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.
November 7, 1837 Abolitionist, clergyman and editor Elijah P. Lovejoy, 34, was murdered by a pro-slavery mob in Alton, Illinois, as he defended his newly delivered printing press.
Elijah P. Lovejoy
He had lost two other presses to mob attacks, but refused to surrender this one, which had been contributed by the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society. For this he was shot five times in the fatal attack. Lovejoy had moved 20 miles to Alton from St. Louis where, after denouncing the lynching and burning of a black man, a mob tore down his office. Warehouse with Lovejoy’s press set ablaze by mob; “We must stand by the Constitution and laws, or all is gone.” Elijah Lovejoy, The Observer Read more
November 7, 1862 1700 members of the Dakota Sioux, mostly women, children and the eldersly, were force-marched 150 miles (240 km) to a concentration camp at Fort Snelling in Minnesota. The four-mile-long (6.5 km) procession was subject to physical abuse by white residents of towns along the way. Governor Alexander Ramsey had committed himself to ridding the state of all the Dakota, raising the bounty on an Indian scalp to $200. One of the prisoners at Fort Snelling Simultaneously, 300 Dakota men were tried summarily (as many as 40 cases in a single day) and marched to another camp in Mankato. They had surrendered to the U.S. Army at the end of the Dakota War, expecting to treated as prisoners of war. Little War on the Prairie (This American Life) More on this forced march
November 7, 1916 Jeannette Rankin, a Republican from Missoula, Montana, became the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress. American women in 19 states had no voting rights whatsoever until passage of the 19th amendment four years later. Female Montanans had full voting rights even before statehood (in 1889). Readmore
November 7, 1919 Hundreds, presumed to be members of the Union of Russian Workers, were arrested in New York and other cities across the country on the second anniversary of the Russian Revolution. President Woodrow Wilson’s attorney general, A. Mitchell Palmer, and Intelligence Division chief, John Edgar Hoover, used the Sedition and Espionage Acts to thwart what they saw as a Communist plot to overthrow the government. This was but one many assaults on radicals in what was known as the Palmer Raids. Thousands were arrested and thousands deported. It had been a year of significant labor unrest including steel, coal, and Boston police strikes, and a Seattle general strike. There was high unemployment in the wake of the demobilization after World War I. Around May Day there had been dozens of mail bombs, most of them intercepted, and a suicide bomber died outside Palmer’s Washington residence. The Palmer Raids The first mass arrest of immigrant workers Attorney General Mitchell’s view
November 7, 1973 New Jersey became the first state to allow girls to play Little League Baseball.
As I said yesterday, today is the day we start to figure out how to fight back against what is coming. From what I read yesterday a lot of men still won’t vote for a woman, especially Latino heritage men. Plus people said things cost less under tRump in 2019 and felt he could bring prices down to those levels. But that is stupid, he won’t and can’t because to him and the wealthy profit is king. But what could happen is that their incomes will be cut, their safety nets will be cut. One guy was heard saying tRump had the economy and immigration and Harris only had women’s rights and Democracy. Think on it, hating others was more important than others rights and Democracy. But we will learn more. Arab voters who claim they warned Harris she needed to change on Gaza will notice that already Israel has increased its take over of Gaza, saying that Palestinians will NOT be allowed to return to the north and all that are still there will be killed. Knowing that tRump will back him. So they sure made a difference didn’t they. Hugs.
Vice President Kamala Harris led President-elect Donald Trump 86% to 12% among lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender voters, according to the NBC News Exit Poll Desk.
By Patrick J. Egan, NBC News Exit Poll Desk
Former President Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris to become the next U.S. president, NBC News projected, but he didn’t do so with the help of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender voters.
LGBT voters shifted even more solidly into the Democratic camp this year, according to the NBC News Exit Poll. Harris led President-elect Trump 86% to 12% among LGBT voters, the poll found. That’s a 15-point change from 2020, when Trump won 27% of the LGBT vote against Biden.
Harris’ performance among LGBT voters was stronger than that of any Democratic candidate in the last five presidential elections.
Although Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance predicted that he and Trump would win the “normal gay guy vote,” the GOP presidential ticket captured fewer than 1 in 5 LGBT male voters, though that figure could also include bisexual and transgender men. Trump’s support among LGBT female voters was even more tepid, at 8%. White LGBT people went solidly for Harris over Trump by 82% to 16%, though Harris’ margin was even bigger among LGBT voters of color at 91% to 5%.
Most LGBT voters said they’d be either “excited” (39%) or “optimistic” (43%) if Harris were elected president. By contrast, 62% of LGBT respondents said they’d be “scared” if Trump won.
According to the exit poll, 8% of American voters identified as LGBT in 2024. That’s the highest share on record. The percentage of the electorate identifying as LGBT has doubled since Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, when it was 4%.
As in previous elections, LGBT voters stood out as one of the most left-leaning voter blocs in the electorate. Among LGBT voters, Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans, 56% to 5%, and liberals surpass conservatives, 61% to 5%. LGBT voters are staunchly pro-choice: 59% say abortion should be legal in all cases, a much higher level of support for abortion rights than among non-LGBTs, at 31%.
“As an American, I’m out of fucks to give for my fellow Americans. It’s been almost 10 years to see who he really is, and 3/4 of us either LIKE that or are too ignorant to care.
Don’t come crying when your loved one gets beaten by a police officer and they face no charges.
Don’t come crying when a friend/family member gets raped and the baby can’t be aborted, nor if they suffer a miscarriage from a pregnancy and bleed out because they can’t get medical help.
Don’t come crying when the Supreme Court is packed with 2 more far right corrupt justices and more lifelong rights start to vanish.
Don’t come crying when Ukraine aid stops and, if the rest of the world doesn’t pick up the slack, Russia takes even more land and continues killing more people.
Don’t come crying as the deficit explodes from corruption and the economy crashes as Trump lines his own pockets.
Don’t come crying when our education system bottoms out because Elon guts the government so that, combined with project 2025 ending all abortion care, poor people are forced to raise lots of stupid babies to run his factories.
Don’t come crying when worker protections are cut and overtime pay is all but eliminated.
Don’t. Complain. To. Me. I’ll ask who you voted for and then laugh in your fucking face. ‘But. But. I didn’t think. . . ‘
‘Of course you didn’t fucking think. You voted for him. Well, we tried to tell you. We tried to reason with you. We tried to compromise, but no. You just had to take your stand on whatever single fucking issue.’”
It was still something shoved up your ass while strangers watched.
Thanks to Ten Bears for the reminder that others faced a harder struggle and stood their ground in order to create a more perfect union. I will give myself today to absorb it, to be stunned at how we were so misled. How with all the support, money, and him being him, how did Harris lose. Misogyny comes to mind. But we fought for our rights before. We started at the ground, the grassroots and changed minds along with changing who was in charge. The other side learned our lessons and turned them against us. So tomorrow we go back to doing what we must to change the direction the country is going in, to make sure school boards are filled with people who want kids to learn science, learn to treat those different from them with respect and dynasty. We were on the way to a better world, those that did not want that fought back. Now the shoe is back on our feet. We have to make sure it starts at every level and every state. Make sure we are in the community and seen. Make sure we let people know we will not return to the 1850s or even the 1950s. We remember, let’s make sure everyone else does also. Hugs
FILE – Texas Gov. Greg Abbott speaks at a news conference in Austin, Texas on June 8, 2021. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Updated 7:10 AM EST, November 1, 2024
Texas hospitals must ask patients starting Friday whether they are in the U.S. legally and track the cost of treating people without legal status following an order by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott that expands the state’s clash with the Biden administration over immigration.
Critics fear the change could scare people away from hospitals in Texas, even though patients are not required to answer the questions to receive medical care. The mandate is similar to a policy that debuted last year in Florida, where Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is also a frequent critic of the federal government’s handling of illegal crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Texas hospitals have spent months preparing for the change and have sought to reassure patients that it won’t affect their level of care.
Here’s what to know:
Required to ask, not required to answer
Under the executive order announced by Abbott in August, hospitals must ask patients if they are citizens in the U.S. and whether they are lawfully present in the country.
Patients have the right to withhold the information and hospital workers must tell them their responses will not affect their care, as required by federal law.
Tracking hospital costs and patient data
Hospitals are not required to begin submitting reports to the state until March. An early draft of a spreadsheet made by state health officials to track data does not include fields to submit patient names or personal information.
Providers will fill out a breakdown of visits by inpatient and emergency care patients and document whether they are lawfully present in the country, citizens or not lawfully present in the U.S.
The reports will also add up costs for those covered by Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP; and the cost for patients without it.
“Texans should not have to shoulder the burden of financially supporting medical care for illegal immigrants,” Abbott said when he announced the policy.
Texas is following Florida’s lead
Florida enacted a similar law last year. Health care advocates contend the law has made immigrants who need of emergency medical care fearful and led to fewer people seeking help, even from facilities not subject to the law.
Florida’s early data is — by the state’s own admission — limited. The data is self-reported. Anyone can decline to answer, an option chosen by nearly 8% of people admitted to the hospital and about 7% of people who went to the emergency room from June to December 2023, according to Florida’s state report. Fewer than 1% of people who went to the emergency room or were admitted to the hospital reported being in the U.S. “illegally.”
Texas hospitals have been preparing
Immigrant and health care advocates have sought to educate the Texas public about their rights. In Florida, groups used text messages, posters and emails to get the word out. But advocates there have said they didn’t see fears subside for about a year.
Health care providers received directives from the state and guidance from the Texas Hospital Association.
“The bottom line for patients is that this doesn’t change hospital care. Texas hospitals continue to be a safe place for needed care,” said Carrie Williams, spokesperson for the hospital association.
Elijah P. Lovejoy
One of the prisoners at Fort Snelling
Scottie's Playtime 