Dear Leading Ladies,
We are at a new level of horror at what the Trump regime has visited upon the children of the world.
This is what we know.
According to the Senate Finance Committee Democrats reporting in November 2025, “Trump’s cuts to health care access, food assistance, and education have stripped millions of kids of the care, nutrition, and protection they need to thrive. By dismantling the very systems that safeguard children’s health and future, Trump and Republicans are condemning a generation to poorer health, deeper poverty, and diminished opportunity. Unless stopped, Trump’s war on kids will leave lasting scars on millions of children and weaken the nation for decades to come.”
In January 2026, Oxfam America concluded that, “The series of cruel and illegal cuts to U.S. lifesaving humanitarian and development aid the Trump administration initiated on day one has already cost lives and undermined the entire global aid system. Oxfam analysis of aid cut impact predictions finds that these actions have led to the risk that a child under 5 could die every 40 seconds by 2030.”
In his opinion piece in the New York Times last week, columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote that the 71 percent cut in humanitarian aid from 2024 to 2025 by the Trump administration was estimated by a Boston University researcher to cost more than 750,000 lives worldwide in the first year. Furthermore he wrote, “A recently published student in the Lancet, the British medical journal, forecast that at present rates the defunding will cost 9.4 million lives by 2030, including 2.5 million children under the age of 5.
Trump and his minions are now withholding aid for three dollar vaccines for children in poor countries that could save their lives. These vaccines could protect them from malaria and HPV viruses that can lead to cervical cancer “which kills more than 900 women every day worldwide,” reports Kristof.
There’s more. And none of it is pretty. We can’t turn away from it. And we can’t risk trivializing the seriousness and threat of these actions by responding with silly memes, nicknames, cartoons, and expletives. To call our president fat or stupid, to say we hate him or make fun of his phraseology, are empty, powerless responses. Returning a bully’s nasty insults does nothing to further our goals. It may blow off steam, but it does nothing more.
So, as much as we enjoy finding new clever images and words to disparage our president, we can do better and fight his policies more effectively by using facts, activism, our vote and, yes, our available money.
Let’s continue to show up for No Kings rallies and Bearing Witness.
Let’s continue to write postcards and make phone calls to encourage registration and voting.
Let’s support, to the level of our ability, local, state, and national candidates running on platforms that promote equal access to medical care; quality education; voting rights; humane immigration policies; a woman’s right to choose; and fighting discrimination and racism. Check here: forcemultiplier.org, thestatesproject.org, Leading Ladies Congressional Candidate Dashboard
Trump is right about one thing. Names won’t hurt him. But action will.
Therese (she/her/hers)
Judy (she/her/hers)
Didi (she/her/hers)
Leading Ladies Executive Team
Leadingladiesvote.org
ladies@leadingladiesvote.org