The Trump Presidency Timeline

Alabama Republicans have chosen Rep. Barry Moore as their next likely senator, because why just have Tommy Tuberville embarrassing the state from the governor’s mansion when you can send a Trump-endorsed knockoff to the Senate? Moore beat former Navy SEAL Jared Hudson in a runoff that mostly served to answer the timeless question: if both candidates swear undying loyalty to Donald Trump, which one does the Dear Leader pick?

Moore made sure everyone knew his big qualification: Donald Trump takes his calls. Not policy, not competence, not legislative skill—just that he can get through on the Mar-a-Lago help line. In return, Trump blessed him as an “America First Patriot,” which in this context means a guy who spends his time railing against transgender girls in sports and “lawless Democrat sanctuary cities” while polishing his pro-gun credentials like they’re the nuclear codes.

The race also featured a delightful subplot about whether Moore did a little creative writing on his military record. A coalition letter listed him as a “staff sergeant,” but records show he was discharged as a cadet. His campaign’s explanation? The organizers just gave him the rank, and he never “affirmed” it. Very normal thing that happens, totally not the political equivalent of letting someone else write your résumé and then pretending you never saw it. When pressed about a 2020 ad bragging he’s “been in those combat boots,” his team helpfully posted a link to the literal shoe to prove that, yes, National Guard members wear boots too. Inspiring stuff.

Meanwhile, Hudson ran as a “warrior for President Trump’s America First Agenda” who would “deploy to the Senate” to defend Trump, as if the upper chamber is just another forward operating base in the ongoing war against reality. Voters went with the guy whose main selling point is that he can dial up Trump like a late-night infomercial, potentially sending yet another loyalist with a flexible relationship to truth and basic governance to the world’s most overrated deliberative body. Democracy: still speed-running the “personality cult” level.

The Trump EPA has discovered a bold new climate strategy: don’t reduce pollution, just redefine it as too annoying for donors. The agency is moving to gut methane rules on so-called "stripper wells"—rundown, low-producing oil and gas wells that barely cough up 6% of U.S. output but spew about half the sector’s methane. That’s the greenhouse gas that traps 80 times more heat than CO₂, but also, crucially, threatens the profit margins of one very important billionaire: Hilcorp owner and recent Trump mega-donor Jeffery Hildebrand.

Hildebrand, whose company is already ranked among the industry’s top methane polluters, suddenly discovered his inner political animal right after the Biden administration passed strict methane rules that would cost him real money. He then shoveled millions into Trump’s campaign, his wife got an ambassadorship, he got a front-row White House seat and a chance to promise billions for Venezuela he doesn’t actually operate in, and now—what do you know—a former Hilcorp lobbyist is in charge of rewriting the EPA’s methane rules. That ex-lobbyist is helpfully workshopping policy with industry groups bankrolled by Hildebrand, producing a rollback tailor-made to rescue 700,000 leaky stripper wells from the horror of basic oversight.

The result: Hildebrand’s profits go up, his planes keep landing at Dulles before dawn, and the rest of us get to enjoy the accelerated heat waves, droughts, and wildfires that come from letting ancient, leaky wells burp methane into the atmosphere. Climate advocates point out that shutting these wells would cut emissions roughly in half while sacrificing just 6% of production—an obvious win for the planet. But the Trump-era EPA has done the math and reached a different conclusion: the only emissions that matter are the ones coming from a billionaire’s checkbook.

While the U.S. is at war with Iran, inflation tops 4%, and his approval ratings crater, President Donald Trump has decided the real priority is turning the South Lawn into a UFC theme park. Seven cage fights will be held on White House grounds under a hulking structure called "The Claw" to celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday, which, by total coincidence, is also Trump’s 80th. Wartime leadership used to mean strategy meetings in the Situation Room; now it’s pay-per-view violence outside the Diplomatic Reception Room.

Because one deranged vanity project is never enough, Trump is also planning a mega-rally on the National Mall, an IndyCar race through D.C., a new ballroom where the East Wing used to be, an underground military complex, and a massive arch near Arlington National Cemetery. He keeps rambling about fixing fountains and building bridges like a contractor with nuclear launch codes, while the historian on duty politely notes that, sure, past presidents built things—but usually not while running live-combat cosplay on the front lawn.

The White House claims there’s precedent, citing Teddy Roosevelt’s boxing and Truman’s renovation. What they glide past are the tiny details: conflicts of interest, the monetization of the presidency, and the symbolism of a wartime president obsessing over fight cards and concrete pours instead of healthcare, Ukraine, or, you know, governing. The UFC gets the South Lawn, Trump gets the spotlight (and likely some sweet side benefits), and the rest of us get to watch American democracy slowly tap out in its own house.

For America’s 250th birthday, the country was supposed to get a thoughtful, inclusive look at its history. Instead, we’re getting a Trump-branded county fair where the Tilt‑A‑Whirl is sponsored by Christian nationalism and the main attraction is, according to himself, “the Number One Attraction anywhere in the World”: Donald J. Trump. Musicians bailed after realizing the supposedly “nonpartisan” Freedom 250 event was about as neutral as a Truth Social post, so Trump did what any humiliated strongman would do and replaced them with a wall‑to‑wall celebration of himself.

The real bipartisan America250 commission, created by Congress, was tasked with educating and uniting the country. So naturally, the administration has been quietly bleeding it dry while the Interior Department tells staff to slap the Freedom 250 label on everything and shovel money toward a MAGA‑adjacent entity instead. America250 has only gotten $25m of its $100m appropriation and is staring at a $100m shortfall, while a park foundation “and by proxy Freedom 250” has scored nearly $80m in federal funds—ten times its haul since 2009—plus another $100m for Trump’s Washington “beautification” nonsense.

This isn’t just budgetary sleight of hand; it’s the continuation of the Trump project to swap history for hagiography. After losing the fight to cancel the 1619 Project with his hilariously ahistorical 1776 Commission—so bad the American Historical Association called it an attempt at government indoctrination—Trump is now using the semiquincentennial to repackage the nation’s founding as a white‑Christian superhero origin story, starring himself as the modern George Washington, if Washington had refused to cross the Delaware until someone guaranteed the TV rights. The message is clear: the country’s 250th isn’t about Americans; it’s about one guy’s ego and the donor class happy to fund the propaganda if they get their cut.