Comment on Now Is the Time to Take the Idea of President JD Vance Seriously

The contrast between the intentions of former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris on reproductive rights could not be clearer—no matter how much Trump tries to suggest otherwise. Trump appointed three of the five Supreme Court justices who overruled Roe v. Wade and has famously flip-flopped on his stances on abortion.

Donald Trump has promised to prosecute his political opponents should he retake the White House. He’s planned to remove the firewall that has traditionally existed between the White House and the Justice Department, and harness federal prosecutors into political dirty work. But Trump isn’t waiting for Inauguration Day, or even Election Day, to get something similar going—and his first target is the press: In the last 24 hours, Trump has filed legal complaints against two news organizations with frivolous charges.

In August, former President Donald Trump called the billionaire Elon Musk “a super genius guy.” That “super genius” and his new America PAC have now taken over much of the Trump campaign’s swing-state ground game in the final weeks before the election. Since creating the PAC in April, Musk has infused it with nearly $120 million to try to get out the vote for Trump.

A few days before the start of early voting, Michelle Vallejo, a 33-year-old Democrat, was greeting a dozen or so supporters in a shady corner of a municipal park in Edinburg, Texas, when she received a visit from an old friend. The volunteers, who had shown up to grab walk lists and water bottles for a pre-election canvass, were filling her in on the latest developments in their ongoing efforts to protect yard signs from being defaced and removed.

If Donald Trump wins a second term, he will enter the White House at 78 years old, making him the oldest person ever elected president. Anything can happen over four years, and there is, of course, a chance he will not complete his term. The former president, who has already been the subject of two impeachment efforts, has refused to release even basic information about his health.

In the final stretch of an election season teeming with ugly moments, from the racist and vulgar to the sexist and crude, Donald Trump on Thursday managed to do what he always does: outdo himself. “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her,” Trump said at an event with Tucker Carlson.