On Tuesday, exactly two weeks after the November 5 election, the Republican-controlled legislature in North Carolina reconvened in Raleigh, ostensibly to pass disaster relief for areas affected by Hurricane Helene. But, with no public notice, they snuck provisions into the bill stripping power from the state’s incoming Democratic governor and attorney general and dramatically changing how elections are administered. The bill passed the state House Tuesday night, just hours after it was publicly released, and is expected to be approved by the state Senate on Wednesday.

“It’s a massive power grab,” says Melissa Price Kromm, executive director of the pro-democracy group North Carolina for the People Action. “They didn’t like what happened in the election, and they want to overturn the will of the people. That’s not how democracy is supposed to work.”

Though Trump carried North Carolina, Democrats won five statewide offices—governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, and school superintendent. They narrowly lead in a pivotal state Supreme Court race that is headed to a recount.

Democrats also broke the GOP’s supermajority in the state legislature, which they had held due to extreme gerrymandering. This means that unlike in previous sessions, come January, Republicans will no longer be able to override the vetoes of the state’s incoming Democratic governor, Josh Stein, who easily defeated scandal-plagued Republican candidate Lieutenant Gov. Mark Robinson.

So, in a lame-duck session, Republicans preemptively stripped power from these Democratic officials before they are sworn in.

Most notably, the bill prevents the governor from appointing members of the state election board and transfers that authority to the state auditor, who, for the first time in more than a decade, is a Republican. Under North Carolina law, the governor, a position held by Democrat Roy Cooper for the past eight years, appoints a majority of members on the state election board and county election boards. The auditor will now have that authority, giving Republicans the power to appoint majorities on the state board and 100 county election boards.

These appointments will likely have major ramifications for elections in the state. The state board administers elections and issues guidance to county officials, who in turn have the power to decide where polling places go and the number of early voting locations. In addition, both the county and state boards must certify election outcomes. That raises the possibility that the new bill will enable Republicans to cut back on voting access and refuse to certify election results should a Democrat narrowly win. Price Kromm noted that the bill was introduced only one day after results showed Democratic Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs leading her GOP opponent by just 623 votes after trailing by more than 10,000 votes on election night.

“Legislators have put forward a bill that fails to provide real support to communities hit hard by Hurricane Helene and instead prioritizes more power grabs in Raleigh,” Cooper said in a statement.

For years, Republicans have been trying to prevent Democratic governors from appointing a majority of election board members, but they have repeatedly been blocked by voters and the courts. So now they have bypassed the precedent and handed the power over to the state auditor—a position with no expertise or previous authority in elections.

“This makes no logical sense other than he has an R next to his name.”

“No other state has that,” says Price Kromm. “This makes no logical sense other than he has an R next to his name.”

Other Democratic officials will also see their power stripped under the new legislation. The bill prevents the state’s incoming attorney general, Jeff Jackson, from filing lawsuits that contradict the positions of the legislature or joining lawsuits that originate in other states or with private actors, which state attorneys general frequently do.

The bill also changes the composition of the state courts. It eliminates two judicial seats held by judges who ruled against the legislature in voting rights cases and creates two new judicial positions that will be appointed by the GOP legislature. And, it specifies that the governor can only fill judicial vacancies with members of the same party, which would prevent Stein from appointing a Democratic judge to fill the position of an outgoing Republican judge.

This is not the first time Republicans have convened a lame-duck session to strip power from Democrats—and not just in North Carolina. They did so when Cooper beat Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, preventing him from appointing members to boards of University of North Carolina schools, restricting the number of state employees he could hire or fire, and subjecting all of his nominations to confirmation by the GOP-controlled state Senate, which was not previously required.  

Back in 2018, after Democratic Gov. Tony Evers defeated Republican Scott Walker in Wisconsin, Republicans also held a lame-duck session before Christmas to strip Evers of power and pass new laws making it harder to vote. Democrats called it a soft coup, and Evers viewed it as a precursor to the January 6 insurrection. “There hasn’t been a peaceful transition of power,” he told me.

The latest power grab in North Carolina could foreshadow the next few years in Washington under GOP control—and how the Republican Party’s antidemocratic tendencies have become more institutionalized, going much deeper than Trump. As Price Kromm puts it, “It’s batshit crazy down here right now.”

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) has proven time and time again that she will do nearly anything to make headlines.

But on Monday, she reached a new low, introducing a resolution seeking to bar transgender members and employees in the House of Representatives from using the bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity in the Capitol building. Echoing Republican talking points grounded in paranoia, the resolution alleges that allowing trans women to use women’s bathrooms “jeopardizes the safety and dignity” of cisgender women. It would task the House Sergeant-at-Arms with enforcing the resolution if passed.

The move comes just weeks after Rep.-elect Sarah McBride (D-Del.) became the first openly transgender person to serve in Congress. Though it does not directly mention McBride, the bill represents a clear attempt to attack her: Mace told reporters this explicitly on Tuesday, confirming that the bill is “absolutely” meant to target McBride. And in a post on X after announcing the resolution, Mace said McBride “does not get a say in women’s private spaces.”

McBride appeared to respond to the resolution in a post on X, stating: “Every day Americans go to work with people who have life journeys different than their own and engage with them respectfully, I hope members of Congress can muster that same kindness.” In a follow-up post, McBride called Mace’s effort “a blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing. We should be focused on bringing down the cost of housing, health care, and child care, not manufacturing culture wars.”

Other Democratic members also blasted the effort: Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.), the first openly gay person to represent her state in Congress and co-chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, said in a post on X that Mace’s effort was a “petty, hateful distraction,” adding, “There’s no bottom to the cruelty.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio (D-N.Y.) said: “This is not just bigotry, this is just plain bullying.” Laurel Powell, spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, called Mace’s resolution “a political charade by a grown-up bully” and “another warning sign that the incoming anti-equality House majority will continue to focus on targeting LGBTQ+ people rather than the cost of living, price gouging or any of the problems the American people elected them to solve.” And GLAAD CEO Sarah Ellis said in a statement: “Everyone in Congress might try focusing on solutions to improve people’s lives and leading with kindness, and see what progress you might make for every American.”

“Manufacturing culture wars,” as McBride put it, is, indeed, an apt way to describe the transphobic paranoia Mace and supporting members in the GOP appears to be stoking with this resolution—an especially ironic development given that Democrats have been chastised for having been too concerned with trans issues since losing the election.

When it comes to GOP panic about trans people using bathrooms alongside cisgender people, the evidence around the issue does not support the panic. A 2018 study published in the journal Sexual Research and Social Policy found there is no link between trans-inclusive bathroom policies and safety, and that reports of “privacy and safety violations” in bathrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms are “exceedingly rare.” This is probably why most states—37, plus DC—do not have any laws on the books regulating trans peoples’ use of bathrooms or other facilities, according to the Movement Advancement Project. (Mace’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on that research or other questions for this story.) But these facts have not stopped the GOP from pumping millions of dollars into anti-trans ads and filing hundreds of anti-trans bills in state legislatures across the country.

And as for the claim that it’s trans people who pose a danger to cisgender people in bathrooms? The GOP appears to be the party who poses a physical threat. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) went so far as to reportedly say in a private House GOP Conference meeting that she would fight a transgender woman if she tried to use a women’s bathroom in the House.

For all the drama this is stirring up, though, Mace’s latest effort may not go any further than the headlines: At a press conference Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said, “This is an issue that Congress has never had to address before and we’re going to do that in a deliberate fashion…and we will accommodate the needs of every single person.” He added that he would not commit to including the language of Mace’s resolution in the rules package the House will vote on in early January. A spokesperson for Johnson did not immediately respond to a question about the consequences if Greene fought another member of Congress or the lack of evidence to support Mace’s resolution.

Update, November 19: This post was updated with a statement from GLAAD.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) has proven time and time again that she will do nearly anything to make headlines.

But on Monday, she reached a new low, introducing a resolution seeking to bar transgender members and employees in the House of Representatives from using the bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity in the Capitol building. Echoing Republican talking points grounded in paranoia, the resolution alleges that allowing trans women to use women’s bathrooms “jeopardizes the safety and dignity” of cisgender women. It would task the House Sergeant-at-Arms with enforcing the resolution if passed.

The move comes just weeks after Rep.-elect Sarah McBride (D-Del.) became the first openly transgender person to serve in Congress. Though it does not directly mention McBride, the bill represents a clear attempt to attack her: Mace told reporters this explicitly on Tuesday, confirming that the bill is “absolutely” meant to target McBride. And in a post on X after announcing the resolution, Mace said McBride “does not get a say in women’s private spaces.”

McBride appeared to respond to the resolution in a post on X, stating: “Every day Americans go to work with people who have life journeys different than their own and engage with them respectfully, I hope members of Congress can muster that same kindness.” In a follow-up post, McBride called Mace’s effort “a blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing. We should be focused on bringing down the cost of housing, health care, and child care, not manufacturing culture wars.”

Other Democratic members also blasted the effort: Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.), the first openly gay person to represent her state in Congress and co-chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, said in a post on X that Mace’s effort was a “petty, hateful distraction,” adding, “There’s no bottom to the cruelty.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio (D-N.Y.) said: “This is not just bigotry, this is just plain bullying.” Laurel Powell, spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, called Mace’s resolution “a political charade by a grown-up bully” and “another warning sign that the incoming anti-equality House majority will continue to focus on targeting LGBTQ+ people rather than the cost of living, price gouging or any of the problems the American people elected them to solve.” And GLAAD CEO Sarah Ellis said in a statement: “Everyone in Congress might try focusing on solutions to improve people’s lives and leading with kindness, and see what progress you might make for every American.”

“Manufacturing culture wars,” as McBride put it, is, indeed, an apt way to describe the transphobic paranoia Mace and supporting members in the GOP appears to be stoking with this resolution—an especially ironic development given that Democrats have been chastised for having been too concerned with trans issues since losing the election.

When it comes to GOP panic about trans people using bathrooms alongside cisgender people, the evidence around the issue does not support the panic. A 2018 study published in the journal Sexual Research and Social Policy found there is no link between trans-inclusive bathroom policies and safety, and that reports of “privacy and safety violations” in bathrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms are “exceedingly rare.” This is probably why most states—37, plus DC—do not have any laws on the books regulating trans peoples’ use of bathrooms or other facilities, according to the Movement Advancement Project. (Mace’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on that research or other questions for this story.) But these facts have not stopped the GOP from pumping millions of dollars into anti-trans ads and filing hundreds of anti-trans bills in state legislatures across the country.

And as for the claim that it’s trans people who pose a danger to cisgender people in bathrooms? The GOP appears to be the party who poses a physical threat. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) went so far as to reportedly say in a private House GOP Conference meeting that she would fight a transgender woman if she tried to use a women’s bathroom in the House.

For all the drama this is stirring up, though, Mace’s latest effort may not go any further than the headlines: At a press conference Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said, “This is an issue that Congress has never had to address before and we’re going to do that in a deliberate fashion…and we will accommodate the needs of every single person.” He added that he would not commit to including the language of Mace’s resolution in the rules package the House will vote on in early January. A spokesperson for Johnson did not immediately respond to a question about the consequences if Greene fought another member of Congress or the lack of evidence to support Mace’s resolution.

Update, November 19: This post was updated with a statement from GLAAD.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has debuted a new—and implausible—reason that the House Ethics Committee’s report into allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use by former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) should not be released: Gaetz is now a private citizen.

In an interview on CNN’s State of the Union with Jake Tapper on Sunday morning, Johnson claimed that since Gaetz resigned from Congress on Wednesday, he does not deserve to be subject to the scrutiny of lawmakers. Yet Johnson neglected to provide the full context: Gaetz resigned shortly after Trump announced he would nominate him for the post of attorney general—which is about as far from “private citizen” as one could get.

“There’s a very important protocol and tradition and rule that we maintain, that the House Ethics Committee’s jurisdiction does not extend to non-members of Congress,” Johnson said. “I think that would be a Pandora’s box. I don’t think we want the House Ethics Committee using all of its vast resources and powers to go after private citizens.”

"The president and I have literally not discussed one word about the ethics report. Not once."

.@SpeakerJohnson lays out why he opposes the release of a House Ethics Committee report on Attorney General pick former Rep. Matt Gaetz. pic.twitter.com/gQbvi7LoMh

— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) November 17, 2024

As Tapper pointed out, Johnson’s claim is untrue: In the past, the committee has released reports focused on former Rep. Bill Boner (R-Tenn.), former Rep. Buz Lukens (R-Ohio), and former Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.), all after their resignations.

Johnson’s latest stance comes after he initially said, at a Wednesday news conference, that he would not be—and could not be—involved in decisions about whether to release the Gaetz report. Two days later, after reportedly spending time with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Johnson changed his tune and said he would “strongly request” that the committee not release its findings. That was on Friday, the same day the committee was reportedly set to vote on the matter.

When Tapper asked Johnson if Trump asked him to change his position and advocate against the release of the report, the Speaker denied it. “The president and I have literally not discussed one word about the ethics report, not once,” he claimed.

Whether Gaetz actually stands a chance at running the Department of Justice is uncertain: NBC News reported Saturday that more than half of Senate Republicans, including some in leadership roles, do not believe he’ll survive the Senate confirmation process.

The fact that Johnson is still defending him is ironic for more reasons than one: The House Speaker’s hardcore Christian beliefs—which include urging a return to “18th century values”—are well known. Gaetz, on the other hand, was investigated over sex trafficking allegations by the department Trump has tapped him to lead. (Gaetz has denied the allegations and the DOJ opted not to file charges.)

But when Tapper pressed the issue, asking whether the Republican party still cared about electing leaders who are “moral in their personal lives,” Johnson dodged the question. Trump’s nominees, he declared, “are persons who will shake up the status quo.”

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

For people involved with research and advocacy about climate change, the results of last week’s presidential election sting.

To get a sense of what’s to come and what’s needed to ensure domestic climate action continues, I spoke with Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist and author who teaches at Texas Tech University and is chief scientist for the Nature Conservancy.

She is one the country’s best-known communicators about climate change and often talks about how her religious faith informs her views about protecting the environment. Her 2021 book, Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World, was not written for this moment, but might as well have been.

She specified that she was speaking for herself and not for her employer or any organization. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

How are you feeling about the election results?

Disappointed and concerned. I was a lead author of the National Climate Assessment under the last Trump administration, and, as you know, I am firmly of the conviction that a thermometer does not give you a different answer depending on how you vote. A hurricane does not knock on your door and ask you which political party you’re registered with before it destroys your home.

Climate change is no longer a future issue. It’s already affecting us today. It’s affecting our health. It’s affecting the economy, which was a big factor in this election. It’s affecting the safety of people’s homes, the cost that they’re paying for insurance and for groceries, and it’s putting our future and that of our children on the line.

I want to see politicians arguing over who has the best solutions to climate change. I want them arguing over how to accelerate the clean energy transition. I want them to have competing proposals for how to build resilience and how to invest in the infrastructure and the food and the water systems that we need to ensure that people have a better and more resilient future. And unfortunately, I don’t think that’s what we’re going to see with this administration. Of course, I would be absolutely delighted to be proved wrong.

What’s a good mindset going forward for people who care about supporting the energy transition?

That’s a great question, because our mindset really determines what we focus on and what we can accomplish. So in terms of our mindset, I am an advocate for recognizing, first of all, that the situation is dire, and on many fronts. It’s already getting worse. People might be surprised to hear me say that, because often I’m tagged as a relentless optimist. But for me, hope begins with recognizing how bad the situation is, because you don’t need hope when everything’s fine. And I’m a scientist, so I have a front row seat to what’s happening in terms of climate impacts, and the biodiversity crisis, the pollution crisis and more. So our mindset has to begin with a realistic look at what’s happening and how it is already affecting us. We cannot sugar coat it.

But that is only one side of the coin. The other side of the coin has to be focused on what real solutions look like. And when we lose hope, we tend to look for silver bullets, for one solution that if everybody did this, it would fix the problem. There are no silver bullets, but there’s a lot of silver buckshot, so to speak. If we put it all together, we have more than enough of what we need.

And often, too, when we lose hope and when we’re discouraged and frustrated, I see a tendency to turn on each other, to say, ‘Well, you know, you’re not doing exactly what I think should be done, so I’m not going to talk to you or even work with you. I’m going to criticize what you’re doing.’ Now, more than ever, is a time to come together, to focus on what unites us rather than what divides us, to be focused on what we can accomplish together, even if different people come at it for different reasons. 

I really feel like, in the next four years, we need to lean into collaborations and partnerships and solutions that have multiple wins for both people and the planet. So one group of people might be advocating for solutions because it has an immediate health benefit. Others might see the immediate economic benefit. Others might see the benefit for nature. For too long, we’ve worked in silos, and now we don’t have time for single wins. We need multiple wins. We need partners that are in it for multiple reasons, and the more we focus on what we can accomplish together, I think the more positive outcomes we’re going to see, and the more allies we’re going to gain, especially at the local to regional level.

You’ve talked about your faith and how it informs your thinking about climate. Does that help when facing the potential for adversity like we’re seeing now?

Oh yes, it definitely does. If you’re familiar with the Bible, you know that there are many, many passages that talk about incredibly negative circumstances and our mindset when confronting and addressing those. All through the Bible, whether you’re looking at David or whether you’re looking at the apostle Paul, there are so many stories and histories of people who confronted suffering and felt discouraged and frustrated at the situation that they were in.

I love the fact that you’re bringing up mindset multiple times. The most important part of my faith is not what it says about nature, but what it says about our attitudes and our mindsets. For example, there’s this one verse in Second Timothy, where Paul’s writing to Timothy, who he mentored, and he says, “God has not given us a spirit of fear, rather a spirit of power, of love and a sound mind.” And for me, that’s so impactful, because when I start to feel overcome or overwhelmed by fear, as many of us do when we’re dealing with these situations, I remind myself that that’s not coming from God.

What God has given us is a spirit of power, which is a bit of an old-fashioned way to say that we should be empowered, because research shows that when people are overwhelmed with fear it will paralyze us, and that’s the last thing we need right now. We need to be empowered to act.

The second part is the spirit of love, because love considers others. It’s not just about ourselves, it’s not selfish. It’s about other people and other things that are being affected, in most cases, more than we are.

And then the last part is about a sound mind. Our sound mind can use the information that we have to make good decisions, and so that is really my own litmus test for how I’m making decisions…not out of fear, but out of power, love and a sound mind.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has debuted a new—and implausible—reason that the House Ethics Committee’s report into allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use by former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) should not be released: Gaetz is now a private citizen.

In an interview on CNN’s State of the Union with Jake Tapper on Sunday morning, Johnson claimed that since Gaetz resigned from Congress on Wednesday, he does not deserve to be subject to the scrutiny of lawmakers. Yet Johnson neglected to provide the full context: Gaetz resigned shortly after Trump announced he would nominate him for the post of attorney general—which is about as far from “private citizen” as one could get.

“There’s a very important protocol and tradition and rule that we maintain, that the House Ethics Committee’s jurisdiction does not extend to non-members of Congress,” Johnson said. “I think that would be a Pandora’s box. I don’t think we want the House Ethics Committee using all of its vast resources and powers to go after private citizens.”

"The president and I have literally not discussed one word about the ethics report. Not once."

.@SpeakerJohnson lays out why he opposes the release of a House Ethics Committee report on Attorney General pick former Rep. Matt Gaetz. pic.twitter.com/gQbvi7LoMh

— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) November 17, 2024

As Tapper pointed out, Johnson’s claim is untrue: In the past, the committee has released reports focused on former Rep. Bill Boner (R-Tenn.), former Rep. Buz Lukens (R-Ohio), and former Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.), all after their resignations.

Johnson’s latest stance comes after he initially said, at a Wednesday news conference, that he would not be—and could not be—involved in decisions about whether to release the Gaetz report. Two days later, after reportedly spending time with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Johnson changed his tune and said he would “strongly request” that the committee not release its findings. That was on Friday, the same day the committee was reportedly set to vote on the matter.

When Tapper asked Johnson if Trump asked him to change his position and advocate against the release of the report, the Speaker denied it. “The president and I have literally not discussed one word about the ethics report, not once,” he claimed.

Whether Gaetz actually stands a chance at running the Department of Justice is uncertain: NBC News reported Saturday that more than half of Senate Republicans, including some in leadership roles, do not believe he’ll survive the Senate confirmation process.

The fact that Johnson is still defending him is ironic for more reasons than one: The House Speaker’s hardcore Christian beliefs—which include urging a return to “18th century values”—are well known. Gaetz, on the other hand, was investigated over sex trafficking allegations by the department Trump has tapped him to lead. (Gaetz has denied the allegations and the DOJ opted not to file charges.)

But when Tapper pressed the issue, asking whether the Republican party still cared about electing leaders who are “moral in their personal lives,” Johnson dodged the question. Trump’s nominees, he declared, “are persons who will shake up the status quo.”

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

For people involved with research and advocacy about climate change, the results of last week’s presidential election sting.

To get a sense of what’s to come and what’s needed to ensure domestic climate action continues, I spoke with Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist and author who teaches at Texas Tech University and is chief scientist for the Nature Conservancy.

She is one the country’s best-known communicators about climate change and often talks about how her religious faith informs her views about protecting the environment. Her 2021 book, Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World, was not written for this moment, but might as well have been.

She specified that she was speaking for herself and not for her employer or any organization. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

How are you feeling about the election results?

Disappointed and concerned. I was a lead author of the National Climate Assessment under the last Trump administration, and, as you know, I am firmly of the conviction that a thermometer does not give you a different answer depending on how you vote. A hurricane does not knock on your door and ask you which political party you’re registered with before it destroys your home.

Climate change is no longer a future issue. It’s already affecting us today. It’s affecting our health. It’s affecting the economy, which was a big factor in this election. It’s affecting the safety of people’s homes, the cost that they’re paying for insurance and for groceries, and it’s putting our future and that of our children on the line.

I want to see politicians arguing over who has the best solutions to climate change. I want them arguing over how to accelerate the clean energy transition. I want them to have competing proposals for how to build resilience and how to invest in the infrastructure and the food and the water systems that we need to ensure that people have a better and more resilient future. And unfortunately, I don’t think that’s what we’re going to see with this administration. Of course, I would be absolutely delighted to be proved wrong.

What’s a good mindset going forward for people who care about supporting the energy transition?

That’s a great question, because our mindset really determines what we focus on and what we can accomplish. So in terms of our mindset, I am an advocate for recognizing, first of all, that the situation is dire, and on many fronts. It’s already getting worse. People might be surprised to hear me say that, because often I’m tagged as a relentless optimist. But for me, hope begins with recognizing how bad the situation is, because you don’t need hope when everything’s fine. And I’m a scientist, so I have a front row seat to what’s happening in terms of climate impacts, and the biodiversity crisis, the pollution crisis and more. So our mindset has to begin with a realistic look at what’s happening and how it is already affecting us. We cannot sugar coat it.

But that is only one side of the coin. The other side of the coin has to be focused on what real solutions look like. And when we lose hope, we tend to look for silver bullets, for one solution that if everybody did this, it would fix the problem. There are no silver bullets, but there’s a lot of silver buckshot, so to speak. If we put it all together, we have more than enough of what we need.

And often, too, when we lose hope and when we’re discouraged and frustrated, I see a tendency to turn on each other, to say, ‘Well, you know, you’re not doing exactly what I think should be done, so I’m not going to talk to you or even work with you. I’m going to criticize what you’re doing.’ Now, more than ever, is a time to come together, to focus on what unites us rather than what divides us, to be focused on what we can accomplish together, even if different people come at it for different reasons. 

I really feel like, in the next four years, we need to lean into collaborations and partnerships and solutions that have multiple wins for both people and the planet. So one group of people might be advocating for solutions because it has an immediate health benefit. Others might see the immediate economic benefit. Others might see the benefit for nature. For too long, we’ve worked in silos, and now we don’t have time for single wins. We need multiple wins. We need partners that are in it for multiple reasons, and the more we focus on what we can accomplish together, I think the more positive outcomes we’re going to see, and the more allies we’re going to gain, especially at the local to regional level.

You’ve talked about your faith and how it informs your thinking about climate. Does that help when facing the potential for adversity like we’re seeing now?

Oh yes, it definitely does. If you’re familiar with the Bible, you know that there are many, many passages that talk about incredibly negative circumstances and our mindset when confronting and addressing those. All through the Bible, whether you’re looking at David or whether you’re looking at the apostle Paul, there are so many stories and histories of people who confronted suffering and felt discouraged and frustrated at the situation that they were in.

I love the fact that you’re bringing up mindset multiple times. The most important part of my faith is not what it says about nature, but what it says about our attitudes and our mindsets. For example, there’s this one verse in Second Timothy, where Paul’s writing to Timothy, who he mentored, and he says, “God has not given us a spirit of fear, rather a spirit of power, of love and a sound mind.” And for me, that’s so impactful, because when I start to feel overcome or overwhelmed by fear, as many of us do when we’re dealing with these situations, I remind myself that that’s not coming from God.

What God has given us is a spirit of power, which is a bit of an old-fashioned way to say that we should be empowered, because research shows that when people are overwhelmed with fear it will paralyze us, and that’s the last thing we need right now. We need to be empowered to act.

The second part is the spirit of love, because love considers others. It’s not just about ourselves, it’s not selfish. It’s about other people and other things that are being affected, in most cases, more than we are.

And then the last part is about a sound mind. Our sound mind can use the information that we have to make good decisions, and so that is really my own litmus test for how I’m making decisions…not out of fear, but out of power, love and a sound mind.

As Donald Trump prepares to enter the White House for a second term, the reasons people voted him into office are becoming more clear. 

Subscribe to Mother Jones podcasts on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

For Micki Witthoeft, it’s cause for celebration. Her daughter, Ashli Babitt, was shot and killed by a police officer after storming the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Today, Witthoeft is confident Trump will stand by his word and pardon everyone involved. 

“He said his administration’s going to be one on ‘promises made and promises kept,’ ” she said. “I felt like he was talking right to me.”

But it’s not the same sentiment for all voters. This week, the Reveal team looks at the many contradictions behind Trump’s victory, with stories from hosts Hanna Rosin and Lauren Ober of the new podcast from The Atlantic, We Live Here Now; Mother Jones reporter Tim Murphy; and Reveal producer Najib Aminy. The show delves into January 6ers seeking pardons, “messy middle” voters who split their ballots, and members of the Uncommitted movement who wouldn’t vote for Kamala Harris despite being opposed to Trump.

As Donald Trump prepares to enter the White House for a second term, the reasons people voted him into office are becoming more clear. 

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For Micki Witthoeft, it’s cause for celebration. Her daughter, Ashli Babitt, was shot and killed by a police officer after storming the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Today, Witthoeft is confident Trump will stand by his word and pardon everyone involved. 

“He said his administration’s going to be one on ‘promises made and promises kept,’ ” she said. “I felt like he was talking right to me.”

But it’s not the same sentiment for all voters. This week, the Reveal team looks at the many contradictions behind Trump’s victory, with stories from hosts Hanna Rosin and Lauren Ober of the new podcast from The Atlantic, We Live Here Now; Mother Jones reporter Tim Murphy; and Reveal producer Najib Aminy. The show delves into January 6ers seeking pardons, “messy middle” voters who split their ballots, and members of the Uncommitted movement who wouldn’t vote for Kamala Harris despite being opposed to Trump.

Donald Trump’s nephew Fred Trump III doesn’t expect to be invited to his uncle’s inauguration this time around. He did, after all, write a book exposing some of the president-elect’s unsavory behavior, including the Donald telling Fred he should let his disabled son, William, die.

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But Fred Trump still plans to spend time in Washington, DC, in the coming years to push for progress on disability issues. “I joke that there are two things Donald and I share: the love of golf and we’re both relentless,” Fred said. That relentlessness also led him to start an advocacy nonprofit with his wife, Lisa, to fight for improved care for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

In an interview with Mother Jones, Fred said his uncle’s increasing use of both the phrase “mentally disabled” and the R-word to describe opponent Kamala Harris in the weeks leading up to the election reflected his harmful views on disability.

Remarking on Harris’ intelligence in response, Fred said, still wasn’t much of a critique of Trump: “It doesn’t matter. You don’t say it to anybody.”

And it’s not just his uncle that Fred is irate about: It’s the reaction of his uncle’s supporters. They laughed again and again at Trump turning disability into a cruel joke, Fred noted, just like they laughed when Trump mocked New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski’s disability in 2015.

Fred believes the Harris-Walz campaign could have pushed much more on disability issues; he witnessed the campaign drop the ball when it came to engaging with disability organizations, he said, and as a fellow father of a young person with a disability, Fred was disheartened that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz did not address the issue during his debate with Vice President-elect JD Vance.

“Tim Walz doesn’t even mention the word ‘disability,’” Fred said. “You have a child who has disabilities, who became such a guiding light during the convention, and I was there to witness that.”

But unlike some people opposed to Trump’s presidency, Fred finds questioning the election itself a waste of time. Instead, he urged, people opposed to the new administration should swiftly “get engaged for whatever cause is important to you.”

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

By tapping former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin to head the Environmental Protection Agency, President-elect Donald Trump opted to put his planned radical rollback of climate policy in the hands of a staunch ally who is skilled at projecting an image of a moderate conservationist.

As a Republican representing a Long Island district “almost completely surrounded by water,” as Zeldin often said, he successfully fought in Congress for coastal resilience and nature preservation projects and expressed hope for bipartisan compromise on climate, calling it “a very important issue.”

But Zeldin never advanced any proposal to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and like other congressional Republicans in the Trump era, consistently voted against those proposals. He came closer than any Republican in 20 years to capturing his state’s highest office by campaigning on a pledge to overturn the state’s ban on fracking.

“I think at times he spoke moderately when it was convenient to do so, but I don’t think that’s the Lee Zeldin that New York has seen for at least the past four years,” said Sam Bernhardt, the New York-based political director for Food & Water Action. He thinks the most telling item in Zeldin’s record is his vote against certifying the 2020 election.

“He did that because Trump told him to, so I think we can extrapolate that most of Lee Zeldin’s work at EPA will likewise be things that Trump has told him to do,” Bernhardt said.

In a Fox News interview on Monday, shortly after his selection was announced, Zeldin made clear that the president-elect has given him a long list of regulations to roll back.

“The president was talking about unleashing economic prosperity through the EPA,” Zeldin said. “There are regulations that the left wing of this country have been advocating through regulatory power that end up causing businesses to go in the wrong direction. And President Trump, when he called me up, gosh, he was rattling off 15, 20, different priorities.”

The agency that has spent the past four years spearheading policy to cut greenhouse gas pollution throughout the US economy would shift gears within “the first 100 days,” said Zeldin, into becoming a vehicle for Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda.

Zeldin is a markedly different choice than the leaders Trump chose to head up the EPA during his first term. Trump’s first EPA chief, Scott Pruitt, was an Oklahoma attorney general who had sued the agency repeatedly, leading Republican states’ push-back against President Barack Obama’s climate initiatives.

But upon arriving in Washington, Pruitt quickly became entangled in multiple controversies—over his travel practices, his use of government employees for personal errands, and his relationships with lobbyists. Pruitt resigned under pressure and was replaced by former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler, a behind-the-scenes player on Capitol Hill and in the EPA. He stirred less drama as he pursued the Trump deregulatory agenda, ultimately rolling back more than 100 environmental rules.

Zeldin comes to the EPA not as a combatant or a bureaucrat, but as a politician with a record of successfully delivering Republican messages in Democratic strongholds. Trump trusted Zeldin to act as a surrogate for him on the campaign trail—from Iowa at the beginning of the race through to Georgia and Pennsylvania at the end.

“He certainly is a savvy political operator,” said Frank Maisano, a senior principal at the law and lobbying firm Bracewell, which represents a range of energy-industry clients. 

“He wasn’t particularly well known for taking in-depth positions on EPA issues, but I’m not surprised that he gets a position like this,” Maisano said. “I’m certain what he’ll do is be a good leader, and a good spokesman for the president’s energy and environment agenda.”

Zeldin in recent years has advocated unleashing fossil fuel production without challenging climate science outright. That also sets him apart from Pruitt and to some extent, Wheeler, both of whom were proteges of one of Congress’ most outspoken climate science deniers, the late Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, who died earlier this year.

Zeldin was one of 12 Republicans who voted with House Democrats in 2019 in favor of a ban on drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines.

In 2019, during a debate on the first climate legislation to reach the House floor in a decade, Zeldin praised the Democratic sponsors for “their intentions and advocacy” on a measure that sought to hold the Trump administration to the goals of the Paris Agreement. But he still reeled off the reasons why he agreed with Trump’s decision to exit: there had not been enough debate or study of its potential economic impact, the measure had never come before Congress for a vote and China and India should be forced to make greater cuts.

“We needed a better deal for the world and other countries to step up and do more, more transparency and debates, and a vote here in Congress,” Zeldin said. “That is in the best interests of all our constituents. Hopefully, we can agree on the numbers and a process going forward, and we can work together on a bipartisan basis.”

But no bipartisan effort would ever emerge in Congress to deal comprehensively with the need to cut the nation’s greenhouse gas pollution as aggressively as scientists say is needed to avoid catastrophic climate risk. Zeldin, like all Republicans in Congress, voted against the legislative solution that the Biden administration hit upon, the massive incentives and subsidies for clean energy contained in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

The future of the IRA is now unclear, with Trump about to regain the presidency and Republicans poised to take control of Congress. And the other crucial part of Biden’s climate agenda—regulations on vehicles, power plants, and the oil and gas industry—are on the chopping block. Zeldin has been given the axe.

Zeldin, a native of Suffolk County, became one of the youngest attorneys ever in New York State at the age of 23. He then served four years on active duty in the US Army, deploying to Iraq in 2006, and holding roles as an intelligence officer, a prosecutor, and a magistrate. Zeldin continues to serve as a lieutenant colonel in the US Army Reserve.

In 2020, he talked about the damage that Superstorm Sandy did in his district eight years earlier when he spoke out in favor of water resources development legislation that later became part of the omnibus budget bill Congress passed and Trump signed.

“The widespread devastation emphasized the dire need to ensure our communities were better prepared for the future,” Zeldin said, speaking in favor of prioritizing and increasing spending limits for dredging and coastal storm risk management projects along the Long Island coast.

Zeldin also helped lead a long and ultimately successful effort to preserve Plum Island on Long Island Sound, which has become a key habitat for birds, seals, fish and coral. The federally owned island had been at risk of being sold off for development.

He was one of 12 Republicans who voted with the majority of House Democrats in 2019 in favor of a ban on drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines, a measure that the Senate never acted on.

But there were limits to Zeldin’s advocacy of coastal protection. He unsuccessfully sponsored legislation in 2016 that sought to block presidents—in particular, Obama—from creating any national monuments in the exclusive economic zone along the coasts of the United States. “I do this on behalf of commercial fishermen on Long Island and throughout the nation who, like so many other hard-working Americans, are increasingly under assault from the executive overreach of this administration,” Zeldin said at the time.

Over his four terms in Congress, from 2015 to 2023, Zeldin generated a pro-environmental voting record of 14 percent, according to the League of Conservation Voters, or LCV. That’s a high score relative to other House Republicans (their average was 4 percent in the last Congress), but environmental advocates said it signaled a lack of concern over the issues that he would be in his purview at EPA.

“Trump made his anti-climate action, anti-environment agenda very clear during the campaign,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld, LCV’s senior vice president for government affairs. “During the confirmation process, we would challenge Lee Zeldin to show how he would be better than Trump’s campaign promises or his own failing 14 percent environmental score if he wants to be charged with protecting the air we breathe and the water we drink, and finding solutions to climate change.”

If Zeldin’s past statements are any guide, he is likely to vow to protect clean air and water, even while touting the economic benefits of expanded fossil fuel development.

“We all have constituents who want access to clean air and clean water,” Zeldin said before his 2019 vote against holding Trump to the Paris Agreement goals. “It is something that, whether you are representing a district in Flint, Michigan, or you are in Tampa, Florida, or the east end of Long Island, we all want to advocate for that for our constituents.”

When he ran against Gov. Kathy Hochul in 2022 in his bid for New York’s top office, Zeldin advocated overturning the fracking ban that had been enacted under former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. “If New York would reverse the Cuomo-Hochul ban on the safe extraction of resources under many parts of the state, jobs will be created, energy costs will go down, communities will be revitalized, and our state can prosper again,” Zeldin posted on Twitter during his campaign. 

Zeldin lost, but garnered more votes than any Republican who ran for the state’s top office since former Gov. Nelson Rockefeller 50 years earlier. Maisano said that message apparently resonated with many New Yorkers, who live on the same geological formation, the Marcellus Shale, as their neighbors to the south.

“In many cases, the fracking ban in New York has been a scourge, because Pennsylvania is reaping the benefits and New York is not reaping anything,” Maisano said.

Trump, who is now seeking to lift restrictions on all oil and gas development in the nation, said Zeldin “will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet.”

Trump, who once frequently called climate change a “hoax,” but dropped that rhetoric before his 2016 presidential run, has honed a message on environmental protection that has allowed him to successfully campaign on a pro-fossil fuel agenda at a time when polls showed swing voters preferred clean energy and climate action. In Zeldin, Trump has found someone to lead that agenda who is skilled at the same kind of messaging.

Trump’s reelection has been described by advocates and experts as a final blow to reproductive rights.

These fears are not unfounded. Trump appointed three of the five conservative Supreme Court justices who overruled Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to abortion and unleashing a health care apocalypse. Vulnerable women found themselves in even greater danger thanks to abortion bans in more than a dozen states that have enabled abusers and left doctors fearful of prosecution if they intervene in pregnancy-related emergencies that require abortion care. ProPublica reported such bans appeared to have led to the deaths of several women in Georgia and Texas who were unable to get necessary abortion care when faced with dire medical complications. Add to this, Project 2025—the 900-plus-page extremist guidebook to a second Trump term—recommends that various federal agencies take sweeping actions to roll back abortion access.

Trump’s convictions on abortion have been flexible throughout his career. During the presidential campaign, he tried to distance himself from Project 2025 and claimed he would leave abortion policy “to the states.” Immediately after the election, however, his acolytes admitted that “Project 2025 is the agenda.”

Given all this, reproductive rights experts and advocates agree that the future of abortion access is bleak. But there are several actions President Biden and his administration could take before Inauguration Day that could make it harder for the next administration to enact their absolutist anti-abortion agenda. “Some of [the ideas] are just throwing monkey wrenches into the gears,” says David Cohen, a law professor at Drexel University whose scholarly work focuses on abortion access, “and maybe with the chaotic Trump administration that helps delay some of the harm.”

“Some of [the ideas] are just throwing monkey wrenches into the gears, and maybe with the chaotic Trump administration, that helps delay some of the harm.”

While Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned on “restoring reproductive freedom,” it’s unclear if the Biden administration will prioritize these requests before the transition. The White House did not respond on the record to the specific proposals mentioned in this story, but pointed to the administration’s record of defending and expanding reproductive rights. But some say there’s more they can, and should, do. “If the administration was hesitant or holding off, now is the time, I think, to not hesitate,” Rachel Rebouché, reproductive rights legal scholar and dean of Temple Law School, says.

Here’s a look at some of what the administration could do to stymie the Trump administration’s anti-abortion agenda before he’s back in the White House.

Preemptively Pardon Providers of Abortion Pills

The Comstock Act is a 19th-century anti-obscenity law still on the books that anti-abortion Republicans argue should be used to “enforce federal law against providers and distributors of [abortion] pills.” In December 2022, Biden’s DOJ issued a memo arguing that the law cannot be used to prosecute abortion pill providers. Earlier this year, Democrats in Congress introduced legislation to repeal parts of the bill lawmakers say could be most relevant to abortion, but the measure has languished in House and the Senate committees.

Given that Project 2025 advises Trump’s DOJ to invoke the Comstock Act to prosecute providers of abortion pills, some advocates suggest that Biden preemptively pardon anyone who could be implicated for doing so. Cohen, from Drexel, notes that a preemptive pardon “would make it so that the people who have been mailing [abortion] pills, or mailing procedural instruments or supplies, are not at risk of being prosecuted.”

Jodi Jacobson, founder and executive director of the initiative Healthcare Across Borders, described the proposal as “a proactive thing that the Biden administration can do to automatically protect people over the five-year statute of limitations” for federal offenses. Jacobson oversees a coalition that comprises several reproductive health advocacy organizations that plan to ask the Biden administration to issue the blanket preemptive pardon. “This is a no-brainer—there is no reason not to do this,” she says, adding that it would “take off the table the immediate criminalization of folks who have been trying to save lives.”

Trump’s Food and Drug Administration, though, could still revoke its approval of abortion pills, as Project 2025 recommends—but the preemptive pardon would protect providers who could otherwise face prosecution. Experts concede that while there would likely be legal challenges, “pardon power is pretty plenary to the president,” Cohen says. President Gerald Ford preemptively pardoned his predecessor, President Richard Nixon, for instance, which allowed Nixon to avoid Watergate-related charges (but ignited a national outcry). The Department of Justice did not respond to questions about the proposal from Mother Jones.

Push to Fill Vacancies in the Federal Judiciary

Biden cannot shift the balance of the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority before he leaves office, but the president and Senate Democrats do have the power to attempt to fill the 47 vacancies for open seats in the federal judiciary, mostly in federal district courts.

“We know the federal courts will continue to be central in the fight for reproductive freedom; the administration and Congress must be vigilant now in safeguarding our rights as much as possible,” Karen Stone, vice president of public policy and government relations at Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said in a statement provided to Mother Jones.

“We know the federal courts will continue to be central in the fight for reproductive freedom; the administration and Congress must be vigilant now in safeguarding our rights as much as possible.”

The significance of these lifetime appointments for the future of reproductive rights becomes apparent when you consider Matthew Kacsmaryk. He’s a Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas who issued an anti-science ruling last year that paved the way for anti-abortion activists to bring a case to the Supreme Court challenging the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, one of the two drugs used in a medication abortion. (The justices ultimately struck down the case, ruling that the anti-abortion plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the suit, as my colleague Nina Martin reported.)

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court sent the case on emergency abortion care back to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals—a federal court in California with 10 Trump-appointed judges and jurisdiction over more than a dozen district courts in nine states. “The power of lower court federal judges is immense,” Cohen says, “because the Supreme Court only deals with such a limited number of cases.”

Once Biden makes a nomination, the Senate Judiciary Committee, currently chaired by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), recommends whether to send nominees to a full floor vote, which is required for their confirmation. A spokesperson for Durbin’s office said that, as of Wednesday morning, there were 16 nominees ready for a floor vote, and eight more who have had committee hearings and are waiting for a committee vote. The spokesperson added that Durbin “aims to confirm every possible nominee before the end of this Congress.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement, “We are going to get as many done as we can.”

But that won’t necessarily be easy. Trump said in a social media post this weekend that “no Judges should be approved during this period of time because the Democrats are looking to ram through their Judges as the Republicans fight over Leadership.” Indeed, for Senate Democrats, time is of the essence. The next session of Congress begins January 3, just over two weeks before Trump takes office—so Biden’s nominees would need to be approved by after the New Year to make it onto the bench. Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.), whose vote is crucial in the tight Senate, may once again undermine Democrats’ plans. He told Politico in March he would not support any Biden-nominated judge unless they have at least one Republican supporter.

Still, several advocates say they hope Senate Democrats make the necessary effort to get as many Biden-nominated judges approved as possible, considering the influence they’ll likely have on the future of reproductive rights. “If [getting judges approved] means working over Thanksgiving, working over Christmas, working over New Year’s—do it,” Cohen says. “This is not something that should be gifted to Trump.” One way they could speed circumvent Republican opposition is by dispensing with a tradition known as “blue slips,” in which senators weigh in on whether or not they support the federal court nominees for their state. There is precedent for this: Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), former chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, abandoned the tradition—to the ire of Democrats—to get two Trump-nominated judges confirmed despite opposition from their home states’ Democratic senators. With only two months until the next Congress, Senate Democrats may not want to buck this tradition, though; they may want to keep “blue slips” as a weapon in their own arsenal as they anticipate Trump’s nominees to the federal judiciary.

Finalize Pending Reproductive Health-Related Rules for Federal Agencies

The Biden administration made headlines last month when it announced a proposed rule to allow 52 million women with private health insurance to obtain over-the-counter contraception for free under the Affordable Care Act. (Trump, on the other hand, has said he wants to “replace” Obamacare. And while he claims he would not restrict contraception access, it will face myriad threats in his administration, as my colleague Madison Pauly recently reported.)

But the contraception rule has yet to be finalized, and its pathway to becoming a reality is less straightforward than the optimistic White House press release suggests. After the public comment period—which has, so far, only attracted 2 people—ends on December 27, officials will analyze the comments and then write the final rule, which could then not even take effect for another 30 days.

Unlike executive orders, which can be wiped out with the stroke of a pen, rules approved for federal agencies are typically harder to undo. That’s thanks to the Administrative Procedure Act, which outlines the process of how a proposed rule becomes a finalized regulation, and requires that federal agencies do not act in a way that is “arbitrary, capricious, [or] an abuse of discretion.” Rebouché, from Temple Law School, says the administration needs to aim to get the contraception rule—and any other similar ones—finalized as soon as possible. “Any rule that’s already in process, push forward,” she says.

Katie O’Connor, senior director of federal abortion policy at the National Women’s Law Center, would like to see the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s promise to launch a rule focused on ensuring “modern-day digital data brokers are not misusing or abusing our sensitive data” come to pass. An investigation by the office of Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) earlier this year found that a data broker tracked visits by individuals to 600 Planned Parenthood locations across the country and then sold the data for an anti-abortion ad campaign. Even though the rule was promised last year, a CFPB spokesperson says they did not have any update.

Even if the agency tried to ram it through, though, any rules that get finalized at this late stage of the administration are at risk of being overturned in the next session of the GOP-controlled Congress, thanks to the Congressional Review Act, notes Steven Balla, associate professor of political science at George Washington University and co-director of the school’s Regulatory Studies Center. During Trump’s first term, Congress used the legislation to overturn 16 rules issued at the end of the preceding Obama administration—the most of any administration, ever, Balla explains.

Complete Investigations Into Hospitals Accused of Violating Federal Law on Emergency Abortion Care

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court heard a case on whether hospitals must provide abortions to people whose lives or health are at risk, even in states with abortion bans, under the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, known as EMTALA. In a 6–3 decision—with Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch dissenting—the court sent the case back to a lower court, refusing to rule on the merits of the Biden administration’s argument that EMTALA requires hospitals to provide emergency abortion care in states with post-Dobbs abortion bans that lack exceptions for a patient’s health. Project 2025 proposes an alternative approach: The guidebook says that “EMTALA requires no abortions” and that HHS should stop investigating hospitals that have failed to comply with its interpretation of the law.

Abortion rights advocates say Biden’s HHS should complete as many investigations as possible into hospitals that may have violated their interpretation of EMTALA by not providing stabilizing abortion care when needed. Otherwise, the Trump administration would inherit them, a spokesperson for the Center for Reproductive Rights points out.

That spokesperson added that the organization has also submitted three recent complaints to HHS, focused on hospitals in Texas and Arizona that allegedly violated EMTALA by failing to provide medically necessary abortions to women in need. A spokesperson for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services at HHS said the agency does not comment on ongoing investigations.

But even if these investigations were undertaken and completed before the transition, reports suggest they would be unlikely to face penalties from the Biden administration. Investigations recently published by the Associated Press found that more than 100 pregnant women were turned away from emergency rooms while they were in medical distress over the past two years, and that none of those hospitals were fined. Last year, HHS announced it was investigating two unnamed hospitals for allegedly violating the law by failing to offer a woman with a nonviable pregnancy the abortion care she needed. The National Women’s Law Center said it filed the complaint on behalf of Mylissa Farmer and identified the hospitals as Freeman Hospital West in Joplin, Missouri, and the University of Kansas Health System in Kansas City, Kansas. A spokesperson for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services told Mother Jones Wednesday, “Both hospitals are back in compliance,” but did not clarify whether they had faced monetary penalties.

One thing that both advocates and officials agree on? Elections have consequences, and there’s a limit to what Biden administration can actually do to mitigate the decades-long damage the Trump administration could do to reproductive rights once he takes office. “The electorate was confused or didn’t really care about abortion,” Cohen says, “and we’re reaping the reality of it.”

Donald Trump’s appointment announcements are getting weird.

The president-elect’s selection of Susie Wiles as his chief of staff, and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as his secretary of state nominee, suggested a step toward GOP convention. But Trump’s pick of former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard as his director of national intelligence—along with his announced plans to nominate Fox News host Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense, and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) for attorney general, represent a pivot toward the kooky.

Trump plans to put Gabbard, a dabbler in conspiracy theories, in a job overseeing 18 spy agencies, with responsiblity for preparing the president’s daily intelligence briefing. Gabbard did not respond to inquiries on Wednesday.

Gabbard’s nomination was announced Wednesday by longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone, who read Trump’s press release on the pick aloud on Alex Jones’ conspiracy-mongering InfoWars minutes before the release went public.

Gabbard, a former lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, is a one-time middle-of-the-road Democratic member of Congress who has evolved into a Trump supporter. She moved leftward in 2016—endorsing Sen. Bernie Sanders that year—and ran for the party’s presidential nomination in 2020 on a campaign that blasted the Democratic foreign policy establishment, before endorsing Trump this year.

Along the way, Gabbard has demonstrated excessive credulity about claims of autocrats hostile to the United States. In 2017, she drew fire for meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during a secret trip to Syria. Later that year, she said she was skeptical of US intelligence findings that led then–Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to say US officials had “a very high level of confidence” that chemical weapons attacks that killed dozens of people in Syria were carried out under Assad’s direction.

Gabbard’s position aligned with arguments from Russian officials, who provided key backing to Assad and argued that the 2017 attack was staged by agents of the United Kingdom.

Gabbard again bolstered Russian propaganda in 2022, when she tweeted a video repeating Kremlin claims that US-funded labs in Ukraine were developing biological weapons. The Russian claims appeared to be largely made-up justifications for Russia invading its neighbor.  

Gabbard’s comments drew widespread criticism. “Tulsi Gabbard is parroting false Russian propaganda,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) tweeted at the time. “Her treasonous lies may well cost lives.”

Gabbard has defended her various statements as examples of her willingness to buck a hawkish Washington foreign policy establishment too eager to drop bombs. “I am here to help prevent World War III,” she told Fox News on Monday.

But in defying what she dubs conventional views, Gabbard has demonstrated a high tolerance for conspiracy theories and disinformation: that is, she seems wide-open to bullshit.

That’s a particularly problematic penchant for someone tasked with advising the president on US intelligence findings—but it appears to be a quality this particular president desires.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, one of Donald Trump’s most outspoken supporters in Congress, is the president-elect’s pick for attorney general, a stunning choice that builds upon Trump’s long-held views of the Justice Department as an extension of his White House.

As my colleague Stephanie Mencimer wrote in a 2019 profile, the Florida Republican has made something of a political career trolling everyone from food stamp recipients to Michael Cohen. Gaetz’s controversial career, which he largely secured thanks to family connections, gave way to becoming a staunch Trump loyalist and all-around suck-up. “Matt Gaetz is living proof that Veep was less parody and more prophecy,” as Steve Schmidt said.

But as he now sits on the cusp of becoming the next attorney general under a White House threatening to prosecute its enemies—from Nancy Pelosi to the media—it’s also worth noting that Gaetz is a terrible lawyer. From Stephanie:

Meanwhile, after graduating from William & Mary Law School in 2007, Matt Gaetz went to work for a politically connected firm in Fort Walton Beach, near Niceville. He toiled away on pedestrian legal matters befitting a junior associate in a region whose biggest city, Pensacola, is home to barely 50,000 people. He filed a debt collection suit against an elderly woman who couldn’t pay the home care firm owned by Gaetz’s dad. Matt also represented a homeowners’ association fighting the county over the placement of a beach volleyball net. And he sued the “red fish chix,” two professional fisherwomen accused of absconding with a $50,000 boat belonging to a local restaurant that had hired them to promote it.

Less than a year into his job, he also became one of the firm’s clients. One night in October 2008, Gaetz was driving his dad’s BMW home from a nightclub on Okaloosa Island when a sheriff’s deputy pulled him over for speeding. (Gaetz’s driving record is the subject of many jokes in his district. In 2014, he rear-ended one of his constituents while talking on his cellphone.)

Gaetz’s nomination comes as the latest in a shocking series of poorly qualified picks for the next administration that includes Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, a Fox News host (Defense), and Kristi Noem (Homeland Security).

Social media site Bluesky has gained 1 million new users in the week since the U.S. election, as some X users look for an alternative platform to post their thoughts and engage with others online.

Bluesky said Wednesday that its total users surged to 15 million, up from roughly 13 million at the end of October.

Championed by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Bluesky was an invitation-only space until it opened to the public in February. That invite-only period gave the site time to build out moderation tools and other features. The platform resembles Elon Musk’s X, with a “discover” feed as well a chronological feed for accounts that users follow. Users can send direct messages and pin posts, as well as find “starter packs” that provide a curated list of people and custom feeds to follow.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

The post-election uptick in users isn’t the first time that Bluesky has benefitted from people leaving X. Bluesky gained 2.6 million users in the week after X was banned in Brazil in August—85% of them from Brazil, the company said. About 500,000 new users signed up in the span of one day last month, when X signaled that blocked accounts would be able to see a user’s public posts.

Despite Bluesky’s growth, X posted last week that it had “dominated the global conversation on the U.S. election” and had set new records. The platform saw a 15.5% jump in new-user signups on Election Day, X said, with a record 942 million posts worldwide. Representatives for Bluesky and for X did not respond to requests for comment.

Bluesky has referenced its competitive relationship to X through tongue-in-cheeks comments, including an Election Day post on X referencing Musk watching voting results come in with President-elect Donald Trump.

“I can guarantee that no Bluesky team members will be sitting with a presidential candidate tonight and giving them direct access to control what you see online,” Bluesky said.

Across the platform, new users—among them journalists, left-leaning politicians and celebrities—have posted memes and shared that they were looking forward to using a space free from advertisements and hate speech. Some said it reminded them of the early days of X, when it was still Twitter.

On Wednesday, the Guardian said it would no longer post on X, citing “far right conspiracy theories and racism” on the site as a reason. At the same time, television journalist Don Lemon posted on X that he is leaving the platform but will continue to use other social media, including Bluesky.

Lemon said he felt X was no longer a place for “honest debate and discussion.” He noted changes to the site’s terms of service set to go into effect Friday that state lawsuits against X must be filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas rather than the Western District of Texas. Musk said in July that he was moving X’s headquarters to Texas from San Francisco.

“As the Washington Post recently reported on X’s decision to change the terms, this ‘ensures that such lawsuits will be heard in courthouses that are a hub for conservatives, which experts say could make it easier for X to shield itself from litigation and punish critics,’” Lemon wrote. “I think that speaks for itself.”

Last year, advertisers such as IBM, NBCUniversal and its parent company Comcast fled X over concerns about their ads showing up next to pro-Nazi content and hate speech on the site in general, with Musk inflaming tensions with his own posts endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

Donald Trump’s appointment announcements are getting weird.

The president-elect’s selection of Susie Wiles as his chief of staff, and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as his secretary of state nominee, suggested a step toward GOP convention. But Trump’s pick of former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard as his director of national intelligence—along with his announced plans to nominate Fox News host Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense, and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) for attorney general, represent a pivot toward the kooky.

Trump plans to put Gabbard, a dabbler in conspiracy theories, in a job overseeing 18 spy agencies, with responsiblity for preparing the president’s daily intelligence briefing. Gabbard did not respond to inquiries on Wednesday.

Gabbard’s nomination was announced Wednesday by longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone, who read Trump’s press release on the pick aloud on Alex Jones’ conspiracy-mongering InfoWars minutes before the release went public.

Gabbard, a former lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, is a one-time middle-of-the-road Democratic member of Congress who has evolved into a Trump supporter. She moved leftward in 2016—endorsing Sen. Bernie Sanders that year—and ran for the party’s presidential nomination in 2020 on a campaign that blasted the Democratic foreign policy establishment, before endorsing Trump this year.

Along the way, Gabbard has demonstrated excessive credulity about claims of autocrats hostile to the United States. In 2017, she drew fire for meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during a secret trip to Syria. Later that year, she said she was skeptical of US intelligence findings that led then–Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to say US officials had “a very high level of confidence” that chemical weapons attacks that killed dozens of people in Syria were carried out under Assad’s direction.

Gabbard’s position aligned with arguments from Russian officials, who provided key backing to Assad and argued that the 2017 attack was staged by agents of the United Kingdom.

Gabbard again bolstered Russian propaganda in 2022, when she tweeted a video repeating Kremlin claims that US-funded labs in Ukraine were developing biological weapons. The Russian claims appeared to be largely made-up justifications for Russia invading its neighbor.  

Gabbard’s comments drew widespread criticism. “Tulsi Gabbard is parroting false Russian propaganda,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) tweeted at the time. “Her treasonous lies may well cost lives.”

Gabbard has defended her various statements as examples of her willingness to buck a hawkish Washington foreign policy establishment too eager to drop bombs. “I am here to help prevent World War III,” she told Fox News on Monday.

But in defying what she dubs conventional views, Gabbard has demonstrated a high tolerance for conspiracy theories and disinformation: that is, she seems wide-open to bullshit.

That’s a particularly problematic penchant for someone tasked with advising the president on US intelligence findings—but it appears to be a quality this particular president desires.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, one of Donald Trump’s most outspoken supporters in Congress, is the president-elect’s pick for attorney general, a stunning choice that builds upon Trump’s long-held views of the Justice Department as an extension of his White House.

As my colleague Stephanie Mencimer wrote in a 2019 profile, the Florida Republican has made something of a political career trolling everyone from food stamp recipients to Michael Cohen. Gaetz’s controversial career, which he largely secured thanks to family connections, gave way to becoming a staunch Trump loyalist and all-around suck-up. “Matt Gaetz is living proof that Veep was less parody and more prophecy,” as Steve Schmidt said.

But as he now sits on the cusp of becoming the next attorney general under a White House threatening to prosecute its enemies—from Nancy Pelosi to the media—it’s also worth noting that Gaetz is a terrible lawyer. From Stephanie:

Meanwhile, after graduating from William & Mary Law School in 2007, Matt Gaetz went to work for a politically connected firm in Fort Walton Beach, near Niceville. He toiled away on pedestrian legal matters befitting a junior associate in a region whose biggest city, Pensacola, is home to barely 50,000 people. He filed a debt collection suit against an elderly woman who couldn’t pay the home care firm owned by Gaetz’s dad. Matt also represented a homeowners’ association fighting the county over the placement of a beach volleyball net. And he sued the “red fish chix,” two professional fisherwomen accused of absconding with a $50,000 boat belonging to a local restaurant that had hired them to promote it.

Less than a year into his job, he also became one of the firm’s clients. One night in October 2008, Gaetz was driving his dad’s BMW home from a nightclub on Okaloosa Island when a sheriff’s deputy pulled him over for speeding. (Gaetz’s driving record is the subject of many jokes in his district. In 2014, he rear-ended one of his constituents while talking on his cellphone.)

Gaetz’s nomination comes as the latest in a shocking series of poorly qualified picks for the next administration that includes Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, a Fox News host (Defense), and Kristi Noem (Homeland Security).

Democrats needed to snap up just four seats in 2024 to gain control of the House of Representatives. But today it became clear Republicans would retain control of the House. The results complete a dismal year for Democrats: The House results nail in a Republican trifecta and ensure President-elect Donald Trump will be able to implement his agenda with limited resistance. 

Republicans saw opportunities in two blue states: New York and California—home to 10 of this year’s toss-ups. Republicans made significant inroads in each state in 2020 and 2022, leading Democrats to prioritize flipping some of those seats back this cycle. Money flowed to the battles. This year, according to OpenSecrets, the two states had five of the top 10 most expensive House races in the country.

In New York, Democrats gained back four seats. But their chances fell in California. Across the country—and perhaps to the surprise of Democrats—many communities of color broadly shifted to the right, often saying the economy was not working for them. As my colleague Noah Lanard reported, two California seats, both largely Latino in the southern part of Central Valley, were drags on the opportunity for Dems to take the House. A district with a significant Asian American population in Orange and Los Angeles counties, as I reported, saw a similar dynamic.

“We’re going to raise an America First banner above this place,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said at a press conference on Capitol Hill, declaring victory on November 12 before more than a dozen seats were decided. 

Johnson mentioned policies of a “common sense” America First agenda, including secure borders, lower costs, and the end to wokeness and gender ideology. 

We’ve published a ton of stories on what might happen—an attack on immigration, a crackdown on transgender rights, a reversal of many Democratic environmental policies, and a rethink on education and college affordability. 

Another element to look out for: tax breaks. Through reconciliation, which allows budget-based bills to pass the Senate and avoid the filibuster with a simple 51-vote majority, Republicans will have the ability to propose and pass policies like tax cuts: Many tax cuts.

Breaks enacted during Trump’s first term will expire at the end of 2025. While the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act slashed the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent permanently, most tax cuts for households and individuals were short-term. 

According to the Center for American Progress, an independent nonpartisan policy research and advocacy institute, extending Trump’s tax breaks would contribute $400 billion per year to the national debt. Trump has also made other promises such as ending taxation on overtime income, social security benefits, and tips, as well as lowering the corporate tax rate even more, to 15 percent. (The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated some of the additional costs here.)

Despite outgoing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) saying the filibuster will stand the day after Election Day, Trump had repeatedly called for its end in his first term. Republicans could weaken or kill the process and be able to pass any legislation with a simple majority rather than requiring a two-thirds majority to nullify a Democratic filibuster. This would theoretically grant Republican lawmakers the capacity to do whatever they want, creating a sweeping partisan playbook for at least the next two years. It looks less likely after the selection of Sen. John Thune as majority leader.

A Republican majority in both chambers of Congress also prevents Democrats from having any real authority to hold investigations. For the House, committee chairs hold unilateral subpoena power. This would strip Democrats of the ability to conduct inquiries on figures like Trump and those involved in coordinating the storming of the US Capitol. 

With Republicans in control of both chambers of Congress, among the first set of decisions will be how to overhaul much of the Biden administration’s policies in place of Trump’s agenda. 

While Republican lawmakers elect their House and Senate leaders, House Democrats will have to take time to rethink the next steps of their party. 

“The American people have spoken,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told CBS Mornings on November 12. “We’ve got to, as Democrats, work with the incoming administration whenever and wherever possible, and strongly disagree when necessary, and that’s going to be the approach that we take.”

In the days following Donald Trump’s clear win, conspiracy theories about how votes were tampered with or how the election was stolen from Kamala Harris have spread on the left, with viral tweets, TikTok videos, and posts on Threads making a chaotic and spotty case alleging a fishy result.

“I’m beginning to believe our election was massively hacked,” wrote former journalist and documented conspiracy theorist Wayne Madsen on Threads, neatly pouring every flavor of suspicion into one overfilled bottle. “Think Elon Musk, StarLink, Peter Thiel, Bannon, Flynn and Putin. 20 million Democratic votes don’t disappear on their own.”

Infowars’ Alex Jones claimed Democrats attempted pro-Harris fraud but simply failed.

Such post-election delusions aren’t particularly surprising—as political science professors Joe Uscinski and Joseph Parent have written, indelicately but accurately, conspiracy theories are for “losers,” and tend to resonate when groups are “suffering from loss, weakness, or disunity.” But what’s far stranger is that conspiracy theories about election tampering are somehow, still, also happening among the winners on the right. 

On the left, Harris voters attempting to make sense of their loss have turned to baseless fears that Trump-backing billionaire Elon Musk somehow tampered with the vote through Starlink. While that satellite internet company is wholly owned by his company SpaceX, it is not, contrary to many of these claims, used by any state to tabulate votes. There’s also the separate claim that 20 million votes are “missing” when compared to the last presidential election. That also isn’t true: results are still being tabulated, and the overall number of votes is on track to be extremely close to 2020’s total. On a broader level, Jen Easterly, the director of the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, reports it has “no evidence of any malicious activity that had a material impact on the security or integrity of our election infrastructure.”

The Meta-owned social media site Threads has been particularly full of left-and-liberal election denialism. As journalist Taylor Lorenz explains, the situation illustrates “how Meta’s efforts to downrank and minimize journalistic content on the app have helped to create a vacuum in which misinformation thrives unchecked and users are unable to find reliable, accurately reported news.” It’s also a clear sign that some social media users are finding that dabbling in election conspiracy theories earns much-craved attention and engagement, with some posts alleging a Starlink plot racking up thousands of views.

There were early signs America was heading toward a post-election season characterized by broad suspicions of fraud: in an October 3 Marist poll, 58 percent of respondents said they were either “concerned” or “very concerned” that voter fraud might occur this year. Of course, fears of voter fraud have haunted American elections for almost as long as we’ve been a country, and have been harnessed by politicians and activists since the early 19th century to motivate their own base to vote—and to change the rules to try to keep some voters, especially immigrants and the poor, from the polls. 

In the run up to last week’s vote, Trump and his allies regularly pushed such fears, raising the false specter of American voters being overwhelmed at the polls by illegal non-citizen voters. That came on top of years of similar claims, and against the backdrop of Trump’s false contention he won the 2020 election. But while the firehose of voter fraud accusations slowed down dramatically after Trump’s win last week, it didn’t stop entirely.

In the very early morning of November 6, not long after polls closed, Mike Adams, who runs the conspiracy site Natural News, wrote that “Dems still have a chance to cheat their way to ‘victory’ in the hours ahead, and trucks of ballots are now seen unloading tens of thousands of ballots in Philadelphia.” While multiple conspiracy peddlers reported on a supposed convoy of trucks bringing fraudulent ballots to Pennsylvania, most dropped the claim after Trump’s win in the state was secured.

Conspiracy theories are for “losers….suffering from loss, weakness, or disunity.”

A similar pattern played out in Arizona, where TruthSocial and right-wing Twitter users claimed early on that voter fraud was occurring against Donald Trump. The day after the election, far-right news site Real America’s Voice devoted a lengthy segment to “apparent voter fraud” in Arizona. “This is such a shady state,” commentator Ben Bergquam proclaimed, claiming that “they are allowing people to vote who they know are not registered voters. They’re allowing fraudulent votes.”

But when Trump’s victory in the state became clear on November 11, prominent Trump fans and conspiratorial news sites maintained that fraud had somehow taken place in down-ballot races, even if it had not in deciding the presidency. After Democrat Ruben Gallego triumphed over ultra-conservative Kari Lake in Arizona’s Senate race, Rogan O’Handley, a conservative commentator who uses the handle DC Draino on Twitter, claimed without evidence (as Lake has) that Gallego was “cartel-linked,” and suggested that had something to do with his win: “I’ll give you a hint. It’s fraud.”

Twitter’s “Election Integrity Community” also focused its muddled attention on Arizona, as well as on the Wisconsin Senate race. In an otherwise triumphal tweet the night after the election, Musk himself conspiratorially wrote that the “few states that didn’t go red are mostly ones without voter ID requirements. Must be a coincidence,” punctuated with an eye-roll emoji. His America PAC tweeted a similar claim earlier in the day; these claims ignore that 36 states already request or require some form of voter ID. Many of the ones that don’t are ideologically Democratic-leaning states where Harris was heavily favored to win.

In what seems to be an emerging narrative on the far-right, Infowars conspiracy kingpin Alex Jones claimed that Democrats tried to carry out election fraud on behalf of Harris and simply failed. “I think the face of the police and the poll watchers and the lawyers, they went, ‘We just can’t do this anymore, this is too obvious,’” he declared. “And then boom, we saw Trump win. That’s not even conjecture. That’s what happened.” 

But true to form, Jones also couldn’t resist pointing to supposed fraud somewhere, darkly claiming that “glitches” flipping seats from Republican to Democrat had been “exposed” by Lara Trump and Susie Wiles, Trump’s incoming chief of staff. That narrative echoed one pushed by Gateway Pundit, which speciously seized on a report that the apparent winners of some county-level races in Michigan could change as votes continue to be tabulated, a process known colloquially as “counting votes.”   

Even Donald Trump himself had to find ways to reconcile an uncomplicated victory with his incessant advance warnings of fraud. He turned to newly relevant slogan, posting a red-tinted photo of a crowd of his supporters, overlaid with the words “TOO BIG TO RIG.”