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2025-11-11 06:16:16

On Monday, the Department of Health and Human Services made an announcement that it promised would change the lives of millions of American women for the better: Hormone replacement therapy, the combination of hormone drugs that can treat the symptoms of menopause, was about to be depathologized.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had decided to remove a black-box warning on the medication that cautioned patients that its use could cause cancer and stroke. HHS Secretary RFK Jr. and FDA commissioner Marty Makary said that the warning, which first appeared in 2003, had been based on an overblown interpretation of a decades-old study. “The FDA is announcing today that it will remove the misleading black-box warnings from all HRT products,” said Kennedy. “For the first time in a generation, the FDA is standing with science and standing with women.” 

The change was welcome news to many doctors who treat the often-debilitating and long-dismissed symptoms of menopause: hot flashes, brain fog, insomnia, and recurrent urinary tract infections, to name but a few. “This decision aligns with the latest evidence-based research and helps eliminate the unnecessary fear that this warning has long perpetuated,” the Menopause Advocacy Working Group, a group of physicians that promotes increased awareness around menopause, said in a statement on social media. (Two of the group’s members were among the speakers at Monday’s event.)

But the specialists with whom Mother Jones spoke said that Monday’s panel, which included doctors with robust social media presences, had at times overstated both the negative health effects of menopause and the science on the benefits of hormone replacement therapy. Spokespeople for HHS did not immediately respond to questions for this story.

Here are just a few of the more questionable claims they made:

Menopause causes divorce.

Dr. Kelly Casperson, a urologist and “expert and advocate for sexuality and hormones,” warned that “families fracture” if women don’t get treated for the symptoms of menopause. Dr. Makary listed “divorce” alongside well-documented symptoms like mood swings and hot flashes. For Adrian Sandra Dobs, a professor of Medicine and Oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine’s Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, this claim was “pretty ridiculous.” She continued, “It is true that there can be mood swings and this can affect a marriage,” but to blame a divorce on menopause is “really stretching it.” 

Menopause kills women.

“HRT has saved marriages, rescued women from depression, prevented children from going without a mother,” Dr. Makary said. “Menopause shortens women’s lives,” added HHS Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health Director Alicia Jackson. Dr. Esther Eisenberg, a Professor Emerita at Vanderbilt University Medical Center who is working on the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ (ACOG) forthcoming guide to menopause, called the notion that menopause kills women “absurd.” Menopause, she said, “has nothing to do with a woman’s lifespan.” Dr. Jen Gunter, a gynecologist and the author of the 2021 book The Menopause Manifesto, noted in a Bluesky post that, on average, women actually live longer than men.

HRT improves the lives of all women.

“We have the opportunity to add up to a decade of healthy years to the life of every woman that you love!” proclaimed Dr. Jackson. Except for, as Drs. Dobs and Eisenberg noted, the millions of women for whom HRT is contraindicated—such as those with a previous history of blood clots or stroke, certain blood conditions, and many of those with a history of breast cancer. 

Lifelong vaginal estrogen therapy helps breast cancer patients live longer.

“They need their oncologist to know that women with breast cancer who use it may actually live longer, and they need their primary doctors to know how to write the prescription, recommend it for life,” said panel member Dr. Rachel Rubin, a urologist and sexual medicine specialist. Dr. Dobs wasn’t so sure. “I can’t agree with that,” she told Mother Jones. “We shouldn’t be afraid of it, but I couldn’t make a statement that vaginal estrogen makes women with breast cancer live longer.” (Breast cancer patients and survivors are typically advised to avoid most forms of HRT, though emerging evidence suggests vaginal estrogen may be safer.) 

Doctors should test the estrogen levels of patients in perimenopause before prescribing HRT.

“We are sticking with our philosophy that the government is not your doctor,” said Dr. Makary. Nonetheless, he did recommend “having a doctor evaluate your estrogen levels to figure out when is the right time to start.” Yet the North American Menopause Society explicitly recommends against testing for estrogen levels in perimenopausal women because they fluctuate so much throughout a woman’s cycle. Instead, doctors should prescribe estrogen based on a woman’s symptoms. Of Makary’s advice for women to ask their doctors to test their estrogen levels, Dr. Eisenberg said, “that recommendation comes out of the sky.” 

Makary cast these claims as the results not only of “a robust review of the latest scientific evidence” but also of “listening to women who have been challenging the paternalism of medicine.” In a surprisingly feminist statement, Makary added, “A male-dominated medical profession, let’s be honest, has minimized the symptoms of menopause, and as a result, women’s health issues have not received the attention that they deserve.” 

Makary’s criticism of paternalism in medicine might strike some as being particularly ironic when considering some of the other recent actions the FDA has taken on women’s health, which have included adding warnings to medications already proven to be safe. Back in July, for instance, the agency convened a so-called expert panel to discuss the use of antidepressants by pregnant women. The event featured a majority-male panel, several of whom called for adding a black box warning to SSRIs for pregnant women, which reproductive health experts say could increase stigma for women who could benefit from taking the pills. The members of that panel mostly spewed misinformation while railing against the use of antidepressants during pregnancy, to such an extent that the president of ACOG promptly released a statement calling the meeting an “alarmingly unbalanced” event that “did not adequately acknowledge the harms of untreated perinatal mood disorders in pregnancy.” 

In addition, Kenedy and Makary confirmed in a September letter to Republican attorneys general that they would undertake a review of the safety of mifepristone, one of the two drugs used in medication abortion, even though more than 100 scientific studies have confirmed the pills are safe and effective—including when they are prescribed virtually and mailed to patients. Reproductive rights advocates are concerned that this “review” could lead to a decision to restrict access to the pills by recommending they should not be prescribed virtually and mailed to patients, or that they should not be used through ten weeks’ gestation, as the FDA currently allows. (Abortion advocates say the pills can be safely used later in pregnancy, and the World Health Organization guidelines note they can be used anytime in the first trimester.) 

The newfound enthusiasm for HRT has been building over the past few years, as awareness of menopause, its symptoms, and the myths around hormonal medications has increased. All the attention on menopause, though, has elevated a new cadre of doctor-influencers, two of whom were featured speakers at Monday’s event. Casperson, a urologist who hosts a podcast and has written two books about menopause and sex, has 435,000 Instagram followers. At her Bellingham, Washington clinic, which doesn’t accept insurance and instead offers memberships that start at $3,000 for 4-6 months of treatment. Casperson says she aims to help women “stop should-ing all over your sex life.” Rubin, also a urologist who doesn’t accept insurance, has 185,000 followers on Instagram. She trained under the controversial physician Irwin Goldstein, who advocated for the first-ever women’s libido drug, which the FDA approved back in 2015. 

Dr. Dobs cautions against relying on influencers selling supplements or claiming that HRT will solve all women’s health problems. “Unfortunately, nothing really keeps us young except things like stopping smoking, exercising, and lifestyle modification,” she said. “There’s a lot of hype to hormones—we think they’re going to cure everything, and they really don’t.” 

2025-11-11 03:51:02

Donald Trump has reportedly pardoned high-profile attorneys accused of joining in his plot to try to steal the 2020 election, along with dozens of so-called fake electors alleged to have played small roles in the effort. The pardons were announced by Ed Martin, the president’s pardon attorney, who posted a proclamation by the president outlining them on X.

The pardons, which on Monday afternoon had not appeared on White House page listing Trump’s clemency grants, are symbolic. They are part of Trump’s larger effort to downplay his attempt to subvert the 2020 election and his responsibility for the January 6, 2021, attack on Congress. None of the people he pardoned Sunday—including lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis and Jeffrey Clark—face federal charges. But many on the list have been charged with state crimes related to the fake elector scheme. The president has broad clemency power over federal crimes, but has no authority over state charges.

Mother Jones first reported in June that Martin, who is himself a former “Stop the Steal” organizer and activist attorney for January 6 defendants, was working on a plan for Trump to pardon alleged fake electors. A person familiar with the pardon plan acknowledged at the time that such pardons would have no legal weight, though the source argued that attorneys for defendants might cite the presidential proclamation in court filings urging judges to dismiss fake elector cases.

Prosecutors in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin have charged so-called fake electors in those states with crimes including fraud. These are mostly small-time Republican activists who falsely asserted that they were legitimate electors, claims that were part of Trump’s push to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to reject the legitimate election results and accept pro-Trump slates of electors that could throw the election to him. The circumstances in each state differ, but generally, local prosecutors are struggling to persuade judges that the defendants broke the law by claiming to be legitimate electors. Many defendants may not welcome Trump’s legally worthless but politically charged attempt to intervene in their cases.

The Sunday pardons are part of a recent clemency spree by Trump. His latest pardons include former New York Mets star Darryl Strawberry and Changpeng Zhao, a Chinese-born founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance. Strawberry is one of various celebrities Trump has pardoned. Zhao is one of several Trump pardons that appear corrupt: Zhao, who pleaded guilty to US money laundering charges in 2023, paid Trump associates to lobby for his pardon, and Binance earlier this year cut a deal with Trump World Liberty Financial, a crypto company launched by Trump’s sons, that has helped to enrich the Trump family.

Martin served as interim US Attorney for the District of Columbia until his nomination to hold the job permanently failed in the Senate in May. He has since worked as Trump’s pardon adviser and head of a so-called weaponization task force in the Justice Department, efforts he has aggressively publicized. He has touted his role in federal prosecutions of New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey in statements that bolster widespread views that those cases are acts of political retribution.

Martin’s original plan for fake elector pardons went further than Trump did on Sunday. For example, Martin considered recommending that Trump pardon John F. Kennedy supporters who in 1960 signed paperwork saying they were Hawaii’s presidential electors when a recount left the actual winner of the state uncertain. Kennedy won Hawaii, and those electors were accepted as the state’s legitimate slate and never accused of crimes. Also, they are dead.

But pardoning them, the person familiar with the plan said, would have been a gesture aimed at boosting Trump supporters’ claims that 2020 fake electors did nothing wrong. The source did not explain why that part of the fake elector pardon plan did not move forward. But it may have been a step too far, even for Trump.

2025-11-11 01:58:00

A version of the below article first appeared in David Corn’s newsletter, Our Land. The newsletter comes out twice a week (most of the time) and provides behind-the-scenes stories and articles about politics, media, and culture. Subscribing costs just $5 a month—but you can sign up for a free 30-day trial.

Ever since the reasonable woman lost to a narcissistic, racist, and misogynistic autocrat wannabe, the Democratic Party has been going through yet another painful round of the all-too-familiar debate: Should the party move to the center or adopt a more progressive stance to amass an electoral majority? This face-off has been recurring within the party for decades. For all the jawboning over the years, it has produced no consensus, and this fight is…boring. With the election results last week—a Democratic sweep everywhere—the debate is over. Or, at least, it should be.

That doesn’t mean there’s a resolution to the binary argument. One can end a debate without an ultimate and final decision. That’s what the Democrats ought to do. There’s never been a clear answer to the center-or-left question. And this election showed that within the party, lefties, such as Zohran Mamdani in New York, and centrists, such as Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey, can each kick ass. Many commentators have made the obvious point: Candidates need to match the local electorate. Mamdani likely could not win statewide office in Virginia, and Spanberger likely could not excite the young voters who turned out in NYC for the democratic socialist.

There’s no need for the Democrats to continue shooting at each other and feeding the notion they have an identity crisis. The message is simple for them: We have a large tent and, dear voters, we offer you a buffet.

Looking for a politician to identify with? We give you a choice: Mamdani, Spanberger, Sherrill, Gavin Newsom, AOC, Andy Beshear, and others. Take your pick. No single one of them must be anointed the leader of the party. Desire a fierce progressive who will (rhetorically) kick Trump in the teeth? There’s this young buck in New York. Want a savvy strategist with a mostly liberal record who strives not to be seen as too liberal? Check out the governor of California. Looking for less-splashy, nose-to-the-grindstone workhorse politicians (big on mom energy), see Virginia and New Jersey. The Democratic Party can be a choose-your-own-adventure party. It is not in disarray. It is diverse. It even has something of a unifying message—affordability—which can be tailored to different electorates. In New York City, Mamdani vowed to address high rents; in New Jersey, Sherrill focused on rising energy prices.

This is the opposite of the current GOP, which is no more than a homogeneous cult of personality tied to one man and his whims. It has jettisoned principles and policies to serve an erratic authoritarian. It’s nothing but Trump. Love him, love the party. Otherwise, you’re out of luck. The Democrats, in contrast, reflect a wider swath of the electorate. That’s not a weakness. It’s a strength they should embrace.

Indeed, the party will more tightly define itself when it chooses a presidential nominee. That’s a winner-take-all process. One person gets the party crown and campaigns for the highest office. In European parliamentarian systems, parties as a whole compete to gain control of the executive branch. Not so here. In the United States, parties must select and swing behind a single politician who comes to represent the party. That will happen in 2027 and 2028, and what’s likely to be a competitive and robust primary contest will produce the party’s banner carrier. Until then, the Democrats should not obsess over the left-center branding issue.

For about 60 years—ever since Southern conservative Democrats bolted the party in response to its support for civil rights measures—the Democrats have been a center-left party. Both sides by now ought to understand that they need each other. It’s my hunch—and you might disagree—that a fully left party probably could not succeed on the national level in the United States within its two-party duopoly. And given the profound threat posed by Trump and his cronies, the formation of a popular front that covers a wide stretch of the ideological gamut is essential. Last week’s elections demonstrate that the Democrats, with the help of independent voters, can build that.

Mamdani’s triumph was stunning, his win a tremendous accomplishment for the party’s left wing. He’s a generational talent. And now he will have the opportunity to prove whether a democratic socialist can successfully implement left-wing proposals—which should yield important lessons for progressives. Governing the sprawling Big Apple government, which too often has been prone to corruption, is a tough task, let alone changing its culture and injecting into it an ambitious agenda. Let’s wish him well. The question now is not whether a democratic socialist is good for the party, but whether one can succeed governing the biggest city in the nation.

In a way, the New Jersey race was more of an indicator of the current state of politics in America. Sherrill led Republican Jack Ciattarelli, a GOP businessman who had twice run for governor, by only a few points in the polls prior to Election Day. He had previously positioned himself as a not-so-Trumpy Republican. In this race, he campaigned with MAGA personalities and enthusiastically accepted Trump’s support. But he did not dwell on the president. A poll in October showed incumbent Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy’s job approval rating at 35 percent—lower than Trump’s.

This looked like a tight contest, especially since four years ago Murphy beat Ciattarelli by only 3 points in this Democratic state. Yet Sherrill won by a whopping 13 points. Jersey voters rallied behind this centrist Democrat more than New Yorkers flocked to Mamdani. And it’s hard not to read her margin of victory as a referendum on Trump. Though voters were dissatisfied with the Democratic governor and upset with rising food prices and skyrocketing health care premiums, they did not take it out on Sherrill. They renounced the candidate of the Trump Party. This is the election that Republicans across the country—especially those few House members in swing districts—ought to worry most about. Their biggest concern should not be a young socialist, but a working mom who campaigns as a mainstream Democrat.

At this moment, the barbarians are not at the gate; they are inside the White House, attacking democracy and deconstructing the United States of America. Millions of citizens are at risk of going hungry and losing their health care. The Democratic Party does not have time for navel-gazing. It’s a to-the-barricades moment.

I have no illusions. There will be squabbling over strategy and tactics. Centrists will still fear the agenda of progressives, and the progressives will gripe about opposition and obstacles posed by centrists. Look at the disagreement within the party over resolving the government shutdown. Yet these election results are a sign that that Democrats can win without settling this big who-are-we matter. Voters are not waiting for this debate to be concluded and a winner proclaimed. Few are interested in it. Precisely calculating an ideological course that appeals to a particular group of voters is not the key to Democratic victory. It can be a distraction. “Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend.” Mao said that. He was a dictator who did not stick to his own advice, but that’s the right idea. Different strokes for different folks, as Sly Stone sang.

These off-year elections—let’s call it the Ballroom Blowout—included surprising Democratic wins in Mississippi and Georgia, and there’s a lesson for Democrats. With Trump continuing his cruel mass deportations, holding let-them-eat-cake parties while threatening food stamps for millions, razing parts of the White House and showing off his new marble bathroom, turning tariffs on and off recklessly, doing little to address economic concerns, and ignoring court orders, the Democrats are presented with much opportunity. Continuing to argue among themselves is counterproductive. They don’t need consensus to succeed. They need authentic candidates who have something to say and who convince voters they will be fighters for them. Remember what a Republican president once said about a house divided. The Democrats have been shown the way.

2025-11-10 20:30:00

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

As President Donald Trump sees it, environmental regulations that attempt to improve efficiency and address climate change only make products more expensive and perform worse. He has long blamed efficiency regulations for his frustrations with things like toilets and showerheads. He began his second term in office to “unleash prosperity through deregulation.”

But there’s at least one big way that American companies and households may end up paying more, not less, for the president’s anti-environment policy moves.

If you’re in the market for a vehicle, you’ve probably noticed: Cars are getting more expensive. Kelley Blue Book reported that the average sticker price for a new car topped $50,000 for the first time in September.

And they aren’t just getting more expensive to buy; cars are getting more expensive to own. For most Americans, gasoline is their single-largest energy expenditure, around $2,930 per household each year on average.

While a more efficient dishwasher, light bulb, or faucet may have a higher sticker price up front—especially as manufacturers adjust to new rules—cars, appliances, solar panels, and electronics can more than pay for themselves with lower operating costs over their lifetimes. And Trump’s agenda of suddenly rolling back efficiency rules has simultaneously made it harder for many industries to do business while raising costs for ordinary Americans.

No one knows this better than the US auto industry, which has whiplashed between competing environmental regulations for over a decade.

President Barack Obama tightened vehicle efficiency and pollution standards. In his first term, Trump loosened them. President Joe Biden reinstated and strengthened them. Now Trump is reversing course again—leaving the $1.6 trillion US auto industry unsure what turn to take next.

In July, the Environmental Protection Agency began undoing a foundational legal basis that lets the agency limit climate pollution from cars. Without it, the EPA has far less power to require automakers to manufacture cleaner vehicles, which hampers efforts to reduce one of the single biggest sources of carbon emissions.

Trump’s Transportation secretary, Sean P. Duffy, said in a statement over the summer that these moves “will lower vehicle costs and ensure the American people can purchase the cars they want.”

But in reality, the shift may have the opposite effect.

That’s because when the rules change every few years, automakers struggle to meet existing benchmarks and can’t plan ahead. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade group representing companies like Ford, Toyota, and Volkswagen, sent a letter to the EPA in September saying that the administration’s moves and the repeal of incentives for electric cars mean that the current car pollution rules established under Biden and stretching out to 2027 “are simply not achievable.”

The Trump administration responded by zeroing out any penalties for violations—but the industry is already planning for a post-Trump world where rules could drastically change yet again.

Because it takes years and billions of dollars to develop new cars that comply with stricter rules, carmakers would prefer if regulations stayed put one way or the other. Every rule change adds time and expense to the development lifecycle, which ultimately gets baked into a car’s price tag.

Changing rules are also vexing for electric car makers, whose models are gaining traction both in the US and around the world, even as the Trump administration has ended tax incentives for EVs. Trump is making things even more difficult by pulling support for domestic battery production that would help US car companies build electric cars.

It all adds up to a huge headache for the industry. “Particularly in the last six months, I think ‘chaos’ is a good word because they’re getting hit from every angle,” said David Cooke, senior associate director at the Center for Automotive Research at Ohio State University.

And all that uncertainty is making cars more expensive to buy and run, with even more expensive long-term consequences for people’s health and the environment.

As the government relaxes efficiency targets, progress will stall and car buyers will get stuck with cars that cost more to operate.

Energy Innovation, a think tank, found that repealing tailpipe standards could cost households an extra $310 billion by 2050, mainly through more spending on gasoline. Undoing the standards would also increase air pollution and shrink the job market for US electric vehicle manufacturing due to lower demand.

Even the Trump administration’s own analysis of the effects of undoing the EPA’s greenhouse gas emissions regulations found that his moves would drive up gasoline prices due to more fuel consumption from less efficient vehicles.

“Repealing these standards in particular would set America back decades,” said Sara Baldwin, senior director for electrification at Energy Innovation.

While the Trump administration shifts gears, other countries are racing ahead. Automakers can design electric cars faster than conventional internal combustion-powered vehicles, since EVs generally have fewer components, and manufacturers don’t have to worry about designing pollution controls to meet tightening restrictions. Since EVs are mechanically simpler, they also need less maintenance.

Conventional cars, by contrast, typically take around five years to go from the drawing board to dealer lots, so the gasoline-powered cars being designed now won’t come out until 2030—when someone else will be in the White House.

The US auto industry also serves other countries. Markets like Europe are holding fast to their environmental regulations and are looking to ban the sales of internal combustion vehicles altogether. Meanwhile, China is making some of the cheapest and most popular EVs in the world.

That’s why some American carmakers are setting their sights beyond US shores and are continuing to bet on more EVs. Earlier this year, Ford announced that it was developing a $30,000 electric pickup truck for the US and for export, a sign the company sees huge potential in cheap electric cars despite the Trump administration’s efforts to pump the brakes on electrics.

Though car companies often grumble about the expenses and effort they have to expend when environmental regulations become stricter, regulatory uncertainty continues to be a much bigger nuisance. “These changes in regulations are really disruptive to the industry and are hurting our global economic competitiveness,” said Gregory Keoleian, co-director of the Center for Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan. “It’s not only hurting in terms of setting us back with regard to decarbonization of the transportation sector, but the cost to consumers in the United States.”

2025-11-10 01:15:25

In anti-abortion Republicans’ latest attack on abortion pills, Florida’s attorney general is suing Planned Parenthood for allegedly misrepresenting the safety of the drugs—despite the fact that more than 100 scientific studies have shown they are safe and effective.

The 37-page lawsuit, announced by Attorney General James Uthmeier’s office on Thursday and filed in Florida’s First Judicial Circuit Court, alleges that Planned Parenthood “sells profitable abortions to vulnerable women by lying to them about abortion pills being safer than Tylenol.” Experts routinely make the comparison that use of the abortion pills—which include mifepristone, which blocks the pregnancy hormone progesterone, and misoprostol, which expels the pregnancy—are safer than Tylenol or even full-term pregnancy. Research shows that serious complications from medication abortion occur in less than half a percent of cases.

But Uthmeier’s lawsuit paints a far more dire picture. It’s riddled with familiar anti-abortion arguments and misinformation. For example, it cites openly anti-abortion sources, including the anti-abortion group Live Action, as well as a non-peer reviewed report from the right-wing Ethics and Public Policy Center that claimed to show higher rates of complication from the pills, but that experts say has a flawed methodology, as I have previously written. The Florida lawsuit also claims that all abortions “violate the Hippocratic Oath and deny the inalienable rights of all human beings.” Uthmeier is suing under the state’s deceptive marketing and racketeering laws, and is seeking more than $350 million in damages, attorneys’ fees, the dissolution of Planned Parenthood in Florida, and the revocation of its state licenses.

Spokespeople for Planned Parenthood did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Mother Jones on Sunday, but in a statement provided to the Associated Press, Susan Baker Manning, general counsel for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said: “Anti-abortion lawmakers and officials are relentless in their effort to end access to all abortion care, and to stop patients from getting accurate medical information. We will continue to be just as relentless in our effort to defend access to this safe, effective care. See you in court.” Alexandra Mandado, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Florida, told the Tampa Bay Times the lawsuit is “a politically motivated attack” and an “attempt to erode access to all abortion care.”

Abortion is banned in Florida after six weeks of pregnancy, but telehealth abortion providers have continued prescribing and mailing abortion pills into Florida and other states with bans. More than 70 percent of reproductive age women in the state believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, including a majority of Republicans, KFF, the group formerly known as Kaiser Family Foundation, found last year. After the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade in June 2022, use of abortion pills drastically increased nationwide, and they now account for more than 60 percent of all abortions. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) permits use of mifepristone to end a pregnancy through ten weeks’ gestation, but abortion advocates say it is safe and effective later as well; the World Health Organization says, for example, that it can be used anytime in the first trimester.

But as the pills’ popularity has increased, so have the coordinated attacks, as I wrote back in September:

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary announced that HHS would conduct a new review of mifepristone, after hinting they would do so back in May, as I reported at the time. In their announcement, which reportedly came as a response to a letter Republican attorneys general wrote to Kennedy and Makary back in July, the officials cited a report produced by the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a right-wing organization that was on the advisory board of Project 2025, which claims to have unearthed a higher-than-previously-reported rate of complications from the pills.

[…]

As my colleague Madison Pauly and I reported back in January, anti-abortion groups sent letters to the Department of Justice and FDA requesting they roll back access to medication abortion by enforcing the 19th-century anti-obscenity Comstock Act, restoring the seven-week gestational limit, and rescinding the Biden-era telehealth regulation. Project 2025, the lengthy playbook for Trump’s second term, also recommended the DOJ enforce the dormant Comstock Act to ban the mailing of abortion pills, though President Donald Trump claimed last year that it was “very unlikely” the FDA would roll back access or that the DOJ would enforce Comstock.

In 2022, an anti-abortion group calling itself the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine sued in Texas, challenging the FDA’s initial approval of mifepristone as well as the agency’s later moves to expand access. The Supreme Court rejected the suit last year, saying the anti-abortion medical providers didn’t have standing to bring it. But attorneys general in at least six red states, including Texas and Florida, have since intervened in a bid to revive the case. Other suits are trying to curtail access by claiming mifepristone could contaminate drinking water.

There have also been myriad efforts to limit and penalize access at the state level. Last year, Louisiana became the first state to classify mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled substances, a move that one doctor predicted would also impact non-abortion-related care, including postpartum hemorrhages and IUD insertions. This month, Texas enacted a radical bill that allows allows private citizens to sue anyone who “manufactures, distributes, mails, transports, delivers, prescribes, or provides” abortion pills to Texans for at least $100,000. Officials in Texas and Louisiana have sought to punish doctors in New York and California who mailed abortion pills into their states under shield laws.

2025-11-09 23:42:52

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) keeps teasing a potential presidential run…again, and again, and again.

It began in earnest last month, when, in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning, Newsom admitted he would “be lying” if he claimed he did not plan to consider a 2028 run after next year’s midterms. He continued to fuel speculation this weekend, when, on Saturday—fresh off California’s redistricting win—he headed to Texas, where the redistricting battle began. As he spoke, the crowd reportedly chanted “2028,” and Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) introduced Newsom by saying: “I’m here today because he is a future president of the United States of America.”

When Newsom took the stage, he exhorted the crowd to “stand up.”

“Let’s stand up to those that have been humiliated, those that feel bullied, those that are afraid and scared,” he said. “Let’s stand up for those that have given up, and let’s give them hope. Let’s stand up for the rule of law. Let’s stand up for a system of checks and balances, and let’s stand up for our democracy, for all of us.”

And on Sunday, in a sit-down interview with Jake Tapper on CNN’s State of the Union, Newsom said he would wait until after the midterms to make a decision. He previewed a potential campaign based on affordability—a winning message for Democrats.

“We have to democratize this economy if we are going to save democracy. You can’t have ten percent of people own two-thirds of the wealth in this country…those were fundamental issues that were obviously present in this election on Tuesday.”

“Donald Trump said he would make us wealthier and healthier,” he added. “We’re poorer and sicker.”

And if all that isn’t enough of an indication that Newsom seems to be soft-launching a stronger presence on the national stage, consider that he’s also releasing a memoir in February.

If he does decide to run, Newsom would likely emerge as a strong candidate in what could be a crowded field. His favorability rating has been on the rise this year as he has directly taken on Trump with trolling on social media. As he explained in an interview with NBC News last month: “I put a mirror up to [Trump’s] madness.”