Madonna didn’t sugarcoat her feelings as she revealed her utter disgust at President-elect Donald Trump’s looming return to the White House in her Instagram stories.
The pop star on Thursday first shared the picture of a cake with “Fuck Trump” written on top.
Then, the singer shared a picture of herself and said: “Trying to get my head around why a convicted felon, rapist, Bigot was chosen to lead our country because he’s good for the economy.”
Madonna has criticised Trump for years.
During his 2016 campaign, she shared video online of a Trump piñata being battered and criticised his sons (Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump), asking “How Big of. Pussy Do you have to BE to kill this Noble Animal for sport” after images of them posing with a dead leopard resurfaced.
When Trump did win eight years ago, she said it felt “like women betrayed us” with their support for him, and the following year she likened the heartbreak she experienced following Hillary Clinton’s loss to Trump to a breakup.
Midway through Trump’s first term, Madonna revealed how Trump’s presidency (and her son’s fledgling soccer career) prompted her to move to Portugal. “I felt like we needed a change, and I wanted to get out of America for a minute ― as you know, this is not America’s finest hour,” she said.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Thursday unveiled her plan for Democrats “to fight back” following Donald Trump’s decisive election win.
In an essay published by Time magazine, Warren detailed how lawmakers must “fight every fight in Congress,” Trump must be taken on “in the courts” and everyone should “focus on what each of us can do.”
Warren concluded, though, by saying that “Democrats currently in office must work with urgency.”
“While still in charge of the Senate and the White House, we must do all we can to safeguard our democracy,” she wrote. Warren urged Pentagon leaders to “issue a directive now reiterating that the military’s oath is to the Constitution.”
And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) must “use every minute of the end-of-year legislative session to confirm federal judges and key regulators — none of whom can be removed by the next President,” she added.
The splintering of the Democrats’ traditional coalition of voters has sent a shiver down the spine of Labour strategists, who are already nervously eyeing the next UK general election in four years’ time.
Advertisement
Minority groups and the white working class, angered by what they saw as a collapse in their living standards under the Biden administration, flocked to Trump’s promise to “Make America Great Again”.
Throw in the fact that incumbent parties are being turfed out by disgruntled electorates across the western world – a trend Starmer benefited from on July 4 – and you can see why Labour bosses are anxious.
HuffPost UK spoke to a range of Labour insiders and polling experts to find out what lessons the party needs to learn from what happened across the Atlantic in order to avoid the same fate that befell their sister party.
First of all, it is important to stress that Trump’s victory was no fluke. He became the first Republican candidate in 20 years to win both the popular vote and the electoral college as a swathe of previously blue states turned red.
Advertisement
Despite receiving the endorsement of countless celebrities, Kamala Harris’ hopes of becoming her country’s first female president were scuppered by millions of ordinary voters who no longer believed the Democrats understood their concerns.
A senior Labour source told HuffPost UK: “The lessons for our party are obvious and unavoidable. It really is the economy, stupid.
“If people don’t feel better off, then incumbents don’t win elections. Democrats preached growth and a strong economy with stagnating wages and price inflation.
“The follow-through from that is the realignment, or more accurately the dealignment, of sectional interests. That is something that Labour needs to address. The Democrats’ coalition of Latinos, African-Americans and the white working class evaporated like snow off a ditch.”
One insider pointed out that the party had already experienced something similar in 2019, when traditional Labour seats in the Midlands and north of England – the fabled Red Wall – switched en masse to Boris Johnson’s Tories.
Advertisement
But he added: “There’s still an assumption by the left that black and Asian communities in Britain somehow are instinctively left-inclined and don’t want tough action on things like immigration.
“In the US, they voted in the same way as the wider population and that myth was well and truly shattered.”
In its analysis of Labour’s landslide election victory in July, the Labour Together think-tank warned that the party “has been cautiously hired, on a trial basis, liable to prompt dismissal if it deviates even slightly from its focus on voters’ priorities”.
The group’s chief executive, former Labour frontbencher Jon Ashworth, said the party forgets that message at its peril.
He told HuffPost UK: “If working people see their pay checks squeezed, they need to be convinced that you’ve got a plan to make them better off. What was pretty clear in America was that a lot of families felt worse off and blamed the Democrats.
Advertisement
“The challenge for Labour, as our report found, was that they need to remain completely focused of the cost of living, strengthening the economy and building a stronger NHS.
“Labour’s support at the election, while obviously broad, is potentially shallow. People certainly wanted change, but voters are very unforgiving if you don’t focus on those priorities.”
That was echoed by Emma Levin, associate director at pollsters Savanta.
She said: “One of the key lessons from the US appears to be one that Starmer’s Labour already know well; voters kick out incumbent governments if they don’t feel better off.
“Governments across the developed world are getting booted out of office, and in no small part because their citizens feel poorer. I think that’s as true in the US as it was here.”
Keir Starmer has a lot of work to do to convince voters that Labour gets their concerns.
via Associated Press
Advertisement
A senior No.10 source said that by the time of the next election, Labour needs to show voters that it has delivered on four things – ending the cost of living crisis, improving the NHS, bringing down immigration and improving the UK’s infrastructure by building more homes and upgrading crumbling hospitals and schools.
“We have to get to the end of five years with a very clear sense of who we’re on the side of and what we’re trying to do,” he said.
“The Democrats started off with a message aimed at middle America but along the way they got too squeamish about immigration, and they only got to that late on. They sounded far too much like the party of east coast liberals and academia.
“For all the theorising people will do, what it does boil down to is that in big swathes of America and across the western world, people have been hit incredibly hard by the cost of living and think that their governments haven’t responded to it properly
“You not only need to deliver but you need to have a strong story about how you’re delivering and how you’re making life better for people.
Advertisement
“If you’re a government in the western world at the moment, your focus needs to be on what people really care about. It sounds obvious but it doesn’t always happen.”
To that end, former political journalist James Lyons has now started his role as Downing Street’s director of strategic communications.
His job will be to look to the long term and come up with ways for the government to convince voters that it is on their side.
According to Conleth Burns, associate director at the More in Common think-tank, the Democrats “took a lot of their voters for granted”, so it was hardly surprising that they turned to Donald Trump.
Another challenge for Labour is the fact that disaffected voters in the UK are not just turning to Reform UK, but also to the Greens and Gaza independents.
Advertisement
“You’ve got this insurgency both on the left and the right and being able to navigate that is key,” he said.
The most important thing, Burns said, is for Labour to make good on the promises they made in the election – most notably bringing down people’s gas and electricity bills.
He said: “If Labour can’t deliver that, they are likely to be turfed out.”
Trump’s remarkable comeback as president will have huge political and economic repercussions for the next four years and beyond.
Keir Starmer must learn the lessons of how he did it if Labour is not to go the same way as the Democrats when voters in the UK next go to the polls.
The former and soon-to-be-again president had not even reached the magic number of 270 electoral college votes before the Downing Street statement arrived.
Advertisement
“As the closest of allies, we stand shoulder to shoulder in defence of our shared values of freedom, democracy and enterprise,” the prime minister declared.
Nevertheless, Starmer and his aides will be well aware of the political jeopardy posed by another Trump presidency.
Here, HuffPost UK looks at the potential problems for the UK government emanating the maverick Republican’s return to the White House.
Economy
For a government which has made growing the economy its number one mission, Trump’s re-election could have serious repercussions.
Advertisement
Goldman Sachs immediately downgraded their forecast for UK economic growth for 2025 from 1.6% to 1.4% on the back of the US result, pointing to Trump’s vow to impose tariffs on goods entering America from abroad.
Such a move would also be extremely damaging for high-value British exports like Scotch whisky.
A spokesperson for the Scotch Whisky Association said: “As prime minister Keir Starmer has said, the UK and US stand shoulder to shoulder and are partners in enterprise.
“To deepen this partnership, the US and UK administrations should agree to maintain the zero-tariff trade of whiskies across the Atlantic.”
While the Biden administration has ruled out as US-UK comprehensive trade agreement, Trump has spoken in the past of his desire to get one done – although he conspicuously failed to do so the last time he was in office.
The price Trump would try to extract in return for a deal – such as allowing hormone-pumped American beef onto British supermarket shelves – may turn out being too high for Starmer to pay.
Advertisement
The PM’s official spokesman would only say: “We already enjoy a thriving economic relationship with the US. There are millions of jobs supported by this relationship, which is worth $1 trillion, and clearly we will be seeking to build on that.”
That may well prove to be easier said than done.
Defence
Trump has made no secret in the past of his desire for America’s Nato allies to spend more money on defence.
On this, at least, it appears that the new US administration could well make common cause with Starmer’s government.
The PM’s spokesman said: “The prime minister agrees that other Nato member states must pull their weight when it comes to defence spending.”
Labour said during the election campaign that they would return defence spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) when the financial circumstances allow.
Advertisement
But defence analyst Francis Tusa warned that may not be enough to satisfy Trump, who could call on Nato members to spend 3% of GDP on defence.
Writing on X, he said: “Equivocation/hesitation won’t be an option. If the UK is to retain any influence in Europe and Nato, holding back over defence is an epic fail – no-one will accept the UK holding back.
“This is likely a complete nightmare for Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves. They have their plans that they wish to pursue, but they face the likelihood that these plans will have to take 2nd/3rd place to defence/foreign relations, and that means that the budget follows.”
Ukraine
Unlike the UK, Trump’s commitment to Ukraine in its war with Russia is less than certain.
He has spoken in the past of being able to end the conflict on day one of his presidency, but that would entail Kyiv having to give up on territory seized by Russia.
Asked whether America’s future stance on Ukraine would affect the UK’s, the PM’s spokesman said: “We have been clear that the UK’s support for UK is, and always will remain, iron-clad.”
Advertisement
However, any weakening of America’s support for Ukraine would have severe implications for its ability to continue defending itself – and pose serious questions as to whether the UK and Kyiv’s other allies remain willing and able to provide it with the military and financial support it needs.
Climate
Trump has made no secret of his disdain for climate change, describing it as a “hoax” and “one of the great scams of all time”.
During his first term in office, he withdrew the US from the Paris climate agreement, while he has also vowed to “drill baby drill” for more oil.
It’s fair to say, therefore, that his views on our warming planet are pretty far apart from those of Starmer and Ed Miliband, the energy and net zero secretary.
Downing Street today tried to put a brave face on things, pointing out that Starmer will travel to the Cop 29 summit in Baku next week to make clear that the UK is ready to assume “global leadership” on tackling climate change.
Advertisement
But without the support of America over the next four years, that fight will become even harder to win.
The Trumps Don’t Like Labour
Despite both Starmer and foreign secretary David Lammy’s attempts to curry favour with the president-elect – the pair held a two-hour dinner with Trump in New York in September – there remains a lot of bad blood.
During the campaign, Donald Trump Jr succinctly explained his family’s views on the UK government when he told ITV: “It’s absolute lunacy what I see going on in the UK right now.
“They’re jailing people for misgendering someone. Honestly it’s disgusting and they should be ashamed of themselves.”
The Trump campaign also accused Labour of “interference” in the election because party activists crossed the Atlantic to campaign for Kamala Harris.
Advertisement
In his statement welcoming Trump’s victory, Starmer said the “UK-US special relationship will continue to prosper on both sides of the Atlantic for years to come”.
But the next four could well turn out to be very rocky indeed.
Donald Trump has won the 2024 US general election ― and seven in ten Brits think he’s not going to be a great president.
Those watching the election fallout outside of the States may feel an uneasy mix of investment and powerlessness; it must be far worse for Kamala voters in the country.
Advertisement
So we thought we’d reach out to some therapists this National Stress Awareness Day (apt) for advice on how to manage feelings of hopelessness and even despair that people who wanted a different result may be experiencing.
Here’s what they had to say:
Trump’s win “has sent shockwaves around the globe leaving people, US citizens and supporters, friends and family around the world incredibly scared, anxious, confused and let down.”
BACP member, psychotherapist, coach, keynote speaker, and author Bhavna Raithatha told HuffPost UK: “Unfortunately, this has been anything but a natural or normal presidential race. For those now in the crosshairs, life just changed unequivocally.”
The news can be especially challenging for women, minorities and the LGBTQ+ community, the psychotherapist points out.
Advertisement
“There is already fear present for… communities who have been targeted for generations based on their gender, skin colour and sexuality to name a few. Now, with a president who has been given unchecked power to be ‘a dictator just for a day’ by the highest court in the land, we don’t know what will happen,” Bhavna said.
“There is real fear from families about being split apart and deported. Equally, there is great fear from communities often racially profiled who feel they may be targeted by police who will be given unchecked and unrestricted powers,” she added.
It can also be “deeply concerning” to know that a “hate-fuelled,” “divisive” campaign won so many votes, she added.
With all that said, the psychotherapist shared that it’s “natural that today’s outcome will be the source of a great deal of stress and feelings of hopelessness and loss” due to “the grief of lost hope and expectations.”
“If you are affected by the outcome today, take time to process it. Talk it through with friends and family. Speak to your religious leaders. Speak to a therapist or your social network,” Bhavna advised.
Advertisement
“Remember, you are not alone. It is natural to be frightened – these are unprecedented times. Take time to be still and let this moment pass and the dust settle. This isn’t the first time an election has disappointed voters. Look after yourself and check in on friends and loved ones.”
“As a therapist, I have been exposed to people’s fears and concerns related to the US election and what it means to them (even for non-Americans).”
BACP member and psychotherapist Vicky Reynal told HuffPost UK: “People might feel strongly impacted by the election results because ultimately, when the political party we support loses, it might feel like a rejection of our personal values, almost invalidating our way of seeing the world.”
She added: “It may also feel disempowering – not just for those who feel immediately threatened by some of the proposed policies of Trump’s agenda, but also because a party loss can trigger a sense that our group, the one we feel we belong to politically is vulnerable.”
Vicky says you don’t have to ignore feelings of stress, anxiety, panic, hopelessness, or despair.
“I think it’s important to take a step back and acknowledge all the feelings that the election results have evoked. Not just the ‘top level’ disappointment, but also the deeper fears and anxieties it brings up. Leaving room for all the feelings is important,” she told HuffPost UK.
Advertisement
But she adds: “There is still scope in one’s life to advocate for one’s views and beliefs (so plenty of action that you can still take to restore a sense of agency). There are also plenty, plenty of people who hold similar views and wouldn’t invalidate the lens we see the world through.”
For now, Vicky says, you may benefit from distraction.
“At a practical level, now that results are out it might be a good time to ask oneself whether reading what’s in the media is helpful or whether it is unsettling and fuelling the hopelessness,” she advised.
“Curate the sources so what you are exposed to isn’t fatalistic, feeding into your catastrophic (worst case scenario) fears.”
“It might be a good time, if the anxiety is overwhelming to focus on things/activities that you do find calming and soothing (time with loved ones, physical exercise, a hobby).”
If you need professional help, the psychotherapist adds, seek it.
Help and support:
Mind, open Monday to Friday, 9am-6pm on 0300 123 3393.
Samaritans offers a listening service which is open 24 hours a day, on 116 123 (UK and ROI – this number is FREE to call and will not appear on your phone bill).
CALM (the Campaign Against Living Miserably) offer a helpline open 5pm-midnight, 365 days a year, on 0800 58 58 58, and a webchat service.
The Mix is a free support service for people under 25. Call 0808 808 4994 or email help@themix.org.uk
Rethink Mental Illness offers practical help through its advice line which can be reached on 0808 801 0525 (Monday to Friday 10am-4pm). More info can be found on rethink.org.
According to the poll, just one in seven UK adults (15%) would trust Trump to babysit small children, compared to 59% who would trust Harris.
When it comes to planning a wedding, 55% trust Harris, compared to 16% who would choose Trump.
Harris is also more trusted to give good advice (54% to 22%), change a tyre (40% to 26%), assemble flat pack furniture (45% to 20%) and repay borrowed money (52% to 22%).
British women in particular do not appear to trust Trump, with only 9% saying they would let him babysit small children and 11% trusting him to plan a wedding.
Emma Levin, associate director at Savanta, said: “Clearly the UK public don’t have any kind of impact on the US election taking place, and if they did, I imagine the metrics for how they would judge the candidates would be more serious than whether they can assemble furniture.
“That’s not to say there aren’t insights in these figures. It’s very clear that women don’t trust Trump anywhere near as much as men – a dynamic playing out across the pond right now.
“We can also see on a whole host of personal skills, Harris beats Trump. We will have to see whether the US public agrees.”
Kamala Harris is on course to become the first ever female US president, according to a British mega poll.
Focaldata found that the vice-president holds a narrow lead in a majority of the key swing states which will decide the result.
Advertisement
American voters go to the polls on Tuesday to decide whether Harris or Republican candidate Donald Trump will lead their country for the next four years.
More than 31,000 of them were asked their voting intentions by Focaldata, a much bigger sample than normal polls.
The pollsters also used the MRP method, which uses demographic data and has become increasingly popular in the UK.
According to Politico, they found that Harris is nearly five points ahead in Michigan, two points ahead in Nevada and also leading in in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Advertisement
Trump has a narrow advantage in Georgia and North Carolina, the poll found, with Arizona currently tied.
James Kanagasooriam, Focaldata’s chief research officer, said: “Our MRP model has shown a Trump win throughout the campaign and only in the final update has it nudged Democrat.”
However, he stressed that the final result could still go either way.
He told Politico: “We are ‘lean Democrat’, but only by the barest of margins. Even a polling error a third of the size seen in 2016 and 2020 would put Trump back in the White House.”
The findings come after a shock poll showed Harris ahead in Iowa, a state expected to be won comfortably by Trump.
Vladimir Putin has finally responded to the international claims he spoke to Donald Trump on multiple occasions after the latter left the Oval Office.
Journalist Bob Woodward claimed in his new book War that, according to a former White House aide, “there have been multiple phone calls between Trump and Putin, maybe as many as seven in the period since Trump left the White House in 2021”.
Advertisement
Trump’s campaign said the claims were completely fabricated. His spokesperson replied: “None of these made up stories by Bob Woodward are true and are the work of a truly demented and deranged man who suffers from a debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
Putin has just replied to Woodward’s claim, which were first reported on October 8, today.
Responding to a reporter’s question at the BRICS conference in Kazan, the Russian president said: “It’s nonsense.”
He continued: “But when Trump says that he wants to put an end to the war in Ukraine, I think that he is sincere.”
The former US president has sparked concerns among Western officials over his stance towards the conflict.
Advertisement
He has repeatedly said he wants the war to end but has refused to say who he wants to win, suggesting he may force Ukraine to cede land to Moscow.
Putin did use the press conference to confirm that he is in contact with the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, over potentially deploying troops to fight alongside Russia.
Alluding to his defence pact with Pyongyang, he said: “We ratified the treaty on strategic partnership which contains Article 4 and we have never shied away from the fact that North Korea is serious about its commitment to us.
“It’s up to us how we implement Article 4. We are in contact with our North Korean partners.”
According to The Telegraph, he also chuckled when asked about troops already being deployed to fight in Russia, before adding: “The satellite images you spoke of, this is a serious allegation.
“It means that something is happening, but let me tell you one thing, it wasn’t the actions of Russia that led to the escalation in Ukraine.”
Advertisement
It’s widely believed that Moscow invaded Ukraine and tried to seize Kyiv in 2022 in a land grab, although Putin blames NATO’s eastward expansion.
Donald Trump’s claim that Labour is guilty of “blatant foreign interference” in the presidential election has been virtually ignored in America, it has emerged.
One senior US-based journalist claimed “nobody gives a shit” about the complaint his campaign team lodged on Tuesday night.
Advertisement
In it, they accused Labour of recruiting activists to send across the Atlantic to campaign for Trump’s Democrat rival, Kamala Harris.
The Republican nominee’s team also pointed out that Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, and his director of communications, Matthew Doyle, “attended a convention in Chicago and met with Ms Harris’s campaign team”.
The complaint to the US Federal Election Commission stems from a now-deleted LinkedIn post by Labour’s head of operations Sofia Patel, which claimed almost 100 current and former party officials were heading to campaign for the Democrats in battleground states.
He said: “I spent time in New York with President Trump, had dinner with him and my purpose in doing that was to make sure that between the two of us, we established a good relationship, which we did, and we’re grateful for him for making the time.
“We had a good, constructive discussion, and, of course as prime minster of the United Kingdom I will work with whoever the American people return as their president in their elections which are very close now.”
Starmer also insisted that UK political activists travelling to America to campaign in presidential elections is nothing new.
He added: ”“Of course as prime minister of the United Kingdom, I will work with whoever the American people return as their president in the elections that are very close now.”
Daniel Knowles, Midwest correspondent at the highly-respected Economist magazine, insisted the story had barely registered in the US.
Advertisement
Writing on Bluesky, he said: “Sorry but nobody in America gives a shit about a few Labour activists door-knocking or whatever. The Trump complaint is entirely cynical, and one of dozens of random speculative press releases I was sent yesterday. I’m not surprised British media is as ever just fucking delighted for a local angle.
“The story here isn’t ‘is door knocking actually an illegal contribution’ etc. The legitimate UK angle to cover is, ‘Donald Trump will pick massive fights with the British government over nothing if it wins him a nice headline’. Which we know, from his conduct in office.”
Sorry but nobody in America gives a shit about a few Labour activists door-knocking or whatever. The Trump complaint is entirely cynical, and one of dozens of random speculative press releases I was sent yesterday. I’m not surprised British media is as ever just fucking delighted for a local angle
Shadow Scottish secretary John Lamont described the controversy as “a diplomatic car crash by this Labour government”.
He said: “There’s now somebody who could potentially be the next president of the United States who’s lodged an official complaint with the American authorities about the Labour party, the Labour government, and their involvement in their election.
Advertisement
“If Donald Trump were to win for the election in a few weeks, how on earth is the prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, going to rebuild that relationship with one of the most important countries in the world, not least from a diplomatic perspective, but also from a trading perspective?”
A Labour Party spokesperson said: “It is common practice for campaigners of all political persuasions from around the world to volunteer in US elections.
“Where Labour activists take part, they do so at their own expense, in accordance with the laws and rules.”
Former President Barack Obama said he gave ex-President Donald Trump a pandemic playbook when Trump took office — but he disregarded it.
“He ignored it,” Obama said during a rally for Vice President Kamala Harris in Las Vegas on Saturday. “And three years later, a pandemic hits.”
He said the Covid-19 pandemic was a “generational pandemic” and that any president would have had a hard time before noting how the United States’ death rate compared to countries like Canada that responded proactively to the global outbreak.
“But if you look at a country like Canada, their per capita death rate was 40% lower than it was here in the United States. So just do the math. That’s more than 400,000 people,” Obama said. “People’s grandmothers, people’s fathers, people’s moms who would have been alive if Donald Trump had just paid attention and tried to follow the plan that we gave him.”
He continued, saying it does matter and makes a difference to have a president who is “competent,” “cares about you” and “listens to people who are experts in these areas.”
“If you hear somebody say it doesn’t matter, it does matter,” Obama added. “And at some point, it will make a difference to them.”
In early 2020, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Republican, Kentucky) claimed that the Obama administration didn’t leave any pandemic playbook. Soon after that, Ronald Klain, the White House Ebola response coordinator from October 2014 to February 2015, posted the playbook on social media, while Nicole Lurie, an Obama administration official, confirmed its existence.
