requires more than rhetoric about “family values.” It demands investments in midwives, doulas, paid family leave, prenatal and postpartum care, and policies that address the racial and economic inequities driving the nation’s maternal mortality crisis.

Drawing on surveys of nearly 3,000 parents and healthcare providers, Nathman and Wage dismantle persistent myths about birth while exposing the structural failures of the U.S. maternity care system—from hospital closures and Medicaid cuts to the medical establishment’s resistance to alternative models of care. They explain why Black women continue to face disproportionately poor outcomes regardless of income or education, why conservative pronatalist policies fall short, and what it would take to build a maternal healthcare system that truly supports families.