I am an older gay guy in a long-term wonderful relationship. My spouse and I are in our 36th year together. I love politics and news. I enjoy civil discussions and have no taboo subjects. My pronouns are he / him / his and my email is Scottiestoybox@gmail.com
Project 2025, assuming it still needs to be explained at this point, is an infamous proposed manifesto for the ultra-conservative faction of the Republican Party and, many believe, Donald Trump’s second term.
And with many LGBTQ+ Americans waking up on 6 November to the bleak and shocking reality of a second Trump presidency, it feels like a particularly good time to unpick what the document could signify for queer peoples’ rights in the US over the next four years.
Unsurprisingly, while Project 2025 promises to “take down the ‘Deep State’ and return the government to the people”, it also threatens to shred the rights and advancements of the LGBTQ+ community in the US.
The handbook’s authors claim that one of the biggest problems facing the US today is the “toxic normalization of transgenderism with drag queens and pornography invading school libraries.”
Project 2025 goes on to say that “transgender ideology” is one form of “pornography” linked to the “sexualization of children”. In total, “gender” is mentioned 111 times, and “LGBT” or “LGBTQ” 18 times, in the handbook.
LGBTQ+ rights would all but disappear if Project 2025 came to fruition. (Getty)
Viewed as a sort of right-wing wish-list, Project 2025 pledges to strip away anti-discrimination policies, making it easier to target and discriminate against LGBTQ+ people.
Published by the hard-line right-wing Heritage Foundation, the document calls for the removal of terms such as “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” from federal rules and legislation, and the revoking of regulations prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status and sex characteristics.
Project 2025 set out plans to restrict the application of the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock vs. Clayton County, which extended workplace protections against sex discrimination to LGBTQ+ employees.
In addition, it plans to restrict access to healthcare for transgender people, something it refers to as a form of “child abuse”. Its authors also want to see trans healthcare no longer being covered by insurance schemes Medicare and Medicaid, and an end to anti-discrimination rules based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
In addition, there are plans to reverse policies allowing transgender people to serve in the military, a ban that was initially brought in under the Trump administration but reversed by president Joe Biden. If enacted, Project 2025 would expel transgender servicemen and women as well as those living with HIV.
Donald Trump has tried to distance himself from the hard-line right-wing document. (Getty)
The State Department’s LGBTQ+ equality initiatives in Africa would also be axed. In other words, there would be no effort to stop draconian anti-queer laws being passed in countries such as Uganda.
In terms of education, the conservative blueprint is even more staunchly anti-LGBTQ+. It calls for a ban on students using names or pronouns that don’t match the sex on their birth certificate, and no school employee would be “forced” to use a pupil’s chosen pronouns.
It document outlines ideas to remove LGBTQ+-inclusive curriculums and policies from schools, claiming that “critical race theory and gender ideology” are “poisoning and indoctrinating children with leftist ideologies”. Instead, families “comprised of a married mother, father and their children” would be prioritized.
Despite many of its authors being one-time Trump administration advisors, the former president claims to know “nothing about Project 2025” or who is behind it, saying: “I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.”
And two of his campaign advisors insisted: “President Trump’s campaign has been very clear that Project 2025 had nothing to do with the campaign, did not speak for the campaign, and should not be associated with the campaign in any way.”
A spokesperson for Project 2025 has even told CNN that it “does not speak for any candidate or campaign.”
However, Democrats have continued to point to links between the 922-page document and Trump. As he’s now won the election, will Trump finally admit to having any involvement with Project 2025? Only time will tell.
Why is it only the southern border that the right is concerned with? Most undocumented people in the US are here on visas and flew into the country legally. They just never then went home when the visa ended. Why is it only some country the right whines about immigrating to the US? Racism and bigotry is the answer. Think about it. The right is terrified that white people will be replaced by non-white people. Elon Musk is always claiming white people need to have more babies. But only white people. Also the right fails to understand that Puerto Rico is part of the US and the Puerto Ricoian people are US citizens. But remember how tRump wanted to sell the island because it was full of … those brown people. Hugs
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In an exclusive interview with NBC News, Trump talked about his campaign promise to carry out the largest mass deportation of immigrants in U.S. history.
President-elect Donald Trump told NBC News on Thursday that one of his first priorities upon taking office in January would be to make the border “strong and powerful.” When questioned about his campaign promise of mass deportations, Trump said his administration would have “no choice” but to carry them out.
“We obviously have to make the border strong and powerful and, and we have to — at the same time, we want people to come into our country,” he said. “And you know, I’m not somebody that says, ‘No, you can’t come in.’ We want people to come in.”
As a candidate, Trump had repeatedly vowed to carry out the “largest deportation effort in American history.” Asked about the cost of his plan, he said, “It’s not a question of a price tag. It’s not — really, we have no choice. When people have killed and murdered, when drug lords have destroyed countries, and now they’re going to go back to those countries because they’re not staying here. There is no price tag.”
It’s unclear how many undocumented immigrants there are in the U.S., but acting ICE Director Patrick J. Lechleitner told NBC News in July that a mass deportation effort would be a huge logistical and financial challenge. Two former Trump administration officials involved in immigration during his first term told NBC News that the effort would require cooperation among a number of federal agencies, including the Justice Department and the Pentagon.
In Thursday’s phone interview, he partially credited his message on immigration as a reason he won the race, saying, “They want to have borders, and they like people coming in, but they have to come in with love for the country. They have to come in legally.”
“I started to see realignment could happen because the Democrats are not in line with the thinking of the country,” the president-elect said. “You can’t have defund the police, these kind of things. They don’t want to give up and they don’t work, and the people understand that.”
Trump also spoke about his phone calls with Harris and President Joe Biden since the election.
“Very nice calls, very respectful both ways,” Trump said, describing the conversations, adding that Harris “talked about transition, and she said she’d like it to be smooth as can be, which I agree with, of course.”
In her concession speech at Howard University on Wednesday, Harris said she told Trump, “We will help him and his team with their transition and that we will engage in a peaceful transfer of power.”
Biden, addressing the nation in remarks from the White House on Thursday morning, urged voters to “accept the choice the country made” in re-electing Trump.
Trump also said that he and Biden on the phone agreed to have lunch together “very shortly.”
He also said he’s spoken to “probably” 70 world leaders since Wednesday morning, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which the president-elect described as “a very good talk.”
Trump also said that he spoken with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but didn’t divulge details about that conversation.
He added that he had not yet spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but “I think we’ll speak.”
Over the course of the campaign, Trump promised to end Russia’s war with Ukraine if elected, saying in September that he would negotiate a deal “that’s good for both sides.“
Donald Trump has been outspoken against the LGBTQ+ community. (Getty)
At the time of writing, it seems almost inevitable that Donald Trump will become the 47th President of the United States, meaning LGBTQ+ rights are under serious threat.
The election was one of the closest in history according to voting polls over the past few weeks, with polling group FiveThirtyEight reporting that Harris just barely reached a 1.2 per cent lead on Trump a day before the results were counted.
The last Trump presidency led to a roll-back of protections and anti-discrimination laws for LGBTQ+ people, and it doesn’t look as if a second term would be any different if he is re-elected, based on campaign promises and the detailed policy proposals outlined in Project 2025 – although Trump has tried to distance himself from the right-wing proposals.
In anticipation of a Trump win, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) suggested a new Trump administration would “reinstate and significantly escalate the removal of anti-discrimination policies… proactively require discrimination by the federal government [and] weaponize federal law against transgender people across the country”.
So, what are Trump’s views about LGBTQ+ rights, and what exactly might he do?
Erase federal non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people
Trump’s first term was extremely detrimental to the rights and protections of LGBTQ+ people, and a second term could roll back protections once again.
LGBTQ+ people might no longer be guaranteed to be free of discrimination across several federal government programs, such as Social Security, Medicare, housing and employment.
Exclude openly transgender people from the military
The first Trump administration reversed policies allowing trans people to serve in the military, and it is not difficult to foresee the president doing so again.
Another ban on trans people in the military would force out active-duty transgender service personnel as well as prevent trans people enlisting in the future.
This is despite a report in 2016 revealing that trans-inclusive policies have “little or no impact on unit cohesion, operational effectiveness, or readiness”.
In fact, trans-inclusive military policies could benefit all active service members by “creating a more inclusive and diverse force.”
Trans people could once again be banned from serving. (Getty)
Withhold federal funding if school officials affirm transgender students
Trump has said he would act to stop any school district introducing or maintaining trans-inclusive policies and practices.
This would include withholding federal funding that allow trans students to use toilets and changing rooms that align with their gender identity, or even acknowledging that they are trans, as well as arguing that trans-inclusive policies violate the rights of cisgender pupils.
Discrimination against trans students, causing significant harm to the community as a whole, would be the likely result of such a move.
During a recent campaign rally, Trump said he was not going to “let” trans women compete in sporting events at all if he becomes president again.
He said invoking the ban would “not [be] a big deal”, citing recent sporting events in which trans women competed against cisgender women, claiming that the trans athlete had a competitive edge over their opponent.
“Physically, from a muscular standpoint… look at what’s happened in swimming. Look at the records that are being broken,” he said.
Prohibit gender-affirming care in federal healthcare programmes
His website also promises that on his first day in the Oval Office, he would issue an executive order “instructing every federal agency to cease all programs that promote the concept of sex and gender transition, at any age”.
The administration would also probably deny Medicaid funding for hospitals that provide gender-affirming care, forcing medics to deny trans people the care they require.
Access to healthcare for more than 100,000 transgender youngsters in 24 states has already been halted in the past three years.
Allow employers to discriminate against LGBTQ+ staff
A second Trump administration could bring in provisions to allow employers to discriminate against LGBTQ+ members of staff based on the boss’ stated religious beliefs, a reversal of existing non-discrimination laws.
This would not require congress or bipartisan support, and could be pushed through using an executive order from the president.
The administration could go one step further to prevent state and local governments enforcing non-discrimination laws if the defendant says the discrimination was based on religious belief.
Laws protecting LGBTQ+ people and other minorities from discrimination based on protected characteristics might also disappear.
Donald Trump has continued to target the LGBTQ+ community. (Getty)
Criminalize gender-non-conformity in public life
Project 2025 – a hard-line right-wing blueprint for a future Republican president – suggests the use of criminal laws to punish gender-non-conformity in public life, with pornography being the crux of the issue.
The authors of the plan, the Heritage Foundation, inexplicably link pornography with “transgender ideology” and argue that neither has a “claim to First Amendment protection” and therefore should be outlawed.
“The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned,” they demand. “Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders, and telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be [closed down].”
That means any discussion of transgender people in schools and libraries could be criminalized, and trans people might face jail time for being themselves.
Trump would only be able to put this into practice with congress’ approval and there is unlikely to be bipartisan support for such a law, but even the slim possibility is terrifying.
Finally – could gay marriage be reversed?
Same-sex marriage supporter Vin Testa, of Washington DC, waves a rainbow pride flag near the Supreme Court. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Unfortunately, yes, it could.
After crucial abortion legislation Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court, many people said that next, they would be coming for Windsor and Obergefell and Lawrence – three rulings that unlocked a national right to same-sex marriage.
Whether a same-sex couple could marry varied by state before 2015. With its 5-4 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court extended the full federal right to marry to all same-sex couples.
So would – or could it be taken away? Many people think that the Supreme Court wouldn’t dare. Same-sex marriage is now too accepted in American society, they argue. It would cause “legal chaos.”
However, it remains the case that some justices, particularly Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, appear to be itching to overturn Obergefell. In 2022, Justice Thomas said the Supreme Court “should reconsider” its past rulings codifying rights to contraception access, same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage.
It’s important to remember in all of this Pride is a protest, and it continues to be. We can fight any and all of these attacks by standing up, speaking out and refusing to stay silent.
Vanity Fair’s Donald Trump cover has gone viral (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/Vanity Fair)
Vanity Fair’s new cover featuring Donald Trump has gone viral following his victory in the US presidential election.
Trump staged what has been called an astonishing political comeback, beating his Democratic rival Kamala Harris and taking five out of the seven key battleground states, with two still to declare. In addition, the Republicans took back control of the senate and appear to be on course to keep their grip on the house of representatives.
In the wake of Trump’s success, the popular Condé Nast culture, fashion and current affairs magazine published a digital cover which featured a close-up image of him alongside the words: “34 felony counts, 1 conviction, 2 pending cases, 2 impeachments and 6 bankruptcies, 4 more years. The 47th American president.”
Alongside an image of the cover shared on social media, were the words: “Four years after launching an unprecedented attack on democracy and leaving the White House in disgrace, the convicted felon and twice-impeached politician will return to Washington DC as the 47th president of the United States.”
The cover quickly went viral, attracting 1.3 million likes on Instagram in less than 24 hours.
One person responded: “These are literally facts, not opinions, and people are still so pressed about it.” Someone else said: “The ‘four more years’ sounds heavy.”
Having easily surpassed the 270 electoral college votes needed for victory, Trump appeared on stage in West Palm Beach, Florida, alongside his family and vice-president-elect JD Vance, in front of crowds of cheering supporters.
Donald Trump. (Getty)
“Look what happened, is this crazy?” Trump said. “I will fight for you and your family and your future, every single day. I will be fighting for you with every breath in my body.”
He described the result as a “magnificent victory for the American people” and promised voters that “this will truly be the golden age of America”.
He said MAGA (Make America Great Again) was a “movement like nobody’s ever seen before” and was “the greatest political movement of all time”.
The president-elect went on to say: “There’s never been anything like this in this country and maybe now it’s going to reach a new level of importance because we’re going to help our country heal. We have a country that needs help, and it needs help very badly”.
“We’re going to fix our borders, we’re going to fix everything about our country and we’ve made history for a reason tonight, and the reason is going to be just that.”
In a speech where she conceded defeat, Harris said she would “not concede the fight that fuelled this campaign”, adding: “Hear me when I say: the light of America’s promise will always burn bright as long as we never give up. This is a time to organize, to mobilize and to stay engaged for the sake of freedom and justice and the future that we all know we can build together.”
What We Know About How Trump Will Approach LGBTQ+ Rights, Abortion, and Other Issues
Much is still unknown about how Trump will carry out some of his big promises on issues like the economy and immigration, or how he may curb abortion access and LGBTQ+ rights. Project 2025 and what he’s said so far offer some clues.
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Throughout his campaign, President-elect Donald Trump has made big promises on issues of enormous consequence to Americans, from the economy to reproductive health care — but offered few details on how he would see those promises through.
What he’s said in his campaign and what he did during his first term offer some clues, as does Project 2025, the blueprint for a second Trump term written by the conservative Heritage Foundation. Though Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025, saying he has “no idea who is behind it” and that he has not read it, six of his former cabinet secretaries contributed to it in some form and much of what is in the 920-page document aligns directly with statements Trump has made this year.
Though there are still many unknowns, here is what we know so far about how a second Trump term will approach reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, the economy, education, immigration and aging and disability care.
Abortion
Throughout his campaign, Trump has repeatedly taken credit for the fall of Roe v. Wade. He appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who helped overturn the decades-old case protecting federal abortion rights. His stance on abortion access has wobbled over time between a national ban and state-by-state laws.
Though Trump has said he would not support a federal abortion ban and he’s called restrictive abortion laws like Florida’s six-week ban “a terrible mistake,” it’s unclear how much he will stick to those statements: A day after he said people needed “more time” than six weeks, he said he would vote to uphold the ban in Florida, where he lives. About 57 percent of Floridians voted in favor of an amendment to undo the six-week regulation, but it fell short of the 60 percent threshold it needed to pass.
The biggest question mark heading into the election was his support of a federal ban. During the presidential debate in September, Trump said “there’s no reason to sign a ban, because we’ve gotten what everybody wanted, Democrats, Republicans and everybody else, and every legal scholar wanted it to be brought back into the states,” meaning the issue had been returned to the states. A majority of Americans disapproved of the Supreme Court decision that led to a patchwork of abortion decisions, according to polling from the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.
What Trump will ultimately do will likely come down to who he appoints — and listens to — in his administration. Some of his closest supporters, including Vice President-elect JD Vance, have said they support a national ban on abortion, though during the vice presidential debate in October, Vance acknowledged that his position is not popular with “a lot of Americans.”
Trump has also said he’s open to limiting whether mifepristone, one of the pills used in medication abortions, can be sent by mail.
Economy
Much of Trump’s win Tuesday was likely due to Americans’ view on how he could improve the economy — and particularly their own personal finances. Early exit polls show that the economy was a lead motivator for many after record inflation during the Biden administration brought on by a confluence of factors, including supply chain issues, Russia’s war in Ukraine and coronavirus stimulus checks.
In the end, the reason for the inflation — and how much of it was Biden’s doing — didn’t matter. Trump presented himself as the person to “fix” the economic troubles that have plagued Americans over the past four years, and it appears to have been a salient message.
Trump inherits an economy in repair: Inflation is back down to 2.1 percent from 9 percent, hovering at the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent goal. And the country has been adding jobs consistently for months, though the most recent report shows fewer jobs added in October than expected. Still, the unemployment rate is down to about 4.1 percent from 6.3 percent when Trump left office in January 2021.
The biggest economic showdown of a second Trump term will likely come next year, when parts of Trump’s 2017 tax bill expire. Among those provisions is the child tax credit, which was expanded in 2017 to $2,000 per child. Trump has expressed support for the credit, but has not said what he’d do with it in 2025. Vance has floated increasing the credit further to $5,000 per child. Trump has also called for further lowering the corporate tax rate, which he brought down from 35 to 21 percent in 2017, to 15 percent.
The president-elect has also proposed several tax breaks — on tips, Social Security and overtime pay — but it’s unclear how he would pursue those aims.
Cutting taxes on tips would impact the women who make up the majority of tipped workers directly, but only those who earn enough to be taxed in the first place. Nearly 40 percent of tipped workers already don’t earn enough to pay federal income taxes.
If Trump also eliminates payroll taxes on tips, most workers would see some impact, but could also see their Social Security benefits diminish (payroll taxes fund Social Security and Medicare). The same would happen if taxes are cut on overtime pay, though it’s also unclear what the impact of that would be. Trump has offered no details on how he would approach the policy.
Trump has also called for eliminating taxes on Social Security benefits, a proposal that would impact about half of recipients, most of them higher income, who currently pay taxes. But that proposal alone could make Social Security insolvent three years earlier than predicted, by fiscal year 2031, rather than 2034, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization.
It is likely that the second Trump administration will vigorously pursue curbing the rights of trans Americans. Trump’s campaign has proposed terminating Medicare and Medicaid funding for hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to trans youth, attempting to charge teachers with sex discrimination for affirming students’ gender identities and ordering federal agencies to “cease all programs that promote the concept of sex and gender transition at any age.” Trump has also pledged to ask Congress to halt the use of federal funds to promote or pay for gender-affirming care, without distinguishing between care for adults or minors.
Leading up to the election, Trump falsely claimed that schools were performing gender-affirming surgeries on children without parental knowledge or consent — a claim divorced from reality that marked a particularly bizarre moment in a campaign littered with anti-trans misinformation. At an October 28 rally, as Trump did at multiple rallies on the tail end of his campaign, he doubled down on framing anti-trans policies as key to his vision for the Republican party, saying: “We’re the party of common sense. That means no open borders, and no transgender operations.”
In October, about 41 percent of the campaign’s ad spending was focused on messaging around trans people, particularly trans athletes and children receiving gender-affirming care.
When polled, most Americans do not rank trans issues highly compared to issues like the economy or abortion rights. It is currently unclear if these ads motivated Trump voters to turn out in 2024 or if they were incidental to issues that voters rank more highly.
Education
Trump has called repeatedly for an end to the Department of Education and presented himself as a champion for school choice, a position that will likely take center stage in a second term.
That stance aligns with details in Project 2025, which also supports eliminating the agency, as well as gutting protections for LGBTQ+ students and what he sees as progressive curriculum. Trump has vowed to cut federal funding for schools that teach lessons related to race or that teach “gender ideology.” Much of the impact will be on trans students, especially in sports.
Under his previous administration, then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos worked to limit trans women’s participation in women’s sports, arguing it violated the anti-discrimination law Title IX.
DeVos also sparked outrage by revising Title IX regulations to make it harder for sexual misconduct survivors on college campuses to hold perpetrators accountable.
Earlier this year, the Biden administration reversed these controversial DeVos-era regulations and offered protections for LGBTQ+ students in schools, but the incoming Trump administration will almost certainly introduce their own updates to this federal law. Specifically, Trump is expected to go further by defining “sex” to exclude transgender students from playing on teams or experiencing school generally in ways that align with their gender identity.
Gutting the Department of Education would also have a major negative impact on disabled students, who rely on federal enforcement of civil rights laws to protect them from discrimination, lack of access to appropriate education, unnecessary segregation and abuse.
Immigration
Some of Trump’s most divisive rhetoric during his campaign was toward Latinx people and immigrants, who he blamed as the reason for many of the country’s challenges, from safety to job loss to affordable housing. In the final days of his campaign, at a Trump rally in Madison Square Garden, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage.”
Throughout his campaign, Trump has called immigrants “the enemy from within,” saying undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
His response as president, he said, would be to mount the “largest deportation in the history of our country,” but he has offered very little information on how that would happen, who would be targeted and with what resources.
Much of what Project 2025 has to say about immigration overlaps with Trump’s campaign promises. The document discusses reinstating “every rule related to immigration that was issued” during Trump’s first term, and the president-elect has specifically called for putting back into place his “Remain in Mexico” policy, by which some asylum seekers had to wait out the outcomes of their U.S. immigration cases in Mexico.
Plans laid out in Project 2025 would also make it even more difficult for undocumented students to attend college. It calls for the Department of Education to deny loan access to students who aren’t in the country with authorization and for loan access to be denied to students at schools that offer in-state tuition to the undocumented population. Nearly 20 states, including California, Texas and New York, offer in-state tuition to undocumented students.
Disability and aging
During the presidential debate in September, Trump indicated that he had “concepts of a plan” for replacing the Affordable Care Act, which protects disabled, chronically ill and older Americans from being excluded from standard health insurance coverage.
Opposition to the Affordable Care Act was a centerpiece of Trump’s 2016 campaign, and his first year in office was characterized by a failed, widely unpopular attempt to repeal and replace it, in addition to cutting Medicaid funding. Medicaid, a federal poverty program, funds the majority of long-term care for disabled and older adults in the United States.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has indicated that he is willing to commit to dismantling the Affordable Care Act during a Trump presidency. While Trump promises on his website not to cut Medicare, which provides health insurance for Americans over 65, he has made no such promises about Medicaid.
Affordable drug pricing may also take a hit during a second Trump term. The Biden administration vigorously pursued Medicare price negotiation to lower the cost of some particularly expensive prescription drugs for older adults. While Trump promised to pursue a similar policy during the 2016 race, he never implemented that promise.
Both Vance and Trump have promised a tax credit for family caregivers of older and disabled adults between $5,000 to $6,000 per year. The average cost of home care in the United States, per the most recent data from the Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program, is $42,120 per year. The average cost of a shared room in a nursing home is $100,740 per year.
Nadra Nittle and Orion Rummler contributed to this reporting.
“There has to be as many traitors executed as he has days in office,” urged another Gab post. “Build the gallows, restore the REPUBLIC.” “Many many many executions are warranted,” someone wrote on Truth Social. One viral meme that was shared widely across platforms on Wednesday had the caption “RELEASE THE PROJECT 2025 HANDMAIDS TALE RAPE SQUADS.”
Read the full article. Other posts and memes call for executing Nancy Pelosi, Alejandro Mayorkas, and Kamala Harris. A Proud Boys account depicts Harris as “Whore Of The Year.” Hit the link for more.
In a follow-up post, Davis said the following: “Here’s my current mood: I want to drag their dead political bodies through the streets, burn them, and throw them off the wall. (Legally, politically, and financially, of course.)”
In August 2024, Davis appeared here when he threatened to sue any publication or social media user who referred to Trump as a “convicted felon.”
In April 2024, he appeared here when he vowed to imprison Trump’s critics and prosecute Barack Obama for murder.
In February 2024, we heard from him when he declared, “What’s so bad about Christian nationalism?”
His first appearance here came last year when he threatened to “arrest and deport” journalist Mehdi Hasan and throw gay reporter Tim Miller in a women’s prison.
And he could be the nation’s next Attorney General.
One of the reasons given by people that voted for tRump, that he would lower prices of stuff. Yup that was dumb. They also claim that he speaks like they do so they understand him. I ask why do you speak as hateful as him? They also think he cares about them, a man who was a born millionaire and who lives in golden penthouses is just a man of the people? A man who thinks money is the most important thing in life doesn’t care if poor people live or die. Hugs
As President-elect Donald Trump readies to return to the Oval Office, U.S. retailers that depend on foreign suppliers are prepared to pass along the cost of his proposed import tariffs to consumers, potentially leading to higher prices for a range of products.
Americans stand to lose between $46 billion and $78 billion in spending power each year on products including apparel, toys, furniture, household appliances, footwear and travel goods due to the new tariffs, the National Retail Federation stated in findings released Monday.
“Retailers rely heavily on imported products and manufacturing components so that they can offer their customers a variety of products at affordable prices,” NRF Vice President of Supply Chain and Customs Policy Jonathan Gold said in a statement. “A tariff is a tax paid by the U.S. importer, not a foreign country or the exporter. This tax ultimately comes out of consumers’ pockets through higher prices.”
For example, a $40 toaster oven would retail for $48 to $52 after the tariffs, while a $50 pair of running shoes would jump to to $59 to $64, according to the industry trade group. A $2,000 mattress and box spring set would cost $2,128 to $2,190, the NRF said.
During President-elect Trump’s first term in office, his administration imposed tariffs of up to 25% on more than $360 billion in products from China. President Joe Biden’s White House kept most of those tariffs and added more onto goods including Chinese electric cars and microchips.
Now, Trump has said he plans to impose a 60% tax on goods from China and a 10% to 20% levy on all of the $3 trillion in foreign goods the U.S. imports annually. Such sweeping tariffs would reignite inflation, as they would mostly be paid by U.S. consumers, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned, offering a general view widely shared by other economists on both sides of the political aisle.
“A consistent theoretical and empirical finding in economics is that domestic consumers and domestic firms bear the burden of a tariff, not the foreign country,” the nonpartisan Budget Lab at Yale University stated in an analysis published in mid-October.
Trump has repeatedly contended that foreign companies would foot the bill, telling a gathering last month at the Economic Club of Chicago that “the countries will pay” the tariffs. In reality, American importers pay the tariffs to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency when their goods cross the border.
“These policy steps would amount to regressive tax cuts, only partially paid for by regressive tax increases,” and cost a typical middle-income household about $1,700 in increased taxes a year,” according to economists at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. The proposed tariffs would shift tax burdens from the well-off to lower-income Americans, the nonprofit also stated in a policy brief published in August.
For now, it is unclear when the new Trump regime could seek to stiffen tariffs. The process to complete legislation required to raise the levies could take nearly a year, so any adverse impact might not be felt until 2026, according to Oxford Economics.
Harvard University professor and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers questioned the wisdom of taxing imports, noting the potential impact on prices. “For parents, we’re coming up on the holiday season and most of our toys are imported from China,” Summers tweeted on Thanksgiving Day.
Trump has argued that tariffs compel American companies to make goods on U.S. soil rather than purchasing from foreign suppliers.
But some companies have other plans.
“If we get tariffs, we will pass those tariff costs back to the consumer,” Philip Daniele, CEO of vehicle parts supplier AutoZone, told Wall Street analysts in an earnings call in late September. “We’ll generally raise prices ahead of — we know what the tariffs will be — we generally raise prices ahead of that,” Daniele said.
Major suppliers to AutoZone include companies based in China, India and Germany, according to the company.
Stanley Black & Decker CEO Donald Allan Jr. said last week his tool-producing company has been planning for the possibility of additional tariffs on imports since the spring. “Obviously, coming out of the gate, there would be price increases associated with tariffs that we [would] put into the market.”
Allan downplayed the idea of moving manufacturing back to the U.S., saying it would not be cost-effective. The company’s options could include “moving production and aspects of the supply chain to different parts of the world,” including from China to other parts of Asia and possibly Mexico, the executive said.
Such a shift has already been made by Shelton, Connecticut-based Acme United, which now has its Westcott brand products like rulers made in Thailand and the Philippines, avoiding the tariffs targeting China, CEO Walter Johnsen said in an October earnings call.
Acme has switched production of certain medical products to India, Egypt and U.S. plants in Florida, North Carolina and Washington state, the executive said.
Businesses have also stocked up, placing bigger-than-usual import orders ahead of new tariffs taking hold, as the U.S. imported 11% more Chinese products in July and August than they did during the same two-month period a year ago, according to the Census Bureau.
As Donald Trump readies to return to the Oval Office, U.S. retailers that depend on foreign suppliers are prepared to pass along the cost of his proposed import tariffs to consumers, potentially leading to higher prices for a range of products. https://t.co/FnazDzizgT
Special counsel Jack Smith delivers remarks about an unsealed indictment against former President Donald Trump on Aug. 1, 2023, in Washington, D.C.
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Donald Trump started this year fighting two federal prosecutions that threatened to send him to prison. But he will end it free and clear of his most significant criminal legal problems.
With his resounding victory at the polls, and a longstanding Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president, the key question is not if, but when, prosecutors move to dismiss or delay his federal election interference case in Washington, D.C.
Trump recently said he would fire special counsel Jack Smith “within two seconds” after he returned to the White House. Now, that won’t be necessary to bring his federal criminal troubles to an end.
Smith is taking steps to end both federal cases against Trump before the president-elect takes office, according to a source familiar with the Justice Department deliberations.
1. What are the outstanding cases the federal government has lodged against Trump?
A grand jury in Washington indicted Trump this year on four felony charges in connection with his effort to cling to power in 2020, culminating in the violent siege on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Judge Tanya Chutkan had set a trial date for March 2024, but that date came and went, after the Supreme Court accepted the case and ultimately handed Trump significant immunity from prosecution for official actions he took in the White House.
The judge is just now beginning to consider what parts of the prosecution’s case amount to official acts, and which are private conduct of a person seeking rather than holding office.
The Justice Department has appealed in a separate criminal case against Trump that accuses the former president of hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort and refusing to the return them to the FBI.
Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by Trump, dismissed the documents case on July 15, the first day of the Republican National Convention this year, reasoning that the way the special counsel had been appointed violates the Constitution. The Justice Department has been seeking review by a higher court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
2. What does Trump’s election victory mean for these cases?
They’re on life support and likely to end even before the inauguration in January.
On the campaign trial, now President-elect Trump has vowed to fire the special counsel, Jack Smith, on his first day in office. But Trump would not need to dismiss Smith or order any new DOJ officials to fire Smith in order to end the criminal prosecutions.
President-elect Donald Trump delivers remarks during the Georgia state GOP convention in June 2023 after a grand jury indicted him on 37 felony counts in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents probe.
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In 2000, a lawyer in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which advises the federal government on its powers and boundaries, concluded that a sitting president could not be indicted or prosecuted because that “would unconstitutionally undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions.”
Administrations led by Republicans and Democrats have adopted the DOJ policy against prosecuting presidents.
The Florida case involving classified documents is a bit more complicated. DOJ could file notice with the appeals court that it is abandoning the appeal. But that case involves two other defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira.
Dismissing the appeal outright would also mean walking away from cases that prosecutors built against those two defendants, Trump’s personal aide and the property manager at Mar-a-Lago.
What’s more, the federal government may have a broader interest, because Cannon’s reasoning could upend the way special prosecutors have been appointed for decades.
But one DOJ veteran who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly told NPR that Cannon’s ruling would not be considered binding precedent, so the stakes could be lower.
Former Attorney General William Barr says voters have evaluated the allegations against Trump—and decisively rendered their own verdict.
“Further maneuvering on these cases in the weeks ahead would serve no legitimate purpose and only distract the country and the incoming administration from the task at hand,” Barr said in a written statement first reported by the Guardian.
3. What happens to the special counsel, Jack Smith?
Special counsels are obligated to file a report on their actions with the Attorney General when they finish their work. The current attorney general, Merrick Garland, has pledged to make most of those reports public.
If Smith’s written report is not complete by Inauguration Day, it will be up to new DOJ leaders to decide its fate.
Mike Davis, a Trump ally, told a conservative interviewer this week that the attorney general “is probably President Trump’s most important appointment.”
Davis told the interviewer that Smith’s entire office should be fired and said, “After today, Jack Smith, you’re going to be the hunted: legally, politically and financially. So lawyer up, buddy.”
4. Trump also faced criminal charges in two states, New York and Georgia. How will the election reshape those cases?
A jury in New York this year convicted Trump on 34 criminal charges related to bookkeeping for an alleged hush money payment to an adult film actress shortly before the 2016 election.
Justice Juan Merchan scheduled a hearing for Nov. 12 to assess how the Supreme Court’s immunity decision might affect that case. It’s not clear whether the criminal sentencing for Trump set for Thanksgiving week will occur. Trump’s lawyers may seek to stop it given the election results.
The case against Trump in Fulton County, Ga., over alleged election interference, has been on pause for months while a higher court considers possible conflicts of interest involving District Attorney Fani Willis. There’s a hearing scheduled in that appeal Dec. 5.
It, too, could be overtaken by events — and a strategy of delay and deflection by Trump’s lawyers that appears to have succeeded beyond imagination.
